Coping with Autism

The end of the school year is always bittersweet. Teachers give so much of themselves over the year in an effort to teach our children. Nathan's teacher was crying already when I dropped him off this morning and when I asked why (since it was the beginning of class and not the end) she said she realized that it was last time she would help this particular set of children off their buses. The two-year-olds move up and stay in the preschool 3 and 4 year-old class for at least two years but Nathan's teachers get them for only a year before they move on. I'm a little emotional myself. I realize that this is the last time Nathan will be in this particular class and his teachers have done so much for him. He has mastered a number of areas that were considered seriously deficient only last summer. To each teacher who sacrifices your time and energy to help our children, thank you. I don't know if you realize how much we appreciate what you do. Our gifts of thanks at the end of...

I want to say thank you to everyone who has served in our armed forces. Without you, we would not be the free nation that we are today. Thank you. My sincerest thanks and appreciation for your sacrifices-- both great and small-- so we can live in freedom.

Yesterday had to rank in my top ten "worse personal days" of all time. Nathan's diaper was dirty when I picked him up at school. His teachers change diapers right before it's time to leave but I was running a couple of minutes late. (I had picked up juice boxes for his class picnic next week.) And the interim between when they changed him and before I picked him up was apparently just enough time for him to dirty the clean diaper. This would have normally been okay but Peter was "helping" on Wednesday and took my spare diapers out of the car and carried them in the house. I put Nathan in his seat but he fought me because he wanted to "drive." He slumped out of his seat and that was when I discovered that he was not a little dirty but a whole lot of dirty and it was on his carseat and carseat buckle. I had no diapers and only a clean shirt for him so I stuck him in his sister's booster seat (her's is easier to clean) and drove him home. Once...

Peter has been working very hard to speak in complete sentences. We are constantly reminding him to say "I want. . ." instead of him just walking up to us and saying "Band Aid" or "milk." And he's getting it, slowly but surely over the last couple of weeks he has been saying, "I want milk, please" or "I want chips, please" all on his own. This is a tremendous accomplishment for him and we are encouraged at how quickly he incorporates new behaviors.

I thank God daily for the little things we have been blessed with. Yes, both boys are on the autism spectrum but things could be so much worse. I feel blessed that both of them have rudimentary communication skills, that they show no regression and that we are seeing progress. As I've mentioned before, a positive attitude is everything. No matter how many times Peter floods the bathroom or Nathan's slight obsession over drawing has resulted in Sharpies on the sofa, ink on the walls and crayon on the cabinets and floor, I still thank God for the things they can do. A friend of mine has a daughter who has Down syndrome, she also has moya-moya which caused a series of strokes when she was a toddler and has left her paraplegic. She has also been in regression for a year after ending chemotherapy for a leukemia diagnosis three years ago. Her mother has a marvelous positive attitude and thanks God for the good things. She has been an inspiration to me. I have no complaints and ...

I don't often write about my daughter because she is neuro-typical (or so we think). The doctor who diagnosed our sons suggested that Gabrielle might have mild Asperger's and I'm inclined to believe she may be onto something even though she didn't examine Gabrielle. The doctor made her comment based on discussions of our family history and Gabrielle's behavior both as a toddler and child. Gabrielle is excruciatingly disorganized. I tease her that she couldn't find a bright yellow sock in a pile of black ones. She can't remember where she puts things to save her life. She's absolutely terrified of tornados and obsessive over storm clouds for the same reason. And she's unbelievably brilliant-- I think she may one day become a lawyer. Case in point. Last night, she began a discussion on coins, noting that Thomas Jefferson's profile graced the front of the nickel. Her father asked if she knew what the building was on the back of the nickel. She didn...

Our computer has been slowing down considerably over the last few weeks and it was only today that I figured out what the problem was. It's still not 100% but it is much, much better and it doesn't take three hours of repeated rebooting just to read my e-mail. I'll post something later today but I wanted to apologize for the inconsistency in my posts this week.

Well, it happened again. I was rushed for a deadline for some writing projects but I took a break to take my daughter to Tae Kwon Do. My husband had gotten home from work early but had risen early for his job (2:30 a.m.) yesterday so he was tired. Peter had a dirty diaper and I couldn't get him out the door fast enough so my husband said he would watch him. I dropped Gabrielle off and took Nathan to get gasoline for the car (just down the street) and came back to get Peter. I opened the back door and walked past the kitchen just in time to see water cascade down the soffit and into the sink. Peter had managed to flood the bathroom again, less than fifteen minutes after I had left. When Tae Kwon Do was over, the writing project was placed on hold and I installed the lock intended for the bathroom door. Peter will not flood that bathroom again. (I hope.)

My husband and I get discouraged sometimes at the thought that the boys will likely always have problems-- Peter more so than Nathan. Nathan's condition isn't as obvious at first and I think as he gets older, he will calm down considerably with his stimming and do much better socially than his big brother. Peter's future is much harder to guess at. We try not to think about what things will be like too far down the road because it's pointless. We can prepare but we can't predict. So we do our best and pray (a lot) and cheer Peter and Nathan on when they accomplish both big and little things. Small steps lead to great strides, so we wait and watch and take pleasure in what we have.

My husband and I were told that it would be very difficult for us to have children. Mother's Day would always tear me up because it was just a reminder of our infertility and how much it hurt not to be a mother. Today, in spite of my sons' conditions, I couldn't be happier. What seemed to be missing, my children, are here and that's all that matters. I'm asked all the time if raising children with autism is difficult. The answer is yes, it's very difficult. But the rewards are priceless--when one of them potty-trains or says "I love mama," these are far more significant achievements than those of neuro-typical children and I have had the honor to witness these hard-won victories. Becoming a parent teaches you just how selfish you are. Becoming the parent of a child with special needs teaches you just how unselfish you are willing to be. To all moms, moms-to-be, grandmothers, loving aunts and the teachers of our wonderful children: Happy Mother's Da...

What is up with the water obsession?! Everytime I think I've manage to control this, Peter and/or Nathan find a way around whatever I've used to block or impede their access to water. Peter (who is, of course, more mobile than Nathan so more likely to cause problems with water) found a way to get over my gate/laundry basket blockade and flood the bathroom while I was doing some laundry. (BTW, anyone who tells you that autistic children are somehow mentally inferior to neuro-typical children is an idiot who is blissfully ignorant of the truth. Let him or her try living with an autistic child for a week and they will quickly discover how smart and resourceful they are.) Since this is the second full flooding and probably the fourth or fifth time he has come close to it, I will have to replace the sink cabinet. It is showing signs of damage, especially around the bottom. So that's going to be around $200/$250 from start to finish. On a bright note, however, I bought lock...

Shopping with toddlers is a combination that can strike fear in any mother but combine that with autism and you've got the makings for a possible county-wide crisis. One wants to go one way and the other wants to go another way. And running and hiding from Mommy is funny (Who knew? I certainly didn't know that this was supposed to be funny.) The one thing I went in for turned into five as we picked out a toy for each and a pack of bandages to feed the latest obsession that one of them has for Band-Aids. I try not to take both boys by myself if I can help it. It's just way too stressful. One of them is okay but both is a fearful force. Take the normal toddler behavioral issues, cube them and this is what it is like to deal with autistic toddlers. We did manage to leave the store with a toy motorcycle (Nathan), a small electronic abc/shapes toy (Peter), bandages (Peter), diapers (both) and a box of tissue (the car). But Nathan had to be put in the cart to keep from running of...

I confess that the Mona Lisa smile does not fascinate me the way it seems to have fascinated others for several centuries. But I am willing to revise my opinion. Nathan as of late has been giving me a similar smile when I praise him for something he has done. Since he doesn't really speak, it makes his smile all the more mysterious since I can't figure out what he means by it. It's a slight uptilt at the corners of his mouth, almost like he knows more than he lets own. The smile makes me laugh because it is so adult-like-- it's so knowing. I'm looking forward to when he can communicate with me better. I want to ask him what he is thinking when he smiles like that but, by the time he is able to tell, he may not remember. Like the Mona Lisa, the smile may forever remain a mystery.

This morning, while waiting for my husband to come home after dropping our daughter off at school, I was horsing around with Peter. My parents bought the boys a little toy that, when a button is pushed, multi-colored lights spin around on the inside of a clear ball. When the button is pushed the little toy vibrates a little as well. I was using the silly thing to tickle Peter. I kept putting it against his neck and he would say "tickle, tickle" and then laugh. After about a minute, he giggled and then said, "I love tickling, I love tickling, I love tickling!" We've been trying to get him to use complete sentences and for him to spontaneously say this without prompting has made my week!

Peter apparently hates shoes. The first chance he gets, he takes them off. I think it's because he is sensation seeking and feels so much through his feet. We have issues with this constantly. For Nathan this isn't a problem. He likes wearing shoes but because he took so long to walk (he was 26 month's old when he started walking), he went a long while without them and I think that he thinks they make him look like a big boy. Peter, however, echews shoes (LOL) every chance he gets. His teachers (with whom he has been since late last year) have experienced the "shoes-off" phenomenom but Peter surprised them a little by insisting on taking his socks off. My first thought was that he was REALLY comfortable with his teachers now :)

My husband went out last night and bought a new gate for Peter's room and as I readied the kids for bed, he tried to figure out the best way to use it. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, my husband is the modern American male and grew up watching too much television. He's often all thumbs when it comes to home improvement. He can, however, beat just about anyone, on almost any topic, when it comes to pop culture trivia. So as he struggled to figure the contraption out, I had to come to his aid. I grew up with a father who insisted that we know how to change a tire, check the oil, swing a hammer and know a Phillip's screwdriver from a common. After adjusting the gate, we discovered to our delight that it fit much tighter than the old one and Peter was at a loss as to how to scale it since it was also a few inches taller. Yippee! For the first night in about a week, we seem to have won the battle. However, the war wages on. Peter will get taller and in a few short month...

Having autism does not mean that my sons aren't smart. Having autism doesn't mean my sons can't be sneaky. Case in point. Peter and Nathan, like most kids with autism, are fascinated with water. To put it another way, between discovering we had a leaky toilet and the boys' obsession with water, my water bill over the last couple of months has been $200. Normally it's around $25. Let's just say I'm thinking about chaining the bathroom doors shut-- from the outside. This morning, Peter snuck upstairs to the scene of last week's crime (remember the overflowing sink and my leaking kitchen ceiling?) and began running water. I sensed rather than heard what was going on and ran upstairs to see what mess he was making. As I walked into the hall from the stairwell, Peter rushed at me, squealing, and began pushing me away from the bathroom (where the water in the sink was running). As I pushed past him, I hit the wall or something with my foot and I am now wonderi...

A story today on Breitbart tells the tragedy of a one-year-old little boy who died yesterday when his father left him in the car instead of taking him to day care. Timothy Reid's father found his son seven hours later when he returned to his car with the intention of picking up his other children from school. Timothy was pronounced dead at the scene and the internal temperature of the car was 142 degrees. I cried and cried. I feel for his father but I have a terribly vivid imagination sometimes and I cried knowing that Timothy must have been scared at being left alone for so long. He likely fell asleep as the temperature rose and became unconscious before dying but somehow my imagination gets stuck with the first part. It makes me want to hug my children all the harder and be grateful all the more for them.

I pick Peter up from school at 12:50 p.m. and he goes three days a week. Nathan goes only two times a week for two hours a day so I had already picked him up by 11:00 a.m. this morning. I put in one of their "Signing Time" videos in the car's DVD player (fantastic video series, BTW) while driving to pick up Peter. At the end of this particular video, the host, Rachel, goes over the alphabet in sign language. Nathan, yes-- my virtually non-verbal youngest, said and signed all the up through the letter G. I was so excited I actually started to cry. But driving and crying don't mix very well so I had to content myself with squealing, laughing and telling Nathan how proud I was of him.

Peter finally went to sleep last night a little after midnight. Of course, when my husband went up for the umpteenth time to keep him from climbing the gate, I ran up to grab pajamas out of our room (if Peter sees me, he gets upset, wants Mommy and then we start the whole going-to-bed process all over again.) As I round the corner, I hear Peter say "paci" which is our shorthand way of saying pacifier. He must have lost his and he's not able to sleep if he doesn't have it. I laughed a little when I heard him say that. A year ago, we wouldn't have known why he was upset or having a hard time sleeping. We would have been lucky to hear anything other than his repetitive speech or mimicry (echolalia). Now, I can carry on simple conversations with Peter and we see his communication ability improve nearly everyday. At this point, he has one more year in preschool and then the goal is to see if they can mainstream him into a regular kindergarten. I hope so. I worry a litt...