Thursday thoughts

All about me . . . well, mostly.

I am still in the "do what you must to cure this child" mode. I still expect that if I work very hard with Julia and if she goes to the right therapies and maybe even eats the right food, that one day she will catch up and wake up perfectly normal. But already I have in my vocabulary words that define and explain her behaviors, her differences, and our expectations -- stimming, neurotypical, and more. I find it hard to let go of the idea of normalcy and without even meaning to I find myself comparing Julia to other kids who have been home for longer or less time than she has been. Will she look like Betsy when she has been home for 4 years? She is surely beyond where Sarah, who has only been home a year. Neither of these kids has Julia's challenges.

Last night, I spent some time trolling the web to find blogs of other parents of autistic kids. I see myself in the "cure" people right now although I suspect that I will need to move on. Let go of my fantasy and root myself firmly in the camp that teaches their children to live full lives and glories in their children just as they are. You would think that as a life-long stutterer I could do this without any problem, but I am just like everyone else who wants the perfect child, who wants my child to reflect the best of me, of us, who yearns for my child to stand out in only good ways, and who does not really want to be challenged. The blogs that I read are written by expert parents -- parents who have researched and lived with the challenge of kids on the spectrum. I am still an amateur and I am humbled that Cheshire was born, raised and grew up pretty well with parents who just did not have to work so hard.

Yet this work that I do with Julia is so willingly done -- as if I had been waiting my whole life for it to begin. I might just be that without paid employment right now, I need Julia's development as my mission. Well, if that be so, it is okay. Then again, I think about those red thread connections, some god who places kids where they belong, and a universe where energy is not wasted. I am still interested in prognosis, always interested in prognosis so I can make my plans for Julia, so I can dream of her accomplishments, but I see that I must turn to the day-to-day doings and make my goals more immediate. I need to allow the future to occupy its own time.

Working on L's this morning, I asked Julia to draw a picture and to include a picture of something that started with that letter. She immediately said, "lazy lizard," and I was very pleased. She heard the term on the little bit of Sesame Street she saw, but no matter at all. She remembered and she used something from another situation -- both remembering and using what she knows seems like very good skills.

Julia is learning letter using that her teacher calls putnik cheers -- the sound of the letter, words starting with the letter, and saying the letter itself. Example: b - b - b, bouncing ball, B. While she says this, Julia makes "B" in sign language. We say all of the cheers that we know everyday and Julia has about 18 letters down pat. Now, I want to take that apart and have her give me the sign, the letter, or the sound when I ask. We started that tonight and she did a decent job with the signs and the letters. We need to keep working on the sounds.

Julia and I didn't get out of her evaluation until almost noon. I was going to bring her to camp for the afternoon, but when we got into the car she said, "I not go to camp today, mommy. We go zoo?" I allowed myself to be pursuaded and we had a pretty lovely afternoon watching the otter, the monkeys, the seals, and three very tall giraffs. Watching a giraff spread his front legs very wide in order to reach down and eat some grass was pretty awesome. Julia's attention span watching the animals is very long -- seals, loins, and monkeys had so very much to say today in wild, ringing voices and Julia loved that.

Sometimes Julia says she is "very so happy." Then again, sometimes it takes her forever to fall asleep at night. Pretty regular kiddo.