Someone was talking to me the other day telling me about services they had found for autistic kids and my mind started to wander. I was nodding and smiling, because that is what I try to do with people who attempt to be helpful, but I wasn't really listening.
I wasn't listening because my kids aren't autistic anymore. Well, ok that's not really true but I am in this blissful place where I get to pretend they aren't. It is only a moment in time and next week there is a good chance I will be telling you tales about how my oldest decided to pluck all his pubic hair out with tweezers or that my middle kid will never understand the concept of (insert any abstract concept here) but for the moment none of that is true.
We are almost normal. (Shhhhhhhhh! Knock on wood, don't tell the Gods....SHhhhhhhhh!)
I don't know where or why it happened and I don't expect it to last but all of the money and hard work and patience--patience being defined as the ability to sit on your hands long enough until the urge to hurt your kid passes or losing the car keys just at the moment you decide to drive away forever--has paid off.
Zachary has shown the most progress. He spends his whole day in the normal classroom (typical for those of you who are prone to PC language.) He reads at an age appropriate level--his comprehension is iffy on some days but hell, so is mine. He has friends. Normal friends. He plays at recess, scored a goal in punchball on the playground and insists on doing his work himself for the most part. I love it--except now he is bringing home all those stupid projects second graders bring home--collages and mobiles and reports.
He even has a girl at school who won't leave him alone. She drives him nuts. She likes him and he can't stand her and my little autistic boy lied to the teacher and got her in trouble. Bad behavior, I know, and he ended up getting in big troiuble but the skills that go into that kind of thing are all skills he didn't have and wasn't supposed to ever have. So forgive me if I am busy reveling in the normal rotten behavior of my 8 year old.
Jacob is in the normal classroom too. He is keeping up with his work and most of it is grade level--his cursive sucks goats but what are you gonna do? If penmanship is his biggest problem his life will be just fine. He doesn't have as many outbursts as he used to and he too has friends. The big thing he said he was never gonna have.
They are doing great!
We quit therapy--speech, ot, shrink--we quit it all. Not because they aren't autistic anymore, because they are. We quit because we couldn't afford it anymore. We quit so we could start paying all the other bills we haven't paid for the last five years. We'll go back when we can, but for now we are doing OK.
New Year's Day I woke everyone up, made them a huge breakfast and explained what a resolution was. Then I told them we were going to makes some. Everyone was assigned jobs and given the new rules and they all left the table crying. However, my house is clean--ok clean by my standards, the jobs are getting done, we sit down at the table and have meals together--not always but more than we did. When we do my middle kid asks if we are going to eat, "like normal people." Groan!
I figure if I keep it up I might not be sent to Mommy Hell with all the other bad Moms who sucked at the whole Mom thing for the first 9 years. Well, I'll probably still end up there but I might get a day pass out or something.
So, for the moment we aren't autistic anymore.
It's a nice feeling.
Chris
(congrats)
I am saying it very softly so as not to attract any undue attention, but I love the feeling when suddenly you look around and the world is okay for this one brief moment in time. (may it last for the next 50 years)
Posted by: | February 05, 2007 at 08:34 AM
What a great blog...glad I found it.
Posted by: Paula The Surf Mom | March 15, 2007 at 04:21 PM
bwahahahahah!
Posted by: David Moore | July 30, 2007 at 09:20 AM