He told me to Get Out...

Last night, as many nights, my husband and I discussed the possibility of our son being autistic and that *possibility* is still looming in the air without a *formal* diagnosis. Doing research and making (almost) daily calls for resources has become my most current *obsession*. I want to know what resources are available to us, and research on and off throughout the day.

My mother called me last night to let me know that there was a segment on "60 Minutes" about a family with autistic children. Right when I was about to tell my husband that my brother had recorded the episode for us, he interrupted me to tell me to watch was on "Home Extreme Makeover"...and it was a family who had 5 kids, all diagnosed with being within the Autism Spectrum.

We're still coming to grips with the possibility, but we're only dealing with 1 child with Autism. I could not imagine a family with all 5 kids being Autistic. It blows my mind with the alarming growing rate of numbers of kids diagnosed with Autism with no known cure, but only interventions and therapies. Our Development Pediatrician did mention that years and years before, many kids who were thought to be mentally challenged/retarded, were in fact, kids who were Autistic.

Back to "Home Extreme Makeover". So, after we watched "Home Extreme Makeover", where the mother was crying tears of joy for receiving a device that assists her son by pointing at pictures to tell her what he wants b/c he is not able to verbally express himself, I look over and my husband has tears in his eyes. He quietly gets up and goes to the our son's bedroom and he hugs my son and held him so tight, which my son affectionately receives and reciprocates the gesture. Although my son is speech delayed, he does have the ability of some speech, a limited vocabulary, but he does try his hardest to communicate with us with words.

Though his speech is delayed, I am grateful that from the 1 year that he has been in school, he has developed a bigger vocabulary than he had ever had or what he should have by this age. He is still unable to form more than a 3-word sentence together, but he does try very hard to communicate. He gets frustrated and we get frustrated too, but we keep working on it. We ask him what he wants, he points, we say the word, we have him repeat is, he says it, he repeats it again.

One word my son is VERY good at saying is "No" and "I can't". Great! Ha! On Friday, my son was being defiant and when he was being reprimanded, he ran into his room and shut the door on me so I couldn't get in. I managed to open the door, and he pointed at me and said "You" and then he pointed at the door and said, "Get out". I was in a bit of shock that he said that to me, but I admit I bit my lip to keep myself from laughing hard. I was just happy that he was talking. His saying "no" all the time is becoming wearisome, but he's managing to have interaction and a conversation with me (although, a defiant conversation at that), I'm okay with it. He's not the first 4 year old to say "no" back to their parents, so I'm dealing like any other parent would.

One thing that I'm VERY thankful for, is that my son longs for human touch. He loves to be around all of us, he loves hugs, he loves kisses and gives them right back. He loves to play with his sister and impatiently waits when she wakes up in the morning or from a nap so they can go create fun games together. I think in that respect, we are fortunate that should he be diagnosed or assessed as being Autistic, there are some traits that he doesn't have. Some characteristics of Autism is that they don't like to be touched nor held.

I woke up too early this morning and my usual one cup of coffee seems to have worn out. I washed/put away almost 6 loads of laundry this morning and I think I'm finally pooped. Thank goodness it's a 3-day weekend so my husband is home to help out today.

Well, until another time (or blog)...