Better days

Wow - my last post was kind of a downer. Sorry about that - it's tough to be positive all the time around here. We are running a marathon... uphill most of the way... and every day is a test of endurance, of faith, of hope. No one ever said this was going to be easy.

But things are better. I am cautiously optimistic that this new approach is working. B went from 80 something "protests/tantrums" in a week to 40 something. And I think this week will will be even better. He has had a couple sessions where he did not cry once. And when he does cry, it is so short-lived by comparison. The other day, he cried for about 30 seconds and then said "all done" like I always do. What's really cool about it is that he is seeking out the social interaction from the therapists and from me now that he is allowed to have things a little more on his terms. He has been having a lot of fun and I am SO relieved to see it.

That said, I've been worrying a lot about his language/communication skills. It has now been a little over a year since he was first evaluated and his next external evaluations are looming. He has made huge strides, really he has. I'd even go so far as to say that he is a totally different kid. He still really isn't using language in any meaningful way though and that scares me. I keep waiting for it to explode the way it does with "typical kids" or even the way his singing has. He does have a TON more words. He says something like 50 things during each 3-hour session. But he doesn't really use language and it isn't progressing. We still can't rely on him to use a word to indicate his needs or wants. He definitely has progressed with communication as a whole. He can pretty clearly get his point across by bringing us to whatever he wants etc. He just never does it verbally. And he's SUCH a verbal kid too - he jabbers, sings, squeals nonstop. It's frustrating. I still really believe he'll get there but it's going slower than I had hoped. It's a tricky thing because we don't want to frustrate him in any way in an area that is clearly so hard for him. When I discussed this with our team lead, she informed me that it doesn't typically happen in a linear fashion the way it does with neuro-typical kids. I can't expect that he will learn a word, then build to 2 and start forming longer and longer sentences. We really can't predict how (or if) his language will take shape. Now that we hopefully are getting a handle on the crying, maybe we'll be able to concentrate harder on figuring this out with him.

I had a couple of pretty significant glimmers of hope on this topic today though. This afternoon, B started pulling me around the house. He does this all the time - uses me to transition from room to room, to get him food etc. But this time, it was pretty obvious that he didn't want or need anything. I thought he was toying with me - just seeing how much control he has over me. And then he said ever-so-clearly "gonna get you". He was trying to get me to play a game that we play together where he has my hand and I kind of yank him back to me. I repeated it "I'm gonna get you" and he giggled and said "I'm gonna get you" as clearly as if I had said it myself. A verbal request!! And then he closely followed it with "ready, set, go" to request another activity. I sang row, row, row your boat and he sang that a few times too. Being able to engage him verbally is so awesome.

Also today (it was a big day), I pulled out a big book of stickers to try to get him to label some of the familiar objects. And he pointed and said "apples" correctly. He also flipped through a Thomas book and pointed and named the characters. He had done this before and then stopped - instead relying on us to verbally label whenever he pointed. It freaked me out that he was going backwards.

And, big brother and I came home this afternoon with pizza from Costco. He went up to the familiar plate, pulled it to him and said "pizza, pizza".

Watching a Thomas video before bed, he belted out a new song that he hasn't sung before "thomas, we love you".

Independently, these are all big accomplishments. So the fact that he has done all of this in one afternoon is cause for celebration. It may not happen as quickly or easily as I'd like but he is doing amazing things. And for that, I am grateful.

Here's a pic of my little Valentine today. Yep, he's cute.