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#blogjune

Little fingers

Mr 3 was about 18 months old when he first decided to steeple his fingers. First, he touched his thumbs together, then his index fingers, his middle fingers, his ring fingers, and then his pinkies, until all 10 fingers were touching their opposites. And he had such a look of concentration on his face! He looked just like a little old, wise professor, trying to find an answer to a difficult problem. And he had worked out how to do this, all by himself; unlike my girls who had to be shown how, at around the age of 3 1/2.
Since that age, he has continued to develop his skills in finger manipulation. By two, instead of speaking about where he wanted to go, he would point. But where most children would point with a straight arm and straight finger, Mr 3 would curve his finger to point around the corner to where he wanted to go. He would then turn his hands so that his finger would point in the next direction, if what he wanted was more complex. In this way, he would explain fairly lengthy instructions regarding which directions he wanted me to follow him.
I think that his fingers have a sensitivity which mine do not. He also used to intentionally avoids touching substances which were wet, sticky, or cold.
And just last week, he surprised me. He woke early, and walked himself into our room, and crawled up onto the bed, in between Hubby and me. I draped my arm over him in an attempt to keep him still – because he finds keeping still a *really* difficult thing to do! – but Mr 3  picked up my arm and moved it, until he was holding my hand. He then used the fingers of his hand to spread out the fingers of mine, and then squeezed gently so that our fingers were entwined together. I was in shock! He’s three! I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure that Miss 7 only did that just a few months back, and Miss 4 has never done it!

Sensitive fingers? I should say so! I think I’ll go and teach him some Piano now…

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#blogjune Life momentous events More about me Random thoughts

It’s funny…

Three-and-a-bit years ago, Mr 3 was “born” by elective C-section. On this day, back in 1974, I came into the world the very same way. It’s funny, hey?!

Have a great day, dear readers!

 

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#blogjune family anecdotes

ECDP

It’s Wednesday. Which means it’s the day that Mr 3 and I attend his Early Childhood Developmental Program. It’s basically a playgroup run by a teacher trained in Special Needs. There are 6 children in total (all boys – interesting, hey!) aged between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2. After 3 1/2 they then attend the ECDP Kindy program, until they are old enough to go to Prep.

The difficulty with attending the ECDP Playgroup on Wednesdays has been that it is for the diagnosed child and his/ her parent/s ONLY. And with Miss 4 not yet in school, and with child care being just so darn expensive, she stays home with me. (Well ‘staying home’ isn’t entirely true. Both Miss 4 and Mr 3 also come to meetings with me, appointments with printers and advertising people etc etc for Bloxham Marketing!) Organising to go to the ECDP with Mr 3, and only Mr 3, was problematic – until we realised that there was a centre at Talara Primary College, which is around the corner from my Mum’s place. So now, every Wednesday morning, Miss 4 goes to ‘Grandma playgroup’ and Mr 3 and I go to the Talara EDCP, then his Speech Therapy session, where he amazes us with stuff like I wrote about on Monday.

We missed going to the ECDP last week. I was too snowed under with work, and he was coming down with a cold anyway, so we missed a week. As a result, I’m looking forward to today. He enjoys it, and it’s good for him to get some early exposure to ‘classroom routines’ that he’ll come across in a couple of years. And just for your enjoyment, here is a short video of their “outside playtime” the previous week. He, of course, is the one in the green hat. With the red shirt and the long black pants. The cute one. (Not that I’m biased!!!)

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#blogjune

Viewpoints – part 2

My post yesterday was about how Mr 3, my autistic son, sees the world differently. I shared a few examples – making a seesaw out of train tracks, playing both controls of a two-player playstation game, because his big sister was at school, and using the ‘word’ instead of the ‘picture’ to match cards in a Speech Therapy ‘game’.

I had a bit of response to this post – I apparently was nominated for ‘The Sunshine Award‘ (not that I know how this all works! But I’m extremely flattered, nonetheless! Thanks, butimbeautiful!); and on twitter I caused @jobeaz to *sniff* at what she thought was a ‘beautiful post’ and @gigglesigh to make the comment ‘different minds open your eyes to new things… new experiences’.

Her tweet made me stop and think. Yes, that’s so true. And I replied to this effect, hinting that I hadn’t always felt this way.

And then I thought that I’d like to explore this idea further in a blog post. So here ’tis.

I have always been a perfectionist. I’m smart, okay. Smart enough to realise that that last sentence sounds remarkably conceited, and I’ve just lost all but maybe two of my readers. But I’ll continue anyway, because I want to nut this out in my own head, and sometimes that’s easiest when I’m typing. So anyway…

Yes, I’m a perfectionist. I’m bossy. I know that I can get things done, and they’ll probably get done pretty well – if they get done *my* way. And Ghylene’s tweet made me realise that, you know what? I’m actually not entirely comfortable with “new things… new experiences”. I want things to be the best they can be, because I’m a perfectionist, and for that to happen, I need to be in control of it. Yes, I’m probably one of the biggest control freaks that you have ever met. Yes, I like ‘new things… new experiences’… but only on *my* terms.

So to *suddenly* (haha) have an autistic son has really thrown my world out-of-kilter. Suddenly I’m not in control – and, worse still, I’m aware of this fact. Suddenly I have a little body in my life who does things unexpectedly; and although the things that he does may often be those that society deems as ‘not appropriate’ (i.e. banshee screams accompanying tantrums where he loses any semblance of self-control) – reacting to these things as I would react to any other ‘normal’ child, by assuming that they are engaging in intentional misbehaviour, is also wrong. Because his reactions, although these may be ‘abnormal’ by   my / our / society’s standards? These reactions *are* normal for him. And that has been a difficult adjustment for my 37 year old brain to make.

A few months ago, when Mr 3 was officially diagnosed and I was on the biggest emotional roller coaster I’d ever been on, I was overwhelmed with the support I received from many, many, many, online friends. One such, sent me a link to a blog post written by another mum whose son had recently been diagnosed with autism. She wrote about how her life had substantially changed, overnight, without warning. She described it as planning a holiday to one country, (I think it was Greece?) but had ended up in another (Italy? from memory…). And how it took a huge amount of adjustment, but then she was able to reflect on the beauty that lay in the new path she’d found herself on.

I think that slowly, I’m starting to appreciate some aspects of my new path. It’s taking a while. I cry – like when Miss 7 identifies a storybook character as autistic – from the very first page – and she’s right (Wrong Way, a book about three duckings and their mother who tries to cope) – like when Mr 3 finally says ‘Bye, bye, Mummy”, in context, and gets it sounding almost recognisable, and I realise that he is just so darn far behind his peers because he’s almost 3 1/2 and children who’ve just turned 2 can speak more intelligibly – like right now, when I’m writing, thinking of my beautiful little boy and how I love him so much and want to protect him from all the crap that life can dish out…

Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. I’m a perfectionist, and a control freak, and I need to change all that. Hopefully,  prayerfully, day by day, I am…

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#blogjune family anecdotes

Viewpoints

I blogged yesterday about Mr 3’s ‘different’ viewpoint on life. I used to think that it was due to his gender that his thinking was so different to Miss 7 and Miss 4. But since his autism diagnosis a few months ago, I’ve been questionning whether it really *does* just come back to the fact that Hubby and I are parenting a son for the first time.
So I thought that today I might share some of these differences. Cute examples like when he took two bits of straight Thomas track, and instead of adding them to the track he was making, he joined them together to make a longer piece, put this over the bridge of one of his feet, then sang (his version of) See Saw Margery Dawe while seesawing the train-track back and forth over his foot.
Or a ‘focussed’ example, like I wrote about yesterday. Where he was fixated on being in a two player game on the PlayStation. Usually he plays these with Miss 7, but she was at school. Never mind; he used both controls at the same time.

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Sometimes he’d win against himself…

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… at other times he’d lose.

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It didn’t matter though; he was happy!

And lastly, a quirky one that surprised even me. It was at his first ever Speech Therapy session, and his therapist Maria, was testing his comprehension. She pulled out a number of large square cards, each with a 3 x 3 pattern of squares on them (like in bingo, or in tic-tac-toe) and placed these on the table at which Mr 3 was sitting. One 9square card went directly in front of him; the others went into a small stack to one side. Each of the 9 squares showed a picture of an easily identifiable object – apple, ball, car, etc. My little man was then given a few individual cards, slightly smaller than a single square on the larger card. On each card was a picture, identical to the pictures on the 9square card on the table. The aim of the ‘game’ was to see if, once Maria had said the word, he could match the smaller card in his hand with the correct spot on the 9square card, and place his card on top of the correct picture on the larger card. So she said, “Apple. Can you find the apple? Put your card over the apple picture.” The square with the apple was the bottom centre square, and so we both expected him to put his small ‘apple’ card over the apple picture, centre place in the bottom row.

Mr 3, however, decided to turn his smaller cards over. He noticed that the card with the apple picture on it, had the word ‘apple’ on the underside. He then picked the 9square card up off the table, and noticed that its underside was also split into 9 squares, each containing the word of the picture. In the centre square of the bottom row was the same word, ‘apple’. So Mr 3 placed the 9square card down, word side facing up, and put his smaller ‘apple’ card (word side up) over the word ‘apple’, on the underside of the 9square card. I was gobsmacked. Maria, also, was rather surprised. “Well, I’ve never seen anybody do *that* before!’ she said.

Yep – that’s my boy! Sees the world differently. And that can be a good thing.

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#blogjune

Focussed

There’s no doubt about it, Mr 3 can get focussed. Very, very focussed. For the past couple of days it’s been our Thomas the Tank Engine set that’s captured his attention. Prior to this, it was the PS2, and before these, it was my iPod.
When he focusses, he gets absorbed. Completely consumed by the task before him.

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Train in each hand, puzzling out his next move, that’s my boy! And yes, that sounds about right for any 3 year old boy too, right? Well, yes. And I love that.
The trouble is, just five minutes after this photo was taken, we had to head out shopping. And it was his reaction to this turn of events that wasn’t ‘about right’ for any 3 year old boy. Yes, he had a tantrum. Yes, he screamed in frustration and kicked his train track and broke it into several pieces. Yes, he thrashed against me, who had picked him up and was attempting to hold him tight and calm him down.

Yes, all of which (it could be argued) is also fairly typical for any 3 year old boy. But it was the sheer strength (and length!) of such reactions that, had anyone who didn’t know my little cherub, been within earshot of my house at that time, they would have thought, “That’s not normal. There’s something wrong with that kid.” And it’s that, which concerns me. Not their thoughts – but the fact that they had them. The fact that he has such huge tantrums which are out of character for what society says is ‘normal’ – but completely in character for a little autistic boy who sees the world differently to ‘normal’.  And when circumstances occur that cause a mismatch between our view of the wold and his, then he’s going to let you know about it, darn it!

You see, he was happy playing with Thomas. Figuring out his next move, train in each hand. Completely and utterly absorbed. And he wanted to remain this way until *he* had finished; until *he* had decided that it was time to take a break. Having parents come and tell him that no, it was time to go *now* just didn’t fit with his view of ‘the way the world should work’. So he communicated his frustrations the only way that he knew how. Helping him to see that wrecking his train track wasn’t the best choice to make – because we wouldn’t be gone forever, and he could keep playing once we got back – was difficult. But I managed it, and once he understood that we’d be back fairly soon, he was more than happy to go and put on his sandals (and hat! Don’t forget the hat!) and hop into the car. It was just that initial lack of understanding that caused the problem.

And that’s my concern. Because at the moment, he’s three. But ‘turn around twice’ and he’ll be five, ready to head to school, and how on earth is his Prep teacher meant to handle such tantrums?

The way I see it, I have a small window of opportunity – just eighteen months, or thereabouts – to teach him resilience. To teach him that his view of  the world, although completely valid, is not the only one; and that others are equally valid. To teach him how to react – how to behave – when his viewpoint collides with others. To teach him the protocols which the world considers ‘acceptable’; ‘normal’ even – although I’ve come to realise that there really *isn’t* any such thing as ‘normal’.

And at the same time; I want to enjoy his ability to focus whole-heartedly. Have a great day, dear readers!

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#blogjune

Seizing the moment

It’s 1.31am according to my iPhone, on which I’m currently writing. I’m patiently waiting for my brain to switch off so that I can sleep. It’s quiet, my bed is comfy and my doona is warm. But my brain is wide awake, so so am I.
Having just read several of yesterday’s #blogjune posts, I thought I might get a head start on today’s. Here goes…
My youngest child turned 3 back in March. Around the same time, he was officially diagnosed with Autistm, which I’d suspected for a few months prior but didn’t want to admit. Now, he attends the Early Childhood Developmental Program at Talara Primary College, and has speech therapy on a weekly basis. Once he’s communicating slightly more successfully, we’ll add weekly sessions of an OT and possibly also a Psychologist into our routine. And his big sister, who recently got glasses, will also be starting Vision Therapy in a few weeks time. I’m not entirely sure how all this is going to fit into my work (being a self-employed marketing consultant, I pretty much work 7 days a week…) and my commitments as a wife and mother (not to mention student in MIT(LIS) !) but I’m sure God’s got all that worked out for me.
Anyway, the reason I’m up at what is now 1.43am is that Mr3 is coming down with a severe head cold. And he doesn’t like it too much when his nose is runny. So he screams. Which is what happened (lots) when he woke up at 11.43pm and realised that his nose was runny.
I got up to him, thinking that maybe I could give him some Panadol, or some of the Brauer’s Cold and Flu Relief that he likes… But no. He wasn’t quite awake enough to understand that I was trying to help him; he was only awake enough to scream. Loudly. And trying to explain to an autistic three year old that we need to be quiet because it’s the middle of the night and everyone else is trying to sleep…? Well, that’s pretty difficult.
In the end, a couple of tissues made it all better, and he happily returned to his room, quietly this time. But, for me, the damage was done. I’ve remained awake, tossing and turning and tweeting and surfing the blogosphere… And now blogging myself. Waiting, waiting, waiting for sleep to come!
Oh well. It could be much worse. Thinking back to the beginning of my 2011 #blogjune journey, it was full of post-midnight entries due to a vomiting but that went right through the family. Give me head colds to deal with any day!!!

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#blogjune family anecdotes

The journey begins…

It’s Friday, June 1. Day 1 of the 2012 #blogjune challenge. And yes, I’m in again. Hopefully this year I’ll be a little more consistent!
I was thinking that I might blog about my journey as a mum of a fairly recently diagnosed autistic child. It’s been a very emotional rollercoaster over the past few months, with some very low lows, some times of infectious amusement, lots of introspection, and even more adjustments to lifestyle changes.
All in all, we’re making progress. Slowly, in all of us, we’re making steps towards this new life being a ‘normal’ one. And I’d like to use this #blogjune challenge as a way of daily recording this progress. I hope you might enjoy the journey too, dear readers!

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Life Random thoughts

And again…

So I’m back at the mechanics again today, currently sitting in the waiting room with Miss 4 and Mr 3.

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It was just yesterday that my car got serviced, and we discovered that I’d been driving around with a fairly large nail through the rubber of the front tyre. Praise God it hadn’t pierced the wrong thing, or I might not be sitting here right now!
But here I am, listening on the kids’ gaming, and waiting for all of the wheels to be balanced. They’d only balanced the front ones, and Hubby noticed a shudder once past 100k an hour. And since we do a *lot* of highway driving, it was back to the mechanics this morning to get it sorted out. This time, however, with kids in tow. Which is where having iDevices comes in SOOOOOOO handy! Miss 4 is being a squirrel on ‘Nuts!’, and Mr 3, (hat on his head, because that’s what the picture in his head of ‘going out’ tells him he must have) is trying to get Swampy enough water for his bath on ‘Where’s my Water’, because he finished ‘Snakes and Ladders’ and in the Lite version, you only get one game per day.
I must admit, having digital babysitters for the kids really makes life easier, sometimes!

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Life Random thoughts

On being cold…

Just for the record, I am a wuss. I like my warmth and I like my comfort. I said to hubby, earlier this morning, there’s no way I could live any further south than we are right now. I couldn’t hack it!
So, after bundling our three cherubs into Hubby’s car before 7.30am, to drop my car off before 8 for a service, all I could think about was how cold I was! (I even tweeted about it. That’s a little embarrassing!)
So I’ve decided. If I win Lotto one day, and have no more financial worries, I’m moving to Hawaii. Although, I love Australia… So maybe I’ll just move up to North Queensland. Yep. That’ll do. So… Anyone got a winning lotto ticket that they don’t want?

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