Rough Night

There are a lot of things that are hard when your child has Autism. Last night was one of those kind of nights for me. We had a rough night last night. Desmond was up about every hour crying, upset, and inconsolable. With any kind of normal 2.5 year old, I assume, you could go into their room say, "What's wrong?" and they then could express what was wrong and then you, as a parent, can fix it. I then imagine that you'd hug them and kiss them better. It seems with normal children they love that! They love being held and being told that everything is going to be alright. 

That is not our reality.

This is not what we got last night.

It started around 2:00 am, Desmond is full blown upset. I go in there, touch his sweet face, ask, "Desmond what's wrong?" He instantly pulls away from me, like my touch had hurt him. So I touch his legs and this seems to make him even more upset. I start rubbing his belly (sometimes this helps him to calm down), nope that was bad too. In my mind I think, "Okay, consoling him with touch isn't going to work." This is a red flag for me. If he is in a place where he doesn't want to be touched then there is not going to be much I can do to help him to regulate. So I decided to stay in his room. In my mind I thought, "Maybe I can just be a supportive presence. Maybe that will work." Nope. Even being in his room was a no go. It seemed like everything in my arsenal of "Motherly Instincts" was totally and completely wrong. I felt so helpless, so useless, so horribly inadequate. I tried Sesame Street, I tried his swing, I tried spinning him around, I tried everything, nothing worked.

Marshall comes in and suggests we leave Desmond alone, give him a break. Not one of my best moments, I over react and got mad. Pregnancy does not bring the best out of me in these moments. In my mind, "I was only trying to help." "I was just trying to be his Mom, just trying to make things better for him." The one person, my partner in crime, was just trying to help and I made it worse. It didn't take too long for me to go back in our room, apologize for taking my feelings out on him, and then expressing how I was really feeling. Eventually Desmond did regulate himself, eventually he did fall back asleep. Even though he was up about every hour after that we chose to let him regulate himself. This seemed to be the right thing to do. Every time I went in there it just made things worse.

Being an autism mom really sucks sometimes.

Last night was hard because I wanted so desperately to mother my sweet boy. I wanted so desperately to just have something normal. I wanted to be the one to make things better. I wanted to be the one to console him, hug him, kiss him. I wanted to do all the things that my own mother did for me to make me feel better when things got hard. I wanted to be able to talk things out with him, wipe away his tears, and fix whatever was bothering him. I wanted all of this so desperately last night. Alas, this is not going to be my lot in life. This is not going to be my reality.

So what's the positive outlook? What's the silver lining? This time, I don't have one. I think the only thing I do have is that it's okay that I don't have it all figured out. It's okay that I don't feel like a good mom sometimes. It's okay to feel inadequate, useless, and helpless in these moments. It's okay to have bad nights. It's okay to have bad days. I think that's just the nature of the beast. Autism is a beast! It makes it so my sweet boy can't communicate his needs, his feelings, can't control all the sensory input around him. It makes life tough on him especially. Last night was one rough night, and I'm sure there will be more to come. My hope is that when these nights come I'll be able to handle them A LOT better then I did last night!

Miracle Worker

It's amazing to me how much can happen in the span of 3 weeks. We have seen some pretty major steps in the right direction and we owe it all to our new ABA therapist Lacey. She is a miracle worker! She really is! We have seen such improvement in our Desmond since she's been coming to our home.
Here are a few things we've been seeing these past few weeks in Desmond since the last update:

Talking: The past 3 weeks it seems like Desmond has been a lot more vocal! He's still mostly baby babbling, but he's added some new noises. He's added the "S" sound and the "H" sound lately. It's so funny because when he babbles that way it really sounds like he's a snake or speaking Parseltounge (the snake language in Harry Potter). "Hasha-Hassa" is an example of the parseltounge he speaks ha! I need to catch him doing it on video because it is seriously so adorable when he does it!
In ABA Lacey has specifically been working on Desmond vocalizing for the things he needs or wants; which is amazing because it's starting to pay off. This past week she's been able to get him to say "ma" for more, "swa" for swing, and "up" for when he wants to get in his swing. As the weeks go on we're starting to see him verbalize more consistantly!! It's very exciting! We're trying to keep our hopes realistic all the same. It seems that we're heading in the right direction when it comes to Desmond's speech and we couldn't be happier.
Imitation: We have also seen some pretty exciting things from our Desmond in the imitation area too. He is consistently giving us and others "high five"! It's so fun to see him doing this not just with us, but with family too. In our experience he usually does these tricks in ABA for about a month before we see them at home, then about a month of him doing it at home and he'll start showing others like family. Lacey has told us that in his sessions he's started clapping on his own and waving on his own! We are hopeful that with some time we will start seeing this at home and with more time he will start sharing these tricks with others.

From what Lacey has told us his sessions have been going really well and that he seems to be getting better and better everyday! Of course, some days are better than others, but over all we are seeing steps forward! We truly credit all of this amazing work to Lacey. What would we do without her? She has been such a huge blessing in our lives. She's only been with us for about a month and we're already seeing so much growth in our Desmond. We can't wait to see what future months look like with her!