Diagnosis

Since my son was about six months old, we've known that something was "off". The first sign was his inability to make eye contact with the person holding him. Then as he reached nine months and was crawling around, he had very limited interest in the typical toys his peers were playing with. He was very interested in watching how gears and wheels moved.

At eighteen months when his vocabularly should have been 50+ words and two word sentences, he had a vocabulary of about 20 words which included sounds instead of words for certain things like dog, cat and truck.

When he was about two and a half years old, we got him involved in the Virginia Early Intervention program. He started out with speech therapy once a week as well as physical therapy for his toe walking. Once I put him in some high top shoes, he stopped toe walking on his own so we dropped the physical therapy.

That fall, he was enrolled in the PDD (preschool for developmental delays) and attended school there for two years. He made such tremendous progress in this environment and I cannot speak highly enough of his teachers there. He progressed from introverted play and not even acknowledging that other kids were near him playing, to parallel play, to interactive play. He still has miles to go with certain sensory processing issues, communication and empathy.

Over the winter, I started noticing some OCD-like behaviors that had me concerned. Then after an aggressive outburst at a local play area which resulted in him telling me some rather disturbing things, our pediatrician recommend we work with an intensive home therapy group. If he was starting to show signs of OCD, it was crucial that we deal with it immediately. After some time with a therapist, we booked an appointment with a psychologist to get an actual clinical diagnosis for my son.

Turns out that the OCD-like behaviors are part of the autism. Yep. Autism. The doctor labeled it as "high functioning autistic syndrome disorder". As far as the "high functioning" part goes, I'd have to say he's very high functioning with some quirks and delays. I'm not upset with this diagnosis, nor am I surprised by it. I've simply been waiting for someone qualified to finally say the words to me and confirm what I've been trying to prove for years now.

Because he does not have OCD and isn't considered "at risk", he no longer qualifies for services from the intensive home therapy group. He'll continue to receive speech therapy weekly once school starts, but I'm concerned it won't be enough. I met with our county's "community services" organization this morning. Based on the initial interview, they feel he will qualify for therapy with them but it will most likely only be twice a month.

Once again, I'm struggling to find services for my son. Most of the time, I don't even feel qualified to express what I think he needs or the types of therapies that would be beneficial to him. Add to the mix the limited resources available to Medicaid recipients and it's an even smaller pool of options.

Mr. President?

This afternoon, Shaggy and I walked up to the school to pick up Little M at the end of his day. It's easier to walk home if we cut through the school, come out the back and walk past the playground. So we did.

As we walked out of Little M's classroom, he admonished his sister and I that, "Shhhh! We have to be quyyyyy-eeeettt!"

As we walked a little farther, he said, "Momma! I show you da rock o dama. I show you da rock!"

Um. Okay.

At the end of the hall, hanging for all to see, was a laminated news article about our new president with his picture on it.

LittleM: See Momma! Dat DaRock O Dama!
Me: Yes! That's Barack Obama. Do you know who he is?
LittleM: Yes. He DaRock O Dama!
Me: Yes, he is Barack Obama. But do you know who Barack Obama is?
LittleM: She da Mr. President.

I was so tickled with his pronunciation. But mostly, I was so proud of him for being excited to tell me about our new president.

How to be a cool mom to a preschool boy

1. Live on a street that is having construction of some kind happening
2. Take the boy outside
3. Explain about jack hammers, backhoes, Bob Cats, cement trucks, bulldozers and other construction equipment
4. Hold hands with the boy and race down the street with the Bob Cat as it takes chunks of concrete to the dumpster

Reading

Little M has been doing so well with his alphabet at school. He has been realizing that he can "read" the letters. Tonight on the way home from my parent's house, we stopped at Starbucks so Big M could have some caffeine to stay awake for the drive home.

While we sat in the car and waited for Big M, I heard my son's sweet little voice from the backseat, "P. O. H. S......... R. E. B. R. A. B." He was reading the sign for the barber shop from right to left!

A bit later on the drive home, I gave him this Snuggle Puppy book. I heard, "S. N. U. G. G. L. E...... P. U. P. P. Y."

I got choked up. I'm so proud of him!

Boys. AARGH BOYS!!!

This morning, my son punched a hole in our glass windowed door. Yes, my sweet almost-four-year-old son did this.

And he was injured. He scraped a deep layer of skin off most of the underside of his finger.

His hand went right through the glass and I was scared to death that he'd slice his wrist as he pulled his hand back through. It happened in an instant and he pulled his hand through before I could even blink.

If you look at the underside of your finger, you'll see two horizontal lines, one at each joint. He scraped off a deep layer of skin from the middle of the top of his finger all the way down to the middle of the bottom joint at the hand. It's about 2-3cm wide the entire length of the cut. Because it's so wide, it can't be stitched.

It bled like crazy for a LONG time. Any time we took pressure off, it started bleeding again.

We took him to the pediatrician within minutes of it happening. They said they couldn't fix it and sent us to an orthopedist who specializes in finger surgery. The concern is that scar tissue forming over those crease areas will tighten over time and limit his use of the finger.

They said they'd dress the wound, tell us how to care for it and see him in a week. They feel that it will heal quickly. In about a year, we'll have to reassess and determine if they need to do surgery to break the scar tissue on the creases to give him back better function in the finger.

Man was that scary. The adrenaline is just starting to wear off.

He was a trooper the whole time. He stopped crying in our bathroom not long after it happened once I got him calmed down. After that, he didn't cry at all. I had to hold gauze on his finger and apply pressure for long periods of time and he was really well behaved and still. He was so good about it all. He wasn't upset at all. He was mostly intrigued about what was going on I think.

So he's bandaged up and has a splint to help keep the finger straight while it heals. We go back next week to have it checked.

People say that boys get into more scrapes than girls but I figured it was just anecdotal. I'm beginning to think not. Boys are a danger to themselves!