Eval over! Thank fucking God!!! Now I can just sit and digest everything that happened. First, it was totally different than the first one. The EI ladies were concerned with their checklists, this doctor was concerned with my son. Lots of good stuff. She said "Autistic kids don't do that" about half a dozen times about things he was doing. She said that because he was so far behind a month ago, and he does have the red flags for autism (not pointing, basically) we have to be on "high alert" for other signs to show up. That's terrifying. I keep reminding myself that she can't say he's fine if he has red flags, that would be irresponsible of her. BUT I know my kid and he is fine. Part of me is still scared though. I know it's ridiculous, but autism is just such a scary word and until someone says definitively that it's not a concern at all, I'm going to be worried. She did say that there may come a time when we are no longer concerned, so at least there is an end in sight.

He went from 9-10 month communication level to 16.5 month level in FIVE WEEKS! That's pretty fucking amazing IMO! She said if he continues at this rate, he will be all caught up in no time. I hope so.

My mom said some good stuff. She said that I (falsely) assumed that Spencer would just instinctively learn things. For instance, when other moms on bbc were recommending that I involve Spencer in caring for Rachel by asking him to give me a diaper. I just thought to myself, Spencer would have no idea what I was asking him to do. It didn't occur to me to TEACH HIM!!! I just thought one day he'd magically know. Now it seems so obvious that I'm a complete moron and don't deserve to have this kid, but whatever. Anyway, my mom says that I'm expecting the same thing from myself. Never been around kids really, didn't grow up around them, babysat much older kids as a teenager, etc. So I was expecting myself to just know what to do, and I, well, didn't know what to do. Doesn't excuse the behavior, but she applauded me for trying so hard to correct the damage and move forward with more knowledge.

I need to just chill. He's learned so much this last month. It's phenomenal. Really it is. I just hope it continues, even if not at this rate.

Oh my mom also said I've been so scared about autism since the moment I heard it that I half expected it and that's why when I told Spencer to do something and he didn't, I wasn't surprised. I just assumed he didn't/couldn't/wouldn't understand.

More later, I don't think I'm done yet.