If you've read my previous entries (circa one year ago), you can probably guess what I'm talking about. Another developmental eval for Spencer. Diagnosis? "Quirky". For now. Whether he's quirky enough to be on the autism spectrum is not clear yet, but he is enough to continue this journey. His eye contact isn't good and he doesn't readily engage others. However, when they engage him, he's delightful and mimics and does all the things a normal two year old should do. According to the checklist he is a 'low' risk for autism, and if you take off the points for being a two year old (i.e. the answer to everything right now is "no" which yes, technically is an inappropriate response a lot of the time, but for a two year old it's a very typical response), he's in the 'very low' category. We have to go see a psychologist. A psychologist. For a two year old. Where is the page for that in the baby book?
They want us to resume speech therapy and referred us somewhere different. Also, we need to have his eyes checked for any vision problems. They want me to get him into preschool as soon as he turns 3 in January. And, of course, see a psychologist. Apparently an autism diagnosis requires input form a psychologist, a developmental pediatrician and a speech therapist.
I'm not at the same place I was last year. Last year I thought that the moment the word autism was applied to my son, he would cease to be the wonderful little boy I know, and revert into what I thought the typical autistic child was. Obviously, I know a lot more now - most notably that I have no clue what the 'typical' autistic child is, because it really is a spectrum. I know that that's not going to happen. Spencer is now the same wonderful little boy that he was before the appointment this afternoon. I'm the same mom, Mike is the same dad, and Rachel is the same amazing little girl (who now points to and says 'vagina' every time I remove her diaper - how lovely lol). I know all this. I'm not freaking out. I'm unbelievably grateful that tomorrow I will be calling to set up an appointment with psychology and not something infinitely worse, like oncology or something like that. I really am. I think Spencer will be fine. I'm a little worried about me. I'm going to call Dr. Heather and make an appt. tomorrow. I don't want to obsess about this. I don't want to go back to where I was last year.
I think I'm going to dread this psychology appointment even more than I dreaded today.
In good news, other than that it was a pretty good day. Spencer was in a great mood. His speech was good. He wouldn't take a nap, but when I told him the alternative was to watch Puppies (aka Milo and Otis) he said "okay" and ran upstairs super excited lol. He also said a lot of other good things like, want help with train (ironically at the doc's office), and I can't remember what else, but good stuff. And this evening he was playing in the backyard, we went around and collected all the abandoned cars we could find. Then he covered them all with dirt he found laying loose in a pile. Then he came and got me (running at me and smiling, saying mommy - my heart could have exploded with love) and took me back to show me his wagon full of matchbox cars and a new truck all covered in dirt. Then we offered him dinner which he went in and ate without any trouble. I'm learning that covering anything with cheese makes it taste test worthy to a toddler. And off to bed with even less fuss. Oh yeah, he asked to 'watch Dora?' while he ate dinner.
Rachel is really getting the hang of walking. I've been letting her walk into places while holding my hand and she is so proud of herself. Just laughing and giggling the whole way, so excited she can't contain it. She's doing great at the gym, not crying any more. Very demanding of my time though. She definitely wants to be the center of my world all the time. She freaks out if I walk out to the car and don't take her with me. And she wants her shoes on all the time, so she's always ready to go lol. She even wants to wear them to bed. I snapped some great pics of her the other day. She is so beautiful, I'm taken back sometimes. Her eyes are so captivating.
Mike and I are doing okay, we've had two good weekends in a row which hasn't happened since Spencer was born. So that's really good. Hopefully today won't throw us back into personal turmoils which bleeds into the relationship again. Ironically I think we were just finally getting it together and getting past some stuff. I'm going to try so hard to not obsess. And definitely not go back to last year. That's not even an option this time.
Actually I feel pretty okay with everything. The psychologist thing is a bit freaky, but again, it could be much, much, much, much worse. And I finally truly get what people mean when they say that they wouldn't take away whatever syndrome their child has because then they would be a different child. I love Spencer so much, exactly as he is, and I truly wouldn't change anything about him. Now when he walks away from someone without saying good-bye, I will correct him, but when they look at me, I'll just say "He's quirky." :oP