I have been driving myself crazy the last week with my little real estate obsession, which I think now that I know our credit situation, has safely passed. We really probably can't get a house right now without a really bad rate or something, so I'll stop worrying now and try to fix the credit instead. I had seen a house with a yard and tile floors that I was yearning for so much that I got caught up in the belief that we could have it no matter what. Realism has set in now!
I took this shot of Elijah today, it was his last day of the regular school year. I will have him at home with me for a few weeks before he goes back for summer sessions. I'm glad, because Saturday we finally get our first set of RDI exercises to start with Elijah and I'm excited that we'll be doing something.
I did discover after stopping the b12 injections that Eli became a lot quieter in the last few weeks. Last night I resumed the injections and today he's quite the vibrant little boy. He is talking more, he was out peddling his tricycle, and he's making lovely eye contact and referencing me a lot today. When he was peddling his tricycle, he kept looking at me, checking to see if I noticed what he was doing. So I did, Loudly! I saw visual referencing and a new skill being shown off, it was really great! He's been talking so much more today, saying interesting things. He was sitting on his bed earlier and he got his shoes off, and then his socks. He looked at me and said, "Scary". So I said, "Something is scary." and he said, "Monsters Scary". I said, "No monsters in our house". and He said, "Monsters scary, no monsters scary". I'm not sure what that meant, except he just wanted to let me know that monsters are scary, perhaps.
I just finished a fiction mystery that has a young autistic boy as a character. The novel is called Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern. It was a really difficult book for me to read. I admit I like to hold on to my hope that Elijah will lead as normal a life as he can. I like to hold on to possibilities and feel like I'll never give up. I want to believe with all my heart that things will improve dramatically over the next year. I do believe that. So, when I read books about children who are autistic and have done many therapies and none of them really did anything significant, I am prone to losing hope. Until today, when I realized the B12 shot DOES do something. It seems to make Eli more here with us. He is doing a lot of looking at me in particular, and he just now asked to go potty and sat there without me singing songs, just saying, "potty, potty". I'm very proud just now.
I also wonder if it's the changes I've been trying to make in my overall language/communication with Elijah. I am trying to shift from the constant imperatives, the questions and commands, to simply being declarative. For example, I don't ask if he wants to go outside, I just tell him I'm going outside and let him make his own choice. It seems to be helping both of us, because I don't feel like he has to answer me anymore, he just has to make his own choices and it is ok, because I'm not demanding or expecting anything. I think this is also helping him make more eye contact so he can try to figure out from my face what I might actually want.
He is a very sweet fellow. I can't wait until Saturday when we can truly embark on our RDI lifestyle! I hope we do find a great house someday in Gainesville, it's just going to be a while, maybe another year while we work to repair our credit, maybe only a few months, who knows. Meanwhile, I will spend my summer break with Elijah, learning to help him, caring for him, and just generally being his mother, which teaches me more about life than I ever expected.
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