Thursday, November 11, 2010

It's Been A Good Week

Oh, I love weeks like this.

There are weeks when AUTISM has been branded on everything we do, when Olivia cries at every peer encounter she has, when Isaac suddenly goes into orbit and anxiety colors everything hes sees some particularly horrid color of red. On those weeks I wonder when I am going to crack, if I need to put them both on meds and hide myself behind prescriptions and full-time ABA therapy.

Then there are weeks when we almost forget we are on the spectrum, when because of some cosmic balance all is well. No panic attacks. No spiraling. Actually, the whole month of August was like that (we also did not have school, therapy, or any other challenges).

But this week, this week of life as usual, was full of encounters and challenges and therapies, and we handled it very well. We, of course, since I am half of the problem at times (I get anxious myself, frustrated, or cranky sometimes when things go awry).

Olivia had school, and although shy-as-always, managed to go into the classroom with her head up and have a good day with her classmates. She went to a friend's bday party with 4 other kids and while shy and hesitant to join the kids, she slowly emerged from her shell and came to join the festivities. Afterwards, she could not stop talking about going to M's house and playing with her friends.

Isaac had his usual challenges, especially at recess with his CB class. But he started telling me about his day in detail, who did what, who got in trouble, who got extra stars, and what he learned. And just being able to get himself to share with me seems to have helped his anxiety from two weeks ago. He seemed satisfied that all was right. Then, on Wednesday, he attended his first Typical class in two years. Granted, it was music class, but he enjoyed it, it went well, and soon we will add PE and Math with the NT 2nd grade class.

So this week was a balance. We handled our ASD, managed it. Took a bit of control. Beat that bastard down, told him who was Lord of THIS manor.

I even met my own ASD challenge and came out OK. And trust me, that doesn't always happen. I met with our Developmental Ped this time re: Olivia. It is odd to lay it all out on the table. I saw all of Olivia's quirks itemized, and instead of wanted to cry, or even worse, tell stupid jokes to calm myself down (yes, nasty habit), I walked out of the meeting with Dr. G feeling pretty good.

Yeah baby - we got this.

2 comments:

  1. Lovely to hear! I'd love to get drinks some time and talk about the developmental ped. We haven't seen one and I'm on the fence. Besides, then we could drink.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, you know I can never say no to a glass of wine...I will email you my phone number.

    ReplyDelete