Life is a Mystery....

Things are progressing with Faith.  I tend to usually post and tell about the positive things going on with her.  A lot of that is because when we're having a rough day with her it's good to go back and see the progress she's been making.  I don't want to live in the difficult times.  I want to live in the hope and excitement and the celebration that is her life.  That being said, I also want to have a realistic view point of her too.  The professionals working with her seem to think currently she is between moderate to severe.  She doesn't have language which is an indicator of severe, still have never seen her play with another child which is also a "severe" (although she is coming a long with trying to look at people at least for a few minutes), and she's been "slow" for the interventions and therapies to take "effect" (I can't think of a better way to put that or else I would).  BUT she doesn't typically tend to have behaviors or at least she doesn't generally show them to the professionals.  Once she starts hanging out at school more I'm pretty sure they're gonna see some more behaviors.

      Angelus is still doing great (unless he's in serious need of sleep and he thinks he isn't...then he's super whiny about things that just don't make any sense), he's doing well in school--I think.  Parent/Teacher conferences are happening in about a week or so.  We'll know more then, but I figure if it were a big enough deal we'd already know so I'm not anticipating it to go too bad.  AND he even wrote his own song tonight "All I want for Christmas is my One front Tooth".  He's got the permanent one coming in, and the baby tooth about to fall out so he won't ever have both of his front teeth gone at the same time--which is a little disappointing 'cause I was so looking forward to taking lots of pictures with him like that. 

Wednesday we have another meeting about a communication device for Faith.  The SLP and the OT aren't on the same page with it, but I'm still gonna take Faith and see how it goes.  The last one I saw I think I could probably program it for her, but the one Wednesday you can take pictures of stuff in your house and it will make a button for her.  It sounds like it may be a tad more than what I can handle and I think it's my responsibility to program the things not the teacher, not the SLP, not a para...me.  She's my kid and all these other people have lots of kids to take care of.  I can't expect them to do that when I've got two kids and they have 20-30 or more.  I think that's just silly.  The SLP is a bigger fan of the smaller devices 'cause they're generally more affordable and he feels when it's limited like that she will actually learn the photos and words so them moving around isn't as big of a problem.  So, we're just doing a lot of praying that we do which one will be the BEST option for her.  I'm not really sure about a lot of it, but I do know that even though they're on different pages I totally get they're wanting to do what is best for Faith which makse me feel pretty good about them.  Both of them do seem to think the iPod touch is great and it's been pretty handy.  Once she fully understands all it can do for her I think it will just get even better. 

I mentioned to the SLP about Faith and her flipping out at end credits of television shows, she gets mad turns the television off, then flips it on its side (sometimes she even chunks the poor thing). Anyway, he seemed to think that was a really good thing 'cause it means she's hitting a developmental milestone.  I hadn't even thought of it that way, but when Angelus was probably 2ish or so he'd get mad about a show ending and ask me to "turn SpongeBob on"...I'd say I can't just make it be on, he then handed me the remote and says "yes you can, here ya go".  Since Faith tends to be more physical with her communication it's essentially the same thing. So, now I actually view this as a good thing too.

I have now discovered a HUGE pet peeve of mine now.  I've heard it many times, but it just totally sat ALL wrong with me the last time I heard it.  Someone with good intentions (I don't believe they meant it in a malicious way) upon finding out Faith had Autism made a comment that really the only problem with someone being autistic is it's everyone else's problem.  I suppose to a degree that could be correct, but when it's your kid and they're flipping out about legitimate things you just can not figure out so you can't help them, it gets hard to go with that train of thought.  Last night she got so up-set and was repeatedly throwing herself on the floor for a couple of hours.  Hitting her head on the floor about as hard as she could, making herself cry to the point she was throwing up.  In those moments it's easy to think "they have the luxury to think that way, they didn't just have to watch their kid do that".  This is a HUGE improvement from how it was during the Summer, it used to be the rule that she did that all night and day and now it's the exception.  I'm so thankful for that, but even when it's only a couple of hours and you can't help her it just breaks your heart.