What Autisim means to us

I thought sence we are getting to the middle of my personal 30 day challange to raise autisim awarness, i would get a little more personal and disscuss Elijah and his circumstances. Because i have been posting so much on general autisium, i thought maybe i could make it a little more intamite. After all, i have a very selfish reason to raise awarness..i want people to understand my son more. I want people to see the sweet loving boy behind the behaviors. To see what i see, not the autisium, but a very real little boy who is perfect. This will probablly take quite a few posts..our Autisim journey didnt start the day he was diagnosed..he has always been autistic. But he has also always been my little boy.

I want to talk about Elijahs early limitations today, and believe you me...what he excells in will have a post of its own eventually. Because I am so proud of how far he has come. This is really important to say, even though it hurts, because i cant exspect people to understand my son if i am not open about him. And i am truly not ashamed either.

Elijah more than exceeded all his milestones and did them very very early, like sitting up at 3 months old and crawling at 5months walking at 9 months and he even said his first words on schedual. His first word was "that"..lol..he also said daddy very shortly after a year old. And then something happened, i cant remember the exscat time, but he just stopped progressing. Like at a screaching halt. For a whole year. He said about 5 words at 18 months old..and up til december at 32 months still only said 5 words. If he would try to speak he would get his words backwards. Or the sounds mixed up..or the inclanations werent right. He just couldnt get it. Even worse..he understood like 5% of what i said. If i asked him for his sippie cup..he had no clue. He couldnt communicate any of his needs at all. It was like we were speaking different languages and from different cultures. Being his mom i could usally guess what the problem was, but anyone else would have no clue where he was comming from. At first i could tell people just thought he was a spoiled brat. His tempers started at about 18 mnths. He would spaz out at the strangest things. He was uncontrollable. And at the worst of it i was surviving day to day with a very angry little boy who was very violent. At the time i was pregnant and on bed rest and very overwhelmed. I would cry out of helplessness. He was undisciplinable. And that is not an excuse, i would try and try and try..and he never ever got it. He couldnt connect his behaviors with his punishment. It just didnt connect. My self esteem as a parent dropped. I felt so helpless. I went to my then peidtrition and he told me not to worry, because he could say a phrase "i did it". I knew something was wrong but was in a position not to do anything. Being on bed rest kris and i decided to wait til our baby was born before we could activly pursue anything with elijah. It was phycially impossable to do much at the time. We started reserching on the internet and kris found an interesting study about floor play and imitation. Basically you follow the kid around and copy everything he does for about 20 min incraments. looking back this had a huge impact. We had our very first break throughs doing this. Everytime he would do something knew we would scream and laugh and jump for joy, and even though it was a happy time, it made us realize how rare his progression really were. I had titus in september, i gave my self 8 weeks to heal..and then i became a momma on a mission. At Titus' 2 month appointment i spoke to our new (yes i dropped the old peid like a bad habit) peid about elijah and she was amazing helping me get the ball rolling.I am so greatful to her (so if you need an amazing peid let me know i love her!). Seince i have started the process with getting elijah early intervention it has heped me so much, there are other kids like elijah out there! He isnt the only one! And the therepist have been so encouraging..turns out, Elijah is very well behaved for an autistic child! I havent been failing...WOW! And they have given me hope. Wich for me has been the biggest drive. Hope for my child. I really cant ask for more than that can I?