Growing up.....adventures with the phone

The phone rings right after dinner. My husband (let's call him happy guy) and I are still cleaning our plates from my first meal ever that was truly good. I am no cook. Anyway, C gets the phone and begins saying hello, hello, helllllllo. It is at this moment we realize she has never had an interest in the phone and has NO IDEA how to work it.

I have her dial Happy guy's number. A number that it would take us a long time to memorize, but it was going to be her first call. It should be to no one else other than her best pal. She calls and says hello way before he picks up. She learns to hang up and then she calls mommy. The  number she does know from a snappy tune we taught her years ago. We chat about inconsequential things to me, but I finally got the idea. Teach her safety....while talking to her on the phone. Mommy is feeling proud of C and her own good idea.

Dad then has the idea to call someone else. Memere (grandma) it is. What a shock for them! So much for homework. This life lesson is more important. A call, from beginning to end, was the lesson of the night. She passed with flying colors.

I am so proud of her.  What other may say is no big deal, I marvel at as a huge milestone. One where she shows interest. One where she learned a process. One where she learned she can talk to her loved ones on her time schedule, not mommy's or daddy's.

I am in awe. My daughter is growing up. I am clueless about growing up with autism and loving life as it is handed to us.  One day at a time. 

 

Being a toddler is awesome. Even though she wasn't feeling well, she could always smile like a champ.

More pictures

Early on. She is awesome with her gassy little smile.

The first picture

Mamarazzi begin right here. I don't actually remember this picture being taken. My little one was an emergency C-section and I wasn't really feeling very well.

Finally a school for us. Help and helplessness all at the same time.

My cluelessness began to subside once we entered public school in a special education preschool. It was a total of 8 kids for half the day. Finally, I had a case manager who wanted to talk to me on a daily basis about her development.  I loved my teachers.  They didn't hesitate or mince words. We laughed, we cried and we just noodled through problems.  They said maybe you need to see a developmental pediatrician. So far we have a developmental delay diagnosis....what else could there be?  It felt goooooooood to have someone to listen. Friends just could not relate. Not that they didn't try, they just couldn't. I love them for trying. I do.

We eventually ended up at a neuro psych.  It ended up with ADHD combined type, sensory processing and the possibility of PDD-NOS.  Ummm, what the hell? A possibility of PDD-NOS?

Does this change our plans? We are still in speech and OT. What really changed here? Nothing. I feel more clueless than when I started preschool (um, I mean my daughter started preschool).

Special education preschool ended with a bang. My daughter was pushed on to kindergarten against my wishes. Five years old and not nearly ready for kindergarten.  An adventure to say the least. A wild and crazy classroom that is good for some, not good for others.  Communication overload. We loved our teachers, but we felt she needed to stay back in kindergarten. 

Kindergarten take 2. Much quieter.....much more rigid. No communication. Gah!   The difference was night and day between year 1 and year 2. Was this really a good place for us? Good environment, but I had no clue what was going on. Drove me nuts. Clueless again.