Adventures in Autism

Our dear Charlie started school a few weeks ago. Thus far, he loves it. He was a little nervous about getting on the bus the first day, and Josh did call me at work almost in tears, but by the next day Charlie was happily bounding up the school bus steps, realizing where this lumbering yellow contraption was about to take him. His teacher is wonderful, they are continuing to work on PECS with him, and he hasn't acted out aggressively towards other students.

Josh: Hey, Charlie, guess what? Charlie: Silent, but curious.

Josh: You're starting school today.  Charlie: Silent and stunned.

Charlie actually sat through Sacrament Meeting on Sunday (well, "sat" may not be the right word, but he was quiet and calm for most of the hour and Josh didn't have to take him out -- first time in a very long time). If this is the only benefit that we get out of Charlie going to school, it will be worth it. Of course, we already see other benefits. Charlie said, "chair" yesterday, for instance. He's interacting more. He actually looked at pictures I pointed out to him yesterday. And he just seems happier.

Of course, we still struggle. Charlie "says" a lot, but mostly nothing we can understand. He gets upset or sad or frustrated or hurt and we don't know what's going on or how to help him sometimes. He still eats plants and dirt when he plays outside, which leads to interesting diapers. When we went to his school's open house last week, he wouldn't look at his fellow students or his teacher. He did sit and do a Cars puzzle over and over and over again, however.


Charlie has also resumed a habit I hate -- paper chewing. He's been tearing corners off of paper towels and occasionally pages of books and just chewing and chewing and chewing away on them, until I see him and he spits it out into my hand (which is a big improvement over biting down on my finger as hard as he possibly can).

And Charlie's newest thing is pretty scary. He's learned how to climb to the top of the chifferobe (a combo dresser/bookshelf/closet thing) in his and Katie's room. The other night he fell asleep on top of it and then fell off. Of course, he had been playing with toys before climbing the furniture, meaning that he fell on top of toys. And then the wobbly shelf he had been laying on came crashing down on him. This all happened behind closed doors very late at night, but we heard Charlie wailing and jumped up to help him. He had a bloody and bruised lips and scratches on his cheek. He cried harder than he has in ages. We cleaned up the blood and I just hugged him tight (he likes tight hugs best) and scratched his back (another favorite thing) and told him it was okay and kissed him until he calmed down and we could put him back in bed. (In Katie's bed, because he still won't sleep in his own.)

The one thing I can say about having a child with an ASD, it never gets boring around here.

P.S. Charlie is just a beautiful little boy, right? He makes my heart happy.