But in all honesty since she was an itty bitty she's had a marker, crayon or pencil in her hands and always under strict supervision. When she was 6 months old and stopped speaking I had her doodling. When Doodle was 5 months old she spoke her first word and that was momma. About a day later she said dada. Two weeks later those were gone and replaced with baby gibberish again. When I first feed her baby food as an itty bitty she refused me feeding her. She was highly insistent on taking the baby spork from my hands and fed herself. It just blew my mind. And she was not even missing putting the food in her mouth.
I've always known there was something special about her. To me she's an amazing kid. And it's very rare I even look at the fact that she has autism. So when I see parents say they hate autism, referring to their child's disability, it really breaks my heart. I wouldn't change Doodle for anything. I have always embraced her autism, just like I embrace my quirks. I'm not autistic but I spend a lot of time trying to remember that yes, she does things differently, she sees things differently.
I'm not perfect and neither is anyone else. When I have a lot of writing to do I twirl my hair and some times in the section of my hair, yeah I have a bald spot. I also have a fantastic hair stylist who corrects that with the style she gives me. No one knows it's there but myself and my hair stylist.
Our children have a different way of doing things and sometimes they can scream at the top of their lungs for hours. Or do the guttural stem that grates your nerves worse then nails on a chalk board. That's the one that drives me up the wall. The out of no where screams, oh those just make me want to rip my hair out! She's only done that twice and it was more or less mimicking one of the kids in her class. The first time she did it we were walking in the neighborhood and we were just passing an elderly gentleman who was painting his mailbox. Out of her mouth pops this blood curdling scream that scared me to death and scared this poor gentleman to the point he dropped his paint brush on the ground. So much for that white mail box if he wasn't finished. I just picked up the pace on my walking and acted like nothing happened. The second time she did it I told her she was going to start loosing some of her prized possessions. It hasn't happened since.
And of course Doodle has been mimicking other autistic kids in class. There is this hand figet thing that one of the other girls in class does. She got popped on her hand for it. She's not going to be doing what is not her stem. And of course this vigorous rocking back and fourth. That came from another kid in her class. She pretty much stopped that on her own when she liked to have knocked herself out while attempting that one on the bed. All I heard was CRACK! as she hit the rail to the top bunk bed while sitting on the bottom bunk. She said, "Hospital, hurt head." My reply was, "You don't need a hospital, you did that to yourself by mimicking what you aren't suppose to do."
If she can stick with her own stems then I'm fine with that and I reward her for good work and good behavior. Dairy Queen is her favorite place to be so she gets an ice cream treat when she can behave. Other then that, autism isn't so rough. Not like it used to be back when she was non verbal and thought everything was funny. I guess life can be pretty laughable once you look around.
And since I've gotten rid of my phone she doesn't elope as much as she used too. For those who are unsure, eloping is wandering off. I try to keep an ear out for verbal stems when in a store if the store has racks and not actual aisles in it and she wants to explore. Other then that she has to stay right beside me at all times if she's quiet or the store is set up like a grocery store and you can't see the next aisle over.
Sometimes when it comes to autism you just have to have patience and gaining your child's trust. Last night I taught a class full of kids. Which is a first because they normally don't come to the adult classes. But hey I don't mind I will teach anyone as long as they are ready to listen and learn. One young man wasn't having any of it. Hey, that sounds a lot like my child most of the time. No supplies and no way to do the work. He was ready to get the heck out of dodge. His guardian handed me the money to get his supplies and I ran out of the classroom to track him down. Once I found him I started building trust with him. At the end of the night he was one of the best kids in the class. So proud of himself for what he did and I was proud of all the kids.
I love what I do. I take pride in my job as a mom to Doodle and an art instructor. I'm changing lives with one hobby at a time. I just look at it this way. She will always have the mind of a child. And she will hopefully always have a heart for the Lord. She's got instant access into Heaven according to the Bible. Which is kind of surprising considering the conversation that I just had with her not 20 minutes ago. Which was a bit odd and out of the blue. I posted this to my social media cause I've already typed it out once and I'm kind of tired of typing right now.
She's listening to Love me like there's no tomorrow by Freddy Mercury. She started crying and I asked her what was wrong. She said, "kill." I asked, "who kill?" She didn't answer. Then she said, "say goodbye to friends." I asked why. She replied with, "he's coming back soon." So I asked who. She said, "Jesus." And of course I reminded her that, he told us he was coming back. This is just out of the blue. Now she's back to laughing at video's, like that conversation didn't just happen.
You guys have a great day.
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