My youngest son A2 is 3.5 years old. His story starts as a pretty calm and wonderful one. He came into our lives at a time of great upheaval. When discovering that we were pregnant with him we did that amazingly stupid thing that people of our generation often do and we looked around our little house with our big backyard but little bedrooms and we decided that instead of staying there and squashing children into those little rooms we should sell it and buy or build a McMansion! So that is what we did (Oh with hindsight how I regret thee decision! For I would have surely been able to buy Hubby out right now and stay in established little house bliss with the children happily ever after if we had just stayed...)
So we sold and moved in with my parents in a teeny little house with too many people and not enough space for a little under a year while we built the McMansion! It was tense and A2 arrived on the scene around about 3/4 of the way through our time there. To be there when he was a newborn was pretty spectacular. I had extra hands to hold him and help out with doing all the things that three little children demand of a tired Mama.
He was a dream, he slept for one. No not a little but a lot and over night pretty early on. He was easy to get to sleep. He breastfed beautifully...he was quiet and calm and made our family complete in a lovely way.
When we moved into our new house he crawled around and loved the open space, but still preferred to be close to his Mama.
There were so many things so very different about him and his older brother that in the first 1.5 years I had much hope that perhaps the Aspie wand hadn't touched him. But then there were also little things, that as he got older became more prominant which were very similar indeed.
The months and months of not adjusting to childcare or changes with his carers at childcare. The 2.5 years it took him to talk to the workers at the childcare more than single word answers (and that was with him being incredibly close to his main carer!) . The social sideline he played as he would rather watch than participate in activities with the other children. The aversion to noises and crowds and changes in routine that would cause massive tantrums and screaming set to blow up even the most hardened of ear drums.
Day by day and year by year the little 'things' grew until they have blown up before my eyes and some nights it is hard to envision simply getting through to bedtime without losing my mind.
Oh I love my quiet boy who changed into a not so quiet and easy going boy. He has become the policeman his brother once was, only using a different tactic of defense. K would hit or push kids who didn't do what he wanted them to do at this age (3.5) whereas A2 complains and cries and screams. With his siblings he has also began lashing out but not with other children. He is a rules man, but unfortunately they are his rules and sometimes he forgets to tell everyone else around him about the rules until he forcefully and loudly enforces them on them!
Bananas which do not split the way he wants them to are not able to be eaten! Hmmm...this one frustrates the non wasteful part of me.
Children who sit in the spot he deems is his at the table receive an earful of screaming....a book not placed right on the shelf, a toy moved from it's spot, noise too loud, people not where he thinks they should be, papers that are crumbled slightly that should be straight, lots of people around him, too dark, too light/ bright....oh I could go on and on. But surfice to say that the day came when I decided it was time to see if he could be diagnosed with Aspie or something or if this is just him....
I kept putting the day off. Friends gently coaxed me, reminded me and listened as I lamented the latest thing he was struggling with but they didn't push as I knew, that dealing with the seperation and all the drama that brought to my life and the emotion that I just was not ready. Although I strongly suspect that he too has Aspergers and it wouldn't be a surprise to me, I also know that with the diagnosis comes the paper trail and the specialists trail and the emotions of dealing with the finality of it before the acceptance and joy of it settles in finally. And I felt that all of that would be just too much to handle for me. So I delayed.....and delayed until finally I could no more.
It was an afternoon when I was getting K checked at the doctors and A2 insisted to be checked and argued with the doctor over the insistance that he needed medicine when he didn't that I mentioned my concerns and apologised for the bogus appointment for him knowing that if he didn't see the doctor that day and be checked out that I would have a night and week before me of constant tantrums and complaints from A2 about not seeing him. I was tired, I gave in. The doctor understood and then he offered a referral. I said thanks and I will come back to do it another time. Overnight I thought about it. The next day was the one in the week that is just A2 and I. I awoke to the rules and by school drop off time I was going insane and the two big kids gratefully exited the vehicle coyote chasing road runner style, such was their relief to be exiting the situation! When I got to the end of the drop off zone I made the choice to turn left instead of right....15 minutes later we pulled into the doctors.
Yesterday the postman delivered the date I have been waiting for. May 22nd, a Tuesday.
And so begins the journey towards our second diagnosis (or not....lets not jump the gun I hear you saying)
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