Another New Year's Eve, and a look back

I decided to look at my last post of each year since I started this blog, when Janey was 3.  It was an interesting exercise.  A couple things struck me.  One is that I kept, each year, desperately looking for progress, finding signs of it, listing them and then, the next year, without realizing, listing the same things again.  The progress ebbs and flows, but it doesn't seem to really be a forward line.  Another thing is that the end of the year has been a quite tough time a few of the years.

2008 Last Post of the Year Link

In 2007, I'd just started the blog, and didn't really write any year end post.  At that point, this blog was more of a diary. 2008 was a lot the same.  Strangely, what I wrote for the last post there sounds like it could have been written about the past few months---hitting the TV, biting, scratching.  Janey was only 4 then, and so the behavior was easier to handle, but it's a little startling to see it started then, with quite a few years in between that she has less acting out.

2009 Last Post of the Year Link

Janey's love of Christmas music hit that year, and it's fun to read about that.  I was starting to realize how severe Janey's intellectual disability was, and how her talking was very limited.

2010 Last Post of the Year Link

Janey was 6 that year.  It was a tough year, the year she had such a terrible time around June, and we started her on medication.  I reflected about the lack, once again, of a miracle breakthrough, and was starting to see it wasn't ever coming.

2011 Last Post of the Year Link

I was a little more upbeat that year, the year Janey was 7.  I remember that as one of the better years.  I went back to the theme of how limited the progress was, but I also wrote about cute things she was doing.  We were learning to enjoy our little girl as she was, not for what we were hoping she would become.

2012 Last Post of the Year Link

Another fairly good year, when Janey was 8.  I reflected on realizing that I was the one who knew her best, and I was encouraged by her increased understanding of our talking, and her communication, although talking wasn't how most of it was done.  I mentioned toilet training, surely thinking we were finally on our way (we aren't, and I now think we never will be)

2013 Last Post of the Year Link

A very downbeat post.  The end of last year was awful---the whole year was the start of the new reality, that Janey was getting older and things were getting tougher.  She was becoming increasingly unhappy, and I was feeling increasingly pessimistic.

And that brings us to now, 2014.  It's been quite a year, as most of you know.  The two big events were Janey changing schools and her hospitalization.  She switched this year from the inclusion classroom and school she'd been in since 3 to an autism only classroom in an autism wing of another school.  Much of that went fairly well, and in fact the time from about May-October was overall good, with Janey having a pretty nice summer and even going to the amazing Camp Fatima overnight.  However, we will most remember November this year, when Janey's self-injurious and lashing out behaviors increased to the point that she spent 24 days in two hospitals.

Where are we right now?  Right now, today, Janey is in a fairly good mood.  We are thinking her new medications might be doing something, although we've had kind of an off and on pattern of good days and not as good days.  Janey is Janey.  I think less, these days, of progress, and more of just learning how to best be a mother to the Janey I have.  She is an amazing person in so many ways.  We continue to enjoy her love of music.  Just today, we listened as she heard three new songs (we've been listening to a classic rock countdown) and sang them back, all perfectly, within minutes  She and Tony have a special morning routine any day he's not working---bacon and pan-fried vegetables all morning.  She uses the computer with ease to watch videos she likes.  She is getting tall and remaining beautiful.  Yet we are on alert all the time.  We knew at any minute, she might rage and bite us or scratch us.  We know that good days are to be treasured because there will be bad days, and they might be very bad days.  We love our Janey.  We despair over her, often, but we delight in her often too.

Here's a year end picture of my girl, and my year end wish to all of you.  Might you all have a 2015 where the happy moments outnumber the sad, and may you all have moments of true, pure joy in your special children, the moments that keep us all going.  My love to all of you.

Downs and Ups and Downs

With Janey, part of what makes every day an adventure is you don't know which Janey you're going to get that day.  That's been particularly so this past week.  Usually, Janey's moods last a few weeks or so, but lately, they have picked up the pace and seem to change every few days.  It's emotionally a roller coaster.

Last Friday was a very tough day.  Janey got home from summer school about 3.  She had had some tough times all week after school.  I spent a lot of the day Friday while she was at school trying to think of strategies to help the couple hours between when she gets home and when Daddy gets home be happier ones for her.  I planned out a list of things we could do, depending on what she wanted---lots of snuggling, watching videos together, having a shower, playing outside, eating, reading---whatever she wanted.  I planned to be totally at her disposal, or to just let her rest, if that is what she wanted.  I was determined it would be a good afternoon.  Well, she got off the bus crying, and things deteriorated from there.  She wanted to do nothing I had planned.  She wanted to scream.  Between screams, she wanted to SAY she wanted something, like a drink, a snuggle, a shower, time outside, and then as soon as I tried to do that thing with her, she wanted to scream some more, and bite her arm, and fling herself down on her bed, and be hysterical.  I was tired out of my mind after half an hour or so.  In frustration, I finally yelled out "I can't take this any more!"  That stopped her cold---she seemed interested in the phrase, one I don't think I've ever said to her before.  I really don't like saying things like that to her, ever.  She took it up herself, and started adding it into her screams---a good long scream, and then "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANY MORE!"  Which I bet she couldn't.  I finally just kind of gave up---I let her scream it out, while of course keeping a close eye on her to make sure she didn't hurt herself or try to leave the house or anything.  Tony got home, and she instantly dried her tears and hugged him.  I felt about 2 feet tall.  

So....I wasn't much looking forward to how the day would go Saturday.  However, somehow, by some twist of fate or miracle, both Saturday and Sunday were amazing.  It was probably the best weekend we've ever had with Janey.  Ever.  She was extremely happy, extremely engaged, full of hugs, saying all kinds of cool and relevant things, a joy beyond words.  I have no idea why, any more than I have any idea why Friday afternoon was so awful.  I've been trying very hard lately to live in the moment--to not spend the bad moments projecting into the future, to not spend the good moments worrying they won't last---to just accept each moment as it comes.  I've got a long way to go with that, and I am sure I did spend too much of the weekend trying to record in my mind just what circumstances had led to things being so good.  However, I don't think it was anything in particular.  It was as random as any mood of Janey's.  But it was wonderful.  We drove her brother to work both days, and she piped up in the car with comments here and there "Maybe we are lost!"  "Pepperoni Pizza!", and with songs and just happy, non-manic laughter.  We got her some pizza, and she sang "Staying Alive" to the cashier and charmed her.  We went into the Target and tried on hats and glasses and necklaces.  We went to the arboretum near us and looked at trees.  We snuggled a lot, watched some TV, ate a lot, all the glow of her wonderful mood.  At one point, in the car, Tony and I said to each other that when she is in that kind of mood, there is no child on earth more wonderful.  I remarked that if she was ALWAYS in that good a mood, we probably would be used to it.  It wouldn't seem as wondrous.  And we both got teary-eyed, thinking of that.

So...Monday was okay.  Not as happy a day, but okay.  And then today---after school, it was another Friday.  So much screaming and crying and arm biting.  It was hot, and I offered to fill the wading pool.  Janey wanted to, but as soon as we got back there, the ear-shattering screaming started.  For a few minutes, I still tried to fill the pool.  But I couldn't for long.  Her screaming is loud enough to be heard a block away.  It sounds like she's being tortured.  I turned off the water and took her in, where she continued to scream pretty much until Daddy got home, and this time, even Daddy couldn't fit it.  She screamed off and on all evening.

Now she is asleep, and I am weary but unable to sleep.  I wish so much I understood my little girl better.  I wish I could figure out how to give her more happy days.  Seeing how very, very happy she can be, it sometimes makes it almost harder, because I feel like there must be a key someplace.  There must be a way to pry open the door to the happiness that seems to snap shut suddenly and randomly.  But I don't know how.  And she can't tell me.  

My autism resolutions for 2013

I am not big on making New Years resolutions.  I don't ever like to delude myself, so I don't like to make ones I know I won't keep.  That's just a setup for feeling awful about yourself, I think.  But I've had some thoughts about what I want to do in 2013 in regards to Janey, and in regards to autism in general.  Four ideas, to be exact....

1.  Delight in Janey whenever possible.  There is so much hard about raising Janey, so much that is tiring and overwhelming.  But there is also a lot that is wonderful.  I am lucky that way.  I am going to try very hard to delight in her, when the opportunity presents itself.  I'm going to enjoy her singing, her amazing smile, her delight in little things, her eccentricities, the rare moments her talking comes through, the multiple moments that she uses the speech she has to get her point across.  I'm going to enjoy dressing her up, and giving her foods she loves, no matter how odd, and showing her off.  I'm going to sit more with her watching her favorite shows and laughing along with her to them.  I'm going to find more music she likes and listen to it with her.  I'm going to read her or tell her the kind of reading she enjoys---poems and fairy tales and rhyming books.  I'm going to let myself just plain have fun with her.

2.  Be easier on myself when the autism parenting gets tough.  Somewhere along the line I got the message in life that you must always carry on, keep going no matter what, don't allow yourself to wallow or admit being overwhelmed.  I don't think that's serving me any more.  If Janey doesn't sleep all night, and I have to sleep most of the next day, I'm not going to spend the day cursing myself and trying to stay awake and get things done.  I'm going to admit to myself that Janey is one tough kid.  She's a kid that overwhelms people like her doctor in just a 10 minute visit.  She's a kid that very few people, without the training in fire Tony and I have had, could handle at all full time, without breaks, without help.  She's a delight often, yes, but she's very, very autistic.  She's a toddler in a 8 year old body.  She require constant supervision.  If I need to rest and spend a day doing nothing more productive than playing Scrabble and reading, I am going to tell myself that the rest of the time, I work a job that respite workers get paid good money to work, and I deserve a day off once in a while.

3  Speak up about autism issues more.  I don't know how often I bite my tongue when confronted with someone advocating the latest "cure", when someone suggests I should find a babysitter so I can "get out more", when someone says that if I really tried, Janey could sit nicely at a table, use the toilet consistently, when people tell me how special diets, intensive ABA programs, Floortime all day long, getting a dog, going to Mongolia to ride horses, swimming with dolphins, etc, might be just what Janey needs.  I admit not everyone has told me those things personally, but they are all out there in the world of "autism cures".  Often, I just smile or say thank you.  I don't step in. I don't comment on Facebook conversations that I see that are pretty much attacking other autism parents for not trying this or that.  I keep the peace.  I feel a little guilty about this. I dare say I know more about autism than someone who once read an interesting Reader's Digest article about it, and I should not be afraid to speak up.  If it's hard for me to do, I can think about my friends with autistic kids, especially those just starting out on the good ol' Holland trip, and speak up for them.

4.  Treasure my fellow autism parent friends.  I thought a lot about the past year last night.  I thought how few people get my life, about how I have noticed that after spending time with our family when Janey is with us, often the invitations to spend time together don't happen again, how I always have my guard up when people are around Janey, how I always watch what I say, how she acts, how I'm always prepared to flee if she gets difficult.  How it's extremely isolating being her mother.  And then I thought about the people I know get it.  I thought especially about the first friend I made through this blog---that's you, Michelle!---and although we haven't met in person yet, how the few times I've talked to her by phone and the emails we've shared and the Facebook statuses we can read from someone who really, really does it have kept me going on many a tough day.  I hope to become real friends with anyone out there who reads this and can relate to it.  We have to be there for each other.  I realize more every day how important that is.

With that, I'll start 2013 with optimism and a smile, and with love to everyone sharing this journey.