There is a boy in Joel's class that Joel says is his best friend. His name is Michael, and of course we love Michael. I remember the first time we did a play date with Michael. Michael's mom and I laughed and joked that this was the quietest playdate we'd ever seen.
Although Joel loves Michael, I have no idea if he and Michael have ever had a real conversation, or even really talked to each other. They are off in their own world, playing near each other but not with each other. There's not a lot of interaction going on, but Joel talks about Michael at home and asks "Michael please?! Where's Michael?"
The other day I dropped off Joel at school, and he sat down next to Michael. Joel looked at the door as I left and started to cry. As I watched through the window, I saw Michael pat Joel on the shoulder, and hold his hand gently.
(So now two of us were crying.)
I will always treasure the sweet relationship between these two little boys. Thank you Michael, for being his friend.
It has been so long since I have written anything here. I started to worry that I was only sharing depressing things, that by focusing on our struggles I would somehow depress my friends and family. But honestly, I do better when I am sharing stories, whether they are good or bad.
Joel has made so much progress. He's using so many words and phrases that I have hard keeping track. He loves to read and play on his Ipad. (We are mean parents, there are only educational apps on his Ipad and primary songs... no games unless they involve reading or math.)
The things we are working on have evolved, as have we as parents. I remember going to an event at Joel's school around Christmas time, and a mom told me about her nonverbal kid. "Mine too," I said. Totally out of habit. And I sat there and ate my words when I met her son, who is TRULY nonverbal, while my Joel sat there and chattered about Nemo and Lightning McQueen. Sometimes it's so hard to remember how far he has come, how difficult that phase was.
Joel is at a special charter school for autism students this year. His class is all little boys with autism, a crazy little kindergarten group full of quirky kids. He loves going to school, and seems to have a good time while he's there. His teachers are great and we feel so fortunate to be part of a community that understands these special kids.
We wrangled the kids into the car the other day to pick up my sister and grab some goat cheese pizza (so good!). While I was getting the kids in the car Joel noticed a container of mini-m&ms and asked repeatedly for it. "Candy... please candy... candy please. Candy!!!!" I tried to distract him from the candy, and our way, we started listening to our favorite Pandora station, Disney music. "I've got a dream" from Tangled came on and Joel was very very excited, he loves to sing "I've got a dream" and jump on the trampoline. After singing the song I turned to Joel and said "What's your dream, buddy?" He started to say something, then paused and changed his mind. "Candy!" he shouted.
Yup. Candy is his dream. I gave in after that. I mean, it IS his dream, after all.
I wanted to e-mail you right away and tell you about what happened today! Joel bumped into a friend on the carpet, and after he noticed that she was upset he took her hands in his hands and bent down to look into her eyes (and followed her eyes when she turned away). He kept following her eyes until she made eye contact with him , It lasted for about 45 seconds. It appeared he was showing empathy and trying to say sorry in his own way without words. I wish I would have had it on film because he hardly ever makes eye contact with anyone, let alone him initiating it! I was so proud of him!! J
Last week Joel was over with Peggy, our respite care worker. They were watching a movie and Joel came up and grabbed her hand. He then said "Spooky....spooky." Peggy was concerned that he was scared of something and said "Oh, ok, what's spooky? What has you scared?" He looked right in her eyes and said "I'm... POOPY." And he was. This is groundbreaking, earth shattering progress here, if we can get this kid to verbalize we may finally be able to potty train!
Yesterday Joel went up to Ike, a friend at school. He tapped Ike on the back, and said "Hello, friend!". First time we have ever really seen him initiate contact with another kid that didn't involve him stealing their toys..
His current favorite app on my phone is a Winnie the Pooh one that he wouldn't even play with for the longest time. Something must have changed, because the other day in the car he just asked "What's a bear to do?" That's the name of the story that Pooh is reading in the app. Such a cute boy.
There is a little boy in Joel's summer camp whose name is Cole. For some reason (actually not that surprising) the preschool staff has a very very hard time keeping them straight. As a result, we have Cole's swimsuit, Cole's towel, and Cole's water bottle. Cole's family has two of our swim trunks, our towel, and all of Joel's diapers. The relationship between Cole and Joel is pretty funny as well. Cole seems rather high functioning to me, and gets irritated by Joel rather easily. However, he also follows Joel around and seems to love playing with him. I'm very into my son "having friends" and so this is his first kind of friend. It;s a big deal for me, and I find myself wanting him to be "good" so Cole will want to continue to be his friend. Hmmm. Unfortunately, yesterday Joel elbowed Cole in the eye and gave him a black eye... don't know how that will affect the blossoming friendship. I saw the whole thing happen, and Joel kept trying to rub Cole's hair. Cole asked him to stop three times, Joel ignored him, and then elbowed him in the eye. Ah well, one day he'll get it, right?
Four and a half years. I have been waiting for my son to have a conversation with me for four and a half years. In my more depressing moments, I used to daydream about what we'd discuss and all the things he'd tell me. I promised him I would always be here to listen to him or to help him understand anything he was struggling with. I wished and hoped that he'd one day say things of his own accord, but some days progress is slow. And other days, it just pure awesome progress that makes you want to laugh and cry with happiness.
Today is one of the good days.
The past couple of days have been fun in getting some spontaneous speech from Joel. Rob and I have been talking about going to see the new Star Trek movie and I wanted him to watch the first movie with me again so I could make sure I understand the characters and everything (I am really easily confused lately, and have never seen an episode of Star Trek in the first place. So basically, consider me a blank slate.) Anyway, we were at about the middle of the movie and Joel came downstairs. Although he shouldn't have been out of bed, he had a huge grin on his face when he saw a movie playing. He watched for a bit, then snuggled right up to Rob, stared at Captain Kirk and said "Awesome!". It was one of the cutest things I'd ever seen.
And today! Well, today was the day. We were watching "Mater's Tall Tales" and got to Joel's favorite cartoon, featuring Tokyo-Mater and a drift race? (Yeah, I don't know what it's called. Grift race? Shift race? Lift race?) There's a part where they are outlining all the rules for the race and one of the rules is that the losing car will be stripped of all it's modifications and become stock. (Here's a clip of the cartoon in case I am not explaining this well..... after seeing it so many times I just gloss over it now.) They make being a stock car sound like the most awful thing in the world, which I suppose is fair if you are a Tokyo racing car.
Joel turned to me and asked, clear as day, "What's stock?" The first thing going through my head was "Seriously, kid? We've waited nearly five years to have a real conversation and you're wasting precious time asking me about cars?" I fumbled a bit. "Well, uh, it's when a fancy car gets all of it's shiny accessories taken away, all the paint and extra pieces and becomes a boring car." I hoped that would answer his question, and I felt so nervous, like I didn't know what to say or how deep of an explanation he was really looking for. But that seemed to suffice.
