Intro

Hi. I'm Kristen, and this blog is about my son Joel, who is now 4 years old. I need a place to put down all the crazy things that run through my head in terms of Joel's development. I'm married to a great guy, and we also have an 18 month old daughter, Charlotte, and a dog named Tess. And some fish, but I'm not sure if they are still alive so we're not including them in the headcount for now.....

I should back this crazy train up to about four years ago.

In the beginning, everything was perfect. My husband had been accepted to medical school in Arizona, I was  due with our first baby in September, and we had just bought our house. Sure, moving away from our families in Utah was difficult, but we were so darn excited to start a new chapter of our lives. We were going to be parents-- we would be our own little family unit. we were expecting a little boy, and he'd be a carbon copy of all of our best features-- mechanically minded like his dad and love to read like his mom. We'd play soccer together outside in our new backyard. Life couldn't get much better.

Fast forward 18 months. We had this, a beautiful, beautiful moment with my husband's family where our son FINALLY took his first steps. After months of coaxing, Joel finally started walking at nearly-19 months-old.
Surely all this would come around now, all the speech we'd been waiting for would bloom, we'd finally see what was going on inside that little head of his. We were positive, no doubt, that now that he was walking everything else we had been anticipating would fall into place. "He's a boy," I heard all the time. "Just wait, he'll be talking your ear off soon."

And sadly, in some ways we are still waiting.

In fact, most of his speech disappeared. Where a cow had said "moo" and cars went "vroom" they just.... didn't anymore. He stopped looking people in the eyes. He began spinning in.circles and flapping his hands and running into walls. He became obsessed with finding soft things to run against his skin, and especially fixated on using people's hair as a way to get this "fix". And he would scream gibberish for hours at a time.

I don't want it to sound like the past few years with Joel have been torture. But it was these things, these "symptoms" that drove me to early intervention, that drove me to insisting on therapy and a developmental pediatrician consult. I am incredibly grateful for these "symptoms", because they were the driving force I needed to get out of denial and into a proactive state.

The kid has made some great, great progress. Right now, he is communicating verbally with an echolalic tendency. A typical "conversation" with Joel goes something like this.

"Who's that on your socks? Is that Lightning McQueen?"
"McQueen."
"We're going to go downstairs and eat some lunch."
"Lunch."
"Do you want a sandwich or chicken?"
"Chicken"

These conversations are HUGE, and are what usually get me through the hard times. Because he IS communicating with us-- slowly, limited, but yes, it is there. This is the result of many, many hours of ABA therapy, developmental preschool, and speech therapy.  The boy has taught us so much and to see his growth and progression is truly remarkable. It has been a hard couple of years--the years of 2 and 3 for our boy were some of the angriest I have ever had and have ever witnessed in a child.

Our "official" diagnosis is ASD- autism spectrum disorder. Behind it are also a global language delay, and a handful of other oddities-- Duane syndrome, poor muscle coordination, etc. etc. Obviously, I have a lot to say on all of this, so don't be afraid to jump in and say hi! Do you have special needs kids?