8.10.2005

Our Own Little Sine Wave

That is how I refer to our boy these days. Leelo is doing a vascillatory shuffle. Language, communication all on fast-forward for short bursts, then he'll retreat into nutty boy mode.

Mostly, however, things have been good lately, and I'm feeling optimistic. A bit less so since we let him switch back to jammie separates four weeks ago and then he had another shitstorm last night, and then he barfed all over Therapist L this afternoon, but cheery regardless. Possibly this is because it only took one hour for him to go to bed tonight after 10 solid days of two-hour bedtime marathons (now there's a phrase to pluck out of context).

Both The Little Flower and Twister had not seen Leelo for several months until yesterday and today, respectively. Both of them remarked on how much his communication skills have improved, both were surprised and pleased to see the leaps he'd made (and Twister works at a school with several deaf autistic children, so he has some sense of how things can be).

Our boy is using many people's names in context these days, both prompted and spontaneously. Yesterday I took him to lunch with Ep, and, when I wasn't fast enough fetching him his naan, he turned to her and demanded "I want naan bread, Ep!"

Yesterday morning he woke up, sat up in bed, looked at his sister, and said, "Hi, Izzy!" He has never done that spontaneously in his life.

He has also been making real efforts to put phrases together and communicate. You can tell his little brain is working hard but he just doesn't have the language yet. It will come, Leelo!

He has been using No spontaneously with us, though he still more frequently says "bye bye, X" instead. Even more frequently, he'll say "Noooooooo!" when you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do.

His eye contact has been really, really good lately. He has been requesting lots and lots of one-on-one time with Seymour especially but with me too. All said he's in a good spot right now.

What are the whys behind his behavior? Who, really, could even tell. We did start him back on the multivitamin NuThera this week after several months off of it; We've been fairly good about keeping him away from sugar, but nowadays I think of his diet and supplements more as regulators than triggers. I suspect that having a week without a trip to Sacrament0 didn't hurt.

Therapist S told me yesterday that she would like to scale back to two days a week starting the week of August 24th. Farts. An ad for another therapist has been posted on Kraigzlist.

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