This was one of those times when Tommy did something totally typical that made my heart stop beating with the excitement of it.
I was driving him to L's house today (his babysitter, and Henry's before him) and Tommy was jabbering on and on. Suddenly I heard him say "not nice!" "Mitchell push David." I started listening harder and realized that he was telling me something that had happened the day before. "Mitchell push! Not nice! David fall down. David cry!"
Henry has never once recounted anything to me about his day. Not spontaneously, anyway. He will tell me "we went to the zoo" or something like that about a field trip. But never, never anything about interpersonal relationships- especially between 2 other children.
I said early on in this blogging adventure that it feels somewhat wrong to compare my kids, but this is my blog, and this is an issue that pops up in my life and is important to me to discuss. When Tommy does something new, that Henry never did because of his autism, it makes me celebrate that Tommy's doing it, and it also makes me grieve a little that Henry didn't do it, and maybe never will.
I believe this is different than just having 2 kids with different personalities. For example, having one child who likes to play with play dough, and one who doesn't. The child who doesn't isn't missing out on a huge chunk of the human experience because he doesn't play with play dough. But our autistic children are missing out because they cannot (or will not?) tell us about their day. This is what we do with people we care about- we share things. Verbally, usually.
(Don't even get me started on the tangent that Henry should be able to tell me about his day from a safety standpoint- what if he is being mistreated or picked on at school? And isn't telling me? I will not be able to sleep at night if I start thinking about that.)
So, this was an exciting morning for me, with a little bit of sadness thrown in for good measure.
PS- L said that Tommy didn't tell me that he also had a time out for pushing David down. Selective communication on his part!
3 comments:
Gretchen,
I can really relate to this post. Daniel has a twin sister, and it has been very difficult for me to celebrate her milestones, because each reminds me of how far off Daniel is and has me wondering if he'll ever meet them. One of my big New Years resolutions will be to take time to celebrate her successes. Sometimes I'm so focused on helping Daniel that I overlook all of the progress his sister has made. So here's to celebrating successes. Way to go Tommy!!!
We often have those "what if" moments if we had another child, though we are set and settled in our decision to have "just Charlie." Posts like these give me a good sense of this other music you're hearing.
I see the things that Isaac says and does and I have to admit it hurts more than a little to know that as well as India is doing, she may never comminicate nearly as well as he does.
She's catching up but I can't imagine she'll ever be completely caught up.
It'd be nice for her to prove me wrong.
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