School started today. No problems from P; he was co-operative and relaxed, so that was a relief. S seemed accepting, although I wasn't lulled, as I knew that any trouble from him would probably start once we were out of the house.
It was a wet morning, and there were people everywhere in the schoolyard. A toddler splashed in a puddle behind us and some landed on S, which is always a problem. I immediately responded to his request to pick him up and he huddled into me tightly. He managed to stay calm while I put him down to give P his bag and a hug. He wanted to be held throughout the brief assembly, and despite my groaning back I was determined to be as supportive as I could, and get our day off on the right foot. We farewelled his older brother as he headed off to class and were invited for a cup of tea at a cafe nearby with another mother whose daughter he knows well. All was fine while there was a biscuit to eat, and then he became predictably restless. That was still fine. We left and walked home, him calmly by my side, which felt good. There were a few brief exchanges about nothing consequential, then out of the blue, he said, "Mummy, you're garbage", and then, "you're a stinky banana", which he & his brother have been telling each other for a few days. I immediately felt weary; it wasn't the first non-sequitur of the day, but it seemed a particularly blatant departure from the reasonable dynamic that we'd had, so I decided to tackle it. "How do you think that makes me feel? Does it make me happy?" Yes, he claimed, so I let him know that it didn't. He tried to contradict me but seemed to lose interest. I started to suggest other things that he could say that would make me feel good. As we got closer to home, I suggested, "Mummy, can I bring in the garbage bin?" Unfortunate that the garbage theme was resurrected, but the empty bin was in front of us and he always seems to enjoy both the activity and the sense of helping. He tilted it towards him; a trickle of water ran from it onto his hands and shorts. He let go and got upset. I confess my patience was already eroded; I felt that I'd been working pretty hard already just to keep things on an even keel, and I quickly tipped it again to get rid of the rest of the water. We sort of misread each other's body language I think; he looked interested but uncertain, and I tried quickly to get it back in his hand before he could get more upset. He took it but wasn't quite prepared, lost his balance and fell over. And I lost him. He sobbed, upset rather than angry, but I was already worn out. I'd been picking him up, cuddling him, humouring him, tolerating him and guiding him all morning, on the tips of my toes for the better part of an hour. I paused for a minute, then ploughed on with both bins myself, continuing to push as he tried to hold me back, shrieking now at the top of his voice (hello neighbours! We're home!). Once inside he started to hit me so with a horrendous sense of familiarity I held him seated in the bedroom till he calmed down. It was 10.10 when I looked at the clock.
And now it's out of his system, and he is watching a DVD while he eats his lunchbox; back to the routine. The funny part is the DVD; it's The Transporters. I got it out yesterday to see how he went on the quizzes. He did pretty well, and not badly again today when we did one. He loves the show, and keeps talking about it very coherently. He just asked me why P stopped liking a certain kind of cracker that he was about to eat. He seems to me to be competent at least in organising his thoughts ... time will tell. We had another session with the OT yesterday. It went surprisingly well, in that he was persuaded to join back in whenever he opted out. But she now wants to join in the assessment process and have the SP there do the same, as she felt he was struggling with his pragmatic language, and that a speech assessment would at least "eliminate" an ASD diagnosis, if that is in fact how it plays out. We both mused about our observations at the end of the session; she said he seemed to her very much in his head, and commented on him nearly losing his balance at one point. I'm not totally sure what she was driving at, but she seemed to be suggesting that his body and speech were not keeping up with his thoughts. I also mentioned the CARS scores Q & I came up and she said she felt she'd come up with something similar.
So it's all very perplexing; he does indeed seem to have some strong ASD characteristics, but somehow, that doesn't seem to be the whole story, not yet at least. Well, I suppose for me, I have moved from that agonising confusion about what is going on; clearly, something is. But the days are going to feel very long till we get back to the psych, make some calls, and actually start addressing what is going on.
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