So {happy, upset} I could cry

Choose either one. They both apply. I just got off the phone with the intake coordinator at a local developmental center. Captain Adventure is going next week to start the process of a full-full-full autism assessment, with all the various spectrums and syndromes and all the “hmm, well, maybe it might be…” possibilities chased down to a definite YES or NO.

I am so happy, and so upset, that I cannot stop misting up.

We’ve had the “lite” version of these evaluations done three times now. The first time it came back “Nah!”, the second time it came back “Wellllll…” and the last time it came back “Eh, maybe? But maybe not…could be this, or that…huhn…we should probably have him checked out by the Professionals.”

Something is not right with my boy. Oh sure, he’s getting better. He’s adding words every day. I asked for a hug this morning and got it, and a big old kiss besides. When he wants something, he’ll ask for it specifically; that’s huge progress from a year ago, when he would simply begin shrieking and crying for no apparent reason, and I had to play “twenty guesses” to figure him out. Offer him juice? No. Milk? No. Diaper? No. Pretzels? Aaaaah, so that’s what he wanted…

But still. He’s just kind of…quirky, sometimes. And I don’t mean “cute quirky” or “showing some individuality” quirky.

Weird quirky. He doesn’t generally do things that scream “AUTISM!!”, but he does do things that murmur it. Hint at it. Suggest that maybe-possibly…it could be…or maybe not…then again…ARGH.

I have been trying to get him into this center for evaluation since before Thanksgiving. I have been calling and calling and calling. Between people being gone for holidays and the sudden spike that comes at this point in the school year, I was starting to think we were never going to get a call back.

And then glory hallelujah. Someone called me back.

Bang! I get the referral letter!

Wham! Please send us copies of this, and that, and that other thing, the one with the squiggly lines!

And today, rrrrrring-rrrrrring, hello, can you come in next week? It should be for about two hours, please come alone with the child, no siblings or Concerned Others…

I managed to stay perky while I was on the phone. I took down information. I said “Great!” and “OK!” and “No no, next week is awesome – sooner the better!”

Early intervention, after all, is key…you don’t want to wait on these things…

And then I hung up the phone and dissolved.

Sometimes, I don’t want to know. Maybe if we just ignore it, he can be our baby forever. It’s OK. He can just be the way he is. Forty months old, and talks like a nine month old. Babble babble Mommy babble babble Dora babble babble car!! Can’t potty train, has to be carried because he won’t take my hand and walk obediently at my side, can’t be left alone, not for a second, because he will start destroying things in innocent but wild abandon, exactly like a twelve month old trapped in a three-and-a-half year old body…

Sometimes, the possibilities are just so overwhelming. But I suspect this is exactly like getting shots. I always get so worked up when I know I’m going to have to get a shot. It really is extraordinarily silly. I get into A State every single time. I’m worse than my children, I seriously am.

And then the actual shot is never, ever as bad as the State I got myself into over it.

He is a sweet, loving little boy. He is wicked smart. He is not “normal”, or anything like it. Somewhere in that little head, there are connections that just aren’t being made right.

He’s going to need extra help to straighten it out. And maybe, just maybe, they never will quite hook up the way most brains do.

That’s OK, too.

He’s just himself. And at being Captain Adventure, he is as perfect as perfect can get.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go find my Big Girl panties and put them on. I’ve got a lot of sucking up and walking off to get done.

And also photocopying of papers with squiggly lines that mean something about his hearing, and other papers with squiggly lines that mean something about his cognitive skills, and other papers with long rambling paragraphs about how he matches shapes and colors and blocks and whether or not he makes approximation sounds…