Don't Stop Believing

There are days I hate Autism.

I do. It riddles my little girl with anxiety and frustration. Sometimes she can be so unhappy she takes it out on herself or me.

She's 4.5 years old and scared of the toilet. We are working on it because we know she can hold it, she tells us after she goes but the whole sit on the toilet scares her since they are so freaking loud to her.

She can request certain food and drinks on her communication device (IPad from the school district).
Though now most of the time she just tells what she wants but doesn't understand if we are "out" of something.

She knows her routine at therapy when she see's her favorite person Julie who is a million times more patient with her than I can be at times.

Sometimes the daily notes from school are depressing as can be. She threw this, she refused to come to circle, she ran down the hall, she just laid on the floor. My favorite from a few months ago "She told a bunch of kids to shut up!" That is quite funny actually. See her big sister from the minute she wakes up until the minute she goes to sleep is nonstop talking. Basically she narrates her life. She sings it to. Which kinda of makes up for Avery not talking like a regular 4.5 year old.  But if you are a kid who doesn't like a lot of interference it can get annoying so one day she had had enough of the background noise at school and told the other 4 kids in her class to stop talking in a not so nice way.

But there are days though that Autism can make me celebrate the little things.

The daily notes from school talk about the daily exercise to write their first names. Some days she does it with hand over hand help. Other days she could care less and won't even go to the table to do the activity.

So today we were waiting for the bus at the back door and with the temperature being zero the window was pretty fogged up.

I started writing the letter A and hoped she would follow and write A instead she said V! So I asked her what comes after v? She said E! I asked what comes after e? She said R!! I asked what comes after r? She said Y!!

That's right Avery, AVERY!!!

It was a reminder that sometimes I need to stop focusing on the stuff she can't do and be grateful for the stuff she can do.

Routine, repetition, social stories, therapy, communication devices, early intervention, biomedical therapies. Just a small list of what we do for her on a daily basis.

A donation to the Organization for Autism Research would help with more research into treatment options for kids like Avery. Please if you can today spare a few moments and think of making a donation to
 Team Avery - Don't Stop Believing

Some day somewhere thanks to a donation to help fund Autism research another Mom or Dad or caregiver will have that joy of seeing their child have a great moment like I did today.