Tristan used to love playing with toys in the car. Now (within this past month or so) he pretty much rejects anything in his car seat aside from himself. He won’t even eat from a snack trap in his car seat most of the time. But he does seem to enjoy the hell out of being in the car lately. He watches all of the scenery rather wondrously every time I catch him. And for some reason, he’s developed interest in the overhead light in James’s car (so he doesn’t want to sit down until he’s had chance to fiddle with it) and some odd seatbelts in my car (a bit more compliant on that one :)).

That being said, we’re evolving FINALLY on that path from baby to child. Tristan gets a lot of chances to walk now since he’s somewhat aware of directions (read that as he chooses to follow them, I think). We don’t always have him down out of the sling, but little things like walking from the car to the stairs and then up them are becoming routine. He presses the garage door button with glee to watch the door go up or down, now that he understands how to jam his thumb to press an “adult” button. EVEN better is that he has good discipline about it and presses only once! I need to train that with a couple of other devices. 🙂

Tristan’s been pretty delightful to be around this past week. Perhaps every time I see what looks like my baby learning and behaving developmentally appropriate it brings me pride instead of just taking things for granted or looking so forward to his naps that I overencourage him to be independent.

A few things have improved for us. First of all, he has started being a bit more demonstrative about stuff he wants. Now he usually reaches up toward the counter when thirsty instead of just breaking down into tears, although there are still bugs to work out there. He is developing signals to express that he’s hungry instead of tripping out. I have also learned to detach my emotions from his screaming most of the time and quickly decide how I think it should be dealt with instead of getting upset by it.

He responds very well to positive reinforcement, and this has shaped how discipline works. When I say discipline, I don’t mean only the correcting of poor behavior, but mostly the shaping of good behavior. This means that Tristan’s pretty easygoing and is accepting of shaping (gets attention for good so repeats good), but it also means that behaviors not offered (shit he don’t do) are hard to train (make him do).

Digression: I think his obsession with opening and closing cabinets is likely a game of peekaboo with the contents of the cabinets. I could totally see that, considering he usually doesn’t empty cabinets or even disturb the contents.

Anyway, we had a playdate with Elizabeth and Eileen. That went very well – we were there for over two hours without anyone getting exceptionally fussy (adults and children :D) and I think we can learn a lot from each other. Elizabeth is about 19 months old and she can echo back perfectly audible two syllable words. I’m completely amazed by this, as she’s way ahead of her peers (or at least the kid I brought over today). Anyway, this was a first playdate with the two of them. Elizabeth’s been kind of stubborn lately – I encountered her yesterday and she was not happy to be in her stroller at ALL. Tristan’s been a pleasant kid but I’m all worried about him. The two kids were very similar in physical ability and size and really interacted marvelously, I think. Tristan spent most of his time playing with cabinets, refrigerator magnet toys, and sometimes coming in to join us all in the living room. Elizabeth spent most of her time trying to impress me.

Pardon me. Tristan woke up screaming and I went to comfort him and then set him back down. I should really remember by now that he tends to wake up screaming sometimes and get over it himself but it’s hard when I see him standing in the crib howling to just let him be. So whether I go to him depends on how annoyed I am at the intrusion or the thought of losing the free time. Today I didn’t give a shit about losing that time so I went to him, but I probably prolonged his agony because he does need to scream it out for a few minutes sometimes. I need to teach him how to express that he is tired other than the spontaneous rubbing of eyes and/or crying. With time.

Anyway, so Tristan and Elizabeth playing. Neither of them needed much hovering but they both needed spot discipline. Kind of like at home, actually.

I give up. Ninja began meowing. I heard it through the monitor. He was locked in Tristan’s room. Either way, Tristan was going to wake up – meowing of doom or me opening the door. He woke in a pretty good mood but obviously still sleepy. I just put him back down but who knows if he’s going to go BACK to sleep?

Maybe I will talk later.

It’s not that I mean not to write here, but I’ve been spending far more of my free time actually communicating individually with people. That being said, I’m still way behind on that contacting people thing.

So, I’ve been bouncing this whole “possible autism” off of just about everyone I can think to bounce it off of. I’m coming to terms with the possibilities, the probabilities, and just daily life. I mean, what can you think? Your kid’s 18 months old and fairly normal but a bit of a weirdo.. and to be confronted with more than a slight possibility of him growing up needing constant care.. suddenly.. whoa. There’s grieving to be done. There’s begging and pleading and anger and sadness and it comes and goes. I am glad that there seem to be no threats on his existence at this time and hope that it remains that way – after all, autism is just a -difference-, right? Not like being given a death sentence..

I have always known that there is something “different” about Tristan. He is not quite like other kids. But I suppose what comes to my mind when I watch and interact with Tristan is that he is like US. He’s a geek kid. He likely does have some oddities but he’s a bright, curious, interactive child. He just doesn’t care about people like other kids do, or if he does, he shows it oddly. He IS AWARE of other people, and of walls that he comes about an inch from crashing into.. but his gaze does not show it. He sort of looks oblivious to a lot of what is going on around him and focused on something he’s interested in. He doesn’t stare at another kid playing with him (or even seem to LOOK or be aware) but he will suddenly negotiate for toys with other kids that he didn’t seem aware of and he’s usually fair about it.

This has actually helped James and I considerably. We get along very well, but there are times when either of us (read: usually me :)) will act snappily or seem frustrated by something inappropriately. We’re finding out that I can’t handle certain distractions well when I am already frustrated – specifically things moving in my peripheral vision and people needing my attention. A week ago, I would’ve tossed this blog entry aside while James randomly spoke to me and he’d be bewildered by my seeming anger at him. And I never was angry at HIM, but him speaking to me then drove me crazy. After our recent research into autism and sensory integration disorders, his reaction to such is to not be hurt but to understand completely.

I am at a point where I’m observing behaviors and hoping they are positive ones. I am scared every time I see a stereotypical atypical behavior – he got on his tiptoes tonight and it sort of spooked me, even though he was actually reaching up to get something higher than him. I am encouraged when he learns new things and he has been learning commands and words like crazy this past week! We’ve been making a lot of headway on the cooperative walking, even though he still LOVES to run and play hide-and-peekaboo.

Our evaluation is on March 22nd. I just want to KNOW what sort of life to expect. I know that we can’t really.. but we can have some reasonable approximation of our expectations, right? I need to know if this funny, bright, energetic child playing peekaboo with daddy right now is going to be suffering and miserable by his nature without anything I can do about it..