The wondrous transition in to creative play.. Aethan has been choosing animals to "be." Last week it was a puppy. He would get down on all fours, pant, bark and even lean down in front of you and say "you can pet him!" Although he still does not say "I" "I am" or "My" and "I'm a puppy" came out "you're a puppy," it was still a joyous thing to watch. This week Aethan is a penguin. He's been watching "March of the Penguins," and now he waddles, scoots on his belly, gets between my legs and makes a very strange half-cry half-goat sound that apparantly comes from the penguins. He's also used his new penguin status to avoid eating certain foods. This seems so small and trivial to those with nuero-typical 3 year olds, but to someone with autism this is a very big step in a good direction.

Aethan went to Montana last week with his Daddy to visit his paternal grandparents and family. It was very difficult to let him go without the ability to explain to him what was going on. Luckily, his facination with vehicles, made it easy to get him excited at 4:30 in the morning about the airplane. He was fantastic the whole trip..even walked down the aisle as a ring bearer in his aunt Trish's wedding. He got a fever during the trip, as he usually does when he leaves Florida, but all in all the 10 days away from home was an enjoyable experience for him and his Dad's side of the family.

It was definately difficult for me to be without him for that long 3000 miles away, but the most difficult thing was when he came back. I drove to the airport to pick him up, not expecting too much of a reuinion. But when his Daddy tried to transfer him from his arms to mine, he screamed and wriggled as if someone was trying to hurt him. I took him anyway, trying not to show to much heartbreak as I handed him a Thomas the Tank Engine juice cup and carried him through the airport.

That night Aethan was extremely quiet and didn't seem to want to have much to do with me or the rest of the household. It was as if this was a completely foreign situation to him. Over the next few days I realized that he had lost a lot of the words and skills that I had worked months on, but had gained the useful phrase "no thank you," wich he used for everything.

It took a while for Aethan to adjust back to his normal routines, but after 5 days everything seems to be back on track again. He hasn't returned yet to calling me Mommy, but he's calling everyone else by name and eating most of the things he was eating before he left.

I'm glad that it will be a long time before I have to let him go for that long, but I'm happy he was able to have the experience with no incidents and a basically easy transition.

I had Aethan half way through acupuncture school. With all the amazing Chinese doctors and students around, I was in the best place I could possibly be. I delivered my nine pound little boy without the assistance of any drugs.. just Acupuncture and a room full of loving people.

He was a normal baby... sat up, crawled and ate solid foods just like the books said he should. Everyone was still telling me everything was fine when he didn't learn to walk until 18 months.

As he approached two, he learned a couple of words- duck, cat, sit. No Daddy or Mommy, but I thought it would come in time. As he reached two , more words didn't come and the words he was saying started to fade. He started to watch movies alot. Since Aethan was my first child I didn't realize that most kids don't watch entire movies.

I started to become hopeful when Aethan started talking a little bit. But he didn't ask me for things or tell me what he was interested in. He was copying the the dialogue from the movies he was watching. Word for word. Everyone around me thought it was cute, but I was getting concerned. Other things started to appear around me as well. He had four stuffed animals that he had to carry everywhere and screamed as though someone was hurting him whenever someone took one. He wouldn't allow anyone in his space and he would only eat 4 or five different foods- none of the on the same plate at the same time. He hadn't slept all the way through the night yet either.

I invited several kids of parents I knew to Aethan's 2nd birthday, but he didn't even seem to notice anyone was there. And as the day wore on, the people seemd to make him more and more agitated as he tried to escape in to his comfortable place all his own.  read more »