Ugh....
I love being a mom with all my heart. I really do. It's just that it gets frustrated sometimes. With Liam not talking and being unable to really communicate the frustration is mutual. I also feel so lost as to what to do to help him! Aside from going to school (which is not going well so far-he cries and cries and throws up and cries), he's not really receiving services yet even though we're going through Early Intervention and have a case worker. Liam just doesn't like strangers and any therapy so far has been useless because he just cries.
There is no doubt in my mind he has Autism. The signs are all there. But he's so different from the way Coby was at this age! Coby was talking some-though he was echolailic. Coby wasn't as attached to me, so therapy was much easier. But all that was so long ago, I don't remember things in detail. So really, I'm not sure how to help Liam. We're giving him time to adjust in school and then starting speech therapy. When he turns 3 he'll be able to go to a special needs preschool which will also help. But what can I do at home????
For example, Liam's new obsession is the show Yo Gabba Gabba. If you don't know what it is, consider yourself lucky-but if you're really curious, go look it up online. It's not a bad show. Each episode teaches a social lesson and the characters are cute. Liam has many Yo Gabba toys. His favorite, though, is a set of bathtub squirters, each in a Yo Gabba character. We don't put them in the water (he has Yo Gabba foam characters for the tub). All Liam does with them, and he can do this for over an hour straight, is move them, one by one, from one spot to another. On his way he stops by where I am or if Brian is there where Brian is, and will not move until we name that character. He then places the character in its new spot. They're always in order-in the order they are presented in the theme song. So we made a game out of it-I'll ask him if it's a certain character and name a wrong one. He'll shake his head no. That's progress for answering questions, though he won't answer yes, just no. But I don't know what to do-do I encourage this behavior and let him have his fun, or do I take the characters away and discourage this very Autistic, OCD behavior? I simply don't know. For right now we take breaks from Yo Gabba Gabba and play with other toys for short periods of time. That's something!
But the obsessions and OCD tendencies worry me for sure. I suppose the worry never goes away, does it?
I love being a mom with all my heart. I really do. It's just that it gets frustrated sometimes. With Liam not talking and being unable to really communicate the frustration is mutual. I also feel so lost as to what to do to help him! Aside from going to school (which is not going well so far-he cries and cries and throws up and cries), he's not really receiving services yet even though we're going through Early Intervention and have a case worker. Liam just doesn't like strangers and any therapy so far has been useless because he just cries.
There is no doubt in my mind he has Autism. The signs are all there. But he's so different from the way Coby was at this age! Coby was talking some-though he was echolailic. Coby wasn't as attached to me, so therapy was much easier. But all that was so long ago, I don't remember things in detail. So really, I'm not sure how to help Liam. We're giving him time to adjust in school and then starting speech therapy. When he turns 3 he'll be able to go to a special needs preschool which will also help. But what can I do at home????
For example, Liam's new obsession is the show Yo Gabba Gabba. If you don't know what it is, consider yourself lucky-but if you're really curious, go look it up online. It's not a bad show. Each episode teaches a social lesson and the characters are cute. Liam has many Yo Gabba toys. His favorite, though, is a set of bathtub squirters, each in a Yo Gabba character. We don't put them in the water (he has Yo Gabba foam characters for the tub). All Liam does with them, and he can do this for over an hour straight, is move them, one by one, from one spot to another. On his way he stops by where I am or if Brian is there where Brian is, and will not move until we name that character. He then places the character in its new spot. They're always in order-in the order they are presented in the theme song. So we made a game out of it-I'll ask him if it's a certain character and name a wrong one. He'll shake his head no. That's progress for answering questions, though he won't answer yes, just no. But I don't know what to do-do I encourage this behavior and let him have his fun, or do I take the characters away and discourage this very Autistic, OCD behavior? I simply don't know. For right now we take breaks from Yo Gabba Gabba and play with other toys for short periods of time. That's something!
But the obsessions and OCD tendencies worry me for sure. I suppose the worry never goes away, does it?
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