Reason To Party

The boys were in bed and my husband and I were sitting in the living room telling each other about our day’s.  There was a lull in the conversation when I exclaimed:

“Oh yeah!  I forgot to tell you about what Brian did at my doctor’s appointment today.  He went up to the receptionist’s window and looked right at her, smiled, and said ‘Hi!’ completely unprompted and not echoing.  I couldn’t stop smiling and I told the receptionist, ‘That is so rare for him to greet someone independently!’  She kind of looked at me like I was crazy but I couldn’t stop smiling!”

My husband laughed and said, “I just love that about you.  You are so happy and enthusiastic about everything.”.

thinkpositiveI do think I tend to have a pretty positive spin on life but when your child has to work so hard for every teeny tiny milestone you can’t help but want to throw a party for every unprompted greeting, every new script, when he completes a self-care routine without prompts, or when he spells a new word.

You’ve got to be positive when your world is consistently spinning out of control with IEPs, evaluations, self-injurious behaviors, GI issues, meltdowns, OCD, and so on, and so on.  It can drag you down if you let it.  If you don’t stop and party every time there is progress you might just go insane.

It’s hard not to look back to when he regressed and got his autism diagnosis.  It’s hard not to think of the bleak outlooks I was given or how unengaged with his world he became.  He never stops making progress and I know how hard it must be for him.  So we have to celebrate!   In the Casa de Nelson, there’s always reason for a party!

 

Heather Nelson

About Heather Nelson

Heather resides in Rockland where she is busy juggling life as a newlywed, a mom to two boys (one of which who has autism), a part time job in direct sales, and a full-time job as a pediatric occupational therapy assistant. She has a love for live music, karaoke, and cheering on the underdogs.