As promised, here's a quick update on our little J. He started at his new "school" almost 3 weeks ago, and he really loves it. I mentioned earlier that their parking lot is tiny, so they send a staff member out to the parking lot to bring the kids in from the car. We knew this would be difficult for J, and he did cry for quite a while on the first day. We thought it would be hard for a while, but that eventually he would get used to it and do fine. What we didn't expect, however, was that "eventually" would happen on the second day! On only his second day, the minute he saw the OT open his car door, he got super excited, smiled, hopped right out of the car, grabbed her hand, and marched inside. He's done great every day at drop-off except for one day when a staff member he didn't know picked him up. Other than that one day, he is always excited to get to school and go play. As soon as we pull in to the parking lot, he says "Baby Cool ("school"). Go play. Cool. Play. Bye Mama!" It's such a relief to me to know that he's excited to go, and I'm SO glad I don't have to watch him be pulled screaming and crying from the car every morning!
We love his school just as much as he does. The therapists are all great. I've spent a lot of time there in the past few weeks observing him in therapy and in class, and I've already learned so much about how to interact with him and help him learn new skills. And as far as his skills go, he's doing great! His language skills have exploded in the past month. He started making 2-word combinations a few weeks ago, and within a couple days he was doing it like a pro. Now he's even making some 3-4 word combinations (things like "all done purple ball," "more watch Elmo," "my turn bubbles," etc.). We're amazed at how much his language skills have improved in such a short time. But even more impressive is the way his social skills are improving. He used to seem so overwhelmed around new people, like all the sensory input of being in a new place and around new people was just too much for him to handle, so he was clingy and whiny and would engage in self-soothing, repetitive behaviors. All of a sudden, he doesn't seem nearly so overwhelmed by new people. In fact, in the grocery store he walks up to strangers, smiles, and says "Hi! Hi!" over and over until they say hi back to him. And this week he marched right in to his class room in the church nursery without a backward glance. He has ALWAYS cried when I dropped him off in the church nursery. He's much more interested in playing with other kids, even calling them by name and following them on the play ground. This is amazing progress for a kid who just 2 months ago didn't want anything to do with other kids. He warms up to strangers so much more quickly now - he sits in the therapists' laps and gives them hugs. He never used to give hugs to anyone except me and Chris! And most amazing of all, last week a friend of mine from high school, her husband, and their 7 children spent the night here on their way through Nashville. I thought J would freak out at the sight of so many new people, especially since they arrived after he went to bed, so he woke up the next morning to a house FULL of people. But he did great! He spent about a minute looking around and assessing the situation, then he jumped right in the middle of those kids and played along. He even let them hug him and he gave hugs in return - no crying, no screaming, no repetitive, self-soothing behaviors. Totally amazing!
So we are very happy with his progress and encouraged by how quickly he's picking things up. But it hasn't all been rosy these past few weeks. There is always an adjustment period with a new school, and J is definitely struggling to adjust. When he's actually at school, he does great. When he comes home, he melts down. His school is only 3 hours every Monday through Thursday morning, but they are 3 very intense hours. So I know he's tired, but I think his brain is also a little bit on overload right now. There is so much new information and new input for him to process, and he has a hard time settling down and resting. The first couple weeks he didn't nap much at all, but he would stay in his bed for 3 hours just talking to himself and chattering away. And he was waking up every night screaming inconsolably. Nothing we did would calm him down. He's slowly doing better - some days he falls asleep during nap time, other times he just lies in his bed and chatters. Most nights he sleeps well, but some nights he still wakes up crying. And during the day he is having more tantrums and meltdowns than usual. Today when we came home from school he cried for over an hour straight. Part of the time he was lying on the floor moaning, the rest of the time he was screaming and kicking me away. Eventually he was able to calm down, but it's been hard to watch him struggle so much to settle his brain down. And of course it's exhausting for his 8-months pregnant mama! But he is beginning to settle in to the routine and we will continue to be as patient as we can to help him through this transition. We're glad his little brain is soaking up so many new skills and sensory input, but it will take a while for him to be able to comfortably process it all.
Tomorrow J has his re-evaluation at Vanderbilt with the developmental psychologist. We are very anxious to hear what the doctor has to say about his progress. Of course we're hoping that he still will not meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis, and we're optimistic that this could be a real possibility. That's what we're praying for! I'll update as soon as we hear from the doctor...
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