Swimming to the Surface

When you have a child with autism, you truly understand and appreciate the progress that comes with patience, time, and encouragment.  There is nothing taken for granted when it comes to my Sam, and it is a silver lining to the cloud of autism that I get to rejoice over what other moms would consider mundane.  Sam was going to bed the other night and told Bob, "My head hurts; I need some orange medicine". (That's liquid motrin, for those of you not familiar with the slang.)   Yes, he is 11 years old, and yes, he has been able to say each of those words for many years now.  The miracle comes in that he wanted us to know how he felt and wanted us to help him feel better.  And that he took all these individual words and put them together into a statement.  See, a miracle, rising right out of the monotony of yet another bedtime routine.  It used to be that I would only know Sam was sick to his stomach when he threw up, usually in the most inopportune moment and place.  I would wonder if his throat hurt when he was coughing, but couldn't be sure unless I took him to the doctor for a strep test.  I would find a bruise on his leg and wonder when he got it, wishing he could tell me so that I wouldn't worry that it came at the hands of a mean kid on the playground. Having a child with autism requires a lot of detective work.  Little by little, we find Sam emerging from the cloak of autism.  He is finally beginnning to realize that not only does he have emotions, but we do too!  I used to make him look at flashcards of faces displaying sadness, happiness, and anger, teaching him the words that matched the faces.  Over time he began to verbalize his own feelings.  Sadness when his train tracks fell apart; happiness when it was time to leave for our Hilton Head vacation; anger when he had to share his toys at school.  Just recently he began to understand that I have feelings too and that when he has a good day at school, or a great swim lesson, "Mom is happy!".  That is quite a bargaining chip!  Being raised Catholic, I know the wonders a bit of mother guilt can work on a child.  There was a swim lesson a few months ago that turned into nothing more than a liquid tantrum.  Sam wouldn't cooperate with his teacher and ended up in timeout on the bench.  As I sat next to him listening to him cry, I waivered between feeling angry at him for being so obstinate and sad for his inability to cope with something as simple as a thirty minute swim lesson.  I noticed him peeking at me sideways as he cried his crocodile tears.  Then he said "Mom is disappointed".  Miracles...they often appear when I need them most.