Same Old Lang Syne

I'm not sure what I really want to say today, I just have a few thoughts to share on this, the last day of 2007.

We made it through Christmas pretty well, all things told. Sometimes the mere act of re-arranging the living room to accommodate the Christmas tree can cause Stephen to react negatively - but this year it all went well. We even managed to attend a few family Christmas functions in unfamiliar locations, and, armed with a cheeseburger and fries from McD's, we even enjoyed ourselves to a degree. Stephen lost two baby teeth during the last week, and we found one of them. Who knows where the other one is...unlike a typical child, stuff like that means nothing to our sweet boy.

He slept late on Christmas morning (again, how different is THAT from a typical child?) but this year he really seemed to enjoy seeing his presents from Santa. He got into a rhythm of opening a present, examining it carefully, then trotting off to his room to play with that particular thing for a while. Then he'd come back to the tree, smile, and say "Open?" That was really a lot of fun, especially since some years he has gotten overwhelmed by all the STUFF and freaked out a bit - and therefore none of us really enjoyed the happy but frenetic moments of Christmas morning.

We took a short car trip with my parents a couple of days ago - my dad had located this ginormous hunting and fishing...PLACE. It is the largest building filled with fishing rods, camping gear, boats, etc. that you can imagine - even has its own restaurant and waterfalls surrounded by all manner of stuffed bears and raccoons and wild hogs (oh my). Anyway, we're nothing if not adventurous, and so we agreed to pile up in my dad's "grandpa Buick" and set off for BASS PRO WORLD. Stephen usually does pretty well on long car rides, but he got a bit confused when we met my parents and transferred ourselves and our stuff into their car. He settled down after a few rounds of "Winnie the Pooh," and we made the trip without too much more difficulty. We had planned to eat lunch in the restaurant there, and so while the rest of the family got a table, I took Stephen to the McD's located conveniently down the street and picked up his lunch. We got back and had a nice meal together. Let's all collectively breathe a sigh of relief.

So, after exploring and playing on the boats for a while (which Stephen loved) we piled back in the car and set off for home. About halfway through our 45 minute trip, Stephen decided he was pretty much done with the whole thing, and got progressively more cranky. We got to our car and got him loaded in, and I began to worry that he was going to think we were going to my parents' house instead of driving 25 more minutes to get home. The closer we got to home, the more my suspicions proved to be right. We arrived at home and spent the next 30 minutes dealing with a pretty full-fledged tantrum - he was tired, confused, and angry.

You see, even though I had spent most of the time in the car carefully saying, "Stephen, we're going home, okay? You can watch your videos (he had carried 5 video tapes in the car, holding them in his little hands constantly) when we get HOME," he just didn't GET it. Most days he really does understand, but this time, he was so set on Mamaw and Papa's house that he wouldn't let himself transition in his mind to accept that we were in fact going home.

It breaks my heart that seemingly simple things can cause him (and us) such grief. Yes, of course, he settles down eventually...but those moments of tears and frustration can be so severe in intensity that by the time they're over, all I want to do is dissolve into a puddle. Lately, often when in the middle of a tantrum such as this, Stephen will want us to use our hands to put pressure on his head, his temples, his chin, even his eyes...through tears he'll say "Push...PUSH." And so we try to gently but firmly press where he indicates - I remember therapists telling me in the early days that kids with autism often like what she referred to as "deep pressure." But why? Is he in pain? Sometimes it seems so, and my heart is crushed when I think of him, locked inside himself in so many ways, hurting and not able to tell me about it.

Often, when my frustration and anger starts to build, a vision of Stephen will appear on the screen of my mind - maybe he's laughing his belly laugh with a smile so wide it covers his whole face; maybe he's dancing around the living room as the embodiment of joy; or maybe I see him as he was after our recent trip to the grocery store: holding in his baby-small hands a little box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts (a favorite treat) as he walks beside his daddy toward our house, smiling with such innocence, happy to have this little box in his hands. And very often, my frustrations give way to tears - my heart swelling with unconditional love then bursting with the pain that this damned disease is so good at bringing about. This precious almost-eight-year-old and his box of doughnuts - he deserves so much more.

I recently read about some new research - scientists have "cured" mice of Fragile X and autistic behaviors. I have to delve into this more, and maybe I'll write about that later. The main question, of course, is "can autism be cured?" - and I am terrified to wish that it really can be, because I'm so scared that it can't. I've alluded several times to all the things we've tried, and I really am going to chronicle all that sometime. Anyway, maybe this new research holds the key, I don't know.

I hope with every fiber of my being that 2008 holds good things for us - new opportunities, new accomplishments, new friendships...and a cure? I'll allow myself to tentatively hope, to try to reach past the stuff that bogs me down.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another auld lang syne...

Happy New Year.