Meltdowns and Milestones

I know, it's been a long time since I've updated you guys on all the happenings. As of late, the Prince is getting to be of the age of "Look at me!", "Give me attention, I'm cute!", and the ever popular "If yelling at you didn't get my point across, I'll try yelling louder." He's getting to be 2 years old. This is his way.There has been quite a bit that's happened since we've last spoken, Lovelies. So let's cover the basics first:

The Prince had his 2 year check up, and he's growing fabulously! Unfortunately, he is quite a bit behind on most all of his milestones, for various reasons, mostly lack of opportunity, and the chaos that is our lives. We're working with him and will check on his progress in a few months, but it may lead to Early Intervention. That's OK. The doctor isn't really concerned with autism being a factor for him, but does think that it may help in the long run. I can't disagree with that.

We've recently had some progress with the Princess, but not before we hit the biggest rough patch in our journey so far. You see, when I've talked about behaviors before, while the pounding her feet on the floor was bad, I never realized that it could get so much worse. Worse, it did get. Much worse.

We were going into a break at school, we'd just had the Princess' 4th birthday, things were looking great. Sleeping was still up in the air, but on most nights, once she went to sleep, she slept well.  The night of her birthday, I don't believe she slept well. Nor the night after. With each night that sleep was lost, the more angry her mood became, or seemed to be. She was waking in the morning in full on melt down mode, would have brief moments of peace, but they could end so quickly that my head was spinning.

Over the course of the next four days-- A weekend, no less.-- the behaviors that I thought were bad quickly faded, and what replaced them was something I wish I had never seen. My beautiful little girl was hitting herself. Straight slapping herself in the face, if she had toys in her hands they'd be used. She was banging her head into the wall hard enough that she caused 3 separate holes in them. Not only that, but headbutting objects as well. Running from one side of the room to the other to try to get as much velocity as possible.

The King and I were taking turns chasing after her with a pillow to make sure that she couldn't hurt herself. It was exhausting. Each cry, every sound. Always wondering is this round 2, 3, 10? The King scheduled a day off from work so we could take her into her doctor. What we needed, we had no idea. What we wanted was help. That's what we got.

It didn't come without it's own adventure. The night before the appointment, the Princess woke at 1am and was up until 6am. I had to be up at 7am to make the appointment-- emergency appointment procedure.-- I was able to get one hour of sleep in. Now, not knowing how to word what I needed to the receptionist was what stood in my way. Upon even saying tantrums, I was cut off and not allowed to complete what I was looking to achieve, especially if I had already spoken to her primary about it. I couldn't be sure exactly what counted as talking about tantrums, and it ended in my yelling through my own tears, "Please! You don't understand! Can I please see anybody else? Please!" When I was told no, that they'd leave a message, I felt defeated.

I couldn't wake my husband to tell him of my failure. That's all I saw it as. Failure. When the King did wake up, and I told him of the situation, he jumped to work. One hour and fifteen minutes later was our appointment. I was assured by the King that his only wish was that I had woken him sooner, that he couldn't blame me.-- I love this man for a reason, but I digress.-- The moment we walked into the exam room, I was overwhelmed with support. Each new person to walk into the room had a new piece of news that I was floored.

The doctor ordered a new prescription for the Princess to help her sleep at night. It was our last resort medicine that also helps with behaviors. It's worked wonders. Now my little lady is waking up happy, sleeping well at night, all night. Even more, she stopped hitting herself. She's more talkative, more affectionate, learning new things. Sure she still has the occasional outburst, but I know that she's not numb that way. And they are outbursts with reasons, she's actually hungry, in need of a diaper, or thirsty.
We also got a referral to a child psychologist. I'm still skeptical of this one, because for everything that I know-- As a layman, of course.-- about therapies such as this would require a patient that is verbal. I am going into it with an open mind, however. You never know what someone who is educated in the field can do, after all.

The referral that I'm most excited for though is a feeding/swallowing evaluation. These people specialize in children with autism, and can cover so much of the things that we are dealing with, that I just feel like that is the place we need to be.

I know with all of these new referrals that our lives will never be slow paced truly again. We're going to have a lot of doctors appointments in our future, but it's worth it. The independence that I am seeing in my Princess these days is nothing short of incredible. I'm still so proud to be her mommy.

I will try to do better to make more time to update you all, my Lovelies. With this new pace we are setting, it takes another period of adjustment. Once we get into the swing of things, I'm sure I'll be up regularly. I know I'll have so much to update you on, and I know I haven't covered everything up until this point either.
So until next time, Lovelies, I hope you all have a Happy Holiday season!