My Little Trooper!

The past four days have been full, full, full!

On Friday, Caleb and I went back to Farmington Schools (finally...) to meet with the evaluators who assessed Caleb for the Early On program.  If you recall, I did not have a good experience with them the first time (see blog entry Mr. Silly Pants and the Awesome OT).  Well, this time was completely different.  It was like I was meeting with totally different people.

During the meeting, the evaluators explained to me that while they believe that Caleb is ASD (and that Henry Ford will most assuredly find him so at our evaluation on March 5th), he is too young for them to diagnose as such.  Previously I heard them say that Caleb was not autistic and that annoyed the crap out of me; for them to recognize Caleb's autism but classify it as a developmental delay doesn't bother me.  Mostly I am just excited that Caleb is going to get the help he needs!  The most thrilling part for me is that he will have a group session which is with 3 other kids who are at his age and developmental level.  I think Caleb will get a lot out of that!

On a side note, I truly enjoyed talking with the evaluators.  We actually ran over our allotted time because we were talking so much.   Sometimes I forget how nice it is to talk to adults.

Then, later on that day, Caleb and I were playing on the floor.  He would roll around on me and eventually I would roll him onto his back and tickle him.  While he was looking up at me, I made a fishy face, and to my delight, he made the fishy face back at me!

This is a big deal because we are working on getting Caleb to imitate us both physically and verbally.  This is my first real success.  I thought I would see if it was just a fluke, so I repeated the process of rolling him onto his back, tickling him, and making the fishy face.  Again, my super star little boy made the fishy face back at me.  I decided to push my luck one more time, and yet again, Caleb imitated my fishy face. 

Well, at that point, my heart was soaring and my smile was from ear to ear.  I knew I had to share the news!  I think I called every family member and told them about our fishy face super star!  These little wins are so important.  Caleb works so hard everyday, and I do push him sometimes, I admit it.  But to have these successes just goes to show that Caleb's work isn't all for nothing.

I am really so proud of him.

Today he had an amazing day at OT.  He did so well that he is moving on to working with food on Wednesday.

My little trooper.

He is sincerely amazeballs.