Turning Two and an Ultimatum

Nobody ever wants to admit that there might be something less-than-normal going on with their child. No one. Sometimes it's undeniable, other times it's more comforting to listen to those voices who poo-poo the concerns spoken in quiet voices of frustration. G's quirks and struggles became a major source of tension between my husband and I, causing a rift and marital struggles only he and I truly know. Suffice it to say that when I can attest to the statistics of couples with special needs kids having a higher rate of divorce because of the stress. I can totally see how that's true. My teacher mind was always screaming at me over G's lack of verbal communication, his fits, his inability to eat or even chew most foods, his night terrors, his self-injurious behaviors, his anxiety, night terrors, and inability to even make eye contact with a stranger. My husband was working overnights so he worked all night and slept all day, leaving me essentially a single mom of a preschooler, an intensely high-needs toddler, and a newborn. He had voices around him telling him G was just a boy, just needed some discipline, would just grow out of it, etc, and his own head refusing to admit that his son, his only son, his name-sake, his pride and joy could be anything other than 100% "normal." Any time I broached the subject he immediately grew defensive and angry, claiming I wanted something to be wrong with my child. His words were obviously false and very hurtful, but I couldn't let it go. I finally got him to agree that if he wasn't speaking by the time he turned two we would call Early Intervention to have him evaluated for his speech delay.
The day came that G turned two-years-old and we didn't call. As was the usual, we'd set an ultimatum and he'd juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust squeak close to the bar we'd set so we'd hold off. In this instance, he expanded his vocabulary from "Ma" and "Da" to include "Ch-" for 'cheese,' "Beh-" for 'bread,' "Psssss" for 'please,' and a weird "-nk" clicking sound in the back of his throat for 'thanks.' So October passed and so did November. Between our little one born in September and G I got little sleep at night, no naps during the day, and when December rolled around I was empty. I had nothing left to give. I fell into a very dark, depressed state. I felt horrible. I thought I was an awful mother, a terrible wife, and a miserable person altogether. One night was particularly terrible for G's night terrors, the baby was breastfeeding almost non-stop because of her 12-week growth-spurt, and my husband was, of course, at work. As G was screaming for the third hour I was in tears and hysterical. I grabbed his little shoulders and screamed in his face, "WHAT DO I DO? I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! DO YOU HEAR ME? WAKE UP! I CAN'T DO IT ANYMORE!" He was, of course, sound asleep despite his night terror and seemed unphased by my outburst, but I collapsed beside his bed sobbing in horror at what I'd just done.
When we all got up for the day that morning, I immediately called my friend Danielle. She was my one local friend, and she just happened to have two kids with SPD, one of which was also autistic. I had met her two years prior on an international cloth diapering forum online and we had often discussed the similarities between her sensory/autistic kid/s and my son. When my husband just happened to get a job offer across the state and we moved twenty minutes from her house, we quickly formed a close friendship and started having our very own "sensory playdates" where our kids who might be looked down on for their behavior elsewhere were free to play together in their own way with understanding parents and siblings. She was put in my life for a reason and by a Higher Power. Truly, she's been my sanity more than once.
So back to that phone call. She said in her usual upbeat voice, "Hi! How are you?" I melted into tears, described my night and told her I couldn't do it anymore. I asked her about Early Intervention in our county and how I could reach them. She answered every question I had, gave me so much comfort and advice. When my husband came home from work I simply told him I needed him to watch the kids before he went to bed because I was calling EI right that moment and needed quiet. He just nodded okay. I think that was a turning point in our lives.

Sound and Movement

Once the binky came into his life, G was a new baby. I think we should have bought stock in Gerber, though, because we bought so many of the NUK pacifiers we could have paid the CEO's salary ourselves. We never wanted to be without one because of how much it soothed our little man, and because they went EVERYWHERE with us, we were always losing them.

   I was often told I needed to take his pacifier away so he would start talking, but I didn't care. He made enough noise in the first five months of his life that I was okay with a minor speech delay(if indeed the pacifier would cause that) if it meant a happier boy and more peaceful home.
   At about 9 months, G decided he could break away from Mama every now and then, and he wanted to move. He, of course, would not be doing it in the conventional style. Instead he chose his own style of Army crawl. He'd stretch his arms out in front of him, dig his fingers into the carpet and pull himself forward with his legs swimming out to the sides and only the tips of his toes helping to propel himself forward. As a former nanny I had worked with a child with significant gross motor delays and did her occupational therapy work with her daily to help her learn to crawl(at 18 months), so I tried a bit of that on my G. He would have NONE of it. He did it his own way and anyone who tried to intervene would get screamed at through clenched teeth gripping his binky, or screamed at and bit if his binky was absent. As always, my boy did it his way and his way only.

The first of many big boo-boos by clumsiness

   About the time he turned 11 months old, my boy stood one day and walked. He did it with such confidence you'd have thought he'd been walking around his crib for months while everyone else slept. He wasn't particularly graceful, but what new walker is? He had this graceful way about his steps, though, always seeming to be tipping forward with most of his weight on the balls of his feet and his tippy-toes. This fancy style of ballet-walking, however, meant A LOT of boo-boos. He was forever losing his balance and falling head-long into SOMETHING. One particular evening I had the night off and was doing some cleaning in the kitchen while my husband was working on homework in the living room when we heard a blood-curdling scream come from our bedroom. We both sprinted to the sound and found our little guy kneeling at the end of our bed with blood pouring from his mouth. A wet washcloth helped us briefly see inside his mouth and found that his two front teeth on the right side were pushed in and twisted, and a gouge of flesh had been taken from between the two. At that time our apartment was across the street from the hospital so I put the washcloth on G's chin, grabbed my wallet with the insurance cards inside into my husband's pocket and he ran out the door with the screaming baby. Our daughter and I quickly packed a diaper bag and shortly followed in the car. From what we could tell it seemed he'd walked into our bedroom and done one of his famous trip-and-face-plants into our bed frame mouth-first. Several hours, and a melted ice pop in the emergency department later, the doctors decided that stitches would probably be far more traumatizing than helpful, and his incessant binky-sucking habit would keep the saliva flowing and his wound clean.

Enjoying a hike from his tight and secure wrap

   Aside from crying and laughing, however, my boy never said much. He didn't coo or babble. As long as he was happy he just seemed content to sit back and watch with his enormous brown eyes everything and everyone around him, rarely interacting with any of it. Wore him on my back in some type of baby carrier all the time because he hated strangers. ANYONE unfamiliar approaching him would get what we came to call his 'stranger alarm'- a loud "EEEH!" that sounded much like a buzzer. If they stranger did not heed his sound and step back(and they often did not), he would erupt into screams of terror. As he grew older all it took was eye contact from a stranger across the room, across the produce display at the store, etc, and he would begin to scream. He just seemed to have this enormous bubble that no one dare enter or else.
   About this time(11 months old) G started some behaviors that were not necessarily odd, but the frequency with which he did them was frightening. One of his favorites was to bash his head against the nearest hard surface when he was in any way upset. We would cringe as he would have his fingers pushed away from the oven door and he would collapse in screams and begin repeatedly bashing his head on the ceramic tile floor. Other times he'd seek out the hardest surface, appliance or nearest wall to smash his head against at the slightest upset. Surely it had to hurt. Surely he wouldn't be spared serious damage simply because he was barely a year old and it was self-inflicted. Once again we received the same message from everyone, doctors included: It's normal. He's a boy so he's more aggressive in his tantrums.