autism, life

The beginning of the beginning

In 1993 our world completely changed. Our first child was born in 1990 and everything was really pretty wonderful. There is a link here that partially describes those years, and also partially describes his early schooling. But we were content, with the usual new fairly young working parents’ problems – we wanted to buy a house, we wanted to get our bills paid off, and set up a nice retirement. Our goals for Chris and our future children were to be well adjusted, happy, healthy, and generous working individuals with creativity, goals, and a love of Christ.

This entry and a few following from my hand-written journal from 1994 shows were our lives deviated from this path:

10-20-94. Chris will be 4 in a month. Colleen will be 5 mos. in 9 days. Chris is doing good at school. He says 47 words. But none at school. He carries his bookbag into school which he wouldn’t do last year. He’s doing better with pitching, tantrums. He waves his hands a lot. But I had some nervous habits when I was little. I rubbed my fingers on my mouth. I love how he snuggles with me with a book, or a shiny bowl. He likes the reflections, and the banging (no-no!). He’s really good on the organ. He draws circles and lines and drew a “C.” And he played “Here’s the Church” finger game today.

Colleen rolled over on or right before her 4 mo. birthday. She rolled from back to front. Now she does it all the time but can’t get back over and gets mad! She’s napping now. She fell asleep on her tummy for the first time. She’s breastfeeding well – no food yet. More and more she’s feeding for just 4x a day. She smiles real wide and giggles and shrieks. She blows raspberries. She likes her walker now for a while. Is entranced with the “Happy Days” radio, weeble, star rattle.

We’re still looking for other employment. Praise God for another miracle – since the last time I wrote and said that Roger quit his night job, right after that he looked in the paper and saw the XX was hiring. He got his old job back at XX! And today I got a lead form Laura that Jim was leaving the office and may need a part-time transcriptionist. I spoke with him and he’s going to let me know. I hope so!

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