It's a new day

I've been listening to people tell me for years to put my experiences with my son to paper. I've also read a lot of blogs by moms raising kids with autism that are...to put it frankly, sugar-coated. There's no sugar coating here! I'll tell you what it's really like - from the days we all spend forever laughing for no reason, to the days I want to lock myself in the bathroom and cry.

Let me back up and give you a little background. I am a 25 year old single mom of 2 boys. My oldest, J, is 8 and the life of the party. Very typical kid...sports, video games, talking back, calling girls gross while giggling...all the "wonderfulness" that comes with raising boys. My 6 year old, CJ, is my special little angel and he's severely autistic. I'm not telling you what Autism is. Google it, it's 2011.

CJ was a different kid from the very start, but what child isn't? He was born in 2004 and minutes after he was born, he tried to climb out of the bassinet. I should have known then he would be special :) There were signs early on that he was dealing with something internally but hindsight is always 20/20.
In 2006, it became apparent that something was going on. He was talking a little, but his speech wasn't developing at the rate it should have been. He played in non-traditional ways. Imagine having a kid who's favorite pastime was pulling out the slats on window blinds and twisting them for hours. He also enjoyed tearing paper (we call him the human shredder), and pressing the on/off button on toys for hours on end.
Autism was everywhere on TV during this time. I was getting calls from friends and family telling me to watch specials that showed a kid that was "flapping/jumping like CJ does."

I was in denial. I'm Nigerian and back home, if something's wrong with your child, it's either your fault or the devil. Which means you either hide them away or take them to all kinds of pastors for deliverance. Besides, my son wasn't autistic! He didn't stare off into space like the kids on TV did. My son gave me kisses and loved physical contact. He didn't find patterns in newspapers, and he sure as heck couldn't play the piano at 2-1/2 (trust me, I tested him). My son was not autistic. Maybe he had a speech impediment. That's it! A speech impediment. I was going to take him to Babies Can't Wait (a program in our area for toddlers with developmental delays) and prove everyone wrong. That nagging feeling wouldn't go away though. Even when his pediatrician at the time reassured me that it was just him developing at his own rate, I couldn't shake that feeling that something was wrong.

4 months and numerous tests later, we had a diagnosis. Autism. It sat so heavily at the bottom of my chest. I cried constantly for a week. People would say things like "He's still the same child you've always loved" or "That means he's probably really smart" and it would just annoy me. This was my baby for crying out loud! Would he ever learn to dress himself? Would he ever tell me he loved me? Would he ever go to college? Find love? His speech was completely gone at this point and replaced with giggles. Truthfully, aside from God, his giggles were probably the only thing that kept me going at that point.

So there we had it. I was 21 with a 3 year old with Autism. What now?