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Well... not much at any rate.
But, sometimes?
I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, I do.
Blog fairies, as it were.
And the gods of Autism, who are sometimes merciful.
My last post, When Autistic kids get bored..., was about Jacob, and how I had resigned myself to patience about his morning waking habits; about how after nine long years he STILL waits for us to come to him.
And then?
The day after I posted it, I woke up to Ethan at my bedside, telling me he was going to be up for the day now. When I asked if Jacob was awake too, he said he didn't know.
I asked him to go check, and he shouted back from their bedroom (right around the corner from ours, it's a small apartment) "Yes, he's awake!"
"Well, tell him to get out of bed and come see us." I suggested, hopefully, for probably about the 100th time, knowing it was fruitless, that I would need to abandon my cozy warm bed and go retrieve him shortly.
But, wait... what was that I heard?
The sounds of a 100 pound nine year-old climbing down his bunk-bed ladder?
YES!
"I'm coming to YOU!" Jakey announced, very proudly, as he bounded into my room. I gave him a hug and kiss, directed him to take care of morning bathroom business, told him I'd meet him in the living room in 15 minutes.
And the next morning?
He got out of bed BY HIMSELF while Ethan was still sleeping, and came to me. Still a little hesitant with the newness of it all, still unsure it was the right thing to do. "I'm coming to you, Mommy?" he asked, as he walked into the room..
"Yes!" I said. "Oh, my big boy, I'm so proud of you for getting out of bed by yourself and coming to me without waking Ethan!"
And then he climbed into our bed for a big happy cuddle, and then I took him out to the living room and we started our day.
And, yes, it has happened every morning of vacation, ever since: Jake comes to us, Ethan gets to sleep in. Win!
So you see, it seems there's some magic to writing words like these in my blog: "I have found that change does happen eventually, if glacially. Though much fortitude and patience is required."
Because then? It comes suddenly and immediately.
And the reason I believe it's more than just a fluke? This isn't the first time that this has happened.
Two summers ago, I wrote a post, Cruel to be Kind, about trying to teach Jake to successfully buckle himself into the car during summer vacation. I thought vacation time, with no pressing schedule, was the perfect time for a full court press.
In that post I said this: "And even though he doesn't get it today, still looks at me like a scolded puppy when I make him bumble through, I hope in the future he will look back on these times and know that it was as painful for me as for him."
And then, the next day? I got to write THIS post, No Sweat, about how he did it perfectly, all by himself, without prompting, the very next day!
See, Blogging magic! Write about how a process he's in the middle of learning is going to take forever? And Jake successfully masters the thing we've been working on for months or years... overnight.
It doesn't seem to work with Ethan, though. Because I have written that he will eat vegetables "someday, in the distant future" many a time. And he still treats all things green as if they were poison.
Damn!
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