Back to square one

I was having quite a day today - actually it's been quite a week. After bursting into tears at the end of a not so emotionally charged episode of Scrubs (two episodes actually), I called my sister to come over with her cigarettes. I know that if I actually bought a pack it would really be the end of this quit attempt. So the needle countdown has been reset and I have to start my nicotine detox all over again.

I'm not sure what is going on with Michael right now. He's been stimming a lot and he's back to leading/pushing us when he wants something. I was talking about it with his speech therapist the other day and we think he may have had some sort of developmental leap and his functional vocabulary just isn't big enough to cope with it. I admit that I brought this up with both of his therapists for some feedback (read:confirmation) on the autism dx and got it. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. It's so easy to forget sometimes, and then there are the times it smacks you in the face. We went to storytime last week at John's library. It was the first time that I just sat down and let him do his own thing unless he was trying to take food from someone. Usually I drive myself a little crazy at these types of events, following him around the room, vainly trying to get him to sit quietly on the carpet square like all of the other children. Why oh why can't there be at least one other seemingly hyper kid there instead of all of the stepford children sittly quietly staring at John with rapt attention? That image really is pushing it, but it's hard to see them sitting nicely while my child hops around the room, and I do mean that he litterally hopped around the room following the same path for most of story time. This was actually a vast improvement over past story times where we have had to leave the room several times because he was so overstimulated. Some of his behavior isn't too far outside the norm for a two and half year-old, but the problem is that he looks like he's four so I get the looks from other parents wondering why I am not controlling my child (and I admit that if I didn't know what I knew and Michael was like their child I be right there with them).

There are times when I am so happy about the progress that he's made that it's easy to overlook the little quirks, that the developmental ped was too conservative in her scoring on the ADOS test and she was mistaken. Then I have a day where everytime he's not actively engaged with me he's running in a circle in the middle of the living room or walking his circuit around the room, touching the same things everytime he passes them. It's just been hard this week because it feels like everything is so glaring, but enough whining about my lot in life.

On a knitting front, the first of the Super-Mecha socks are almost finished (I've been a bit obsessive, can you tell?). I did the heel this morning and have about 5 more lace repeats until I can start the cuff ribbing. I'll post pics tomorrow.

'night all...