Today was Roo's first dental appointment.
My husband and I have 2 things going for us in this autism packed world in which we live that most others do not, in that our children both sleep well, (mostly) and they let us brush their teeth every day without (much) complaint. Their tolerance levels for it are finite though, especially with Aaron. We have to move fast or the inevitable freakout will happen. According to the dentist though who specializes in special needs children Aaron's teeth looked fantastic. I went in there with him a couple months ago fully expecting him to say they wanted to sedate him and do a full dental exam. He just had to look in there with a mirror while Aaron screamed bloody murder and we were all done. Simple as that!
Roo's appointment this morning was the same way. In and out...literally! She was easier than Aaron which I expected although she still isn't cooperative at all and it's difficult if not impossible to explain to her what you are trying to do. Part of that is her age, part of that is autism.
The hardest part of the appointment was getting there. We live 90 miles from the city where the dentist is. It is all rural highways of nothingness and three days ago it was 70 degrees and my air conditioner in my house was on. Today it is snowing and the temperature is 9. NINE.
The snow sitting all over the highway today was all light and airy so every time a tractor trailer blew past us at a million miles per hour I couldn't see the road for like 30 seconds. That sure was fun.
On any given day Roo...okay...I will inevitably type her name by accident at some point since now the blog is also about her. I gave her a nickname before because the blog originally was only about Aaron (and me and my issues...haha.) I am too scatterbrained to remember to do the Roo thing every time. I have put her real name in a blog post before by accident and had to go back and edit it out. It is pointless to keep trying. Even though Roo really is her nickname around here I still won't be able to be perfect with it so why even try....I use Aaron's real name after all. Her real name is Rachel. We call her Rachel Roo.
So anyway.... On any given day Rachel tries my patience for a good 70% of the time she is awake. She is a complete spaz. I'm not complaining right now, just giving background information for the point of this story. And it's kind of an interesting side by side to Aaron because they are complete opposites as far as autism is concerned. She bangs in to everything on purpose, throws everything she can, (food, loudest things possible, etc.) is defiant in every way possible, when people cry she laughs, she will not eat even though she is starving so feeding her takes hours or she holds food in her mouth for hours, she does every dangerous thing imaginable without blinking an eye and she will not sit and play with anything for longer than a couple minutes and she definitely will not play with us unless it is rowdy play (chasing, swinging,etc.)
People sometimes ask me what to get her for gifts. I don't even know the answer. I don't even know what she really likes. That is how often she plays with stuff. She likes to jump and do things that are dangerous. Maybe for Christmas someone can pay her tuition to stunt man school. There. That's a gift idea.
One of her biggest issues is communication obviously. She's too young for an AAC device and even though she has taught herself all of Aaron's sign language signs she isn't very good at communicating otherwise and it is frustrating for all of us. Especially for her.
I guess a big difference between Aaron and Rachel communication wise is Aaron is very good at communicating what he wants non-verbally because he knows he cannot get it himself. His gross motor skills are not the greatest and he is pretty scared to try and do a lot of things. Rachel is pretty bad at communicating what she wants because in her heart of hearts (I believe) she thinks she can get it herself if we don't understand. So she will use minimal effort to ask for help and when we don't understand she will just try to do it herself. That is sometimes/usually where the danger, chaos, and destruction comes in to play. And even if you offer to help her after she has started the process she wants nothing to do with you because she enjoys danger, chaos and destruction.
That's just a glimpse of her but you get the drift.
Anyway, she's difficult to say the least but she is spectacularly adorable and cute and silly. I have to resist the urge to hug her every second which is hard to do because she is not affectionate at all and has to initiate the affection herself or she'll straight up kick your ass. Everything she does, it doesn't matter about 2 seconds later because she is so f'ing cute. My husband all the time says to me after she does all this terrible stuff, "But look how cute she is!" And you know what? He is right. She still gets in a reasonable amount of trouble, we do have consistent rules around here (we have to or it would be complete chaos) but I find it very hard not to immediately smile when I look at her one second later because she will always be doing something adorable.
When I take her out in public people say it to me too. People stopped us in Sam's Club and Target a bunch of times today because they wanted to say hi to her because she is so cute. I'm not trying to brag, I'm just sayin....with her behavior it's a good thing for her she's so cute. Plus even though her affect is very flat most of the time when she gets in to a silly mood she is really hilarious. She's one of those people where you really appreciate the little moments. I love her so so much.
We had a lot of errands to run today after the dentist and I was (sort of) dreading it because of the cold and because traditionally Rachel isn't cooperative. Aaron has his iPad and can be distracted for a good amount of time with that. Not Rachel. There is nothing to distract her. Plus we were getting close to her nap time. And for the record I don't take them out together. It's one or the other. That is just straight up insanity when it's both of them.
We went to 5 different places today for over 3 hours and Rachel was a perfect angel! She was smiling and happy and looking around, she wasn't fighting to get out of the carts like she usually is (she is not allowed out of the carts at any time...that would be a disaster.) If she tried to grab things and I told her to stop she actually stopped! The only time she got a little squirmy was in Sam's Club but it was because she was getting tired. I did however, have a secret weapon and had a couple squares of that Ghirardelli Peppermint Christmas Bark in my pocket. Thanks to a friend of mine who came with us last week while we got Rachel a vaccination and a flu shot she figured out that Rachel loves that stuff, so I had a couple of those at the ready just in case. It worked like a charm. Sort of like Aaron's magic Halloween Tootsie Rolls (he managed to get through his class trick or treat parade for the very first time because I was constantly feeding him Tootsie Rolls.)
We are of course home now, and while I'm typing this she's throwing sippy cups on our bamboo floor so hard it makes dents in the floor and gives me a heart attack, she's taking the string cheese she's supposed to be eating and smashing it in to the carpet, taking Aaron's Chuggington trains and throwing them around....etc....etc....etc.
It was just a really nice day though. It was freezing and just a day of running errands, but I felt like I got to just spend the day with my little girl, not my little girl with autism.
It has taken two and a half months to get here but the report from Rachel's doctor finally arrived which is the detailed report about her autism diagnosis. It is sitting in front of me right now in a giant envelope. I have been dying to read it for two and a half months. I don't even want to open it today though because I know it will depress me so I will open it tomorrow and just enjoy the rest of the great day Rachel and I had together....while she throws stuff around behind me... ;)
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