The 'A' word

There has been a small portion of my brain and heart that has dreaded this moment for a long time. As I picked Andrew up from school, the para-professional who has been working with him mentioned that she attended a workshop yesterday. That workshop was about Asperger's Syndrome. She said, "You know Miss, he fits many of the symptoms." I abruptly nodded my head and said, "I know." I didn't mean to be so rude to her. She has been wonderful with Andrew. Patient and loving, she has worked hard to help Andrew integrate with his class mates.

As the Mayo Clinic site states, all kids have quirks. It evens reassures parents that just because your child displays a couple a symptoms, it doesn't means that your child has Aperger's.

Andrew displays five symptoms in a fairly over-the-top manner.

1. One-sided conversations: This accounts for about 80% of my day. Andrew will get lost in his own obsessive train of thought (i.e. How many years until I am 20? What will my voice sound like when I'm 20?) to the point that he doesn't even hear me asking him to put his boots on. Either I end up raising my voices (which causes an Andrew meltdown) or I have to physically drag him to the boots and force them into his hands. Every fucking morning - this is our routine.

2.Lack of eye contact: Since day one, we have worked on eye contact, as a means of attachment. Adopted children have a tendency to avoid eye contact, so this has been a huge issue in our house. Still, if we ask Andrew to look at us, he'll look at the top of our head, over the shoulder - any place but our eyes.

3. Intense obsession over one or two objects: I would cry almost everyday in the fall because Andrew felt compelled to pick up every leaf, acorn, or pine cone we would see on the sidewalk while walking to school. His constant yanking on my arms gave me a mild case of carpel tunnel. It also took us forever to get to school and garnered him the nickname - Nature Boy.

4.Lack of empathy: He has been getting better here. Just yesterday, he asked me how my back was feeling. There are many times where he doesn't pick up social cues from his classmates. Today, as we were leaving, a little girl gave him a hug and he just stood there until I encouraged him to hug her back.

5. Poor coordination: This has been another major area of concern since day one. For the first two weeks, Andrew's 14 month-old back muscles were so weak he would randomly flop over knock his little head on the ground. He's better now, but his core muscles still show signs of weakness.

Mother's intuition has told me that somewhere along the line, a teacher would express these concerns about Andrew. My husband has tried to allay those concerns by telling me that Andrew is a "young" four. I don't know. I sense that we will enter the testing before the end of the year.