Since we started to suspect something was different about our son, I have read a great deal about typical child development. It became apparent that a great deal of his 'quirks' from infancy and toddlerhood were not so much developmental oddities as they were symptoms of autism.
As he is our first child, it did not seem odd to us that at three months he showed distinct preference for anything orange. Orange things would calm him, green things would visibly bother him. Certain sounds that should be soothing would make him scream.
He never particularly liked faces, and it didn't bother me that he never looked in my eyes as he nursed, as my friends babies did. I just figured it was his personality. He never pointed at things, did not indicate that we should show interest, and he absolutely never went through separation anxiety.
We just figured we had a young genius who was emotionally mature and too busy learning.
Oh, first-time-parents-naïveté.
Since Di was born nine months ago, the profoundness of our ignorance (or perhaps denial) has become apparent.
She is an entirely normal baby. Perfectly typical in every way. She has met every milestone within the average ages, she is very social, she has separation anxiety (I must be the only parent ever to be glad for that) and she is profoundly normal. My husband crows about her averageness frequently. I find myself overly concerned with monitoring her development and ensuring she does things 'normally.' If anything varies from typical development I worry it is an early sign of something.
Even with her development being entirely typical to this point, I find myself qualifying things. When my friends ask me what schools I plan to sent my kids to, I find myself saying things like "Well, if her linguistic development is normal I'll send her to..." I even did it at the start of this paragraph; "To this point." As if I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I qualify everything, because I know now from personal experience that your plans can take unexpected directions. We weigh the thought of having another child against the odds of having another autistic child - perhaps one who is more severely affected. Parents who do not have a delayed child do not seem to consider these things the way we do. Planning for a hypothetical profoundly autistic child doesn't even register on their radar of "things to consider when planning future kids."
It is a continual struggle to ensure that while I rejoice in my daughter's normalcy and rapid development, I do not allow that to overcome the joy I feel at Mak's progress. His victories are hard-won and while they are slower coming, they are just as amazing to see.
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