Today Clara and I spent 5-6 hours at Kaiser's autism diagnostic center and they concluded she has Level 1 (mild or high functioning) autism without intellectual impairment. When Clara and I walked to the car at the end, I picked her up and held her for a long time. I think she was tired because she just held me back until I was ready to let go. It felt like a very pivotal day and it had me thinking a lot of Deep Thoughts about Clara, what the future holds for her, and what I as her mother can do for her. It had me thinking a lot about how much I love my kids.
Clara stomps around the courtyard during one of our breaks between tests.
I decided not to try to tackle this new issue tonight and instead just enjoy spending time with Clara and Jane. Jack went to Starbucks to study for the NCLEX so it was just the girls and me at home. Most of it was a typical evening where they played in the living room while I tried to do other things. In fact Jane was being a bit more independent than usual, which was nice. Eventually I put her in her high chair and had Clara come sit at the table to finish the last bits of their fried tortillas and enjoy some pineapple. I didn't want to feed them too much pineapple because I worry the acidity will bother their stomachs but they still seemed hungry so I decided to make them some PBJs.
While they were still sitting at the table I went to the kitchen to get the sandwiches. I started whistling and asked Clara if she could whistle. She smiled really big and basically made humming and squealing noises while trying to hold her mouth in a whistling position. Very sweet. I started whistling parts of "This Little Light of Mine" and she sang "I'm gonna let it shine!" back to me. She and Jane were both fascinated. Then I started pretending to march back and forth across the kitchen while whistling it, similar to the light bulb in this video Clara loves:
She and Jane were delighted by the marching. In fact it was hard for me to keep whistling because if I looked at them I kept laughing.
I brought them their sandwiches and started singing the song to them, first very softly and then with increasing volume, and they were just so excited by this progression. I repeated it several times with them squealing and yelling and laughing. I finally tried to videotape it while still singing and it turned out pretty well.
Overall it was actually a really good day. Clara's diagnosis might mean a lot of changes and uncertainty for us, and that's tricky, but I'm glad we are going to have more information and resources and I feel optimistic that we will do really well now that we know how to move forward. And man, I love being a mom.
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