Progress?

The past two weeks have been extremely difficult.  I still can't read that last entry without tearing up a little bit.  I don't know how parents of autistic children can move on and get past the initial shock.   I thought it would feel better by now.  Doesn't time heal all wounds?  That's what I've always been told.

Jim and I have been working consistently with Benny every single day.  We aren't trained professionals so I'm just doing what feels natural.  Am I doing it right?  I don't know...

I try and play games with him.  We have an elephant game that blows little plastic balls out of the elephant's trunk.  Benny seems to enjoy it.  He chases the balls around the living room and makes attempts to put the balls back down the chute so the elephant can shoot them back up.  It's very cute to watch.  He gets distracted easily but I try to get him back on track.  I've been taking two stacking cups and if I do it first and give the two separate pieces to him he will copy me and try to do what I'm doing.  He rarely did that before.

I am still struggling with trying to get him to do imaginative play.  He has absolutely no interest and instead prefers to fixate on small "pieces" of toys rather than playing with the toy as a whole.  Something we need to work on more, I guess...

There's been amazing progress in his interaction with his older sister.  It would break my heart every day to watch Layla try and try to interact with her brother and all he would do is ignore her completely...or, if she had a toy he wanted, try to bite her.  She was acting out and throwing tantrums probably because she was frustrated and felt Benny didn't like her.  I don't know.   All I do know is that it would make me so sad when she was sad.

The past two nights they've been playing together around the house.  They have this made up game of chase basically.  She'll run after him with her arms out and he'll run into the corner and just laugh and laugh.  Then he'll lunge after her and she'll run away screaming and laughing.  This goes on for a good five minutes.  If you had ever seen them together you'd know that is amazing progress.

I ran to try to videotape their first time really playing together and managed to get the last few minutes of it. 

It'll get better, right?  He will get better?  I just can't stand not knowing.  Will my beautiful baby ever speak?  I just want to hear his voice.  That's what I pray for and beg God for every day.  Just let me hear you say, "Mama."  Heck, even "ga ga" or "ba ba" would be suffice for now!