I got this.

Yesterday was a bit of a break through day. When I look at it, last week was a breakthrough week. On Tuesday she began saying "oh no" when her shoe came off. By Thursday she was saying "Oh no, my shoe!" and by Sunday she said this: "oh no, my shoe come off!" An entire six word sentence. And she did it not once but twice so both Justin and I could hear it. And we did.

No fluke. A real sentence.

Then in the moments after her shoe came off the first time, she did something even more amazing than that. I know...a month ago that sentence would have been unheard of and so would have this:

So Maddy was up during nap time since she had napped earlier in the day. Just Eva and Maddy were up playing and Maelle was in her room napping. After an hour and half into her nap, she started crying. This isn't totally unusual. I'm sure she just lost her Nuk or something (yes, my nearly 27 month old twins still use pacifiers to sleep...shoot me. But Eva used hers to sleep with until she was a month shy of 3...and she's fine.) And I normally just ignore her and she will put herself back to sleep. Only this time....this beautiful time. Maddy heard her. And she became alarmed that her sister was crying in her room. She stopped what she was doing, looked at me, I acknowledged that I heard it too, she walked over to Maelle's door and began to gesture to me that we should go help Maelle. She said "open" when she got to the door (open is a famous word in our house these days) and waited for me to open the door. So, I did. She ran into the room...yelling "HI!" as if to save the day, found Maelle in her toddler bed, ran around to the side of it and noticing that Maelle had her Nuk, she pointed to it and said to me "baby".

Wow.

That series of events, while seemingly normal for any other child, are HUGE for Maddy. HUGE. Like Mount Everest huge. To show how huge this is...let me break it down. Not that I think you are too dumb to figure it out but for my own mind...here it goes.

1. she HEARD maelle cry. Alot of time ASD kids with hearing sensory issues cannot pin point one sound to the next. To them it is a jumbled mess of noise all at the exact same frequency. While you and I might hear a soft baby crying and a loud squeaky toy...she hears them both at the same level. So she had to pick out Maelle's cry from all the other things going on in the house.
2. She stopped what she was doing. Because she hears things the same level - it all becomes a blur that she can easily tune out. But it appears that by our persistence to make her part of our world instead of hers, she could assess that Maelle's crying was something different and she needed to do something.
3. She looked for me. She recognized that I am Mommy and I can help. That when someone is in trouble, Mommy should be told.
4. She went to Maelle's door. She could tell that her sister was not in the same room with her so she followed the noise to the source.
5. She asked to open the door. She vocalized with the actual word that she needed something done for her.
6. She ran in to save the day. By her smiling and saying "HI!", in her mind, would help her sister feel better. She was considering her sister. Something I have rarely, if ever, saw her do.
7. Seeing the nuk, she identified it as a object that a "baby" would have and she saw that her sister was, in a sense, pretending to be a baby.

Huge. I have probably never seen Maddy show any concern for her twin. Yes, as an infant, I could tell that they could pick up on each other's presence when they slept together or were on the same play mat. But as infants, they don't really show much concern for the other. Maelle did start to cry when Maddy did but...heh....Maelle is a bit of a jealous child. Sorry, honey, you are.  And she tends to copy what ever will get her the most attention. I love Maelle, don't get me wrong, it's just the nature of being a child.

So the fact that she did those entire series of events shows me that she is becoming more of our world. She is plugging in to us and out of her autism world. I could cry. If she did nothing else, if she reverted back to her own autism utopia...I know that she was here. We had her. I'm gonna do my best to keep drawing her out and with us. She can do this.

When we made the decision to switch therapists for Speech and I wrote about how horrible making decisions were, I had the underlying theme that I had no idea if I was doing the right thing. I had told Justin and my friend Laurel that it's not like life is a game show where you get this instant response. There are no flashing lights and some fake announcer voice booming into a microphone, "Congratulations, you have made the best choice....Johnny, tell them what they've won!"

It just isn't like that. And maybe in some ways I was asking God for a sign of some sorts. A kind of reassurance that we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. And I think I got it.

There is alot of ideals out there on asking God for signs and reading into things....I'm not going to get into that. I am going to say that I did feel His presence yesterday when she was with me. I did feel a sense of "relax, my child, I got this. Look at her. No...really...LOOK AT HER. Trust Me, I got this."

Even when our news isn't always so great. I feel peace. Today we found out that Maelle will not be able to go to preschool because the teacher had lost her helper. I know she felt really bad about having offered to help and then having to back out of it. I was a little saddened but I understand. I feel for her more than anything. It does kinda bring me back to square one as I thought I had 2 days of childcare taken care of while I did Maddy's therapy but that's ok. It will work out somehow. I don't know how. I have entirely NO clue. But it will.

For a moment I flipped out this morning as I lay in bed protesting that it was Monday morning, worrying about child care when we have the EIBI workshop at the church. Everyone I know who usually babysits for us will be at the training...and it's an entire day. My grandmother offered to watch them at the church but the ENTIRE day? I can't have them there all day long...that just won't work. But then I just stopped. It will work out somehow. It just will. I don't know. I have NO clue. But it will.

So while there a billion unknowns...I know there is one thing I am sure of. He's got this. No matter how it turns out. He's got it.