Denial

I think this whole time I was in total denial of the whole thing. I thought it was crazy that they could diagnose a 2 year old with autism. How could they tell the difference between goofy things that normal 2 year olds do and things that would be signs of having autism. To me they all seems pretty similar. I never denied the fact that Tallie had a language delay, but I truly believed that was all it was. Up until I started taking Tallie to her TAP class and sat with other moms and talked about things their kids do that were the same kinds of things that Tallie does. I started reflecting a lot about how could I have missed all these signs. Shouldn't I as her mother have been the first one to have concerns about her, not the last one. I guess the only conclusion that I came to was that being around Tallie all the time, her little goofy things she did just became "normal" to me. Or it was just her personality and I think I made excuses for everything.

Most of the things she did that ended up being signs of autism were the things that I thought were so cute that she did. One thing in particular is that she always likes to have 2 of the same thing in each hand. A lot of the time it was little people or baby dolls. She would hold one in each hand and act like they were talking to each other and have them give each other kisses. I found out later that it's a way of making her feel safe in her environment, holding something in each hand. This can actually prevent her from learning how to play with toys appropriately. If she always has something in each hand, it's hard to pretend how to just take care of one baby doll. To feed it, to rock it and take it for a ride in a stroller. Things that she never does.

There were so many things that were pointed out to me that she does that are signs of autism that I finally realized that this was it. She really was autistic and I as her mother needed to snap out of denying it and start facing reality, making sure I was doing everything I could to help her overcome some of the hurdles she was facing.