ASD and a new journey begins

For the second time since starting this blog I debated the writing of a post. But again after much thought I have decided yes. Writing about this is important because the blog is "Life with our little water buffalo" and this will be a large part of that life.

Those close to our little family have known that we have continued to struggle with aspects of Van's behaviour. After months had passed by we could no longer comfortably state that they were adoption related and would dissipate with time. So in January we decided to follow up on a referral made for us a year previous and took him in to be assessed by a child psychologist. After two months of assessing the diagnosis was made just over a week ago. Our little man has suspected high functioning autism spectrum disorder. Wow. I can't say it came as a shock as we had been doing our own periodic research of his "quirks" shall we say and this was certainly something that fit. We were not upset, actually just relieved. Relieved to know that our gut feelings had been correct, relieved to now have something to work with and work towards.

We are now entering another phase and beginning another journey with little man. A new community awaits. He is a special little guy that's for sure. He will be a part of three communities now: Vietnamese adoption community; Korean adoption community; and the autism community. We have some work ahead of of us including moving him to a new daycare. This will be a sad move because his home daycare provider is lovely and she adores Van and he her. But he needs a more structured environment. He is also extremely intelligent and needs to have stimulation and peers. Mind you the stimulation needs to be very specific.

There are so many things that we need to learn. I need to constantly be aware of his needs and moods (I am pretty much anyway due to instinctive parenting thus far). For instance I need to recognize that when he is continuously running around the table in the back yard it is not because he finds it fun but because he is stuck in a misfiring circuit that I need to help him out of. That when he's pointing at nothing and asking loudly "what's that" over and over that he needs me to rest my hand gently on his shoulder and tell him to relax (more circuit interruption). Or that I need to let him state certain things at certain times of the day, every day if doing so is comforting to him. Or that I have to accept that I will never be able to sit on the floor with him and play because he doesn't like that and it makes him agitated. On the other hand he is happy...just such a happy little guy when he is able to relax. Always ready with a smile that would melt your heart. When he asks for his hugs and kisses I do not care in the least if it is part of his routine. I know that he needs them when I feel his body relax against mine. He is such a special little guy and I know it's going to be a long sometimes tough journey but I wouldn't know what to do without him....I just wouldn't.....so the journey is a necessary part of being the ones given the special job of being his parents.

So this blog will be taking yet another little twist. It will now be about Vietnamese adoption, Korean adoption and raising a child with autism.

I will add a few pictures as soon as they've been uploaded.