By age 3 1⁄2 Kat was able to sing some songs and self talk. Self talk was this indistinguishable gibberish that she would talk for hours. I am not sure when she started to climb into our bed, but I think it started around 2 years old and lasted for at least a year. She would wake up between 1 and 2 am and pitter-patter from her bedroom to ours and climb in at the top of our heads, plop herself horizontally across our heads and self talk sometimes for a couple of hours. Tom and I got very little sleep during that period so that is probably why we did not deal with the world as well as we could have.
She always enjoyed the feel of my hair on her arms even
her belly. As soon as I would say tickle belly she would lift her shirt up for me to rub her belly with my head. I think at night she probably found my hair soothing and that’s why she climbed in there.
We always went out to eat with the girls. I thought always that if we cannot change Kat, maybe we can change and educate people around us. We never heard of autism before Kat, so I thought that people need to know and learn to understand autism. The more they understand autism, the easier her life will be some day. Those were the idealistic thoughts. When someone has a disabled child in a wheel chair people are more understanding and sympathetic. Our Kat was cute little blondie, ran around without any difficulties, looked absolutely normal except she tantrumed whenever things did not go her way. When I say tantrumed, I mean screamed continuously until she got her way. Well she would not get her way, so she would throw herself on the ground and continue so you had to physically pick her up screaming and kicking and remove her from the place like a restaurant or a store and wait outside until she forgot what she was screaming about or realized she is not getting her way.
We got used to her screaming, but it was not easy to get used to the people stares with disgust, comments like: "That kid needs a decent spanking", or "She has no control over her kid", etc. Those were moments when I wanted to start screaming at them, and sometimes I did. I do remember saying to many people: "My child has autism, what's your problem!". I do remember saying to some: "My daughter is autistic.", but most of them thought I was saying artistic, and were quite confused.
If they only knew what that meant to me. It meant that she might never know the meaning of mother or sister. That we may never know when she is in pain, or has a headache. That we might never know what she likes or does not like. It meant to us that she is in constant danger, she could run out in the middle of the street and get hit by a car. She could separate from us for a minute and someone could take her and she could not tell anyone who she is. It meant that she would put vile things in her mouth, in her nose, that could physically hurt her.
Worst of all she might never know how much we love her.
Danuta - Kat's Mom, March 31, 2007
