July 22, 2003

Milo is 4 years and 5 months

I've been just awful about updating Milo's journal (and page!).  I'll try to remember what I can about the last few months - it's been busy as usual!

• When Milo's excited, he says "I'm so exciting!"

• He's inexplicably drawn to Celine Dion.  This causes my husband, the punk, serious distress.  I guess Curtis must have thought that I was going to play Screeching Weasel in the car for Milo because that's what he would do if he was carting him all over creation.  Alas.  Anyway, since Milo asks for Celine Dion every time we get in the car, when Curtis is with us, he grumbles, and finally I said, "Honey, we both listened to embarrassing music when we were kids and we both grew up to like more sophisticated music, so don't worry, he'll graduate to more sophisticated music someday." and Curtis said "Like what?  Barbra Streisand???"  It was pretty hilarious.

• He still loves Trisha the puppy

• He's grown like a weed this summer!  He's grown more than an inch since his fourth birthday (we mark his height on his bedroom wall).  It's been hot all summer, but when we visited family in Buffalo last week, it was cool and I put a pair of pants on him (not shorts) that fit him fine back in the spring, and were now comically short on him

• Milo was diagnosed with Autism a few months ago.  The TEACCH center, here in Chapel Hill NC has a one year waiting list, so last year, when Milo's communication was especially lacking, we put Milo on the waiting list for an evaluation.  Well, in the last year, he's made so many strides, that we were very uncertain what the evaluation would show up.  Finally, at the evaluation, the doctor said that Milo does have a very mild degree of Autism.  My shrink is always telling me to rate my problems on a scale of 1-10, so I asked this doctor to rate Milo's Autism, and he said "Maybe a 2."  So, it's something to take into consideration, but even since the diagnosis, I've noticed that Milo is better about answering questions appropriately, and using his imagination more.  He's still not nearly as spontaneous as almost every other child we know, but as I've said before, I just don't worry about Milo's future so much the way I used to.  I think he'll have some weird hurdles to jump, but I expect that as he gets older, the gap between him and his peers will continue to close.  He's already come so amazingly far in just the past couple of years.

9/20/03

Just a fun little story:  We were driving down the road and Milo exclaimed "I'm thirsty!" 

Me:  "Thirsty?!"

Milo:  "Yeah, I want some milk."

Me:  "Okay."

(A few minutes pass, we're singing along with the radio probably)

Milo:  "I'm mad!"

Me:  "Oh no!  Should I give you a little extra space when we get home?"

Milo:  "Yeah, and some milk!"