Another update

I have a wonderful friend named Julia and she has a big giant heart. That is one of the reasons we chose her and her wonderful husband Craig to be Chandler's god parents.

Well today Julia showed up at my house with a gift certificate to a spa and sent me off to get a rub down while she watched my boys. God has given us some wonderful friends.

So Godmommy Julia had some cool stories to tell when I got back. She said that he was almost a different kid from the one she knows. She gave him some chips and he said, "thank you" (Scott was there to verify that one).

She was putting in the Monsters Inc. DVD and could not figure out how to get it to work. He stood behind her repeating, "Go." every 15 seconds or so. When she got it working, she turned and gave him two thumbs up and he flashed a huge smile at her.

And the bestest thing that happened while I was gone. He was watching TV and heard a car door close outside, so he turned to look out the window and said, "Ma". He was looking to see if I was home!!!

Last winter I started to worry that Chandler was autistic, but told myself not to be paranoid and decided that if his speech had not improved by his second birthday, I would start investigating it further. A week before his birthday, Julia was over and very gently brought up her concern that he might need some "extra help with some of the things". I could tell that she was talking around the word "autism" and I thought, "dammit, now someone else suspects it too". So I pretty much knew there that if I put it off dealing with it any longer I was just in huge denial.

Julia's most personal comment to me at the time was that she really wanted to have a relationship with her god son and that he had rarely even looked at her. So today it was really exciting to hear about all the smiles and eye contact and actual words that the two exchanged. It was a real benchmark of how far he has come.