Mom knows she is stressed when….

her nails look like this:

I had long beautiful nails for a while now. Nicely manicured and making me feel a tad more elegant than my sorry nerdy goddess mommy self actually is. Today though I found myself biting them all off. Stressed is the term I believe one would use.

My health is stressing me out. Distant family issues as well. Worried about some I care dearly about. All those are rather common things in everyday life. What is not common for me though is fighting with my husband. Believe it or not, we rarely argue and so when I use the word fight I mean it. It was heart breaking.

Over what? Not money, or lying, or anything I think one might guess. It was over our soon to be 5 year old daughter. You see from the get go I have thought that she was different, special, in her own world. She is attached to two things, sucking her fingers and her Daddy. 80% of the day she is non-verbal and when asked to do something by someone not her father she either pretends she can not hear anything, or curls up in the fetal position and sucks on her fingers. When she does speak, or rather try to communicate it is often in animal or infant sounds, grunts and squeeks. She can talk, very well actually. She has an impressive vocabulary she is happy to show on rare occasions even. She thankfully no longer bangs her head on things, but she pulls her own hair out at times. She has the worst tantrums but mostly when the object of her affection (Daddy) is away. She listens better for him. I wish I knew why. We don’t spank, don’t commonly yell, and we try hard to peacefully parent. Yet she is rather violent to the point that unlike any of our other children this past spring she said she wanted me to die, she said said she wanted to kill me, all because I told her no candy at the moment. She talked like this for days and thankfully moved on and it has not come up again. She is such a sweet and bright little girl when she lets people in. That situation though really shocked me. Where did she get it from? TV? Why did she direct such things at me like that? Have I all together failed her? So like years past I asked my husband about getting her tested for being on the spectrum possibly. This is the issue.

My husband thinks she is normal. He says she is like he was when he was younger. In his own world and he didn’t often let others in. He says she is picky about things and choosing people carefully. What does that say about me? Many people who have been around her see there is something different and some ask if we have gotten her tested. My husband doesn’t like it when people question how she is. I think he takes it personally. It has caused him and I issues.

It is hard putting this online but I strive to be open and honest and I can’t think that we are the only families who have gone through this or the only families that ever will. So I am trying to be brave and also trying to be fair to my husband.

So today was the day to take her to the Dr to get the referral again to get her seen about this. We had gotten the referral before but it was a battle to get my husband to follow through so I honestly dropped it as I couldn’t take the topic coming between us. My husband was taking her in and I was staying home to watch our other children. I had printed off a questionar and filled it out and then added notes to the back for the Dr to explain why I would like the eval done. My husband when he saw the list started finding things right away he did not agree with because he has not experienced them. He is in the military, works hard, is not often home, and HE is the exception in her world, the object of her affection and obsession. I tried to explain how he was not being fair to me and how him acting how he was in short was like saying I am the issue and that I am some how not seeing her clearly. I tried to explain, I failed. He got defensive, and I ended up in tears with him taking her to the appointment. He got the referral for the eval , everything else with her health wise looks great.

He came home very sorry to a wife that was at wits end with this battle. I just want to help her. We homeschool and I am the one that has to work with her and when she will not even make eye contact or talk it can be rather hard. I don’t want to fight with him though. In the end, either I get help or she goes to public school sadly as I do not want to fail her simply because I lack the ability to get her to come out of her world. Does this make sense? What will she be like as a teen if we do not get behavioral and social issues addressed now? What will her life be like as an adult if no one can manage to teach her how to deal with the world because no one is willing to see there is an issue.

My husband said he saw what I was talking about at the appointment. She hates loud noises, demands to be carried more often than not still by him. He asked her to talk to the nurses and Dr but she refused. She did open her mouth at least when the Dr asked her too. When told to say “ahhhh” though, she simply wouldn’t. It is more than her just being shy.

So I am stressed. I am worried for her, worried for my husband and I as we figure this out. I bit all my nails off and I didn’t even notice till I was done.

I love this little girls so much. She is such a blessing. No one in the house will sit with me and read as long as she will even. I will not say though that being her mother is easy, and some days it is a bit scary even. I worry for her. I worry that maybe I will not be enough and every good homeschool parent knows that if your in over your head in a subject, call in the experts. I think we need an expert with her. I wish my husband agreed. I don’t know what is going to happen now other than my love says he will make sure she gets an Eval. He admits he is concerned over how they might label her and what they might want to do. Does that mean he does see there are really issues and not just in my head? Or does he just think that our little girl and him are too “special” and the rest of the world doesn’t understand them? Is it ego? -sigh-