Brooke at Birthday Party - March 22, 2010

On Monday night we went to a family birthday party. When we arrived, Brooke was playing with some balloons. She still does not respond well when somebody calls her name or points for her to look at something. As soon as she saw me looking in the front door window, here she comes. She wants picked up, and a big hugger is mine. She then turns to the other people in room, starts waving and says "bye". I tell Brooke we're not going bye-bye, but we can go on front porch. She goes outside with me, hops in her stroller, and says "bye" again to people on porch. This is Brookes way of saying Grandpa and I are leaving in the stroller. I tell her we are not going to go bye-bye. She gets out of the stroller, takes me by the finger, and starts pulling me towards the road where our car is parked. I stop her and tell her, "let's go back in the house". Once in the house, she goes to the coat hook, grabs her coat and tries to put it on. It's upside down, but I get the meaning. Coats on grandpa, time to leave. I pick her up, carry her in the room, and tell her "let's watch a video". Off comes her coat, she unzips my jacket and peels it off me, and climbs in my lap to watch the video. What is truly amazing to me, is thru this entire process, not one time did she throw a tantrum. In the the past, that would not be the case.
After supper we go out on the front porch. It's about 60 degress outside. I put my jacket around Brooke, and Grandma, puts her arms in the right spots and zippers it up. Brooke leaves it on, she's comfortable. We go down off the front porch, Brooke has no shoes on, but she wants to go for a walk. Her cousin Mandy walks out front, with Brooke holding 2 of my fingers, walking about 10 feet behind. All was going well until we came to some broken up sidewalk. Brooke starting walking real gingerly and started saying "ouch, ouch, ouch". At the end of the block, she wanted picked up, I carried her back to the house.
The interesting thing about this is that autistic children have a very high tolerance for pain. It is believed that the neuro transmitters in their bodies don't work properly. They don't feel when it's cold outside, don't feel when they have to potty, don't feel when something hurts, like broken sidewalk on their feet. Brooke is starting to feel cold, or she would have peeled my jacket off, and Brooke is starting to feel pain on the bottoms of her feet. Very important signs we are going in the right direction with her.
We went back into the house for birthday cake. I came to find out her Mom was rewarded with Brooke having severe diarrhea in bed a few hours later. Most autistic kids can't tolerate some foods, especially dairy and wheat products.
Then after cake, it was time, according to Brooke, for some fun playing with the balloons. Throw them up in the air, try to catch them. She started saying to me "u catch, u catch". I personally feel that Brooke is getting real close to breaking out and started to speak more and more.
One other positive note, Brookes Aunt Monica told me that Brooke climbed in her lap and wanted a hug. In the past, she said Brooke would climb in her lap and try to bite her.