What is normal?  My normal is Phoebe.  She was a happy baby.  She was a sick baby.  She was a delayed baby, but she was normal to me.  She smiled at me when she was supposed to.  She cried when she was hungry. (she still does) She laughed and giggled, and said “dada” and “turf” (dog) when she was supposed to.  What she didn’t do was sit up on time, or crawl, or walk on time.  Eventually, most of these things came…and that was normal.  “She’s big for her age. She’ll do things later than most babies.”  Ok, I took that to be normal, and I went with it.  She had terrible asthma, and breathing treatments, and 1000 ear infections, and tubes, and all that stuff.  Normal stuff.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  At least to me…it didn’t seem that way.

Was it stressful?  Yep.  Was it rewarding?  Yes.  She would shop with me (and nana), and meet friends, and laugh and play with others.  She was not that different.  She was chubby, happy, smiley and funny!  The first noticeable difference was in pre-school.  She wasn’t where she should be.  Ok, sometimes that is normal.  I immediately started getting her the help she needed.  I got her extensive speech therapy, and occupational therapy, and physical therapy.  I did it all.  It was normal.   I did not think that “developmentally delayed” was a label.   It was who, and what she was.  Since then, I have done everything I can to help her.  This is my normal.

Recently, she was in her bed crying.  I went in and asked her what was the matter.  This is not an easy question for her…she can’t really answer, or know most of the time.  She replied…”I have no idea, but I can’t stop!”  I laughed.  I actually laughed.  I sat and looked at my autistic, delayed, PDD-NOS, whatever-you-want-to-call-it daughter and said to her…”yep, you’re a teenager, and that’s normal.”  I walked out of her room knowing that some of this is just normal teenager stuff.

Then I thought… “OH MY GOD! I HAVE A TEENAGER!”  (Is that normal?)

**A few more funny things Phoebe has said lately. (to lighten the mood)

• “mom, I need another American GOO-GOO doll.” (not even sure how she came up with that)
• “I’m just chillaxing”
• I said to her in the car…”you need to calm down.”  She replied…”I AM CALM!!!” (I laughed)
• “Mom, you should really brush your hair before you take him to school.” 🙂 (OMG- am I embarrassing her?)