Millie's Smile

Toward the end of June a family friend of ours approached Royce with some concerns about Millie. He was seeing some signs of autism in her behavior, language delays and trouble with social interaction. We called First Steps (Kentucky's Early Intervention program) and had her evaluated. She showed major developmental delays in language and motor skills. They determined she would highly benefit from Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and work with a Developmental Interventionist. The OT zeroed in on her need for help with her sensory system. Both the OT (Emily), the DI (Jennifer) and I believe that Millie has what is called Sensory Integration Dysfunction. Her sensory system has trouble processing sensory input and regulating input. We have been working with First Steps for about 6 weeks now. Eye contact along with meaningful back and forth interaction have been major goals. Today at breakfast I feel like we had a major breakthrough. It was a big moment for me as a mother anyway! I was getting Millie's breakfast ready for her and told her (while she was looking at my face) that I was going to put Strawberry jam on her toast. Her whole face lit up with the most brilliant sunny smile! She seemed to glow with genuine pleasure and to have that sort of response from her is huge! Over the past week she has been looking at my face at meals and responding to the silly games I have been playing. She smiles and laughs with me and just today started to do things to make me laugh (and getting such a kick out of it too!) The bubbly laughter and fun we had was priceless. I started to think about her smile, and thought of an old Bad English song called "When I see you Smile". It made me cry, and it made me think about what being Millie's Mom means to me and about the work we are doing to help her.
Here are the lyrics:

Sometimes I wonder
How I'd ever make it through,
Through this world without having you
I just wouldn't have a clue

'Cause sometimes it seems
Like this world's closing in on me,
And there's no way of breaking free
And then I see you reach for me

Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you, baby
And everything's alright,
everything's alright

When I see you smile
I can face the world, oh oh,
you know I can do anything
When I see you smile
I see a ray of light, oh oh,
I see it shining right through the rain
When I see you smile
Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me

Baby there's nothing in this world
that could ever do
What a touch of your hand can do
It's like nothing that I ever knew

And when the rain is falling
I don't feel it,
'cause you're here with me now
And one look at you baby
Is all I'll ever need,
you're all I'll ever need

Chorus

Sometimes I wanna give up
I wanna give in,
I wanna quit the fight
And then I see you baby
And everything's alright,
everything's alright

So right...