My special son

My son was born on 15th november 2009.

He was a healthy baby and born through c-section due to me being very afraid of child birth pains. (Dun judge me, everyone has their own fears)

Baby Zy was a gift and when i first saw him, i told myself that i would give this baby everything in the world. ~  I guess thats how all parents feel when they first saw this beautiful stranger aka baby ~

I made sure everything in the house is cleaned and properly sanitized especially with this additional new member that completes my life with the word "Family". Now that he is here, all our time and attention was just soley on our new baby.

Due to certain circumstances, we moved a couple of times and each and everytime we'll try our best to gve baby zy the best and eventually we settled down in a neighbouring country where my husband was born. Baby Zy was growing up day by day and his facial expressions from just smiling started to become giggles and laughters, even his screams were getting louder when he throws a tantrum! He was the cutest little boy in my eyes.. When he first called me "mama" i was soooo happy, and tears welled up in my eyes! i was so sensitive and easily touched by every little thing my baby did! He was well and happy. However, my baby was very afraid of strangers and he will wail and scream everytime somebody comes over to say hello or make comments about how adorable he is. i thought maybe it was becos he was the only baby at home and he havent been with strangers around him and its normal for him to have fears and anxieties, hence i wasnt worried in any way. On his 1st birthday, we brought him for a haircut and threw him a birthday bash with an elmo cake with lots of sesame street character cupcakes! It was a great birthday and i was a proud mother!!! My son turned 1!!!


All was well and different babies have different characters and personalities so even though baby zy wasnt making too much noise or blabberings i just thought my baby is just a quiet baby thats all. But i made an attempt to check with his PD "why is my baby not talking and walking yet"? Only to get the answer "he's still young, its alright, give him more time :)" Im not a PD, i didnt take medical studies and im defintely not a doctor. I was a first time mother!  A newbie. (So naturally i chose to believe whatever the doctor says cos that is a professonal) A few months passed and at 16 months my baby took his first step!! i cried!!! it was the most beautiful scene.. and i taped it down like all first time mothers, called everyone in my family to tell them my baby just took his first step and announced it on facebook like a crazy woman!!

Then i realised, my baby stopped callng "mama" and he would keep so quiet that i thought its weird. But then again i had friends who's kids are same age as my baby and they too havent started talking and so i thought its not that weird. But then again i checked with his PD and only to get the answer "boys are usually slower than girls, no worries, give him more time." Upon hearing this i decided my son needs more time.

Baby zy loves to watch tv and when im doing my chores, usually i would just switch on his favourite channel and hurry to finish my chores, and usually he gets so engrossed in it and i end up watching it with him. I began learning the songs, the dances and the actions and try to do it with him, he just watches me smile and laughs like "mommy is a clown". I get him flashcards, cut out alphabets from clothes and plastics to create different textures, sing nursery rhymes and dances for him, he was always laughing and happy.

But of cos life isnt all laughter and happiness there are times where i lost my patience with him when he wakes up in the night and refuses to sleep, or when he throws tantrums, scream and cries.. i've even smacked him on his butt becos i feel that there are diapers so at least its not that hurting and of cos i use my hands. (dun judge me im just only human and theres only so much emotions i can control). My baby was growing up day by day and im begining to feel that he is lonely.. maybe he's so quiet becos he is lonely~ and so baby no.2 came along. I was pregnant and to know that theres another baby coming really made me and my husband excited! My baby zy is gonna have a playmate. His very own sister and he's going to be a big brother.

I had to stay in the hospital for 3 days due to my delivery and that was the 1st time my boy had to separate from me. And everyday my husband would bring him to the hospital to visit me. He came the first day really happy to see my face annd was so reluctant to go home when daddy said it was time to go.. i cried... couldnt sleep the whole time thinking of my baby boy, yeah im the one with the separation anxiety not him. Then on the second day, it turned out that my little boy remembered the way to the hospital and ran straight ahead of his daddy toward my room and surprised me!! I knew he was coming but came running into my room first made me so touched! Its like "awe my baby missed me!!!" and i tried my best to hug him but becos i just had a c section done i couldnt carry him so hugging was the best i could do. The whole time he sat on my bed and stayed close to me i know that my son missed me and of cos i missed him too, even without words our communicating ways were known in each other's heart. And again he didnt wanna go back home without me, before he left he grabbed my hand indicating wanting me to go along and i explained to him "mommy has to stay in the hospital and will be home soon alright? i love you so so much" and i cried again.... went thru the night without any sleep. Finally it was time to go home, he was so happy to see me and curious about his new baby sister too! I was so afraid that he might get jealous and thinks that becos of the new baby mommy is not giving her full attention, so i practically didnt let go of him if i had the chance and i continued to shower and feed him talking and telling him the baby is his sister.


A few months later my boy turned 2 and this year , my husband and i decided that we'll bring him out to dinner and a trip to the amusement park and let him have as much fun as possible, and we bought a mickey mouse cake and a study table with alphabets and numbers in magnet form whereby he can stick onto the white board that comes with it. He was still not talking but he understands everythng we told him and taught him, mimics the dances he sees on tv and blabbers baby language. Also his interaction with strangers and other people were getting better. We checked with his PD again, and still got the answer "boys r usually slower than girls , but if u r really worried maybe u can send him to a speech therapist for an evaluation?" At this point, everyone thinks i was crazy, and nobody listened to me when i said something is not right somewhere and everyone agrees that he may just be a slow bloomer, dont pressurize him and he will talk eventually "the who-so-ever's child didnt talk till he was 4, the other didnt talk till he was 7...."etc. And for a moment i thought i really was thinking too much.

Some people then suggested us to send him to a preschool to mix with children his own age so that he would have friends and start talking (even though zy goes to the playgound often but he didnt like playing wth kids his own age, he prefer the bigger children and he would chase after them to play, but he was small and big kids dun play with small kids so..... it all ends up me n daddy playing with him. he tends to ignore his peers). So we found a preschool for him ad deided to send him there since its an international school and such schools have all sorts of events for kids and it'll be fun to have playmates. But things werent what we expected. My boy first went to school happily and everything was new, he was the only child that wasnt crying over the environment and the other crying kids did not affect him at all. After 2 weeks he started crying and refuse to go to school. I pick him up myself everyday and checked with the teacher on his progress only to get the answer "he's very good!! but he's not talking and tends to be by himself but he is improving!". And every morning when we send zy to school,  as soon as we reached the traffic light that leads to the road to the school he starts crying and when i pick him up from school, he cries too a month went by and teachers were saying "he's improving, very good!" etc.. One day as soon as we dropped him off at school, the principal called me on my mobile asking if i could turn back and take zy home becos he wouldnt stop crying. My first thought was "absurd" what did you mean take him home just becos he was crying? What i really wanted to hear was "can u come to the school becos zy is crying, maybe we can sit down and talk about the situation and see what we can do together to solve this problem". Not simply "pls take him home becos he is crying and its affecting the other children." (Just so you know i was still checking with the teacher everyday and all she said was "very good he is improving!!!") So straightaway i went down to his school and took him home let him stay home for a couple of days and brought him to school again, he cried so i decided i will take him out. Maybe he wasnt ready. The principal of that school had the cheek to tell me "maybe he isnt ready yet, brng him back in 2 months time he might be well again!" and i told her straight, "its ok i dont think we'll do that." 

I happened to run into the teacher's aide on the street one day and she told me she was very close to my boy and he depended alot on her, the teacher had no patience with him and left him alone to cry and refuse to do anything so he practically was alone and when he cling on to the teacher's aide, the teacher would send her off to another class telling her she shouldnt be letting him depend on her like that. And they would stand there and gossip saying "this boy got problem, dont talk..etc." When i heard this i was shocked!!! How could they treat my son this way??? so i called their headquarters and complained. They of cos apologized , but whats done cannot be undone... Zy stopped crying cos he doesnt have to go back to that horrible school. And as for me.... once bitten twice shy.. i had doubts abt ever sending him to school!! Then my husband said to me, i will have to let go becos my son is growing up, i cant possibly keep him by my side forever, so we started school hunting again after 3 months.

The new school is great. Better than what we expected! First, they have an all surround online cctv where u can use the internet and see what ur child is doing in school everyday and plus they have parties every month! Whats most important was my baby boy made very good progress and cant wait to go to school everyday! He loves his teacher and she loves him too, even though he still isnt talking yet but his blabbering is more and now he is even trying to sound out alphabets in phonics!!! Also, he's started to mix with his peers and dance in class and his teacher tries to have one on one sessions with hijm just teaching him new words everyday! I am totally impressed with the school and really glad that there are teachers who believes in "teaching with passion".

However, even though my boy has made such a big progress, we find that he doesnt know how to express himself well and he still hasnt really talked yet. This time around i decided to ignore everyone and proceed to bring my child for an autism assessment.