When should I have known?

Over the course of the last year, I have been watching Thumper like a hawk. It is nowhere nearly as blissful and rewarding as the days when I had nothing but time on my hands to play with Bear and watch him grow, with the self-satisfied confidence that I was raising the world's most perfect child. With Thumper it is more of a consistent mild state of panic, constantly comparing each new achievement or lack thereof to his older brother. Thumper crawls just like Bear did, does that mean he is going to be autistic? But look, he is actually figuring out the shape sorter, does that mean he is going to be "OK?" Bear never played cars like that, should I have known then?

'Should I have known then' is actually a big preoccupation of mine. Not so surly dad and I both agreed for a long time that Bear's language and general development seemed to slow down to a virtual standstill somewhere between 2 and 3. Watching Thumper grow, though, I am constantly second guessing myself. I do remember a vague feeling of unease at Bear's second birthday party, but the more I scour my memory, the more I wonder if there were signs of autism even before that. It is an important question, and one that haunts me despite my mother's well-meaning urges not to "beat myself up," because the answer might unlock the riddle. What would make a child who made sustained eye contact on his third day of life, and who many described as the "happiest" and "friendliest" baby they have ever met, suddenly develop autism? If there was an environmental trigger, might I be able to avoid the same heartbreak with Thumper? The problem is, that trigger could be anything from vaccines to the air we breathe to organic pesticides to the floor cleaner I have been using, etc., and more than likely a combination of everything. 

Still, I will continue to rack my brain for clues. I have come up with a series of moments in time that illustrate the denial I was living in, though connecting the moments to a timeline is more difficult. For instance, I can remember wishing at the playground that Bear wouldn't laugh like that for fear that people would think there was something wrong with him. I remember many conversations with NSSD about why Bear wasn't speaking in sentences yet, even though he had an astounding vocabulary of nouns. I usually explained it away with the "children work on one skill at a time" excuse, but couldn't really explain why he didn't seem to be developing any other new skills. I remember telling my mother half jokingly at one point (I think after he ate the car window shade) that we sometimes couldn't really tell if he was a genius or retarded. [Hint: if you ever catch yourself thinking this about your child - GET HELP! (Unless you are the parent of a teenager, in which case it is totally normal.)] I remember being impressed that at such an early age Bear was able to flawlessly pronounce "hippopotamus." Then, one day he could not, which I explained to myself as "well, we haven't talked about hippopotamuses in awhile." Looking back, I think that is the moment when I should have acted. And yet, how seriously would his pediatrician have taken me if I had said to her "I don't know what is wrong, but he used to say hippopotamus and now he doesn't."?

For most of Bear's life, I checked his developmental milestones against those listed in the "What to Expect" books. I also have seen various autism awareness ephemera, listing signs to watch for, and I have to say, even those wouldn't have helped me out. Bear's case was far too subtle. Last week, as I was preparing for Thumper's one year Dr. visit, I found a list of developmental milestones to watch for on the CDC website. They were direct. They were specific. And if I had seen them two years ago, I would have known. I wish that every pediatrician's office would distribute these lists to every parent at the appropriate aged check-ups. Since they don't, in the interest of public service (in case any one ever reads this blog), I am linking to it here.