What a crazy day it’s been with Hailey. We’ve had SO much fun!!!

Charlie bought Hailey a new coloring book, so Hailey and I sat at the kitchen table and colored. Okay that’s a lie. I did most of the coloring. Hailey took the crayons and lined them up repeatedly and traded me colors so she could line them up again.

But I did get her to hold a crayon and together we wrote out her name and her numbers! (Ignore the funny zero.. she moved her hand as we wrote haha). “Twooooo….  siiiiix…. niiiiiiiiine…. treeeeee” Haha Okay so she sorta gets it.

Then she helped me put the crayons back in the box when we were done. I love how helpful she is. She always wants to help put stuff away.

We plopped down on the couch and I pulled up Shrek on demand and we watched and played. She watched the whole movie with me, snuggled and sipped her water. Unfortunately, she’s not feeling well (you probably notice from the pictures she looks a bit pale). As her grandfather handed her to me this morning, she sneezed and gobs of green snot spewed from her little nose. “Allergies” he claims. Glad he’s not a doctor. She’s sick again. Okay I get it… children with autism are typically sick more often. I understand she also does suffer from allergies and that together, those play a significant role in her constant state of illness.

But thick, green goo coming out of her nose? That raspy, thick cough she gave this morning (and several times since)? That’s not allergies. That’s an infection – likely viral and it will need to just run its course. And that’s cool… I mean, kids get sick right? But I wish they would stop calling it allergies. Does it irritate me that she’s been constantly sick in their care? Of course… because I don’t want my baby sick. But I understand it happens and she’s around a lot of children when she’s in day care 9 hours a day – every day.

Anyways…

After Shrek, we had some lunch and Sam is over with her 4 children circus so I thought maybe Hailey would like to go play with the girls. She hasn’t seen them in such a long time and she used to have so much fun with them. So I brought her over.

She shared a chair with Heaven (the eldest) while the other girls all had a donut (excluding little Autumn who is barely over 1 year old and looks so hilarious running around on her wobbly little legs). Hailey had a couple of crackers and sat happily, munching. But then all of the girls were given juice boxes. I’m not even sure if Hailey should have had any (I mean.. it’s just Hi-C right and once isn’t gonna kill her?) but luckily (and unfortunately) she didn’t understand the concept of the little straw and that she shouldn’t squeeze the box and so juice flew out all over her little shirt (thank goodness Hi-C is practically clear) and then I decided maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.

I brought over Hailey’s sippy cup and let her drink that instead and sent her off to play with the other girls. Little did I know that I was in for total heartbreak.

I forget how different Hailey is a lot… until I see her paired up against other children her age and younger. Heaven is 6 and a bit rowdy… but the other girls are too now as they are all growing up so fast and leaving Hailey way behind. I remember last year at Thanksgiving when Hailey was a little behind, but it wasn’t so bad. It was hardly even noticeable then.

And can you believe this is my baby a year ago!?

But today… *sigh* Even little Autumn is just a little over 1 year old and she seemed to understand better what was going on than Hailey did. That’s heartwrenching – to watch your daughter and see how badly she’s aching to understand and be with the other children but just doesn’t quite “get it”.

It was so hard to watch as the other girls ran back and forth chasing, laughing and playing with one another. Hailey slowly would tag along, clutching her sippy cup but running off to do her own thing. I don’t know if she even had any fun. And it made me wonder – is this what it’s like when she’s at daycare? Do her teachers see what I see?

We spent more time playing and a little time watching some Noggin. Poor girl was worn out by then, so I put her down for a nap – but not before covering her whole body in little bandaids. Remember a couple of weeks ago, I complained about getting bitten so much from just standing outside for 15 minutes? Well, she got bit too of course and she’s covered in sores and scratches from it. She’s scratched and picked at them until she’s bled. So I put tiny little bandaids on the big sores with some neosporin and put her down for a nap.

She slept until just about time to get ready to go. But we had a great time and I miss her terribly. I felt really connected to her today.