I wish I could just explain to people.

Poor Michael. He had such a hard time today. We drove to Ellensburg to visit with James' brother and his family for their baby blessing. This meant us going to a different church than Michael is used to. We normally sit on the left hand near the back, but his brother's family had saved the very back row. It took about 5 mins just to coax him to come in the door. He finally decided it was okay to go in the door and he started toward where we normally sit in our chapel. When he realized that is not where we were all going to sit, he freaked out and ran out of the room crying. I had to go calm him down AGAIN and try to get him to come in the room. I finally got him to come back in the room and we sat down in the area we normally do at our church. He was a little nervous and still making a little bit of a scene. But things were calming down enough that I thought we'd be okay. Then came time for James to go help with the baby blessing. Michael wasn't sure what was going on and he started to scream. So I had to carry him out of the room and missed the entire blessing while he screamed in my ear. I held him in a hug and squeezed with deep pressure, telling him it was okay. Toward the end of the blessing he was calmed down enough that I stood with him in the doorway. He saw a lady standing in the doorway with her eyes shut and arms folded for the blessing. He said to me "Mama look she's sleeping! Oh no! She won't wake up!!" He was actually really upset by this and I kept telling him "No she is not sleeping she will open her eyes in a minute."

When the blessing was over and James came back, we tried to get him to do some activities like read a book or have some goldfish crackers. He started to scream at the top of his lungs so James had to take him out. They walked around the parking lot for the rest of the hour.

I felt like all eyes were on me like "Who is this lady and why can't she keep her kid in line?" "Why is she just letting him sit on the floor like that?" Nobody else had kids that were screaming and freaking out. 

Then we went to his brother's house for an afternoon get together and brunch. None of them know what is going on with Michael except my mother in-law and James. Really though, at this time only my mother in-law is paying much attention to it. Even she isn't sure about the idea of autism in him. Anyway, I hated having to sit there and explain to everyone "Don't ask him direct questions or he will get upset!"or this or that. I have so many rules and things that I do to keep the meltdowns and behavior to a minimum. But others don't know that. They just try to interact with him like they would any NT child and they just don't understand why he doesn't respond like other children do. My father in-law even said tonight that Michael was going to give him a complex because he screams at him all the time when he tries to talk to him. I said to him like I've said 100 times - HE DOES THIS TO EVERYONE!