A Communication Win

 My husband will often reference this saying:  "When you're up to your a** in alligators, it's hard to remember the original intention was to drain the swamp."  

That's pretty much how we live each day. RJC was basically non-verbal until at age 4 1/2 or so she started to say some words. Now I would describe her as "low verbal" for lack of a better description. She does have words but her sentence structure is funky and she often relies on
"scripts" from various videos to try to get a point across. She also will sometimes put words to a special tune or she will use the "Roses are red, Violets are blue" poem as a starter then fills in her own words at the end, because those are ways that seem to help her organize her thoughts. Still, this limits her communication ability significantly so there is often agitation, confusion, miscommunication and general chaos going on around here. Sometimes it's low key but it's always there, lurking in the background.  This creates a sense of unease and we tend to feel like we are always waiting for the "other shoe to drop." The majority of this comes from the fact that our gal really has so much to say in her head but when she tries to express herself she does not have the words. On top of that, her understanding of what we are saying is limited so sometimes, even when we are agreeing with her, she is not aware of it and gets frustrated. When she gets frustrated, she yells which will sometimes escalate into hitting herself (arms and face) or, at her most frustrated, pinching others (usually me). It is heartbreaking. We know she is incredibly smart, but the language barrier is real and severe and constant. 

Every once in a while, she has a really good moment and we have what is very close to a meaningful conversation. That happened this morning.

We love to bake challah (a special type of bread that we make for Shabbos - Sabbath). We usually bake plain challah, but this week I decided to make three loaves instead of two, and experiment by making one with chocolate chips. RJC is not a chocolate fan but both my husband and I are, so I wanted to try it.  

This morning she was looking at the chocolate chip challah but she really wanted a piece of plain challah. This can normally lead to frustration on her part and she'll start to yell while we are trying to figure out what the problem is before it escalates. Instead, our interaction went something like this:

RJC is standing in front of the box that we put our chocolate chip challah in and she is pointing:

RJC:  No chocolate chip challah.

Hubby: I think she wants plain challah.

Me:  RJC, do you want plain challah?

RJC:  Yes, please.

Me (to my husband): I could go downstairs and get one of the plain ones from the freezer. 

Husband: We have a few frozen pieces up here.

Me: (getting the plain challah pieces from the freezer and showing her):  RJC, is this what you want?

RJC:  Yes please.

I give her the plain challah and she puts it in the box with the chocolate chip challah and start to leave the room.

RJC: I need bags please.

Husband to me:  She is pointing to the chocolate chip challah.

Me: (knowing she likes to put challah that is cut into sandwich bags): How many bags do you need?

RJC: Two please.

I hand her the bags and puts the challah pieces in the bags then bag into the box.

RJC:  Look. (Points to the chocolate chip challah): This is for mommy and daddy. (Points to the plain challah):  This is for RJC.

Me:  Great job! I love that you used your words so nicely.

When I sit down, she walks over with the bags of challah - both chocolate chip and plain ones. She hands them to me along with a marker. I know exactly what she wants me to do, as this is part of her OCD routine. 

Me:  What do you want me to do?

RJC:  Names please.

I write "Mom and Dad" on the bags with the chocolate chip challah and RJC on the bags with the plain challah. She holds them up and I know she wants me to take a picture. I do, and she happily puts away the challah.

As I was moving on with my morning, I couldn't stop thinking about this. I realize that I am so relieved that we had an issue that we were able to communicate successfully about - and then I realize what a gift this is and how hard she had to work at it. Well, really, how hard we all had to work at it. We cannot be distracted at all by other things when she is trying to communicate. We literally need to stop what we are doing and pay attention to her and though sometimes is difficult to do, if we have any chance of a successful interaction with RJC, we need to be all in.

The best part of this entire interaction was to see her relax as it went on and she realized that she was getting what she wanted. No voices were raised, there was no yelling, none of us were getting agitated. 

A communication win for sure!