This morning, Emma turned on Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger featuring Christina Aguilera.
It began like this… (By the way, the turquoise thing Emma is holding is her string. It’s a work in progress. Every few days she adds more duct tape to it. Pretty soon she’ll be able to use it as a snowboard.)
and then she did this
Which turned into this
and then this
“I’ve got the moves like Jagger”…
and she did and she was…
It was beautiful.
In it’s purest form – joy.
For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to: Emma’s Hope Book
Emma's Hope Book 
I am sooooo with Emma! See you all soon.
xx Cloud
I thought of you when I was taking these photographs of her! Can’t wait to see you. Arriving tomorrow late afternoon. (I hope!) XXX
The moves like Jagger and the most beautiful smile EVER!!! A great start to the day! :O)
Haven’t commented before on here–although I read almost everyday!
Watching Emma sing and dance (and Nic humm along) and seeing how happy it makes her, is simply amazing. 🙂 Great pictures!
Thank you so much Laura. It really is, she really is!
I know you know that I can’t diagnose or treat plepoe here in the blogosphere. In fact, I’ve taken myself out of pediatric practice because of my illness. Of course I can’t help thinking about medical stuff and having my own private thoughts about it, but my public practice has been shut down for ten years.The main thing is not so much pinning down a DSM diagnosis with kids. It’s paying proper attention to their needs. If you haven’t had him evaluated by a university based multidisciplinary clinic, do so. They look at things like spacial integration, balance and coordination, visual fields, audiology, all these sensory-motor factors that make such a huge difference in whether a kid feels like they’re really here or not. A kid with sensory-motor integration problems might have screaming fits just because they have sensations that don’t make any sense to them, and it freaks them out. Think of Temple Grandin’s squeeze machine (if you haven’t read Thinking in Pictures, you should). In my university’s program for autistic spectrum kids, they had a brilliant therapist who would catch a kid before he spun out of control and roll him up in a yoga mat type thing. The kid felt safe, enclosed, and his squeeze receptors got squeezed, and he calmed down. Now tell me why these kids don’t like to be hugged, but they love to be rolled up in a rug??? I can’t tell you how many hours I spent bear-hugging my son when he was very young while he raged, screamed, kicked, tried to bite, head-butted, and fought like the devil. When he calmed down I would carry him to his room and set him on his bed, telling him he could come out of his room when he felt human. Then he would tear apart his room, throwing every single thing on the floor. I had a blow-up clown that he could pummel, and he did. Then, after the storm had passed, it would get very quiet in his room. I’d hear the door open. Mama? I’m human now. Can I come out? And I’d go and help him put his room back together, and we’d go do something completely different like make lunch or go for a walk. This happened about three times a week. Now he’s a doctoral student in Medicinal Chemistry. You just have to hang in there with them and try to get them what they need, and never give up being their advocate. And love them. A lot.
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