November 2, 2007...big red flags

The first 6 months in Cincinnati were rough. Jakob was mobile and getting into everything. He liked to run...just run. Not toward anything and not away from anything...just run.

There were several incidents during that first 6 months that I'll never forget. I had gotten him the cutest little lion costume for Halloween. It was a simple pullover number with a hood that had a mane around the face. I put that on him and he was pissed. He wanted absolutely no part of it. He kept trying to pull it off his head. I took him up the street to a friend's house to show them how cute my kid was and he screamed like nothing I'd ever seen. I think we scared the daylights out of them. We stayed just a couple of minutes and had to take him home. After I got the costume off, he calmed down a little but remained angry for awhile. Ya know how when a little person is really mad and crying, they look right at you to make sure you know that you're the one that's causing all their misery? That wasn't Jakob. He looked everywhere but right at me. It was as if he wasn't looking at anything at all. It was a complete loss of all control. It was scary.

We had enrolled him in Gymboree classes. There were probably about 10 kids in the class all around his age. The other kids loved to run around, climb on things, play with toys and participate in circle time. They took an interest in the other kids and laughed a lot. Jakob was a different story. He was a runner...he just ran back and forth. He could've cared less about anybody or any of the activities. We'd try to get him to hang out in the circle and sing with everybody but he just wanted to run. We'd chase him down and drag him back to the circle. Then he'd get up and run again. The only thing he really enjoyed was the parachute and of course, running all over the place. He never made eye contact with anybody and didn't answer to his name. I don't think he could've picked me out of a crowd. He'd walk up to any woman with blond hair and want to be picked up. That was especially hard on me...furthering my belief that I was such a terrible mom that my kid didn't even know what I looked like and that I obviously wasn't spending enough time with him. Guilt with a capitol "G".

The big one happened in December. This was the day that I couldn't come up with an explanation for why he was doing what he was doing. We had taken him to a wedding in Columbus. He was ok until we got to the church. Before the ceremony began, there were trumpets. Those trumpets startled the daylights out of him and he looked terrified. The screaming began and didn't stop until we got home. We took turns watching him in a hotel room at the reception. Every time we'd try to bring him into the ballroom, the screaming started all over again. The lights, the music, all the people...it was just more than he could take. It was a long day...a very long day and I was feeling what people were thinking. It was a combination of "don't you have any control over your kid" and "there's something not right with that child". A look that I've gotten used to over the years.

A new job, looking for a new house and looking for answers about Jakob consumed every day. I didn't sleep much and I was feeling pretty lost. The pediatrician wasn't any help, telling me that he was fine and that vaccinations were safe.

I would ask people around me what they thought might be going on and they would all say not to worry. Yeah, right. If only I had followed my mother's intuition and trusted in it. But it was too hard to face at the time. The truth was more than I could bare.