Autism, learning more everyday

I think that when you are parent of a child with a diagnosis, whatever it may be, you tend to try and learn more and more about it. In that quest for knowledge, you almost always end up finding out more about yourself and the others around you rather than the affliction itself...it leads to a wonderful road of discovery and eventually, if you are receptive to it, healing. So far on this path I have discovered that I am a little bit of a control freak, not like "Mommy Dearest" control freak or anything, so don't go calling CPS...but I do tend to like things a certain way...I am learning to let go. and let me tell you, it feels good, like I am on vacation and don't have to worry about cleaning up, you know what I mean? I am also learning that Trinity is smarter than we gave her credit for, and trust me, we gave her plenty of props! She helps Tristan when he feels overwhelmed, hugs him if he is sad, and always comes to get me if he is in "trouble" and needs rescuing. She really is the epitomy of the term "little mother hen". I am learning that relationships between fathers/daughters and fathers/sons are completely different from the other...no better or worse, just different. I also learned that Tristan is really no different than any other kid...he just has certain little quirks that may already be present in your child, just exaggerated in mine. For instance, this morning, I walked into the pantry to find this:

Now, stacking things and lining them up in of itself is not abnormal at all....but, if left to his own device, he would do it all day. Also, he is starting to show more of a preference in music, he loves it, always has since he was a little babe. I hummed or rocked him to a beat, if I skipped a beat of a song he would know and look at me like, "hey, that is not how it goes". He loves to play the drums and piano, strums the guitar and does it almost rythmically. Now we are seeing that it is more than that. Today, when I was brushing my teeth, he was in the closet playing with a detachable xylophone...I heard from the other room beating on a note and then followed by Tristan singing "AAAAAAAA" then beating on another note followed by Tristan singing "EEEEEEEEE" over and over this happened until I went in to get him. What I saw amazed me. Sitting there on the floor were two keys to the xylophone, the notes 'A' and 'E'.

He is learning to distinguish tones in music and has done so by his own teaching. We first noticed this when he was around 11 months old. I had music on the radio, and he was playing with his little doggy xylophone. When the song would change key, he would pause, listen then play a note...amazingly enough, they were in the same key as the song on the radio. I was floored, got it on video of course, and just couldn't believe that he was able to do this. I am pretty musically inclined, as is my father, so maybe this is just his exaggerated version of our talents? Whatever the case may be, I am enjoying learning more about all of us, and about this little thing that we sometimes forget he even has, called autism.