I feel soooooooooo old. Yes, I'm turning 40 on Saturday, but it feels like 400. I can't remember what it feels like to sleep 60 straight minutes in a row, because the kids, and then both of us, have been sick for a week and a half now. Willow finally went back to school on Friday, and then this morning, Billy got a better-late-than-never start on his school day.

As usual, he found being sick scary, particularly in the middle of the night. Every time he woke up coughing, he would start screaming and run to our room. “I'm so sick!” he would tell us, and then ask, “Can I feel better?”

In fact, despite his fear and illness, he did an awful lot of very good communicating this week. He woke up Wednesday morning by projecting vomiting all over his bed and then repeating the act on me. “Can I have a towel?” he asked each time.

About the third day of his sickness, Dave pointed out, “You know, I haven't heard any echolalia in the last few days.” Echolalia is the repeating of scripts from TV shows and books or even conversations. Usually, Billy still does a lot of that.

When I went in to ask him if he was ready to get up in the morning, instead of giving me a few angry lines from what he calls Math Frogs Go to the Moon he actually asked me, “Can I wait a little while? Can I rest?” I was as shocked as I would have been if he'd suddenly asked me what mortgage rates were down to these days.

Within a few days, though, it was clear that he was saying almost everything in the form of a question. This from a kid who up until a few months ago, never asked questions. Now it was one question after another:

“Mama, can you leave Willow alone?” (His way of asking me to tell Willow to leave HIM alone.)

“Where is our Maglev?” (His way of showing me a video of the French bullet train on the iPad.)

“Mama, can the earth and moon resemble a double planet system?” (His way of telling me, for the 400^th time, that the Earth and moon resemble a double planet system. Thank you, Moon in Your Room CD!)

He would kill at Jeopardy where you have to answer in the form of a question – if the categories were the following: “Willow leaving me alone,” “YouTube videos of Maglevs,” “The phases of the moon,” and “Willow not touching my iPad.”

By the way, I have never understood the point of Jeopardy's little twist of answering in the form of a question. It's just stupid. I love Jeopardy, but counting it against someone if they don't answer in the form of a question is like having a game of super-nerd Mother May I:

"It's true that Yuzuru Hiraga was the Japanese naval architect noted for work on innovative warships such as the cruiser Yubari and Yamato for the Imperial Japanese Navy, but you didn't say, 'WHO is Yuzuru Hiraga.' You lose."

During his bedridden time the past week, he has also been obsessively watching his new Watch Me Learn DVDs, which model social behavior by depicting kids in a variety of settings playing games, eating together, sharing craft supplies, etc.

When he started feeling better he actually walked over to me at my desk and asked, "Mama, what are you doing?"

ME: I'm playing a stupid computer game. (In my defense, I was sick too.)

BILLY: Mama, can I play a stupid computer game too?

ME: Sure!

So I pulled him up in my lap and showed him how to play Word Whomp, which he was so unimpressed with that he then informed me ...

BILLY: OK, now it's time to clean up!

This morning, Billy finally got so bored with all my fussing over him and dosing him with medicines and checking his temperature, that at about 5 a.m., he posed his Final Jeopardy question to me: “Mama, can you go away?”

He was in my bed at the time. And yep, I left it to him.

When Billy sleeps, we all win.

The requirements to get one of these stars has loosened up considerably.

I've written before about Billy's abiding love of Tina Fey. His fascination for pictures of the funny lady continues, unabated.

Today, though, we will meet a few other favorite members of Billy's Hollywood posse ...

INT. MINI-VAN - AFTERNOON

MOVING

Each day, on the drive home from school, we have a kind of conversation about Billy's day. Autistic kids, as a general rule, have difficulty with concepts like time and storytelling (that isn't scripted) so we've been working on this ... with varying levels of success.

ME: Hey champ, did you have a good day at school?

BILLY: Yes, good day at school.

(This response is pretty much scripted by this point, so I try to take the conversation a step further.)

ME: What did you do at school today?

BILLY: Played with friends.

(Darn. He managed to pull out another scripted answer. OK, let's try this again ...)

ME: Billy, WHO did you play with at school today?

(Pause. He's thinking. This is good. Ideally, this means he's thinking about the question, recalling the day and formulating an answer.)

BILLY: David Hyde Pierce.

ME: David -- WHAT?

BILLY: No, not David Hyde Pierce. It's Jason Alexander!

ME: Billy, I don't think you played with Jason Alexander today.

BILLY: No, not Jason Alexander. Joan Allen!

ME: Let's think about this, Billy. Joan Allen is an actress. She lives in California. She starred in the movie THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. I don't think she was in Ms. Jade's class today.

BILLY: Hi, my name is Joan Allen!

ME: (sigh.) So, Joan, got any explanation for doing the movie DEATH RACE?

*

I was thoroughly flummoxed till I found out that during nap time -- an activity in which Billy refuses to participate -- Billy listens to stories on CD with headphones. One of those CDs features the If You Give a Mouse... stories, and guess who the narrators are?

Yep: David Hyde Pierce, Jason Alexander and Joan Allen.

So that conversation, though it unfolded in a non-traditional format, was actually a success. In his own way, he DID "play" with them!

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the Dr. Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham. One of Billy's favorite apps on the iPad, the interactive book has been played in our house more than 50 times in the last 48 hours, and it's starting to get to me. I think it's a great book, but I'm starting to dream in Dr. Seuss-speak.

(Random House)

After a couple dozen times, it slowly started to dawn on me that Sam-I-Am reminded me of someone. I woke in the middle of one night to the sound of Billy reciting “Could you?! Would you?! On a BOAT!!” and realized why he loves this book so much: Sam is autistic. Consider...

1. Sam-I-Am has a strange diet. So does Billy. Billy recently brought home a class project called “My Favorite Food.” There were black dots all over a white sheet of paper. I asked him, “What is this?” Billy: “Raisins.” He does love the heck out of some raisins. And ice cream. And that's about it.

2. Sam-I-Am is totally obsessive about a very specific thing and oblivious to whether anyone else cares. So is Billy. Granted, the subject of Billy's obsession can change (thank God) from month to month, but perennial favorites are the planet Saturn, Charlie Brown and fish.

3. Sam-I-Am has a unique style of speaking. So does Billy. Billy can have an entire conversation with you using lines from Finding Nemo and Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Dave and I are the only ones who can interpret. “Alvin, you were a bit flat!” means he's irritated. And “First day of school!” means he's excited, even if you're in the grocery store and he's just spotted some raisins.

Billy memorizes anything easily, of course, but sometimes he doesn't hear it correctly, particularly if the characters don't speak clearly. Instead of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” which he heard on A Charlie Brown Christmas, Billy sings a beautiful note-perfect version of “Mark, the Feral Danger King,” a far more interesting-sounding character, in my opinion, than Charlie Brown.

4. Sam-I-Am doesn't understand personal space. Neither does Billy. Billy's style of making friends involves getting right up in someone's face and shouting something about Alvin and the Chipmunks before enveloping them in a bear hug and wrestling them to the floor. Boys, girls, the exterminator – everyone gets the same treatment.

(Random House)

5. Sam-I-Am seems completely un-fazed by the potential for physical danger inherent in driving a car off a cliff on to a boat while carrying a platter of ham and eggs. Billy would be right there in that car, nestled between the fox and the goat, given the opportunity.

When Willow was about 8 months old, I found him at the top of our stairs, squeezed into her baby walker, ready to push off. I asked him what in the Hades he thought he was doing and he responded, “Roller coaster!”

Happy birthday, Green Eggs and Ham! And thank you for showing us that, in the end, a singularly obsessive person can make friends, live a rich, colorful full life with some unusual pets, drive a car, and expose the world to new ideas – like coloring eggs green – that we might not have considered.

Two steps forward, one step back.

It happens. Sometimes it feels like one giant step back. Sometimes you wonder whose feet are being used to measure these steps. But rest assured, you will start moving forward again.

Let me explain: At the beginning of the summer, my son morphed into the Tazmanian Freakin' Devil for about three weeks or so. It wasn't his fault. He went through three or four different viruses, back-to-back and felt like crap for the better part of a month.

We had little-to-no schedule that month, since Billy's sleep patterns and energy level were affected by fevers, itchy hives and nausea. We were quarantined so that other kids wouldn't catch his highly contagious “cattle” virus, and we watched too much TV, ate too much sugar and got too little exercise and fresh air.

By the end of that month, he and his sister were both like a couple of feral children. And I was like that Golum character in Lord of the Rings, hiding from the light and fighting them for “my precious,” which was usually an ice cream sandwich or the remote.

As we approached the end of June and I was constantly complaining about raising a hobbit, I had a couple of experienced autism moms tell me, “Sometimes there's a period of bad behavior right before a big cognitive leap.”

And I thought, “Yeah, right. Then he's about to start doing calculus.”

So we actually started our summer around the end of June, and I did what I always do when I'm stressed and scared of the job of parenting: I started organizing. We had an obsessively structured schedule -- illustrated on a picture schedule -- field trips, craft projects, and group communication therapy on Thursday afternoons.

Occasionally, a giant happy face would show up on the picture schedule. That was Mama's “happy hour” (actually15 minutes) when I would lie on the coach, moan softly, pray and peel “Finding Nemo” stickers out of my hair.

I walked him and Willow almost daily to the campus of his new school, which was just around the corner (yay, Buck Lake!), introduced him to the playground and drew chalk graffiti on the basketball court. During our day, I tried to use language and activities that they used in school, so that he wouldn't forget the meaning of phrases like “circle time,” “table toys,” and “don't rifle through the teacher's purse.”

We had goals: potty training, improving handwriting (as in having some handwriting) and getting him out of his house bed.

The first week, I felt like I was trying to teach a wild badger to write his name. He protested almost everything almost all the time. When I brought out the Handwriting Without Tears sticks, he would scream, “Throw them in the garbage!” At first, I begged him to participate. Then I gave up and we played a game of throwing everything in the “garbage,” which was actually a big toy box.

To be honest, the next six weeks are kind of a blur. I have a vague recollection of breaking up fights, going bowling, visiting the museum and scaring the fish at Petsmart. And I have a few scars as reminders of incidents that resulted in some of my most interesting “Mom injuries.” At some point, he stopped using his HWOT sticks as weapons and learned to write pretty much every letter of the alphabet. And a week before school started, he was sleeping in a “big boy bed.” Occasionally, inside a net laundry basket, but he was in the bed.

We made some serious progress on potty training, but we're not totally there yet. He's still dealing with some communication barriers. Communicating the concept of something that's about to happen is a step he's yet to make – but he's getting there. I'm not stressing over this one.

Because we had breakthroughs that we never expected. We had a breakthrough bonanza this summer.

His imaginative play made huge strides forward. He uses more functional (non-repetitive) language than ever before, and he's telling us about things he did during the day, things he likes, emotions he feels. He's telling us in very simple sentences, but the sentences are his own – not Charlie Brown's or Nemo's or, the tow truck from the “Cars” movie.

He knows the alphabet, numbers to 20 and a few nursery rhymes in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Hebrew. I'm not exaggerating.

He can put on his own socks and manage his potty process almost completely independently. He started eating turkey. He can draw a person and a spider and a house and write his name and the word “Mom.” He knows all the words and motions to “The 12 Days of School” and can do a pretty hilarious Boston accent.

He used to completely melt down if anyone went anywhere near his head, but he now lets us wash his hair. And (HUGE MOMENT FOR US) he endured a salon haircut without a meltdown!

He enjoyed his birthday! And made friends. He got a scooter and can ride it so well that he's now cutting doughnuts in the living room floor. From there, he moved on to riding his tricycle – a process that frustrated and upset him as recently as this past May.

Most of this seemed to happen almost overnight. It really was like a breaking through process. Maybe there really is something to the theory that a cognitive leap is preceded by a period of bad behavior. Maybe the last two years of therapy prepared him to make this big jump. Maybe it's all down to what my dad calls “scooter therapy.” I really don't know. That's all part of the autism puzzle.

But I'm writing all this not just to brag about my super-awesome son. I want you to know that a change is gonna come. Usually, the changes are so gradual and steady that you might not notice them. You'll just suddenly find yourself looking back on a picture of a day a year ago and thinking to yourself, “Wow, this year he didn't kick any of the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch into moving traffic. Score!”

But sometimes, a plateau will come. Or maybe worse: You'll feel like you're taking a step backward. Behaviors you haven't seen in months pop back up and a couple of positive things seem to disappear.

Absolutely mention these things to your therapist(s) and teachers and other people on your team. They may have some thoughts about what's going on. And talk to other experienced parents and caregivers. Chances are, they'll tell you they've seen the same thing, and that it'll pass. They'll tell you what I'm telling you: Don't panic. Keep doing what you're doing.

And when it does pass, you might find yourself gifted with some new, glorious breakthrough.

Billy's had a great couple of weeks at school. He's also had some bumps on the road. The first couple of days of school, we heard all echolalia, all the time. I was suddenly living with Leo from The Little Einsteins – and he's not even my favorite Einstein. There were so many changes, Billy was stressed – both good and bad stress – and he didn't really know how to deal with it.

There was a time when I would have run screaming to the nearest snake oil salesman to try and devise some crazy rain dance to make the echolalia go away. And there are times, during the dark night of the soul, when I'm still tempted in that direction.

But by the end of his first week, Billy was napping at school, participating in activities, and climbing in my lap at the end of the day, wrapping his arms around me and whispering, “Love you, love you, love you...”

Hang in there. On the other side of this bump in the road, there may be something beautiful.

Floortime/DIR is our primary therapy protocol for Billy. "Protocol" makes it sound like something instigated by Jack Bauer at CTU, but the great thing about Floortime is that it's more of a "big picture" view, inside which you can continue with speech therapy, occupational therapy, which we're also doing.

Developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, Floortime/DIR therapy (DIR stands for Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based) is all about creating moments of joy during which you communicate with your child on their level, following their lead. Rather than try to force them to perform a series of tasks, like stacking blocks or sorting objects, your goal is to get the child to connect with people, to desire to communicate. And you create that desire by following their joy.

For instance, if Billy wants to open and close doors repeatedly, rather than try to stop him from doing that, we open and close doors with him. And when he's comfortable with us playing side-by-side, we take it to the next level, creating a "playful obstruction." Dave created the "Open the latch, Daddy," game, putting his own hand on the door, and requiring Billy to ask him to release it, thereby bringing him into the moment.

A couple of great things happened as a result of adopting the Floortime mindset: We surrendered the frustrating process of trying to get him to stop opening and closing doors (which upset him and us) and we connected with our child. I was amazed at how much fun it was to open and close doors the first time those big blues eyes looked up to me and Billy smiled as if to say, "You like this too? Isn't it great?"

We want to teach him that it's more fun, fulfilling, desirable to be connected to people than it is to be lost in his own world. And over the past few months since we first read Dr. Greenspan's book, Engaging Autism, at the suggestion of our occupational therapist, Kathy Merydith at TMH, we have seen huge strides in Billy's connection to people.

He has started reaching out to other children on a regular basis, wanting to play with them, rather than by himself. Some of his social skills need a little honing, but after all, he's still just three years old.

If he runs into another room in the house, he'll call, "Mama, where are you?" In the past, I wasn't even sure if he thought about me when I wasn't there. He regular takes my hand and demands, "Play castle," meaning he wants me to come with him and play with the fort he got for Christmas. And then a few weeks ago, completely unprompted, he threw his arms around me and said, "I love you, Mama."

Now let me put up a big warning sign here: I can't say that Floortime caused my son to say "I love you." We're doing a lot of things, and also, he's getting older. One of our primary frustrations is trying to figure out what works, what doesn't, what therapy (or lack thereof) is resulting in a particular behavior, either positive or negative. Within our Floortime "big picture," Billy has speech therapy (3 times a week at school and once a week in private clinical setting), occupational therapy (once a week at school, once a week private), therapeutic listening (twice a day, 30 minutes per session), music therapy (once/week) and Kindermusik (www.kindermusik.com, therapy for the whole family!).

When I say these therapies operate within the Floortime big picture, I mean that we make sure our goal in every setting is to encourage his connection to people, create moments of joy, and develop his ability and desire to communicate.

That being said, Floortime works (at least, for us) and it works every time. I know that, because my son looks up at me, joy on his face, and makes some new gain in communication every day. Because we're doing the things he wants to do -- opening doors, playing fort, sifting dry rice through our fingers, riding the roller coaster that Nan got him for Christmas (what kid wouldn't like that?!) or simply running around the yard non-stop screaming, "He's getting away!" -- because we're following his joy, he wants to communicate. As a side note, he's almost completely stopped opening and closing doors, opting instead for more creative play.

The upside to this therapy: you can see almost immediate results, depending on the severity of your child's communication challenges and neurological issues, however subtle. Because Billy is highly functioning and very verbal (though most of his speech is repetitive), we get a lot of immediate reward and feedback from this therapy; I can imagine it would be significantly more frustrating with a non-verbal or non-responsive child. By all accounts it will still work, but the gains may be slower than what we've experienced.

More upsides: you can practice Floortime anywhere, as long as you are engaging your child, following their lead and expanding their communication; and once you learn the basic theory, you can do it yourself (essentially, it's free -- the only "training" we have at the moment is a careful reading of Dr. Greenspan's book), but it's certainly more effective if you also have an OT or other therapist skilled in Floortime who can help coach you during sessions, brainstorm new ideas, etc. Both our OT and speech therapist are Floortime-trained, and we also regularly turn to our virtual friends on the Yahoo! Floortime Group with questions and for support.

There are also a couple of great websites that offer training, online and DVD-based, message boards, documents that can help you with everything from preparing for your IEP meeting to locating a Floortime-trained professional. Floortime.org is the website of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders, founded by Dr. Greenspan and Dr. Serena Wieder and is really just a wealth of great information. StanleyGreenspan.com also offers courses in child development, a selection of Dr. Greenspan's books, and information on the latest research and articles published.

OK, now the downside: If you follow Dr. Greenspan's guidelines, you'll be doing eight Floortime sessions per day, 20 minutes per session. That's in addition to school, organized therapy, etc. I can't say that we hit that goal every day, or even most days. Also, you're supposed to work toward four play dates with a peer each week. We're not there yet either.

Sometimes the book can be a bit vague about how to accomplish certain goals, like how do you follow the child's lead if he keeps flitting from one activity to the next? How exactly do you know when your child is ready for more imaginative play? When it comes to these kinds of specific answers to some of the vague generalities in the book, I've always found the answer in my kid. And to his credit, Dr. Greenspan says that when in doubt, take a step back and watch your child. What is he doing? Where is his joy?

Our plan is fluid, dynamic and ever-changing. But for the first time in a long time, I feel like everyone on our team (and they're a wonderful group) is working toward a common goal. And at the center of that goal is a beautiful, intelligent and thoroughly fascinating child named Billy.