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.