Spontaneous Sign

This morning was really rough, just like yesterday morning. After about 20 minutes into happily eating breakfast, he went ballistic, nothing I did to prevent it worked, I had to restrain him and give him deep pressure. After about twenty minutes of this (yesterday he was ballistic for forty), he became a perfect, sweet little angel, as if nothing had happened. He hits himself throughout the day when he doesn't get his way, but in the mornings, it's clear to me he does it because he has a great proprioceptive sensory need and when he gets it filled, he's perfectly content. Of course, I would like him to fill it in a less damaging way than through hitting. When it was time to give him his Flo-Vent (preventative medicine for asthma), he very consciously sat still, did not try to pull the mask off, and very deliberately inhaled deeply like he is supposed to. He clearly so purposefully did this. I was still very, very upset, and so disappointed that despite my prayers and focus and efforts I still let this get to me. But decided to pull myself together and read aloud from the Book of Mormon while we waited for the bus and I was at the part where it talks about Lehi's Dream and holding to the rod of iron. I knew that as weak and unworthy as I am, that reading the Book of Mormon brings the spirit into our home. And then I had to stop reading because of emotion as I realized that what I was doing right then was clinging to the rod of iron, which is a symbol of the word of God. My son was walking around, in and out of the room I was in, as I was reading, and I heard a hitting sound coming from his direction. GREAT, I thought, he's hitting himself again. But I looked over and he was hitting his left hand to his chest, like a sign-language sign. My "homework" for this week is to look for signs of communication other than hitting, and to reinforce him for them. He sees sign language done at school but so far hasn't demonstrated it there yet. I called his teacher and he says that is close to the sign for "please" they use in the classroom. He has done it before towards me and I've interpreted it to mean, "I love you," so I gave him a hug and said, 'I love you, too."