I said two things have been bothering me lately, so here comes the second.
My son is only five. That is my new mantra, he is five, he is five, and he is five.
I forget this daily.
When we brought him home from the hospital we didn’t say anything to each other out loud, but we knew deep down he was very different from our first baby. I remember putting him on my chest and he did the little cobra stretch of his head. I didn’t know they were supposed to have muscles like that.
If you talked to him, his face would change and he would coo back. Again, we didn’t say anything to each other. We had been married a long time already and we each knew what the other was thinking.
When he was one, he got mad at me, threw his sippy cup, stared me down and said, “FINE!” At one? They could do that at one? His sister had been an infant….
I would sit with his sister at her little OT table, trying to get her to peel a sticker and put it on the paper. She couldn’t do it. I could get an entire idiot baseball team to conjugate verbs in the preterite Spanish tense but I couldn’t get one three year old to put a sticker on a piece of paper. Her brother toddled over, watched what we were doing, and put the sticker on the paper. I needed a little break after that one.
I knew I had two children and that they were very different. And I got pregnant again.
Once, in a therapy waiting room when I was very pregnant with Lowell- a woman actually said to me, “You have one that has it and one that doesn’t, why are you risking a third?” Talk about bitches….
But she was right-I knew how babies are made, and I had a third.
And he is on the spectrum.
That leaves me with my five year old. I stare at the middle one and think, “Are you going to be there for the other two?” What happens later in life? Because of my own life, I know lots of things to be true.
I know that not having autism does not guarantee him a perfect life. He could very well develop alcoholism, bi-polar disorder, or even a general obnoxious personality. He could have a car accident, he could get cancer, his girlfriend could dump him on prom night for his best friend. Two autism spectrum disordered siblings does not give you a free pass for a good life.
Another thing I know, that just because he doesn’t have autism doesn’t mean he is a mature little boy that is always going to make the right choice and do the right thing. He is a child and he acts like one. He will throw a fit on the way to church so badly a stranger offers to help me. He will sneak the entire box of chocolate chip cookies and tell me his imaginary friend did it. He will fight me when it is time to take a bath or turn off the television. These things are normal according to cute little mommy sites such as this one.
He is five, not my 35 year old second in command. There are days when I put way too much on him. I am trying to work from home or cook what looks like a dinner, and I automatically say, “Kenneth, help your brother with his trains.” Or, “Kenneth help your sister with her math.” "Kenneth, why is he crying?" "Kenneth, start the DVD player please." Well, the math he might have to keep doing.
Anyway, usually, he does these things happily. So when he does something that all five year olds do, I forget. I get mad at a five year old for being five. That is a problem and I admit it. It’s my job to be his mom too.
The universe gave this to me because the universe knows I can handle it. But I need to remember that a five year old is only five. The Fairy God Bitch should show up and remind me of this.
OK two deep posts on autism-I need to write about the time I tried to iron my husband’s pants soon…..
Wow, your perspective is pretty eye opening. I remember when Will and Kate were still splashing around in the Mommy pool being worried about how any slight difference between them and the other kids would affect our lives. Not their lives, but ours, my wife’s and mine. Looking back, it is amazingly selfish that I wasn’t worried about how they would have to deal with it themselves. I guess when we are little we have this picture of the perfect life and the perfect car and the perfect dog when we lay in the grass with our feet in the air and watch the imaginary movie of our future lives play out in our minds, but how do we react when we grow up and end up with “Machete” instead of “Leave it to Beaver”? How we react is what makes the difference between you and the ladies in the waiting room. Instead of asking how do we risk giving them a life with challenges, shouldn’t we ask ourselves how do we could risk not giving them any chance at life at all?
ReplyDeleteI only personally know one person down here with autism. She is 35, has three sisters, a dog, a job, a boyfriend, and her own place. She has her own Facebook page, and loves life. Her sisters know she is different. Her friends know she is different. I assume she knows she is different. It doesn’t matter though; they all know life goes on one way or another, so you just have to roll with it. But, those of us on the outside have a lot to learn about what goes on in the inside so we can learn and teach the next generation to be less worried about who things impact them, and more worried about how what they do impacts others. Just my two cents.
I have never had a vision of perfection ever. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing, to be grateful just to have a day...
ReplyDeleteHe will make his own way. He will be a stronger and more sensitive person for having the childhood that he's having, and I know you will coach him in the times things need to be taken seriously and when they need to be laughed at/ridiculed.
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