Autism Awareness Month is upon us and as much as I’m delighted that the subject is receiving airtime, the posts I’m seeing are implicitly negative.\u00a0\u00a0 Sure it’s hard, and remember\u00a0I have double the venting rights a la\u00a0the twin factor.<\/p>\n
But we’re getting it wrong, people.\u00a0 There is double the joy, too.\u00a0\u00a0 Funny, when I woke for my usual Saturday bread baking therapy (cheaper than a shrink) to the words “You’ll Find Joy in Every Bag of Flour We Make.”\u00a0 How apt.<\/p>\n
Parents, you’ll find joy in your autistic child, too.\u00a0\u00a0 No matter what.\u00a0 No matter how they wake you at 2 am while they’re raiding the freezer (like last night) and interrupt what precious sleep your fractured life\u00a0allows.\u00a0 Or how\u00a0 they clog the toilet instead of remembering to\u00a0 “count\u00a03 sheets” as the reminder cue card on the wall says to do (yesterday).\u00a0\u00a0 Or how\u00a0they fail to look for moving cars in a parking lot exactly as you’ve just shown them four times a video model\u00a0(yesterday).<\/p>\n
It’s time we open the bag of each day and expect that joy, because when you stop venting about how hard it is – you’ll see the miracle of what is unfolding in front of you, and appreciate that it has been a\u00a0gift to be taken places no others have gone.
\nIt’s also time we remember that autistic children are our children for life – and they need to be celebrated, heard, and assisted even when they are no longer cute 6-year olds whose behavior we can more readily excuse\u00a0as childhood.<\/p>\n
I penned this a few weeks back on my W and J’s 20th birthday.\u00a0\u00a0 It guides me even when I’m worn, and helps me see how profoundly better they have made me.<\/p>\n
20 Best Things about my 20 year olds with Autism<\/strong><\/p>\n 1). Honesty<\/strong>.\u00a0 The brutal type.\u00a0\u00a0 “Did you steal that bagel?”\u00a0 “yes.”<\/p>\n 2). Purity<\/strong>.\u00a0 iPods bring joy.\u00a0 So do paint brushes, and large slices of pizza.<\/p>\n 3). No judgments.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 My bad hair day is meaningless to you.\u00a0\u00a0 As is my snappy mouth, because you love me anyway, just like I love you.<\/p>\n 4). Lack of mean spiritedness.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 My kids will never bully or be unkind knowingly.<\/p>\n 5). Easygoing nature.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 That may not be the case for every autistic individual, but I am blessed that my guys inherited their dad’s disposition.<\/p>\n 6). Enjoy the quieter path.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>My guys’ favorite times are often when there’s no TV or entertainment.\u00a0\u00a0 They can just be.\u00a0 Wow – what a concept.<\/p>\n 7). Truly enjoy the simple things<\/strong>.\u00a0 Rocking chairs, swimming pools, cake & candles, a good song,\u00a0Mommy’s tickles.<\/p>\n 8.) Uncomplicated.\u00a0 <\/strong>First shower, then breakfast, then school, then home.<\/p>\n 9). Not afraid.<\/strong>\u00a0 While I can’t pretend to know their inner life, they don’t appear to worry when they enter a room of strangers that these pants make their arse look fat.<\/p>\n 10). Trusting.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 When they’re tired and I tell them it’s just a little while longer to do something hard, they know I mean it.<\/p>\n 11). Present in the moment<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Truly, what a gift this is.<\/p>\n 12). Unbowed by social pressure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n 13). Sensory.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 I love the feeling of my hands in bread dough, or the release of a hot shower pounding on my skin.\u00a0 I also love how J. instinctively smiles\u00a0 while painting, and W. has favorite blankets wrapped on his head.<\/p>\n 14).\u00a0 They try.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> Unlike a typical kid there’s no pushback because I’m not in the mood.<\/p>\n 15). Laughable.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 The men’s discussion group at\u00a0the annual retreat with parents of autistic kids yielded so many hilarious toilet training war stories that our relatives started asking us for this year’s update each time we returned.\u00a0 (happy to share, PM me. :-))\u00a0 I still regale folks who don’t know us well with the cheese sandwich sneak from a restaurant – or the dropped dozen of eggs as I was on the phone with work on the other side of the French doors and couldn’t do a thing about it.<\/p>\n 16).\u00a0 Endearing.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 W’s standard greeting to me is to lean down, wrap his arms on my shoulders and kiss my forehead.\u00a0 Priceless.<\/p>\n 17). Serendipitous.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 My kids always know more than you think, and when they show it,\u00a0 we revel. J. stunned everyone last weekend at his bakery job when he stopped work as a colleague\u00a0 put coins out on a counter for him from a purchase, put them\u00a0into his wallet, then went back to work independently and perfectly on task.\u00a0 We never knew he knew what “change back” meant, but I guess he did.<\/p>\n 18).\u00a0 Work hard<\/strong>.\u00a0 If you brain didn’t know how to make your hands open a twist-tie or spread butter on your toast, and it took all your might to make it happen – you’d appreciate what every day must be like for my guys.\u00a0\u00a0 They work so hard to do what you and I take for granted.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In our family we joke that we have individuals who got the work gene, and those who didn’t.\u00a0 My guys did.<\/p>\n 19).\u00a0 Easy to please<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 School vacation days don’t need a grand agenda.\u00a0\u00a0 Time with a favorite pastime and a trip to the local wrap joint are delight enough.<\/p>\n 20.) Lovable, however imperfect they are<\/strong>.\u00a0 My sons have brought me growth that I never would have known by parenting my other kind of exceptional neurotypical kid – the kind of kid everyone brags about.\u00a0 Certainly she is our golden girl, and her smarts and compassion are already making the world a better place.\u00a0 But so are all our autistic children – at age 20, or 2, or 95.\u00a0 So are my W. and my J.\u00a0\u00a0 If only within me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Autism Awareness Month is upon us and as much as I’m delighted that the subject is receiving airtime, the posts I’m seeing are implicitly negative.\u00a0\u00a0 Sure it’s hard, and remember\u00a0I have double the venting rights a la\u00a0the twin factor. But we’re getting it wrong, people.\u00a0 There is double the joy, too.\u00a0\u00a0 Funny, when I woke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}