Wins and losses come in different sizes when you\u2019re parenting a differently abled child. I\u2019m flying high today because we succeeded in attending a non-autism friendly play at a big downtown theater this week \u2013 with far less fuss than before. Yes, Will asked for the bathroom twice and jumped up two more times before we yanked his butt down into the seat. Yes, Jeff was more fascinated by the earrings of the lady behind him than \u201cThe Lonely Goatherd\u201d on stage, and I had to whip out the silent fidget toy from my purse when the all-purpose toy in his pants became a distraction. (Ahem.)<\/p>\n
Yet we made it through a 90-minute first half, and an hour-plus second half with no traumas. Will wore a collared polo shirt and dress socks, a mini-feat. Jeff as usual looked dapper, even preppy. I got to hear my favorite tunes and their mountain theme of course for this hiker girl resonated long and deeply.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the simple things,\u201d said a wise parent in response to my Facebook post. <\/p>\n
Indeed! As Mother\u2019s Day gives me license to ruminate, and I’m savoring how much better a person I\u2019ve become thanks to motherhood, I\u2019m mindful of five particular gifts that my sons\u2019 autism gave me.<\/p>\n
1.\tSavoring the small.<\/strong> As in the beauty of one tender green leaf fluttering in the breeze. Three kind words from a stranger in the check-out line. Jeff\u2019s honesty when I asked if he just stole his brother\u2019s lemonade. My shiny freshly painted door jambs, done not flawlessly but actually quite nicely by Jeff as he improves his house painting skills; they make my happy every time I\u2019m in a bathroom. That moment where after five years of drilling him on what we do when we see a trail sign \u2013 five whole years – Will stopped at a trail sign with no prompting and waited patiently for his family.<\/p>\n 2.\tBreaking tasks into discrete units<\/strong>. Even if you\u2019re not an Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) freak, we all learn Antecedent\/Behavior\/Consequences as we see our kids fail, and bridge them to success. I\u2019ve learned to analyze any activity into its component steps, even if there are dozen \u2013 and work on them until there is mastery, if only with one tiny, tiny element in the chain. Because every journey starts with the first step.<\/p>\n 3.\tRoutines.<\/strong> Perhaps it\u2019s my bias but I think every human achieves balance when they have a structure onto which to pin their dreams. While it\u2019s always a balancing act to temper the routine with reality, and know when to back off if the day\u2019s going south \u2013 our boys need structure, we\u2019ve had to learn how to frame our family lives for them, and it\u2019s given me the lines on the page of my life so there\u2019s order yet white space on the margins even in very crowded days.<\/p>\n 4.\tA sense of humor.<\/strong> I\u2019m still not over the mortification of Will dropping trousers and attending to his daily constitutional in the middle of a trail as a group of a dozen hikers passed by \u2013 hikers with whom we crossed paths for another 15 miles. But, hey, we win parental \u201ccan you top this?\u201d story contests with that one. The hubby and I have \u201cthe look\u201d of silent alarm when something just happened we can\u2019t share publicly without people thinking we\u2019re warped. And they\u2019re usually worthy of the look even if NSFW.<\/p>\n 5.\tSerendipity<\/strong>. It stinks when my sons\u2019 disability thwarts little self-indulgences, as in last Mother\u2019s Day when Jeff had 3 toilet accidents in 90 minutes, ran out of spare clothes, and so I got to celebrate the day in the Target menswear department instead of the MFA. But for every one of those, there\u2019s three moments of unexpected joy, as in last week\u2019s hike when our late departure made me sad that we didn\u2019t have time for the cliff walk trail \u2013 only to catch a sunset as it washed the Vermont horizon in orange fire. Or yesterday, when Will beamed just hearing the choral music performed ahead of his little 3-song concert \u2013 sitting quietly for a half hour. And how Will was excited beyond belief by just being able to help the Post Office food drive with carrying and sorting canned goods \u2013 proving that his favorite three words are \u201cyou\u2019re a helper.\u201d<\/p>\n Years ago when I was a child I thought Mother\u2019s Day was about \u201cmade\u201d gifts that give back from what is genuinely me. The gift selection was important, as it had to honor Mom but also reflect my talents and even push the envelope of them. Today, as the recipient, the gifts are my children themselves. With Jenn, they shine so obviously. With the boys, they\u2019re wrapped in ways that may not sparkle, yet are positively luminescent, for anyone who has eyes to see them. <\/p>\n Happy Mother\u2019s Day to all you Super Special Moms. May your day give you the vision to see the gift you kiddos really are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wins and losses come in different sizes when you\u2019re parenting a differently abled child. I\u2019m flying high today because we succeeded in attending a non-autism friendly play at a big downtown theater this week \u2013 with far less fuss than before. Yes, Will asked for the bathroom twice and jumped up two more times before […]<\/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-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","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=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}