Am I thankful for Autism?

Tis' the season where we start to wonder and contemplate about what we are thankful for with Thanksgiving being right around the corner.  I see lists and thankful posts flying around social media like a contagious yawn and it got me wondering....what am I thankful for beside the obvious.  Of course I am thankful for my family, our friends, our health, having food, etc, but what else besides that. Am I thankful for all that other stuff that affects our life everyday?  Am I thankful for autism?  Am I thankful for bipolar?  Would I change it if I could? 

Really these are horrible questions to ask because they can down right drive you crazy.  But come on, I am sure if you ask any family out there that is dealing with things like this they have asked themselves these same questions.  It's only normal.  So what have I come up with...am I thankful?  Well yes and no. 

These syndromes come with their ups and downs, and no doubt they at least make life interesting.  Without them my world might seem boring and routine.  I would be worrying about whether or not my snack tray was liked at the local PTA meeting or what to wear at this year's Christmas party; not wondering if I should pass out Prozac at the door when our 15 guests show up for Thanksgiving dinner for them to handle our crazy house for the evening.  But then again, life might be a little simpler and things like running to the store wouldn't be a major three act production. The answer to these questions are not that simple.  But if you look at the silver lining of these disorders there are a few amazing things that I have found that I am absolutely thankful for. 

Over this last year I have watched my husband  grow and change in ways that I never thought I would and for that I am extremely thankful.   My husband hid his bipolar for many, many years and this year decided to embrace it; which has overall made him more comfortable in his own skin.  He has taken responsibility for his bipolar and has been able to recognize when things are going amiss.  He knows when to leave, when to take time for himself and because of that our whole family has been healthier for it.  If takes a very strong person to do that.  To take on something as powerful as bipolar and not let it control him, but to learn how to deal with it to the best of his ability.  AND to recognize that his family needs him to do it.  For that I am sooo thankful!  (Next year maybe I will be able to post that I am thankful that no inanimate objects have been thrown but I am not holding my breath.)  Now would I cure my husband?  Yes, yes I would.  And only because when he is down he wishes he did not have it.  Knowing that makes me wish I could give him a magical potion and take his pain away in a swallow, but I can't.  So instead I will be his rock until that day when I find a genie in a lamp and wish it away for him.

Of course I am thankful for both my boys, they both make me proud and grateful that they are mine everyday.  When I question whether or not I am thankful for my apsie's autism it puts me in a very uncomfortable position.  I think in a way I feel guilty for even questioning it, but in reality no parent wants their child to have to have anything "wrong" with them.  Every parent wants their child to go through like with no struggles, and grow up in a world of rainbows an unicorns, but that is not reality.  Reality is, he has autism.  He will struggle everyday. Some days will be easier than others, but everyday it will be something.  But the thing is, it is much like the riddle which came first the chicken or the egg, when the answer is neither, one cannot exist without the other, my son will never exist without Asperger's, its a part of him.  I am not waiting around for a cure neither.  Why?  Personally I believe it is not my decision but will be his if one day they ever find one.  So why concern myself with it now.  Instead I will make available every therapy I can that might help him with what causes him problems and we will work together to get through the rough times.  And as he grows and continues to make progress I will be thankful for everything that he does that amazes me everyday!  I am privileged to watch my aspie's brain work in ways that I never dreamed humanly possible.  My aspie can remember anything and everything ever really spoken.  He will bring up things that happened when he was two that my husband and I struggle to  remember.  He can solve a 250 piece puzzle in under five minutes, and can take almost anything apart and put if back together if he desires too.  He can recite the words from any movie or TV show he has watched and now songs that he finds interest in and that are not too loud.  (These are mainly holiday songs since he is still not fond of the radio.)  He sees the detail in everything and loves nature and magical things like Christmas like no one else I know.  He is amazing, and if autism gave him that, then I am thankful.

I am a logical person in many ways, which I guess is what makes me a good scientist. I believe in the laws of physics and think that they affect all of our lives in all different ways.  Physics tells us that everything has equal and opposite reactions, and so with the good comes the bad.  No one has a perfect life.  No one.  But overall when I look at mine, I am so very thankful.  My life is stressful no doubt and if I wanted I think I have every right to rock in a dark corner and claim insanity on any given day.  (And there are certain days that I want to do that!)  But overall, I am thankful for my family and all the labels that come with them........and for  the big bottle of margaritas the local liquor store keeps in stock for me. 

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Brother Showdown

Our apsie is very particular and hates change.  Most kiddos and adults with autism are like this.  They have things lined up a certain way, arranged by color/shape/size or whatever their preference may be.  If we let him our aspie would have our entire house situated to his liking, but we have enforce the rule that he can only "fix" his room and no where else.  His room then is his savior.  It's his comfortable place where is actually does spend a lot of his time. 

Being also that our aspie LOVES Christmas and the holiday seasons, we have allowed him to decorate his room.  He earned a little blue foil tree (that I think is horrendously ugly) that he loves because its blue and has lights.  He also earned LED colored lights that we strung around his desk.  He also through the years gathered a few decorations that he put around his little tree on his night stand.  One of these decorations is a large plastic bulb that is open on one side, has a train that goes around a Christmas tree and plays songs if you hit a button.  Problem is the baby has discovered that he too loves this decoration. 

When we found this decoration this season the fight was on immediately when the baby discovered this awesome new toy in our aspie's room. Baby would take the bulb, aspie would cry and scream, aspie would chase baby around the house trying to get it, baby would run crying, aspie would tackle the baby if parents were to slow to stop it and so on and so forth.  (By the way, this running and chasing always seems to occur when I am in the bathroom or cooking.  It's like they know the perfect time to break into a bloody battle.  Look she is busy now, lets get into it!)  We have tried to work out a sharing of the bulb, but this really upsets our aspie as well because 1. he does not want the baby in his room to play with it and 2. if the baby leaves his room with the bulb, then the bulb is not is its right place in his room nor in its place on a night stand.  Its a mess. 

Therefore, our aspie decided to take the issue into his own hands and make a "lock" on his door so that his brother can not come in to steal the toy.  He took the dog's leash, attached it to his door knob and then pulled it around his desk and under his chair so that the door can only be opened a crack.  Of course anyone larger in size can push the door open, but the baby is stopped.  I actually thought it was pretty smart idea and sort of gave into the new locking situation and figured it would help stop the fights in the meantime.  Oh how wrong I was. 

This morning the baby woke up at his normal 6:30 am wake up time.  I felt him slither out of bed (yes we are still working on getting the baby out of our bed) and make way for the door.  Since he didn't wake me up I knew something was up.  I quietly followed him out of the room where I saw him walk up to his brother's bedroom door.  I watched as the baby pushed the door as far as it would go, squeeze himself through the crack and make way for the bulb.  I heard the words, "Got it!" in his baby slurrish voice and them heard him scurrying back.  He couldn't fit the bulb back through the door so he followed the leash under the desk and knocked the chair down to undo the lock.  He then grabbed the bulb and went running like a bat out of hell.  I couldn't help but to laugh watching my little cat burglar in process. 

I am not sure if it was my laughing or the chair getting knocked down but my aspie woke up.  He must have sensed the disruption in the decoration force because he looked over at his night stand, let out a loud "UUUGGGG!" and went darting out of his room saying, "What is wrong with this baby!" 

After I broke up a wrestling match that pursued I took the bulb from the both of them and put it up for the time being until I can get the baby something of his own. 

After all the crying was done with and "normalcy" returned to our home I couldn't help to laugh as I drank my coffee.  It was like the baby had it planned out before he went to bed.  I could only imagine him thinking you may go to sleep after me big bro but I wake up first! 

I know that fighting over things is a normal part of sibling hood but I never realized how much planning was involved in the fights.  Apparently a lot.  Oh and for the icing on the cake...my aspie is currently up in his room devising another "lock" for his door that is more baby proof!

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Changing times changes lives.

When you have kids your life changes completely.  I know I heard soooo many people say that to me when we were pregnant.  In fact, I got to hate hearing it.  Oh no, I would think to myself.  I am going to be that one in a million that doesn't let my offspring change the amount of time I spend with my friends, with my family, on my work....I will be able to do it all.  I will be the one person that will NOT let my life change just because I have a baby.  And I honestly can say, that I walked into the delivery room believing that.  And then I pushed out a baby along with every other delusional idea and notion I had with what life was going to be like with a family.  For folks out their about to have a baby or are thinking about having a baby...don't be scared.  I, like every other parent, allowed my life to change willingly.  One cute like burp, a smile, ten lil' piggies and you're a goner.  You will do what ever you need to do to make your little munchkin' happy and healthy, even if it means giving up you old life and to start a new chapter. 

Granted there are days where you catch yourself longing for some of your old self back.  The partying, the shopping, the long soaks in the bath with out a rubber ducky falling on your head....you get my drift.  And I'm not going to say there are not days where this life is just way to much reality,  and you catch yourself imaging how life would be if you did this or that differently. But then your kiddos sense that they are about to get thrown out with the trash and do something incredibly cute like hold your face in their hands and give you a big fat, wet, cheerio kiss and your back to your reality happy as ever.  What strikes me funny are the small things that didn't effect me without kids but are game changers now that we do; for instance, the time change!

If you don't live in a state, country or region that follows day light savings time, let me explain.  Twice a year we change our clocks ahead an hour or behind an hour to allow for the most sunlight possible during our waking hours.  It started a long time ago to help farmers and now we do it for electricity and economical purposes (or so I think and if I am wrong someone please explain to me why we do this).

Daylight savings never really affecting me before I had kids.  In fact, it was usually something I kind of looked forward to because it meant an extra hour sleep, an extra hour at a bar, or an hour less of a date during the weekend of the change.  But after I had kids I now dread it.  In fact I FEAR it!  My husband and I whisper about it like it has ears, thinking if we don't speak to loudly maybe, just maybe we can sneak past it and the kids will not realize it has happened.  And yet they do, and our lives go crazy for about a week.

It can't be that bad, you are probably thinking to yourself.  Oh yes it is, I will argue back.  Unfortunately, the kids internal clocks don't change even though our physical wall hanging ones do.  And if you happen to have a special needs child who thrives in routines, structure and concrete ideals, then this internal clock needs a sledge hammer to break the old schedule and to start a new one. 

My kids are so different on how they handle it that I have to describe them separately to paint the whole picture.  So first, let's tackle the baby.  Our baby has always had an amazing set sleeping and eating schedule.  Wakes up at 6:30am, eats, sleeps at 12:30pm, eats, eats, eats, goes to bed at 8:30pm.  He typically goes with the flow with everything else in life, but mess with his eating and sleeping schedule and you get one crazed psycho baby that uses his bottle as a lethal weapon towards anyone or anything that might make him mad.  So, during the time change, baby then wakes up at 5:30 and I try to stall him in the bed for as long as possible, but of course the means I am messing with his breakfast so he starts to get mad.  For nap, I try to push it back some, and crankiness get worse.  The crankiness continues throughout the day as I try to adjust his schedule.  By the end of the first day of our "new" time the baby is walking around shouting random words and swinging his bottle around like a drunken sailor.  Enough said for the baby.

Now for our aspie.....weeeellll it's a little different, and what he is going through currently is partly my fault.  About a year back we were really having problems with our aspie sleeping.  He just could not sleep.  IF he fell asleep at midnight, he was up at 4am.  IF he fell asleep at 8:30pm, then he was up at 12:30am.  We tried everything we could think of to try to get him on a schedule and to sleep. I even came up with some rules so that my hubs and I could get some sleep. And for aspies, most rules are pretty well followed.   Rule #1:  When the sun is up we are awake.  Rule #2:  When the sun is down, we must be home in our bedroom starting to relax or if you wake up when the sun is down you must stay in your room.  The sun's position is something my aspie could see for himself and hence it helped with time recognition.  It was also concrete and could not be argued. This and melatonin has really helped him with his sleep and we are now on a really great bedtime/morning routine.  It started getting dark, we would take a bath and get ready for bed.  When the sun is up, my aspie would emerge from his room ready to go. 

We realized we might have a problem with this wonderful "follow the sun" idea I had when we were at the Pirate baseball game for his birthday.  The sun was starting to set earlier and by 7:30 my aspie was rocking in his seat upset that it was getting dark and he wasn't home in his room.  We actually had to leave the game in the 4th inning because of it.  It kept happening every where we went, and my great idea to follow the sun turned into one major problem when we changed our clocks on Sunday.  Since the sun is up at 6:00, so is my aspie which means he is ready for his day, including school, free time and everything in between...oh about 3 hours to soon.  5:30pm and you can find my aspie in his room naked as a jay bird relaxing in his bed waiting to fall asleep, about 3 hours too soon.  Trying to "adjust" his schedule comes with meltdowns that are not just the swinging of a bottle.  Oh no!  This is potty accidents, writing on the walls, not eating, fighting to do anything kind of meltdowns.  Damn sun and damn government Day Light Saving time!

So here we are in day four of trying to convince my aspie that although the sun is "asleep" we can still be up for a few more hours with the family and although the sun is up, its "waking" up a bit early.  It's not going so well.  Actually, its not "going" at all.   But with the help of a digital clock schedule so he can look at numbers on the clock and match them to his schedule, not the sun, we are hoping to be situated in a few days...weeks...months....who know really. 

So, it's the little stuff.  It's the little stuff that gets you every time if you think about it.  The little things like a time change....an idea that you think will help your kiddo....a little bundle of joy to comes into your life one day.  Yep, the little stuff.  Who knew.  I sure as heck didn't, but I can tell you that I have learned this.  Things change and you can't stop it from happening.  So do your best and know the sun will always come up tomorrow.