Ok, so potty training (again).  Going well, more dry days by far than accidents, but…

The four hundred and ninety seven and a half trips to the bathroom each day are driving me crazy.  CRAZY.  Poops are the worst, because she’s still a little unsure so she has to give that sucker a try about FORTY-FIVE times before we have any success.Still, her ability to dole out her pee in one and two drop allotments over the course of the day is truly awe-inspiring. I get maybe 4 real bathroom breaks a day.  The rest is just for kicks.

Our main level bathroom is actually a half-bath, just a powder room, really.  Squeezing in there with a wiggly toddler on the left and pedestal sink on the right and a nosy 4-year-old poking in at the door is a little bit past cozy– it’s more along the lines of completely claustrophobic to the point of needing Valium. 

FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN AND A HALF TIMES A DAY.

As proud as I am of her… is it wrong that by 2 P.M. I’m starting to refuse her liquids?  “No, honey, don’t you want some Cheerios instead? Hmm? How about a cereal bar? Crackers? Anything of a deliciously absorbent quality?”.

Of course, this backfires as well, in the form of, well, less backfire, if you know what I mean.  Then she gets all grumpy and traumatized when that Moment approaches, as well.  Please tell me I am not the only one purposely dehydrating her child (only a little!! Just in the afternoons!! For self preservation!!).

God, I’m so ungrateful.  A 2-year-old in panties and now all I want her to do is get out of the bathroom.

I’m listening to my son and his friend giggle, yes, giggle, over something on Facebook downstairs.  I’m upstairs, completely miserable because he leaves half-way across the world tomorrow afternoon. 

Children do grow up, well, we hope they do.  They go off to be adults.  They live their lives.  Why did this have to happen to my child??

I never thought this ‘letting go’ would be so hard.  I hold up the comparison of ‘Pregnancy vs. Giving Birth’ and ‘Teenagers vs Children Leaving the Nest’.  Pregnancy, especially the third trimester, was a PAIN…it made me want to give birth, um…. NOW!   I didn’t care what drugs they gave me, or who gave ‘em, just GEETTT  ITTTT OUTTT!!!  Now, ’ Teenagers vs. Children Leaving the Nest’:  Teenager-hood made me glance at my watch and question ‘when the hell are you leaving again?’ But, now that he’s called my bluff and is actually vacating the premises, I’m apologetic about my haste.

The past 18 years he’s been a focal point of my very existence.  He encouraged me to go to school and better myself.  He laughed with me in my darkest times, and I held him close when he was in pain.  I was his confidant, his taxi, and his sounding board.  

My world is spinning off of its axis at the moment. I cannot imagine life without him in it every day.  What was this whole parenting thing about anyway? 

I feel lost, and unnecessary.

My son is leaving, in my heart it feels like forever.

I’ll go ahead and apologize right here for, once again, waxing unpoetic about potty-training. It’s where I’m at and that is that. (See? Unpoetic.)

Silvia is doing great, really. I can’t complain about her progress, or to be more accurate, I shouldn’t complain. On the whole she’s doing terrifically. At home, she’s pretty much got the whole idea down. While we’re out she does a fairly good impression of bladder control. At school, she’s at least overcome her fears of the miniature toilet in her classroom. At other people’s houses… well.  No one’s perfect and let’s be honest, who isn’t a little shy in someone else’s bathroom?

The prospect of a diaper-free existence looms in my future. I can see it, glowing, taunting me with its nearness. I’ll be able to take that wretched diaper pail out of her room and with it, hopefully, that lingering eau de poop. (I have this fantasy of Kurt and I going all Office Space on it.) And what about those huge cardboard boxes the diapers come it? Whatever will we use to hold our recycling when I don’t have to buy those jumbo packs anymore?

Then, there’s my purse. Oh, my purse. Someday, soon-so-soon, I’ll be able to fit something exciting there, in the space where the diapers and huge wipes pack used to live. Something grown-up. Like, maybe, A PAPERBACK BOOK. Ooooohhhh, I’m getting chills.  

There will come a day when I will not have to jump up at the call of, “MAMA! COME WIPE ME!” or “I made poops, mama, change meeeeee!”. I can FEEL it. Just the idea of having those moments out of my day returned to me is intoxicating.

We’re not there yet.  Silvia is still feeling her way around the whole idea and exhibiting definite areas of comfort and vexation. But it’s close, it’s coming…

And, in the not so very far future, there is an ENTIRE AISLE at the grocery store that I will be able to skip completely. 

Hallelujah.

It’s unbelievable the broad range of emotions that autism brings out of me, sometimes all in one day.

For instance, I laugh at autism when Adam runs into the room, yells “OH NO, THE GERMANS!” and then runs out with no further explanation. I mean, what else can you do but laugh at that? Also amusing? When he proclaims that he is “Dr. House” and threatens to stitch up anyone who gets in his way or denies him his wants/needs.

Autism makes me frustrated when I have an almost five year old child who is still not potty trained and I don’t know for the life of me how to explain to Adam what it is I want him to do, yet I know that the excuse clock has run out and the skill must get mastered.

Frustrated?! Autism makes me wanna pull my hair out some days. Trust me, one of the greatest parenting skills we possess is the knowledge and ability to use threats, empty as they may be quite often. When that ability is taken from us or rendered useless, it’s a whole different world war, comrades.

Autism makes me cry when I see other children the same age as Adam, children I’ve known as long as I’ve known Adam, going off to normal preschool for the first time, playing soccer for the first time, living a much different life than Adam. As much as one gets used to it, this is one of the hardest things about being the parent of a special needs child.

Autism amazes me, truly amazes me and makes me cry for a very different reason when I walk into Adam’s room one day and see that he has written his name–all by himself, in better handwriting than his 2nd grade brother can muster–and that’s one of the few times I’ve ever seen him even pick up a writing utensil. Seriously, the day he did that, I just sat in his room and let tears roll down my face, and those who know me know how out of character that is for me. Oh Adam, what else can you do that you’re waiting to show me?

Autism makes me hopeful when Adam shows me that he is also learning to read. What a fantastic communication tool reading and writing will be to someone whose greatest, and truth be told, only barrier to the world is inability to communicate.

Autism exhausts me when some days, I just don’t know what to do. I’ve devoted much of the last 3 1/2 years to troubleshooting where Adam is concerned, yet sometimes that autistic volcano is very unpredictable. It erupts when you least expect it and are the least prepared for it. And when it erupts, there is no stopping it, you just have to hope the meltdown will end quickly.

On the other hand, autism gives me a sense of peace sometimes. Yes, it really does! Sometimes I’ll just be watching Adam play and I realize that in his world, he isn’t guided by prejudices, preconceived notions, stereotypes, insecurities, etc. He truly is an innocent being. I know he’s only four and a half, but by now, my older two had already experienced some of the things which eventually cause all of us to be a bit jaded. Sometimes, he’s the most peaceful one in the house. No worries, mon.

And at the end of a day, when Adam comes to me with an armful of stuffed animals and asks to “sit with Mom-Mom”, autism makes me happy.

Autism is so complex. No one really knows what’s going on in those differently wired minds and when you are the parent of a special needs child, it can bring out the best and the worst in you.

It can bring out more than you ever knew was there to begin with.

Since finding out on May 27 that Dave and I were apparently meant to have THREE children and not the TWO I had assumed, I’ve often said, “We’re starting all over!”  My girls will be 6 and 8 when this baby joins our family and I have focused on the fact that we are returning to diapers, breast feeding and long nights. We’ll be anchored to the house again by naps. Not to mention…

• The transition to solids
• Crawling
• Walking
• Once again removing all the breakable and unsafe objects from our home, which we finally felt looked “grown up” again
• Teaching the ABCs and colors and numbers again
• Potty training
• The Terrible Twos (threes, fours…)
• The list, of course, goes on. I’m sure many of you could help flesh this out a bit

And yet, lately, I have also been thinking about what I will not have to re-learn.  Though we are going back to the beginning with a new baby, we are not starting out with a clean slate.  For example…

• I know how to fight the isolation of new motherhood.  I will not sit in my home alone, wondering what other mothers do when those hard afternoon hours roll around. I’m seasoned. I know to reach out and get out.
• I won’t clean nonstop. When my first daughter was born and I decided to stay home, I fought like hell to keep the kitchen clean, the toys picked up, the home presentable.  Now, I know better.  My sanity is more valuable than household presentability.
• I won’t shower every day.  Ridiculous concept.
• I will accept help when it is offered and I will shrug off any mommy guilt associated with that acceptance.
• I will demand and create time for myself. The first time around, I didn’t know how to balance the needs of my family with my own needs. It took time, but I do not intend to slide backward and lose myself again.
• And, perhaps most beautifully, I will not try to do everything “right.”  I know there is no such thing and, I believe, this baby will be better for my imperfections than if I attempted to follow “perfect parenting” books and the magazine article to-do lists. This baby and I will wallow in joyful moments, especially the UN-teachable joyful moments!

I must confess, though, that there is one thing that I dread.  Not the diapers, the formula or the long nights. Those I understand. Those I can even enjoy.  No… I dread going back to birthday parties for two-year-olds in which parents invite everyone on the planet and I am expected to STAY for the frivolity.  I have SO graduated from that chaos, dropping my girls off for parties and picking them up two hours later.  No, birthday invitations will be handled differently with this child.  I will kindly RSVP “no” to them all until my child is actually CONSCIOUS of what birthdays mean.

Besides, who wants to hang out with a bunch of new parents? They can be SO exhausting!