Pajamas

First Child: Flame retardant, oxygen filled, radiation- proof union suit that is six sizes too small (as is required by law to qualify as flame retardant)ensures he/she will survive a nuclear blast to live amongst the cockroaches, even though no one else in your house will because, well, keep reading…

Second Child: Whatever first child wore, except that all the machine washings have worn off most of the armour that rendered the first child immortal.

Third Child: Just pull something outta the drawer. Snowman flannel pants in the middle of July paired with First Child’s old soccer jersey works as well as anything.

Sports

First Child thinks:  The soccer net is a really cool thing to climb on and the pitcher’s mound is the biggest pile of dirt I’ve ever seen!

Second Child thinks: I will kick the ball farther than First Child when it’s my turn to play next year.

Third Child thinks (even when autistic): You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you kick the ball, you catch the ball. When you do it well, everyone claps and yells “YAY!” Got it. Not too hard to figure out when most of your weekends are spent watching from the sidelines.

Emergencies/Injuries

First Child: You race to Pediatric Office/Urgent Care/ER with tears of fear and guilt streaming down your face. Hold complimentary popsicle in First Child’s mouth on way home, whether it is 6 hours or 6 minutes later. And you’re still not convinced he/she’s OK.

Second Child:  He shows off stitches to neighbor friends as a badge of honor and considers it a bonus that he has accumulated more over time than First Child has.

Third Child: When he points at the plug outlet, says “Ouchie! Hot!” while grabbing his finger, you assume he has learned his lesson the hard way.

 Immunizations

First Child: You can rattle off the dates of each shot given plus what, if any, reaction there was without missing a beat.

Second Child: You refer to the little pink card that thankfully, you seem to be able to remember to bring to each well visit.

Third Child: The pink card is blank. And still sitting in your hospital bag. You simply trust that since you’ve managed to keep Third Child on the well visit schedule that he or she has had the appropriate immunizations and so you answer “yes” whenever you are asked if Third Child is up to date. Also, your pediatric office has just about had it with the amount of times you’ve had to call them and ask them to fax Third Child’s records somewhere.

 It’s probably a good thing I don’t have any more children. They’d probably be expected to call cabs to get themselves home from the hospital after being born.

What’s the saying? I love you all equally but differently? Totally applies to my house.

I know a place where all civility is thrown out the window. I know a place where a person can lose his life if he isn’t careful. I know a place where one can find some serious bad manners and road rage in action.

The school parking lot.

I’ve got to tell you, if you want to say that you have finally seen it all, you really need to experience the insanity that are the 15 minutes of dropping off and picking up of elementary school children from the parking lots of such schools. Just a few examples I’ve witnessed over the years…

Honking, gesturing and yelling “COME ON!” at a car who has stopped to wait for two third graders to use the crosswalk.

Parking in the handicapped space because it’s the one closest to the front door and therefore, the shortest distance to walk with a fourth grader’s science project.

Squealing of tires to prove that YOU are the one most in a hurry here, that’s why you had to go around the bus, even though its lights were flashing and the stop sign was activated.

And those are just a few! There are so many more I could mention! So could the principal–he just recently sent home his annual memo of “Parking Lot Helpful Hints” which really is an open plea for everyone to act like adults and follow basic rules of traffic courtesy and safety.

I am not trying to sound self righteous here. As an impatient person myself and also someone who often is running late, I can relate to the feelings of helplessness and urgency that the school parking lot can bring out. And my sons’ school? Has almost 700 students and quite possibly THE shortest/smallest space allotted for the drop off/pick up ritual. It has forced many of us to get pretty creative about how we are going to extract our children from the building in a safe manner yet still have them home before dark, or get them to school by the bell’s ring without having them flattened by someone who needed to be somewhere, like 5 minutes ago. It’s tough to do. 700 kids. One driveway.

Actually, recently, I finally got smart and just skipped the whole thing altogether. No, I didn’t sign my kids up for the overnight plan at the school, I just quit picking them up from the lot. I parked my car on one of the (very) nearby side streets and waited for the two of them to walk down the hill, cross the street with the crossing guard and then find my car amongst several other silver minivans (obviously, I’m not the only mom who’s figured out how to beat the system).

This was going very well until Ryan had the nerve to break his foot last weekend, meaning that I can’t really expect him to hobble all the way from his classroom to my off campus stakeout.

So for the next 3 weeks, I’ll be navigating the war zone once again. Back in the trenches.

Wish me luck. And kindly get outta my way!

Sometimes I get writer’s block. Sometimes I have an idea but can’t make anything come of it. Sometimes a post falls into my lap like a ton of bricks, and even if those bricks leave some lingering annoying pain, they give me something to write about.

Such was yesterday.

Long story short, I found myself on the wrong side of the law. While out doing errands, I looked in my rear view mirror to see some colorful lighting action behind me…I was getting pulled over.

 I’m 37 years old, I’ve been driving for over 20 years now, and let me just boldly admit that I am no stranger to traffic citations.  I’ve seen those flashing lights in my rear view mirror WAY too many times than I care to count. What can I say? I like to get to where I’m going, like now. And most, like oh maybe 99.7% of those times, have ended up with something that required a court date and/or a large fine. There’s an episode of Friends where Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) sweet talks her way out of her very guilty speeding self and just trust me, that has very VERY rarely happened to me. Not that I haven’t tried.

No, let’s just say that I know the drill. Hand over license, wait (im)patiently for the officer to confirm that my license plate hasn’t been reported stolen, there aren’t any warrants out for my arrest, I’m not currently (nor have I ever been) featured on America’s Most Wanted, and that I’m allowed to be in this country.

So here I am yesterday, pulled over on some neighborhood side street for like the zillionth time in my life, waiting solemnly, watching the people who live in the neighborhood come to their doors because whoa man, like there’s a cop out here!!

Here I sit. And I’m so guilty. I’m probably the guiltiest I’ve ever been. I know this and so does Officer Friendly. Yet something’s different than all those times in high school when I was speeding around with my mates. He’s actually working with me. He wants this to end well for me. But this time it’s not about trying to be charming, or pulling some teenaged attitude or an offer of gum from my giggling friends in the backseat (a sad reality of mine). Nope. All I have to offer is just a plethora of mortified apologies (for having 2 month old expired tags), a waving of a soccer camp registration form that needed to be turned in today and a frantic (but unsuccessful) search to turn up a current insurance card.

I could not have looked more like an idiot and definitely wasn’t going to win a Responsible Motorist Contest…yet Officer Friendly didn’t cite me for all the things he could have. Yes, I did get a ticket for not being able to show proof of insurance, but OF was overwhelmingly informative about how that would be completely voided out as soon as I showed up to the courthouse to show them my current card (which, of course, magically turned up as soon as he drove away).

This post obviously isn’t about parenting and my kids didn’t even turn up once in it, did they? And of course, I’m speculating and probably being oversensitive and maybe exaggerating a little but I have this image of myself through the officer’s eyes and it’s just so pathetic…

Harried, wild eyed, disorganized, minivan driving middle aged soccer mom. Poor thing.

Yeah, but in real life I’m a Super Hero. Ha ha.

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.

I was putting in a load of the boys’ laundry last Saturday and couldn’t find the black soccer socks that Ryan had worn to practice in the morning. I knew he didn’t have them on his feet anymore because the last I’d seen of him, he’d been wearing flip flops. I really wanted to get those socks into this load of laundry, as they are the easiest of his soccer socks to get on and off and also because socks lying around in secret hiding places to be found weeks later is a large obsessive compulsive pet peeve of mine.

“Ryan?”

No response.

“RYAN!”

Sound of TV coming from den.

“RYAN!!!!”

“WHAT?!”

“Where are your socks?”

“Why do I have to wear socks?”

“No, you don’t have to wear them, I’m just looking for them.”

“Oh. I keep my socks in my drawer.”

Sigh.

“No Ryan. The socks you wore to soccer practice this morning. The black ones. Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

SIGH.

“Ryan, think. What did you do with your socks after you got home from practice?”

No response.

“RYAN! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH YOUR SOCKS AFTER YOU GOT HOME FROM PRACTICE?”

“I took them off,” is the final response from Professor Obvious as he heads out the door to play.

Never mind.

The kid wasn’t completely unhelpful, however. I was able to locate the sweat drenched items a few minutes later. In the drawer, right where he said they were.

Lovely.