What They Didn’t Tell Me About My Child’s #Autism

Borrowed from Single Mothers Who Have Children With Autism’s 

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Here are some things you will not find in your research on autism:

You will not learn how this diagnosis will affect your marriage or other members of your family. You will not be told how it may fundamentally alter your perceptions of what is “normal,” how it may change your view of human beings, how it can force you to question small talk and why we behave the way we do, how it will transform your outlook on life, how it will change you, how your life and everything you assumed to be true, is no longer what you thought.

Having a child with autism may cause you to feel things you never dreamed possible. You may know moments of joy and moments of despair you could not have imagined. You may find yourself going to untold lengths in the hope of helping your child. You may feel distracted, unable to concentrate. Your work and career may suffer. You may learn what it is to be sleep deprived. You will come to know what it means to feel desperation. You will know sorrow in a way no one can prepare you for. You will know happiness in a way no one can prepare you for. Sometimes you may feel both sorrow and happiness within the same day, within the same hour, within the same minute.

You may spend money you do not have on yet another treatment, yet another doctor, yet another specialist, yet another therapy, yet another intervention, all the while rationalizing that if it helps, it will all be worth it. You may contemplate doing things you would have scoffed at before your child was diagnosed. You may find yourself trying things that defy logic and have no medical basis. You may listen to implausible, anecdotal stories and think — we will try that next. You may dream your child is speaking to you in full, complex, beautifully self aware and revealing sentences. You may wake from those dreams believing for a few seconds they were real and not a dream. You will pray that you might dream again. You will welcome sleep, as you never believed possible. You may ache with sadness because your child is crying and in pain and your presence brings them no solace. That ache may become unbearable when your child hits themselves in the face, bites their own arm or hand, punches their own legs or stomach. You may question every maternal instinct you have.

You may feel ecstasy from being hugged, unprompted. You may feel the exquisite joy from having your child reach for you, ask for you or look at you. You may know the joy that comes from seeing your child work so hard at something that does not come easily to them. You may celebrate when they use the bathroom unaided, drink from a cup, sleep for more than a few hours without waking you, try a new food or simply acknowledge your presence. You may feel a gratitude you would not have believed possible. You may cry from happiness when they say a word, any word, even if you are the only person who can understand what the word is. You will know what it is to appreciate commonplace things — eye contact, the correct use of the word “me,” “you” and “I,” physical contact initiated by your child, a word, any word spoken or a smile.

You will feel a fierce love for your child that seems to come from a place that is not of this world. You will know what it is to love unconditionally and you will understand what that really means.

Rained Out Weekend, So I Created Kid-Related Lists

 

Mother Nature and I were at odds on the weekend. My original plans included going to local parks, nature walks looking for bugs and insects, a playdate, and going to the outdoor farmer’s market, etc. Basically, being outside most of the weekend. Alas, the rain spoiled that fun. Instead, we had a different playdate as our original one had to reschedule because of illness, going to the library, lots of tickle fights, computer games, iPad time, popcorn and a movie, and some colouring.

 

I’ll admit that I get very frustrated when Mother Nature foils my plans, primarily because I seem to have missed that class that most (all?) moms have taken where they can instantly come up with crafts to keep the kids happy and busy.

 

So, I also took advantage of the lazy, indoor weekend and started some lists. What can I say? I may be a SAHM, but I used to work out of the home, in an organizing role…lists are my life!  The lists I’ve now started are:

• Summer activities
• Rainy day activities
• Crafts
• Activities to do with other kids
• Winter activities

 

I have compiled them from many sources I found online, with Google, Pinterest and also some personal moms groups on Facebook. For the record, considering we’re 4 – 5 months from winter showing its ugly head again, it’s a lower priority than the other lists.

 

I’ve created the lists as label templates so I can cut them and put them in boxes, labeled appropriately. Stay tuned for how I actually created the boxes and the labels.

Motivational Monday – Post #Mother’s Day

 

Happy #Mother’s Day!

Borrowed from Single Mothers Who have Children With Autism’s Facebook page:

THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME:

To Value a job well done: “If you’re going to kill eachother, do it outside, I just finished cleaning.”

All about time travel: “If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!”

Logic: “Because I said so, that’s why.” (I’m so guilty of this one!)

Foresight: “Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

Irony: “Keep crying and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Osmosis: “Shut your mouth and eat your supper.”

Stamina: “You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.”

Weather: “This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.”

Hypocrisy: “If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times. Don’t exaggerate!”

Circle of Life: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”

Behaviour Modification: “Stop acting like your father!” (I’ve been sssoooooo tempted to say this, sssooooo many times)

Thankfullness: “There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do.”

Anticipation: “Just wait until we get home.”

Receiving: “You are going to get it when you get home.”

Medical Science: “If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way.”

How to become an adult: “If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.”

Wisdom: “When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.” (I’ve used a version of this)

Justice: “One day, you’ll have kids and I hope they turn out just like you.”

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

to all the moms, moms-to-be, moms only in your hearts, and “Mr. Moms”. You are all amazing!

 

#Moms Groups Rock!

It’s taken me a while to find moms groups that don’t kick us out suggest that another group might be “more appropriate for our needs” (welcome to what we sometime face because we have Autism in our family).  I’m still a member of the Facebook groups for the two groups we were part of in Big City, Ontario, and am a member of the one here in Small Town, Ontario.  Each group has a different chemistry, and I love all three of them.

Something happened last week within my local Small Town, Ontario moms group.  We have an amazing chemistry online through our Facebook group, and by the time we all meet in person, it’s as if we’ve known eachother forever. We already know about eachother’s ups and downs, our kids, our relationships, etc.

Last week, one of the babies of the group was admitted to hospital. Next thing I knew, we were all banding together, trying to figure out what we could do for this fellow mom, who was at the hospital for a total of a week and a half. Someone suggested a care-package of sorts to help her through this hard time, and give her something to do other than nurse her baby and worry. Within a day and a half, we had all bought/pulled together items for the care-package, one of the moms picked everything up from people’s homes, packaged it all together and dropped it off at the hospital in the nearby city: 

 Everything happened so quickly that, being offline for only one morning meant that I missed the pick up so I took my own contributions directly to the hospital the following day: 

I have never been so proud to be part of a community, especially an online community. The majority of us (myself included) had never met this mom, but we all felt “responsible” for helping her in whatever way we could. Moms groups rock!

 

Google Found Me How?

Thought it was time again to share some of the crazy search terms that have resulted in people finding my blog.

• Mom black pen – there’s a mom-specific black pen?! Marketing genius or just plain weird? Jury is out on this one.
• Being single vs relationship – hope whomever is contemplating this option has figured out whether they want to stay in their relationship or not. Personally, I believe that if you are contemplating your relationship status, you shouldn’t be in a relationship. Just my opinion (and experience) though.
• I’m not happy with my current relationship status – see my comment above
• Set me free from his lies – LOL! Hunny, to Quote Dr. House “everyone lies”. All you can do is choose to put up with the lies, confront them, or move on.
• Cartoons of people marrying their dog – ummm, what?! And, how did that search term bring you to my blog? For the record, I never married my dog.
• I knew it was over when… – oh let me count the ways I could finish this statement…
• itruzie bridal – I don’t even know what this is, but how is the word “bridal” finding my blog? I didn’t even wear a bridal gown when I got married. I wore a bridesmaid dress that I had made in white. I just wasn’t a big puffy white dress kind of girl, nor could I validate spending thousands of dollars on a dress.
• Breastfeeding older babies – not sure what the searcher refers to as “older babies” but I breastfed my twins until they were 1 year old…and frankly, I’m damn proud of it! They never developed the “latch” ability so I pumped for that year, and when month 11 came around, I was so sick of it but I was determined to achieve my goal of a year, and I did!
• Marriage couple between 10 -14 years of difference – my ex-husband is 14 years older than me. It worked out “grrrrreat”. LOL!
• My ex said his door is always open for me – mine said that too. I think they all do. They lie.
• Can you fake Autism – ummm, what??!!!! Why would you want to? Seek professional mental help, please…asap.
• Shemar Moore and single – is he??? Really??? He’s on my “list”. Sorry honey…

My favs of all of them is:

• Happy I’m single – Despite being in a relationship with a wonderful man…me too hunny!! No more marriage for me!
• Autism Super Power – Hear! Hear!

 

Wordless Wednesday – #Autism

My man bought me an AWESOME t-shirt!

 

When I was…

A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook status and, if I “liked” it, she sent me an age to fill in the same information. I thought it was cute, and quite eye-opening to see my life just before becoming a mom vs now.  Here goes:

When I was…27

The year was…2004

My relationship status was…married

I worked at…an event management company

I wanted to be…an event/fundraising director

I drove…a Honda Civic

My greatest fear was…something bad happening to my (then) husband

Children…9yo stepdaughter, twins on the way very soon…

 

Now I am…35

The year is…2012

My relationship status is…single, and happily partnered

I work at…being a SAHM

I want to be…a great mom!!

I drive…a sexy minivan

My greatest fear is….something bad happening to my kids – don’t make me go mama-bear on you!

Children…17yo SD & 6.5 year old twins, boy/girl – all 3 are the best kids in the world! I’m sssoooo glad my step-daughter and I have been able to maintain and further our relationship despite her father and I splitting.

 

Discussion all parents need to have, no matter how awkward

My daughter and I were driving to pick up my son from IBI today, and we had one of those important discussions that all parents need to have with their children. Somehow we started talking about who she can talk to when she’s sad, happy, angry, etc. We started discussing who are safe grownups in her world to talk to about her emotions.

With my heart beating about a million times a second, I decided it was a great opportunity to chat about what to do if someone tries touching her privates (besides the fact that I will go more than “mama bear” if anyone ever hurts either of my kids!!!!), and who she can trust to tell or go to, if it ever happens.

At the end of the discussion, she knows that NO ONE is aloud to touch her private parts without her permission, EVER; and she has a list of grown ups she knows will listen to her and act on her behalf if, God-forbid, someone ever hurts her.

It was an awkward conversation to have but I think I was more awkward about it than she was, but it was extremely important.  As parents, we need to look for these opportunities and jump on them.  It wasn’t a long conversation but I hope that I have helped my 6 year old have some tools she can take with her for the rest of her life.

Don’t ever miss an opportunity like the one we had today, no matter how uncomfortable and awkward you feel. If we don’t prepare our children for the world, and stick up for them, no one will.

Day 03 – Your parents

Mom and dad,

Two simple words: