Loving you, Loving Me

Yes, I realize that the title of this blog is also a title to an ABBA song from Mama Mia! but it is also how my two children have behaved today. I know they love me, I also know they are kids. But for some reason, I feel like my own flesh and blood was abducted by aliens and evil reminisces of them were left in their place.

By the end of today, I wanted to put out Lost and Found posters. Eve, my precious lil angel who never does anything wrong, woke up this morning in a screaming fit and did not want to stop. She was mad at the world and determined to take it out on anyone in her way. Even after being sent back to bed, she still had an aire of you better not mess with me today about her. She hid and did things she knew she shouldn't (like put art on our back door, eat toothpaste, and play with mommy's deodorant). When she would get caught she would look at you with a blank stare, until you told her "no." Then she would scream as if the building was on fire and she was stuck inside. Dear God, thank you for patience today with this darling angel, please return my angel to me as soon as possible because the one who awoke in her room today was not my child.

Hearing the sound of timpani drums in the back of my head, I turn to the 11 year old. Sweet innocent manchild, who I have watched developed into such a bright young man. Gone, disappeared at about 2:30. In his place was an evil look alike that had no brains and could not think. When given simple one step directions, he would do the opposite and then just look at you lost. The poor evil look alike caused my sweet manchild to loose his "tickets" that allow him to spend his evening stemming while playing his wii. With that, the evil twin sulked and stomped like a two year old (typical two year old not the over the top one in the house today) causing him to loose his last ticket and all hope of seeing his favorite NFL players battle out the superbowl on his television as he controlled them with wild flailing. Dear God, You gave me an innocent young child with the eyes to see good in all the world, and a struggle to communicate what he sees, with your help, I have taught him to share emotions. Please help me accept that it is ok for him to be angry and his bed time words to be "I am angry at you. Good Night." Also, please grant him the wisdom to wake up and see tomorrow as a new day!

I am loving the being a full time parent, even when full time means overtime with no pay! I am thankful for the wonderful kids I have, and realize that just as I am not perfect, neither are my kids. I do hope and pray that each day is better than the day before, so here, I offer to other parents my new serenity prayer:
Dear God,
Grant me the COURAGE to help my children see the good in all things and to encourage them to share their feelings. Grant me the PATIENCE to deal with their short comings and constant need of reminding.
Grant me the SERENITY to accept that they are not always going to be happy with me.
and the WISDOM to know when to leave them alone to deal with their feelings and when to help them work them out.

The Beginning

According to our doctors, Wayne was a typical little boy. Boys always develop slower than girls. He hit all the major physical milestones but never really developed language. Wayne then slowly started to regress. It took him forever to potty train, there were some fine motor things, that he could do before, but then couldn't do. Wayne still couldn't really talk. At least no one out side the home could understand him. He struggled through kindergarten and had many accidents along the way. He was not fully potty trained until he was 6.

He developed some language skills through speech therapy and constant repeating to him. But was still hard to understand. It wasn't until after we had a diagnosis for a muscle disease and saw a neurologist regularly, that the neurologist suggested testing for autism. I had heard of autism before, did a report on in my freshman year in college. I thought I knew all about it! (Amazing what people learn from 1997-2005) I also knew my son was no "Rain Man." Literally, that was all the research that was available at that time. So, I started digging and doing some research on my own. I contacted some people. Finally, I had decided that Wayne had enough quirks, that testing might be worth it. Not because I wanted to fix him. I had kinda gotten used to all of his "isms." But because, if I knew what was wrong, then I would know how to help him fit in and make things easier for him.

We got his diagnosis the spring of what should have been his second grade year. He was about 7. When we went in for testing, they psychologist pulled me aside and asked if we spoke any other languages in the home. Then played for me the conversation Wayne was having with the toys during the interview. Because of his developmental milestones, and the weird language that he talks while he plays. They diagnosed Wayne with full blown autism. There were other factors. I was also reassured that he was high functioning. I do not like the high functioning term. At least not at first. It sounds like a house hold appliance. High functioning washing machine. But we took it.

Now that we knew a name for how he was thinking, it helped us look at ways to help him and push him to fit in better in regular society. This does not mean that we have normalized him by all means. But we have taken the socially unacceptable behaviors and found ones that are more acceptable.