long days

Winter vacation is over and I miss it already. Maybe I'm romanticizing it in the way that I now dreamily remember the early newborn days, but we really did have a nice break. For two weeks, we had no scheduled activities, no therapy, no preschool, nothing. I thought it was going to be a fiasco, that our home wouldn't be standing at the end of it, but instead it was just lovely. We slept in every day, did nothing, had no meltdowns, and went to bed happy. Or at least, that's how I remember it.

Two days back into real life, and everything seems shaky again. Meltdowns are back. The schedule seems overpacked, and yet I still have to figure out how we're going to fit in an additional five hours of therapy a week that will be provided (finally) by the school district. TJ, who had been taking marathon five hour naps every day, is now back to being rousted out of bed after an hour to get dragged on an errand or to pick L up. She isn't pleased.

The break was also a vacation from autism. For a blissful two weeks, autism wasn't thrown in my face five times a day as I sat in yet another waiting room writing yet another check to yet another therapy provider. The closest the word came to entering my consciousness was when some friends came over for dinner, and during a break in conversation the clueless dad turned to my husband and asked, "So, how's that autism thing going for you?" And he laughed, and said fine, because it was.

But now it's back with a bang.

On Monday I took the kids to an indoor play area to get some energy out during the Storm of the Century. I was helping TJ navigate the big kid slide that she insisted on climbing up ("OWN SELF!") and a cute little boy who looked like a dark-haired version of the precocious kid from Jerry Maguire, sidled up to me and breathlessly told me about where he got his T shirt and what he was going to be for Halloween and what he was last year, and how old he was and I just knew. Spectrum. Probably Asperger's.

A few moments later, TJ was toddling around the bottom of the slide and the Jerry Maguire kid came running by and didn't see her and knocked her right on her diapered ass. She was freaked out, but fine. But a freaked out TJ is a loud TJ, as L well knows. The combination of TJ wailing and the shock of the collision -- and little Jerry Maguire kid just collapsed in sobs in his dad's legs. The little guy was shaking and he wouldn't look up, even when I tried to tell his dad that TJ was fine, she had already stopped crying. It was so weird to be in the position of the well-meaning but clueless other parent, and I knew that I wasn't helping and I couldn't say that I knew what they were going through (first rule about Autism is you don't talk about Autism) and I just felt terrible. The father and son left a short time later, which also broke my heart because I had seen just a few minutes earlier how much fun he had been having for a little while.

Today, I took L to her beloved dance class. I let the teacher know at the beginning of the session about her issues, but I'm not sure it was even necessary because she is so engaged and so enthusiastic, that it's not really obvious as an observer that she has any disability whatsoever, except that she gets a little silly and a little distracted at times. But not enough to even stand out. The teacher herself said that if I hadn't told her, she would only think that L was just a typical 4 year old, maybe a little bit over-exuberant. (Which is such a 180 from last year when I used to carry her sobbing out of gymnastics classes because she would be terrified of a noise -- I never, ever thought that any extra-curricular instructor would accuse her of over-exuberance. But I digress. Or continue to digress. This sure is my most rambling post ever.)

Today, TJ and I were watching L's class when we encountered one of the teachers from the autism school that L briefly attended last year. The lady was with a severely autistic girl who attends the class following L's. The teacher recognized me and we chatted. She asked how L was doing and what her current issues were, and then she asked like she was trying to remember, "Is L on the spectrum?" I said Yes. I couldn't pretend otherwise, and sitting next to a nonverbal 8 year old it would be too cowardly for even me to deny it. Even though I could see out of the corner of my eye that all the other mom's were trying to put it together. The room suddenly became brighter with the light of a dozen lightbulbs simultaneously going off over their heads.

And you know what? I don't care that they know. It's hard work to force her into our world so much of the time, and we can't erase all her ties to her own little world that she resides in most of the time. This was the first time L's worlds collided, but it won't be the last. And like my husband said when I told him about it, if she become the face of autism for these parents, that's not the worst thing that could happen. In that class, with her favorite music and her beloved teacher, she's the happiest, most exuberant little dancer they may ever see, that's for damn sure.

I have like ten more autism stories from the last two days that I haven't even gotten to, but they're beside the point. Vacation's over, and it's back to work for all of us.