Things You Have to Do

Things I have to do that I don't think other mothers, typical mothers, mothers of typical children have to do, probably.

• be the only one to go in and get their 4.5 year old in the morning. Anthony just slams the door on Mike when he goes to get him, usually. He loves Mike but he really likes when I go get him because he likes to
• rub his belly on my back. He is obsessive about it. He started it when I was pregnant with Maria so that's almost three years!
• carry their 4.5 year old.
  
• try and figure out what's wrong with their 4.5 year old, with no words to describe it.
  
• block the washer and dryer so that their 4.5 year old doesn't open the dryer door, climb up on the dryer, and get their (socked and shoed) feet into the water of the washer.
  
• wrap duct tape around the knives, so that their 4.5 year old can flip a knife in front of his face without hurting himself.
• Drive so freaking far to school.
  
• keep their 4.5 the hell out of the toilet.
• find their toothbrush every day, because their 4.5 year old has STOLEN it so he can whip it around in front of his face.
• listen to the incredible amount of noise coming from their 4.5 year old's bedroom before he goes to bed. I mean, it's NOISY. It sounds like ten men up there! Gymnasts!
  

Oh, on and on. There are lots of things that we do that other parents don't have to do. But there are also lots of things that we do that other parents do too. We worry about the future. We hold hands when we go for walks. We love our boy and we know he loves us. We watch our kids run and play together. We are all the same, and different at the same time.

PARENTHOOD

I watched the new show Parenthood today, which has a character who has Asperger's, he is diagnosed in the pilot. I cried and cried watching it. Our experience is different, because Anthony doesn't talk much and that was our first sign that he had autism, and he was 2.5 years old when we started him in therapy. This kid on the show is like ... ten? Eight? Because he talks, his parents don't really deal with his issues until he is a behavior problem in school. Some kids are being mean to him and he bites and attacks the boy that calls him a freak. Personally, I thought it was fair, but I might be biased. I read that one of the Producers of the show (I think, producer) has a son with Asperger's and I'm sure that's the reason that it's all treated so fairly, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this actor is AMAZING. There is one scene where the boy leaves his cousin's grade school concert, and he is standing in the playground with his dad watching him, standing right in a puddle and his feet are soaked. I cried and cried watching the scene - partly because the dad is asking HIS dad for help, because "something is wrong with" his son, but mostly because Anthony likes to stand in water like that, too. It is a funky thing, being a mother to a child with autism. It sneaks up on me all the time - I think "my son has autism", and it blows my mind. It's like I forget every day. I hope I continue to forget, I want to always think of him as Anthony first, as my first boy, my baby, without thinking of him having autism first. I don't want to get so hung up on the fact that he has autism that that's all I think about.

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