Picked Up a Book...

I started reading a book this week...YES, AN ACTUAL BOOK! Seriously, I have a mile long list of books I've been wanting to read that has been collecting dust since Cruise was born. This book wasn't even on the list, but a mom of one of Cruise's classmates suggested it and let me borrow it, so how could I turn it down?! It's called "Cowboy and Wills"  and I don't think I've ever cried this much through a book. It probably would only be that extreme if you could relate to the story, as it is about a little boy with autism: the author's son, Wills, and his dog Cowboy.

Since I began reading it, I realized just how much I had forgotten: Cruise covering his ears and screaming in any place public, his screaming every time we got him out of the tub, us having to hold his body down just to diaper and dress him, his screaming when people came to the house, the impossibility of going to family gatherings, his need to carry every little toy he could hold EVERY WHERE WE WENT, and his meltdowns so violent he'd pick up furniture and throw it. It's funny how you can let things like that get pushed to the back of your memory; but remembering it reminds me just how far he has come and yet just how far he needs to go.

From time to time I get a glimpse of what it is like to have typically developing children: a child who can talk to you and tell you how they're feeling or how their day went. A child who can play appropriately with peers. A child who can empathize. I notice these children at church and in other random places and am always amazed at how kids just develop like that! I'm always amazed at Jett's progress as I'm constantly baffled at how he can communicate, how he looks at me when he is amused by something, how he hugs me when I get hurt. Sometimes I think, "Man, those parents don't know how good they have it," but at the same time I'm the parent who gets to do a touchdown celebration dance every time Cruise says a new two-word sentence, makes eye contact, initiates peer interactions, and gives me a hug. I'm tickled every time he follows directions and self-soothes. And so in that perspective, I guess I can say I'm the luckiest mom to appreciate every little thing. Every little developmental centimeter. And I guess because Cruise is the oldest, I appreciate every bit of growth from Jett (although I have to constantly remind myself that he is in fact typically developing and not a genius).

Anyway, as I read this book, floods of memories, good and bad, rush in and I find myself embarrassingly wiping my eyes every sentence. I don't know why, but when you are able to experience someone, even through words, who knows exactly what you have dealt and deal with every day, it is the most heartwarming, comforting feeling in the world. Parents of children with autism tend to become isolated once it's evident that our children are different. It's not necessarily anyone's fault, it is just that you are in "autism world" all day, every day and it is your reality. It makes conversations with typical mothers very strained as they cannot relate to the extent necessary to maintain strong, long lasting friendships. I guess it could be explained this way: me talking about parenting with a mother of typically developing children is like a mother of typically developing children talking about parenting with an individual with no children. If that makes any sense. It's just so different. But once we find those few individuals who have experienced those dark places only we know, we find a quick and understood friendship to last five life-times.