Because Just in Case...to Kellen

If you’re reading this, you know how overprotective I am. If you’re reading this, you know I can get a little crazy when I’m separated from you, or your sister, or your father. Whether you’re reading this or not, I know that you KNOW how much I love you.

I’m getting on a plane on Sunday. Don’t tell your sister, but I HATE flying (I know that’s a bad word, just humor me). I hate being in the air, I hate not having control. The one thing I hate most of all is that right now, as we are, I am terrified that you won’t understand what happened if the unimaginable happens…I am bawling my eyes out this second thinking about it.

We spend every day trying EVERYTHING we can to get you where you need to be. Diets, doctors, therapies, all of it ISN’T to make you NORMAL (as some so-called autism advocates would say, and son, I’ll tell you now they are full of poop – see I’m using better language here). All of it is so that we can talk to each other. There is no one in this world that understands you better than I do. Everything I do is so that we can know each other better, so I can help you be what you WANT to be, so that you can tell me/show me what you need/want/hate (bad word again). You’re doing a damn good job (oh just go with the bad language).

I am proud of you EVERY day. You surprise me ALL the time. You, your sister, your father, you are my reason for being. It is all worth it every single day. The good, the bad, the hard, the easy, the crazy, the sane, the…us.

Currently, you’re focused on setting up these elaborate scenes with no less than 30 parts in any given area of the house…so much so that I’ve started sweeping around them. Your favorite things right now…books…it’s awesome. You’ve also discovered stickers…which is also awesome except when you stick them to the couch… You love Baymax, Transformers, and there is nothing I love more than to hear you say Optimus Prime. You’ve also started crying at the appropriate parts of movies (lately, the Transformers movies), and while I don’t like to see you sad, it is truly wonderful.

You’ve started asking for me when I’m not here (which tears my heart out right now as I get ready to leave in 36 hours). Your sister loves to fly (clearly that is your father’s genes). Her birthday is while I HAD to be gone for this conference, so in a crazy chain of events, she ended up coming with me. I know that you’ll be in excellent hands with Papa and Nina. I know that we’ll learn a lot by traveling with Larkin (many days son, you are a much easier child than your sister, but don’t tell her I said that). I also know that you would not survive an overseas trip, or even a 3hr flight right now. But know that we are determined to get there. You will be our guide. I won’t force you on a plane because WE want to go somewhere. We will wait until you are ready…and then we will go. Wherever your heart desires. I’ll be honest, once you’re ready, I actually think you’re going to love flying…you and your sister both have your father’s fearlessness when it comes to that kind of thing. I’m seriously going to have to fake it with Larkin on Sunday!

So I’ll leave you with this…you are on the verge of something. I see it. I feel it. I’m still trying to figure it out. You are always the leader on our journey. I said recently that my research will be my love letter to you…I mean that with all my heart. It’s with that thought that I have to head out to this conference. I’ll buy you way too much stuff, I’ll annoy you by calling on Facetime too many times, I will completely micro-manage your food, schedule, clothes, etc. while I’m gone (there’s a really long list for Papa).

But it’s because I love you. It’s all because I love you. Never ever forget that son.

Bangs

I know what you’re expecting…this supercute post on me cutting bangs and loving them/hating them/discovering cute up do’s…. What? No, that’s not what you’re expecting? Then you know me too well ;)

I got bangs. They look pretty cute thanks to my super awesome hairstylist.  I wanted something different and for it to look like I ACTUALLY got my hair done…mission accomplished. Truth be told, once they settled in after a couple of days, I do genuinely like them and I’m going to completely love them as they grow out and I get to play. Patrick even seems to like them (maybe because I said they were temporary). But before I came to that realization, something bad happened…I looked in the mirror.

For a good 24-48 hours after I got them cut, I completely froze every time I got a glimpse of myself. It was a bit unnerving honestly. It didn’t make sense…I actually look darn cute in bangs J And it took me awhile but then it finally hit me. I joke (although I am completely aware that it’s not a joking matter…I joke because I’m not entirely joking…) that I have PTSD about random things related to the rough years, including ultrasounds (when you have so many go bad…). So in a huge surprise to me, I have PTSD about bangs. Laugh now. Please, really, laugh, because I did after I got done crying. It’s completely ridiculous, completely inconceivable (ha…look at me being funny), and completely true.

I took a shower this weekend, and stepped out with bangs going every which direction…and was immediately and painfully thrown 10 years in the past. You see, 10 years ago next month, I found out I was pregnant for the first time. A week later, we went to my parents’ to tell them in person (you know, because tell everyone you know at 5 weeks, what could go wrong…). While there, I got my hair cut, and decided, of course, to get some bangs. They were very poorly behaved bangs to be honest LOL. I think it was about 72 hours later that everything started to fall apart. Pain, a general bad feeling in my bones, medical confirmation, an overnight hospital stay, and surgery…then I wasn’t pregnant anymore (the ectopic…).

This led to me…a few days later…stepping out of the shower…looking in the mirror…and finding myself completely and utterly unrecognizable.

I looked rounder than usual….thanks to 3 months of fertility drugs and gas that had inflated me during the laparoscopic surgery a couple of days before.

There were scars…3 of them…I could see them all in this lopsided triangle, sutures still visible.

There were those stupid bangs.

I looked nothing like myself. Everything about me was wrong. Everything about me had changed. Nothing would ever be the same…and it wasn’t.

I remember that moment so vividly. I’m fairly certain it was the first shower I had taken without supervision, the first day I’d been home left alone.

So here I was this weekend, stepping out of the shower and that image slapped me in the face. Maybe it was that I’m a little rounder than usual…I had more than a little stress this fall between major changes for Kellen, Patrick’s travel, and my grant proposal; my marathon training was anything but perfect; and my eating habits…embarrassing. But then there were those damn bangs.

And then I laughed. I laughed because for whatever ridiculous reason, Larkin is in LOVE with my bangs. She talks about my hair constantly, especially when I’m not around, so she just really loves it that much. And I kept laughing because the “old bangs” had lost so much…but the “new bangs” have a little mini-me super-fan that’s totally into the bangs. And then I cried…not because of the “old bangs” but because I thought of the day that I got my hair cut and went to pick up Kellen, having a momentary worry that he’d of all times notice my hair and react negatively, and instead…he did notice…and he kissed me…first on both cheeks (where I joked that apparently we were British that day)…and then purposefully put his hands on both side of my face, looked me in the eyes, and kissed me on the lips…twice. He doesn’t kiss on the lips. When you ask him for a kiss, he gives you his forehead…and if you kiss him on the cheek, he wipes right after. He didn’t wipe. He kissed me.

And so then I laughed and cried at the same time because the “old bangs” had sorrow and failing hope…but the “new bangs” had joy and laughter and…us. Time passes, things change, hair grows. No matter where you find yourself stepping out of the shower today, it can and will get better. Hope is powerful, and maybe I just needed that reminder.

Also, maybe I should remember that “grown out bangs” are a little more my style…Larkin may be disappointed J

Because She Doesn’t Know Me…and Sometimes I Don’t Either

***I started writing this in April 2014 and never finished it! I'm recommitted to blogging in 2015!!***

It’s an amazing thing to see yourself through your child’s eyes. It can sometimes be less than pleasant, (Do I really sound like that?), it can be quite comical (when your toddler constantly praises you for doing a good job at everyday tasks, like opening the milk.), and it provides an endless supply of “teachable moments” that you have to balance between your own wants, what’s best for your child, and how it all fits into the world we live in.

Larkin had a fun run at her school. It was basically a 1K race (I know, hilarious distance right?) complete with fancy tutus. We were dressed up and having a great time. I thought the parents were going to run with the kids, but then we were told that we could follow along, but they were on their own. I ran at a distance, encouraging her the whole way, and she did amazing. Ran the whole way, never walked, and came in around 7^th place, the 2^nd girl, and again, all the kids in front of her had walked at least once. I thought she did awesome. But they only gave medals to the first 3 places, and I could see that she was disappointed. Come to find out, the parents were actually going to run separately at the end of the kids’ races. I was not prepared to run that morning, I was just going to jog around with her. But when we went to line up, I heard my own words pep-talking me from the mouth of my newly-6-year old. “OK, Mama, remember, no walking, just try your hardest and run your fastest. I know you can do it.”

Oh crap, so now I have to run because she’s watching me with all of her friends, she’s expecting me to be fast, and I want to make her proud. Super role reversal there. Let me just say that 1K is a rough distance, it was basically a cross-country sprint around the school. I fell in behind two dads, and then managed to pass one of them on the home stretch, winning 2^nd place. She was so excited. But then when I got my medal, I saw a little bit of sadness creep into that smile.

We walked home, and I tried to get her talking. She really was disappointed that she didn’t win. I quickly showed her the picture of her coming to the finish line, and what I pointed out to her were the people BEHIND her not the people in front of her and again told her how proud I was. But my random medal was making her feel like she’d let me down…and that’s when I realized it.

She doesn’t know me. I mean of course she knows me, but she doesn’t know 6-year old me. She knows a mama that balances all sorts of things every single day, that spends her work day as a scientist, her evenings and weekends doing the best she can as a mom, being that mom that makes matching tutus, and bows, and homemade cookies, and finds a way to get to the school parties, and pack lunches with a little love note or surprise. She knows the mom that runs marathons, that does push-ups in the living room, that is “athletic”.

So then I sat her down and told her who I was. That at her age, if I had run that race, I would have been dead last. That at her age, I wouldn’t even have had the courage and confidence to even start the race. That at her age I was picked LAST every single time in PE (but first in the math flashcard relays…LOL). That I never played soccer like her, never danced like her, never ran a race like her.

She was completely and utterly shocked. We both learned a lot that day, and by sharing who I was, I saw that confidence bloom in her even more. But at the same time, it was an unexpected opportunity for self-reflection.

I’m not the person I thought I was going to be. For so many reasons.

I was going to have 2-3 kids. I was going to have a nanny, and the kids would only go to private school. I was going to have a ridiculously huge house and a very expensive car. We were going to go on lavish vacations every summer. The kids would wear only Ralph Lauren. My career would come first, and the kids would have to fit into our schedule, to our lifestyle. They would be in the best camps, the best sports clubs, and have private lessons. I would expect them to be the best, I would put them on a pedestal and accept nothing short of perfection. I would have felt entitled, I would have felt superior, I would have felt empty…

That same month, it became even more clear that I was not the person I was going to be. Larkin had her first science fair. Long story short, she got second place (she was robbed though, first place went to a group project, and they had their results and conclusions swapped…geesh! Lol). When I saw the red ribbon instead of the blue, I heard my grandmother in my head. I heard the tone of disappointment, I felt failure, and then I looked at Larkin and saw joy “Oh my gosh Mama, a red ribbon! I got 2^nd place!”. Every kid had gotten a green participation ribbon, unless you were 1^st-3^rd. She saw red and saw success. It slapped me in the face in the best way.

I am not the person I was going to be. The changes started the day that I walked in a door and met eyes with Patrick for the first time. You would think that the changes were further solidified when we had kids…but it was the opposite. I was changed forever when we DIDN’T have kids.

When month after month, year after year, we still didn’t have children. When loss after loss happened. Those years shaped me in a way that I can’t explain. Because of those losses, because of those trials, because of the fight to get to them, I am a very different mother. Believe it or not, I am thankful for those years. They’ve made me more patient, more grateful, more loving. They’ve made me see my children with wonder and excitement, eager to see what they’ll do in this world…rather than simply expecting them to follow the path I set out for them. I’m along for the ride to help guide…but it’s their road.   

I am not the person I was going to be, and thank God for that.

Facing an Irrational Fear: Why I Can’t Swim at 38.

I can’t swim. People often mistake that for “I don’t swim” or “I don’t want to swim”, but I truly and absolutely CANNOT SWIM. This simple and stupid fact terrifies me.

I went to swim lessons once. At Larkin’s age now that I think about it, just a few days after kindergarten ended. Swim lessons in my small town consisted of everyone heading to the city pool to be separated based on age and taught by local high school students. I had a summer birthday, and this was back in the days when school ended in May, so I was still 5. This meant that almost all of my friends were in a different group. I can’t remember if I made it through 1 or 2 days…

I remember blowing bubbles in the water, I remember Ring Around the Rosie where we were all supposed to go underwater…I cheated and always kept my nose above the water, sometimes struggling with the person next to me because they had my hand and they were pulling me down. And then I remember seeing the other class head over to the diving boards. And I saw one of my friends panic and decide that he wasn’t ready for diving…and then I saw them push him off the board anyway, him screaming bloody murder the whole way down. My grandma saw it, too. I cried and panicked…and that was the end of it. I never went back to swim lessons…ever in my life.

My friends had pools of course. I would get in, with a death grip on the side. They’d all try to teach me, to slowly coax me into trying, but I would always panic, and they would always realize that it just wasn’t going to happen. So then they’d always have a life jacket waiting for me, which I could comfortably maneuver in, careful to never let water anywhere near my face, always checking the buckles on the jacket.

And then we got older and boys started getting in the pool with us…and then the same story repeated itself endlessly. EVERYONE wanted to teach me to swim. Inevitably one of the boys would offer oh so sweetly to help me loosen that death grip on the wall. They’d hold on to me and swear that there were not going to let go. We’d slowly make it over to the deep end, panic slowly rising…and then guess what?

They let go.
                Every. Single. Time.
And then I’d panic, go under, and someone would have to pull a flailing, choking, mess of me out of the pool.
                Every. Single. Time.
They all seemed to be under this notion that I really could swim. That if they just put me in a “sink or swim” situation that surely I would swim.
                Nope, I sank…over and over and over again.

There was this one boy that tried to teach me to swim. He even had me putting my head under water for very small periods of time, never letting go of my hands. He took me to the deep end, but never let go. He was the only one that never let go. So I married that one!

Patrick has been wonderfully patient with my inability to swim and irrational fear of water deeper than my waist. I’ve sworn many times that I was going to learn…but I’ve never followed through, or even set foot in a pool with intent.

I really meant it when we had the kids. I knew how important it was going to be for 1) me to be able to swim for their safety and 2) me to not pass on my fear…  Larkin’s asked for swim lessons this summer, and I’ve run out of time. Any day now she’s going to realize that I really can’t swim (I generally avoid the subject, but the one time we talked about it last summer, I think she thought we were joking). And Kellen loves the water. He is completely fearless, and I need to be able to keep him safe. I need to know that if it came to it, that I could jump in the water and get him. Because right now if he were in danger, I would absolutely jump in…but the odds would be good that I’d drown us both…and that terrifies me.

The idea of me being comfortable in the water is completely inconceivable. I just don’t understand how it will ever happen. I don’t even know where to start. I don’t understand how this body that has failed me in the water my entire life, this supposed innate ability that I was NOT born with, I don’t understand how all of that is going to float away (get it…float?). Speaking of, I CAN’T EVEN FLOAT!

Besides doing this for the kids (which is the #1 reason!), I (we) have missed out on a lot of things because of my fear of water. We leave for Grand Cayman in just over a month. There are amazing things to see and do there…in the water. I want to do them, but I know me, and I know that there is a high probability that I will freak out on day 1, refuse to get in the water again, and ruin the whole trip.

So with Patrick (and everyone else close to me) encouraging me, I start swim lessons tonight. In precisely 9 hours (and 4 minutes from when I’m typing this)…not that I’m counting. He signed me up for 2 sessions that run back to back…so for the next 4 weeks I will be going 4 days a week. This is serious. The first two weeks our goal is to get me to “won’t drown if she falls out of the boat” and  “willingly goes into the water”. The second two weeks…I want to swim . Actually swim. Like in the deep end. Like in the ocean.

I can’t see how that is going to happen. I can’t swim. I also can’t say that to myself anymore after 7:14pm this evening. Right now, I panic. At 7:15, I will commit myself to getting over this fear. I will commit myself to trying my hardest to do what the instructors ask me to do.

I sit here, and I think about all of the failed attempts as a child, as a teenager. But I’m not that girl anymore. She was scared (of EVERYTHING), she was not the least bit athletic, she had a very loud voice at home telling her that she “can’t”.

I may still be scared, but today, I will not be afraid to face it head on.

I once lacked confidence in my body, unsure if I was strong enough, coordinated enough, athletic enough to physically be able to swim. No one would have ever envisioned that girl running marathons. But she does.

I once had someone constantly in my ear telling me what I couldn’t do. Now I have the support of the people that matter most to me telling me that I WILL do it.

Throughout our lives we are met with few true challenges. I’m going to embrace how hard this is going to be, how many negative thoughts I’m going to have to drown out (oops, I said drown), how many tears I am undoubtedly going to shed.

Because WHEN I do this, they will be proud of me...Patrick and the kids.

WHEN I do this, there will be one less can’t in my life.
WHEN I do this, I will probably get bitten by a shark in Cayman because that’s kind of how things go around here.

To Larkin, On Your 6th Birthday

Today is your 6^th birthday…actually you officially turn 6 in about 30 minutes.

Lately, you and I have begun to tell old stories, which is entertaining considering that your stories couldn’t possibly be that old, but you’ve started retelling stories that I’ve shared. Some of our favorites…

Why I call you “Chicken”…because when you were a baby (maybe 2-3 months old), there was no single funnier word in the English language than “chicken”. You’d giggle uncontrollably. This is made slightly funnier by the fact that your Daddy calls you “monkey”, so you’re a chicken monkey.

Baaa…One time I was leaning over you in the car, you were just over a year old, and I said aloud to myself “What does your sheet say?” To which you quickly answered “Baaaaaa!”

Lion Limes…You first became interested in gardening at about age 3, so I told you that after dinner Daddy would take you outside to see the limes…to which you replied “Lions!? There are LIONS in the backyard? I wanna see them!”

You regularly wander into our room in the middle of the night and proceed to recount some wildly vivid dream, and then just as quickly head back to bed leaving us confused. You always want to help out…whether it’s standing on top of the refrigerator pulling the tape off after your Daddy painted or planting vegetables. You LOVE washing dishes…I’m assuming this will change in the near future. You make your own PB&J sandwiches.

This year you pulled the Thanksgiving wishbone with your brother…and upon winning said “I wish for a dog”…and then looked around for it as if the wishbone wish was the equivalent of a genie wish. You kept asking when your wish would come true…which is how a month later we ended up with Ronin…your not quite 5 month old Great Dane who is now bigger than you.

You are so smart. And because I don’t know when you’ll read this, I just want you to know that I don’t mean that just as every proud mom, I mean you are really really smart. You read well beyond where you should be, including a Biology textbook for fun, math is just second nature to you, and your grasp of science is most impressive. Your favorite thing lately is to do science experiments at home, complete with generating hypotheses, following the methods section with our help only when necessary, and making your own observations and conclusions. You’re a natural. I hope that love of science, that innate curiosity, never goes away.

You love dance class, especially ballet. You play soccer and love being part of a team. You are always asking to run a race, you’ve run 4 so far, and you have a great ability to pace yourself. I dream of us running a half marathon together someday. You LOVE to sing, and honestly, it comes so naturally to you that I’ve wondered if we should replace soccer with voice lessons…but time will tell. We want you to choose your own path, which is why we’ve recently started playing the piano together after you asked.

You are probably the most compassionate 6-year old I have ever met. I’d say that it developed because of your brother, but it was always there. You stood up for others, you welcomed everyone, you comforted all of your friends. Yet, when autism landed in our house, you rose to the challenge. You continue to surprise us with your ability to connect with Kellen, to make him work, to stand up for him. You are and will always be his greatest teacher. And you are his biggest fan.

We laugh…A LOT. We love to run errands, especially ones that involve Starbucks, Target, or frozen yogurt. You love salads, hummus, and fruit. You’re getting better on your bike, but not quite ready for your training wheels to come off, and just last week you taught your brother how to drive your truck. You love to draw, write, and you leave notes for us all over the house. The first note you ever wrote almost a year ago (which I still have), you stood at the top of the stairs and said Psssst and handed it to us. It said “KELN IN MY RM” …and yes, in fact, it seems that Kellen was in your room when he should have been in his own bed!

You police us all, call us out if we’re grouchy (for which you and your Daddy have labeled me Grinch-Ann…thanks for that), reprimand us for saying bad words (like stupid and hate), and have made us very aware of how we talk to each other. You are also VERY tall…you come up to my shoulder, so we’re on the countdown towards the birthday that you will pass me up…it won’t be long.

You have so many possibilities in this life that I can’t even picture you 10 years from now, 20 years from now…just know that we love you, that we support you, that we can’t wait to see what you do in this world.

(Also know that I went to about 10 different stores trying to find Webkinz since apparently they are discontinued but that’s what you wanted for your birthday!)

Happy Birthday Chicken!

Life with Larkin

When I first learned that we were going to have a daughter, I panicked. I mentally fast-forwarded to a moody teenager yelling at me or worse, completely ignoring me. I worried about passing on my insecurities, about…well, everything! Maybe it’s these initial fears that have led me to very carefully consider my responses to her seemingly harmless questions. She absorbs everything around her and is highly intuitive, so I’ve learned to be very conscious of what my words, actions, and emotions are conveying to her.

Example, “Mama, why do you exercise?” Many a mother has probably said “Because I want to lose weight”, “Because I want to eat chocolate cake”, “Because I want to relieve stress” (and as an aside, all of these answers have been true of me at one time or another…usually all at once).  My answer surprised me, and I’ve been careful to continue to reinforce the thought ever since. I said “Because I want to be healthier, stronger, and faster so that I’m around for a long time for you and your brother.” Still she gets bombarded at school with people talking about “getting fat”, but even when we’re talking about food, I’m careful to correct her that we don’t eat 5 pieces of cake because we don’t want to get fat, we don’t eat it because that wouldn’t be healthy and it wouldn’t be good fuel for your body.

I struggle with trying to undo much of the negativity and superficial focus of the outside world. She certainly can be sheltered at times, but she’s out there every day in public school, and I just have to hope that we’re doing enough. I’ve seen many other moms (who are doing everything right) deal with any number of complicated issues with their daughters of similar age, so I guess I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop constantly…and then she surprises me again and again.

We’ve gotten to the point over the last year where we let her watch “real” movies…you know with people in them instead of animated characters. We were watching Real Steel recently (the robot boxing movie with Hugh Jackman), and we get to a scene where there are tons of scantily clad girls, basically in cutoff shorts and halter/bikini tops. I honestly didn’t notice until Larkin said “Those girls need to put more clothes on!” Completely shocked me, until I was able to say “Yes, they certainly do!” Lord knows my midriff was never covered for a significant period of time in college (what? It was the style!), so I’m not a prude, but I very much appreciate that she already has her own sense of appropriateness.

Similarly, I worry about having a whiny spoiled brat…because I may or may not have fit that description as a young child… So again she surprises me. I was at the gym last month and saw that the Daddy Daughter Ball was that evening, we’d completely missed that it was happening that week. I call Patrick in a hurry, intent on heading straight to the store to find her a dress, shoes, etc., and he pauses for a moment wondering whether it’s worth it since last year’s wasn’t quite as organized as the previous year’s. So we decide to ask her…I stay on the phone while he does.

Patrick: Larkin do you want to go to the Daddy-Daughter ball at the gym or would you rather you and I go do something else instead?

Larkin (after about 2 seconds): Something else, we’ve already been to the ball for two years in a row Daddy so we’ve done that enough. What do you wanna do instead?
Quickly they decide on the Lego Movie that evening. I asked Patrick later if they’d like to go to dinner before the movie, and he said he’d already asked her…and she’d said no, she’d rather just get a hot dog and candy at the movie…

So why is this important? Because 5 year old me would have demanded to go to the ball and absolutely would have wanted dinner. Because 37 year old me sometimes still has days like that. Somewhere along the way, we did something right with her.

Somewhere along the way, we accidentally molded a daughter that reads a Biology textbook for fun. A daughter who well before preschool routinely used words like “actually, possibly, apparently, obviously…” A daughter who loves bugs, books, dirt, tiaras, singing, dinosaurs, dancing, reptiles, and sports.

She has both girl and boy friends (but no boyfriends), and she’d prefer to play Transformers on the playground. She doesn’t see race, just a spectrum of skin color, hair color, and eye color with no discrete categories. She’s not a “mean girl”, sadly you can already see some of them at age 5, and she’s extremely inclusive, generally being the welcoming committee for new kids in a class since she was probably 2 years old. I’d like to be her when I grow up.

But let me leave with one thought about filtering out the negative messages of the world. The new “Ban Bossy” campaign really bugged me. It surfaced again recently when Larkin and I were reading Harry Potter and Ron called Hermione a “bossy know-it-all”. Hermione was in fact a bossy know-it-all…you know who else was at that age? ME! Hell, I’m STILL a bossy know-it-all. So is Larkin. We’ve called her bossy since before she could walk…because she is. That word holds no negativity for me. It’s a personality trait, a positive one in my book. It’s assertiveness, ambition, leadership, and intelligence. I’m still bossy, but over the years, I’ve molded those initial tendencies into what society would call leadership…which in all honesty is just being nice AND bossy at the same time. I’m kidding (kind of), but in the end, the early bossy label is actually a great compass for identifying future career paths. And with that this Mama Bossy Know-It-All is ever so proud of my Baby Bossy Know-It-All. Plus she's got the "nice" part down way better than I ever did.

The Lowest of Lows and Highest of Highs

I’ve delayed writing this post for a while. I’ve written it in my head 20 times, and I’ve certainly told the story, but for whatever reason, I’ve hesitated actually starting to type.

Autism forces you to face fears that you never imagined. Sometimes it’s fears that every parent has, but they’re just heightened in the world of autism. Sometimes it’s a fear that no parent should ever have…but we do. So this is the story of two common fears in autism…one absolutely terrifying, the other unbelievably heartbreaking. And it happened within a timespan of less than 24 hours.

It was a Sunday. I had gone for a run. Apparently, Kellen had gotten really upset when he realized I was gone. Patrick said he never really calmed down and constantly looked for me. When I got back, he seemed relieved, but I could see that he had been very bothered by my absence. Patrick went to get us lunch, Larkin was laying on the couch playing on her tablet, Kellen was sitting at the kitchen table with his iPad. I snuck upstairs to change shirts.

What I didn’t realize is that my invisible wall of security had several cracks in it. Larkin had headphones in, and I didn’t see it. Patrick had turned off the beeping that usually happens when doors open, so that he wouldn’t make so much noise letting the dog out. Patrick hadn’t locked the front door when he left.

I changed my shirt, I remember hearing the theme song from Ben 10 floating up the stairs as I did. Then I decided to fix my ponytail since I was a sweaty mess. A few more seconds. Took off my running shoes. A few more seconds. And as I came around the corner to head to the top of the stairs, I was struck by the silence. I called down as I walked a little faster “Kellen?” No answer, no noise. “Larkin, where’s Kellen?” No answer…now I see the headphones in her ears. I look at the kitchen table, there’s the iPad, but Kellen’s not there. I scan the living room and immediately turn to my right and see the front door. Open just a crack, maybe 3 inches.

That’s the moment my heart stopped. That’s the moment nightmares are made of. That is every autism parent’s worst fear. That image and moment will never be erased from my mind. I sprinted down the hall, screaming his name, threw open the door and ran out of the entryway.

And there he was. He looked to have been most of the way down the driveway, no shoes, nothing in his hands. When he heard my voice, he turned immediately and ran (sprinted) directly towards me. I never stopped running, so we collided at the top of the driveway as I bent down and he ran straight into my arms. Our faces were mirror-images. There was no relief, both of us had looks of sheer terror. Both of us seemed to be saying “Oh my God, that was almost it, I almost lost you, we almost lost each other, Oh my God, are we okay?”

I don’t know that we’ve ever hugged tighter. I don’t know that he’s ever been so still and so quiet in his entire life. We must have stayed there hugging for 2 minutes or so. Not moving. Just trying to breathe again. I remember feeling and hearing our hearts beating…they felt like they were trying to outrun each other. Yet we were still as statues.

I picked him up, never breaking our embrace. I walked inside slowly, he never took his head from my shoulder, his arms from around my neck, we walked over to the front window, and I sat down on the carpet. Him in my lap, our arms still around each other. I couldn’t move. Apparently neither could he. One minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes later, I honestly couldn’t tell you, Patrick pulled into the driveway. When he walked in the door, he knew something had happened. Kellen saw him and for the first time we stood up, and Kellen walked off. I went into the kitchen, and as I tried to get the words out of my mouth to tell Patrick what had happened, the tears came. I couldn’t control them, I was shaking, and I couldn’t calm down. Then I feel a little hand at my side, I look down to see Kellen. He’s looking straight into my eyes, and I see his lip start to quiver, his eyes water, and I see him start to cry.

Kids like Kellen “aren’t supposed to do that”. They’re not supposed to show empathy, they’re not supposed to share emotions. But Kellen fills every day with things he’s “not supposed to be able to do”.

He cried because he saw me upset, he cried because he felt my fear, he cried because he shared my fear, he cried but he completely and fully understood the bullet that we just dodged.

I don’t think we left each other’s side the rest of the day, as if there was an invisible tether between us. You could feel the still overly emotional states we were both in. We had survived…this was the fear that I mentioned above as absolutely terrifying.

Now we get to heartbreaking, but you see, it’s heartbreaking that the fear exists for parents like us. But for us, this next tiny piece of our story is not about heartbreak, it’s about wonder, it’s about success, it’s about love.

The next morning, it’s as if we had an emotional hangover. I went to drop him off at school, and as I stood there talking to his teacher, he began to get sad. I could see him struggling not to cry, and as I looked down, he looked straight into my eyes and said, as the tears started to come, “I Love You.” I put my hands on both sides of his face, bent down, and said “I Love You Too Buddy”. And then I started crying, so we knew we had to get him inside before this unraveled. I cried through most of my drive to work, and his teacher said that they all cried after I drove away.

You see many parents of autism, especially those with initially non-verbal children, fear that they will never hear their child utter the words “I love you.” I certainly feared it. And while we had heard it many times in response to us telling him we loved him, he had never said it spontaneously, completely on his own. But there we were, having had a shared experience the day before that was still weighing on both of us, and he chose to tell me that he loved me. No prompting, no routine, no cue that we missed. He loved me, so he told me. While the 5 seconds (that felt like 5 lifetimes) he was gone made my heart heavy and weary, the 5 seconds of love between us restored my faith in all.

Yet, the fears remain. So we fight back. The beeps are back on. And we’ve changed the front lock, so now we have the ability to lock ourselves inside with a key rather than a turn lock. Whenever possible, I leave nothing to chance. And I will take nothing for granted.