It’s not very often that I get to go somewhere with one of my children, just the two of us. When you have five kids, inevitably they have some of the same friends, and get invited to the same birthday parties. Not today. Today, it was just my son and me. We went to the birthday party of a friend he knows from school. The boy is in another grade, and I didn’t know one single child there, other than the birthday boy. It was absolute chaos, the way a birthday party in summertime should be. The family rented a huge, inflatable water slide, which was set up right next to a trampoline. Nearby, faces were painted, balloons were twisted into animals, a clown entertained. A large tent housed a full luncheon buffet, complete with beer on tap. My son had a BALL, while other parents and children cast curious glances our direction. He screamed his way down the waterslide probably fifty times. He ate an entire plate of barbecue chicken. He bounced around the trampoline, squawking and chirping. He tenderly hugged his friend. He waited sooooo patiently in line for a balloon animal shaped like a dick and balls sword. And for three and a half hours, I watched him enjoy himself, all alone. And the entire time, I stood nearby, all alone.

I expect that my autistic son will have trouble fitting in with people he doesn’t know. But I’m not accustomed to feeling that way myself! I didn’t have any meaningful dialogue with ANYONE there, except the hostess. Everyone seemed to just … move away from us? Eventually, after making small talk with half a dozen other parents that didn’t go beyond saying hello, I figured I was just there to keep my son out of trouble. He had a wonderful time. He had cake. Then we left.

On the drive home, I started to think, perhaps it’s a blessing that we have such a large family. I’ve often wondered how different things would be for my son if he were an only child, and I had all the time in the world to devote to him and his needs. I’ve come to the conclusion that it would kind of suck, and we’d probably be terribly lonely. Thank goodness we have lots of other kiddos right here at home to play with every day!

Well, I haven’t really kept this blog up quite like I intended, now have I? I started out wanting a place to write the way I used to write, but it ended up being one massive vent about my teenager. Not exactly what I wanted. I need to get better about balancing my writing, I’m thinking!

Here’s where things are right now. The teenager finished up the school year and passed all her finals, amazingly. She even got an A on one of them! Thankfully, she’s only going to have to repeat one class in order to graduate on time – government. And, bleah, I remember hating government in high school, too. We didn’t take it until our senior year, though. Anyway. Finished up the school year, and ran out of the school without looking back. She really wants to switch high schools, but honestly, I don’t think it’s the best idea. Even though she has a handful of friends she knew in middle school at the other high school, she’s still going to end up gravitating toward the misfit crowd. At least HERE, she’s close by. I can be at her school in five minutes, as opposed to twenty. And since she’s not of driving age, it’s not like she can get herself there every day – one of us would have to drive her. And as much as I’ve tried to figure out a way to do that, I just don’t see how it can be done, since I have four other kids to get to school as well. Most importantly, though, I think she needs to suck it up and face her problems! I keep telling her she’ll run into dicky people at every school, and it’s going to be up to her to rise above it and make good decisions. We’ll have to have a great big discussion about all of this when she gets home – she’s been away for about a month. It’s been awesome for both of us, really.

The little ones are doing okay. My son has been driving us batty lately with these new vocal tics he’s just picked up – also known as screaming his ASS off at random moments. Well, it’s not screaming so much, more like annoying loud noises. Sometimes, he sings at the top of his lungs in a crazy, throaty, death metal voice. It would crack me up if it didn’t attract SO MUCH ATTENTION. In addition to all of that, he’s found entertainment lately in pissing off his little sisters – teasing them, kicking their seat in the car, etc. Now, I see that as typical sibling behavior. It might be annoying, but I really can’t chalk it up to him having autism! We just returned from a long road trip out to California to visit Disneyland – and the whole trip was super fun. I’m so lucky to have married into such a fine family. We stayed at my husband’s aunt’s house, and she spoiled my kids so much that they CRIED when it was time to come home. School starts here in just about two weeks, and for the first time in history, I’m going to have a little bit of alone time. Yep, the littlest ones are starting kindergarten. People keep asking me, “What are you going to do with yourself?” I don’t have a clue. Hopefully, A LOT. Hopefully, my house will be cleaner, dinner will get made on time, and I’ll return our library books before they’re two weeks overdue.

My husband and I are coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary. Five years since we said our vows in front of our dearest friends. Five years of joy and tears and chaos and laughter and love. And it seems like it was just a couple of years ago. Hell, I’m wearing the same t-shirt today that I wore the day before our wedding, when my girlfriends and I made a vat of fruit salad and hot glued my veil together. Time moves SO quickly when you have a shitload of children, I’ve discovered. At this rate, they’ll be in college before the milk sours. And I still love that man SO MUCH. He drives me insane a lot of the time, and he’s a control freak and a half, but I’m so very thankful that fate brought us together.

I guess that’s it. My life doesn’t change that much, I guess – still doing that whole parenting thing. What’s new with you?

My little boy has been out of school on break for several weeks now. He starts back up in about two weeks, THANK GOD. I love having the kids home for awhile, because I’m lazy by nature and I like to sleep late. But I hate seeing my son struggle day after day after day. He’s so accustomed to his very structured daily routine at school, and we have very little structure at home. We have a loose routine in place – specific mealtimes and bedtimes, for example – but everything else is just kind of free-flowing. I keep trying to put a routine in place like on Supernanny, but we never can seem to stick to it.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t really WANT that crazy, strict picture schedule like they have at school. I know the boy would cope better with more routine, but I truly feel like the more relaxed environment at home will be better for him long term. I think growing up in a big house full of kids is more of a benefit than a detriment to my son, because he’s learning to adapt to changes in his routine. I also like the idea that he’s growing up, y’know….sort of NORMAL. Our lives don’t really revolve around him and his needs, they revolve around the children and all of their needs. I think it’s important for him to see that the world wasn’t created for him.

I’ve seen kids with autism completely lose it when things don’t go the way they expect them to, but I don’t see much of that with my son. What I DO see is him missing his teachers and friends. Another benefit to growing up in a big family is having other kids to play with all the time, but it’s hard when you’re the only boy in a family of girls. Yesterday, we headed out to the park to take advantage of the unseasonably gorgeous weather. I packed up a picnic lunch and we spent nearly two hours out in the sunshine – it was glorious. And it’s in that setting where all my kids are on a level playing field. They may not all be able to read and write yet, but they can all climb rock walls, play tag, and swing so high they touch the sky.

I hope I’m doing the right thing. That’s the hardest part about parenting a child with special needs – not knowing if things are going to work out in the end. But I guess that’s true for all parents, right?

My boy has become quite the conversationalist in recent weeks, which has completely thrilled his team of teachers and therapists. His dad and I are pretty excited about it, too. The boy has been communicating for awhile now, going on a couple of years, really – but it’s only been recently that he’s begun communicating in full sentences, and carrying on actual conversations with people. It tickles me to see him engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue with people. It’s become routine now for him to greet his teachers, saying good morning and greeting them by name. He told a classmate the other day, “Nice haircut!” And during one difficult morning last week, he he yelled at his teacher to go pee in her pants. He had to write her a note of apology. I apologized as well, and then immediately called my sister and we laughed until we cried. Now, we’re invoking this phrase whenever things aren’t going our way. We’ve had blizzard weather here in Denver this week, and I literally snorted when I read, “Go pee in your pants, snow!!” on my sister’s Facebook page.

Last night at the dinner table, we were trying to get the little girls to eat their peas. The Man pointed out to them that even their brother ate his peas, and he doesn’t like anything. I protested, listing all the things that he does like to eat. I mentioned Spanish rice, since he had polished off an entire plateful of it, and then asked The Boy what else he liked to eat, not even expecting him to respond. But he totally did! He said he liked rice. Then he mentioned pizza, chicken nuggets, tomatoes (lie – he hates them!), eggs, yogurt, donuts, cereal, rice (he mentioned it twice!), pumpkin seeds, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I couldn’t get the grin off my face – it’s so unlike him to participate in a conversation like that, and it was so sweet to see him thinking up new things to add. Such a special moment!

I always think back to our very first speech therapist, who took me aside one day and very gently told me she didn’t know if my son would ever learn to speak, and that our family really needed to learn sign language so we could communicate with him throughout his life. I think she meant well. I really do. I always try to remind myself that people mean well, and people say stupid things when they mean to say insightful and helpful things. Unfortunately, this was neither of those. Hearing that my son may never speak at all was like a punch in the gut, and it was more traumatizing for me personally than hearing the news that my son had autism. It seems so insignificant, in some ways. After all, he’s HERE, and he’s healthy. But one of the best parts of having kids is hearing them talk, y’know?

I had a dream around that time that my son had fallen off the bank of a creek into some water where we were fishing. In my dream, he went under water and I panicked and pulled him out, and he cried and told me plain as day, “I didn’t like that, Mommy!” At that point, I had never heard him say any words at all, and wondered if I ever would. That dream felt like a gift from God, granting me that premonition and reassurance that things would eventually work out. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could always listen to that inner voice?