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The only problem we've been having with Ty is his sleep habits, he's been waking up very very early, between 4:45 and 5:20. Not only does this cause us issues with trying to get ready for work in the morning but it also means that Ty is passing out around 5:30 each night and then the cycle would continue. We finally broke it the other night so hopefully we are back on track with him getting up at 6:30 instead. Gonna be tricky if we ever have to have the boys share a room, at least in the near future. When Tyler gets up, he turns the light on and starts playing which would obviously wake up Ben. Ben is an emotional boy in the morning so I can only imagine how much fun he'd be at 4:45! ICK. We've been considering downgrading our living situation to free up some cash flow each month so things aren't so tight and then we can do more fun/stress releiving things as a family and a couple and be able to better afford services for Tyler. We also want to make sure we keep ben enrolled in social activities as he's struggling a bit with his social skills right now (has me paranoid of course).
This is the thing.. I realized something this weekend, something beautiful about autism. Yep, there are a few and I occasionally comment on them. I took the boys to play at a mcdonalds play land. At one point both boys were up in the structure which was awesome, usually Ty just runs back and forth on the floor and climbs up the slide, but this time Ty did play functionally. Anyway, the beauty of autism is that Tyler is blissfully unaware that no one wants to play with him. He is carefree, running around laughing and squealing and haveing a great time. I watched him thinking, we all should be a bit more like Ty. He's just happy being and could care less what anyone around him is thinking or the fact that they don't want to be with him. ON the other hand, we have Ben, who was literally begging kids to play with him and they wouldn't. That was heartbreaking to watch. He jus tkept saying, will someone play with me please. We are working with him a lot on social interaction and appropriate ways to play. Once again, mommy guilt kicks in that we haven't had a lot of social opportunities for Ben in the past so he has some catch up to do. Anyway I did step in and give him tips. There was a shy litte girl there so I suggested they play hide and seek and that worked for a bit, I also suggested he chase TY around and play follow the leader. another group of kids were in a birthday party type situation so they were kinda of ignoring him and he was sad. It was just awesome that Ty is oblivious to all of that. It makes me happy to know those things aren't going to bother him in life. Oh, back to my "working on it" though, at the park this weekend, I worked with Ben on what it means to play with someone and not just play what you want to play. This was hard for him to understand but eventually he did do what I watned so we cuold dow hat he wanted, etc. Which reminds me.. Steve's bday was this weekend so Grandma Taylor came down to watch the boys so I could take steve out to dinner. The boys loved playing with Grandma Taylor, thanks grandma!!!! Ben said how sad he was when she left, aweeee...
Other than saying how high divorce rates are for couples that have children with autism and commenting occasinoally that it all takes it's toll, I haven't really gotten into the specifics of my marriage, mostly because this blog is about Tyler. However there was a great article recently in good housekeeping (may have mentioned this already) and if you haven't read it, it truly is exactly how Steve and I were for the first 3 years of the whole autism thing. In fact, it's a pretty common story with most couples. Mother accepts and starts fighting quickly, father feels guilt and resentment and struggles to move forward and a barrier comes between the couple and so the problems begin. It's easy as outsider to see and undestand how it all happens and how easily fixable it could be but i promise you when you are in the situation, it's pretty tough! So now, it's taken 3.5 years but we are definetly on het same page in regards to Tyler. I think our last major issue over his care was last fall and we worked through it with success. But what I've never touched on, is what happens after all of that, after you agree upon what to do, after you figure out the money, after you manage schedules, etc. what happens after that is actualy chaos. Ok you have a plan in place but there is only so much time in a day to accomplish everything and to be honest, it's impossible.
So our arguments after figuring out all the autism crap, is just that, how to accomplish the rest of life that falls into priority after the autism crap. That's where it gets tricky. I read an article recently that must have been for mothers day and talked about superwomen and in this day and age woman feel the need to do it all and feel like failures if they don't. The author said how she had a friend who was as stay at home mom who feels guilty for not contributing more to society. A restaurant owner who feels she doesn't spend enough time with her family, etc. The bottom line is we can't be all things to all people at one given time. It was a great article, it focused on being happy in the moment, how to find happiness with life just as it is now, so what if the laundry is piling up, or if you have to order pizza and don't have time to cook a healthy meal, in the grand scheme of life, who cares. Sort of a don't sweat the small stuff. I talked to Steve immediately after reading it saying I wanted that. I want to find a way for us to be happy now vs. continually planning for the future. Sure we all have to set goals but I think it's incredibly important to choose to be happy right now, because it is a choice. So I guess that's my theme for this blog update. Watching Tyler at speech on Monday made me incredibly happy. Sure Mondays are hard for me, i'm gone for 2 hours in the middle of the day from work to get ty and take him to speech and take to daycare so I try to get to work early to accomodate, which means getting up early, which means my entire day on Monday's from 5:00 on is a go/go/go. Even when we get him which is later now, it's a rush to get dinner made and on the table before Tyler passes out. Given all that.. I sat there on Monday watching him at speech, and I was so incredibly happy, not caring what was happening at work while I was away or what was going to be waiting for me when I got back, what I was going to do for dinner or anything else. I was happy just to be and enjoy watching my amazing son. We all should choose to be happy more often. I know I'm going too!
