Is This It?

I read a post, or started to read a post, and just couldn’t finish it because it hit a little close to home that day. These days.

Alex has been something else lately. I’m not sure what’s causing it, but he has me dangerously close to tears. I love that boy something fierce, but oh my Sweet Lord, I wonder how in the world I am going to make it through tomorrow, much less the end of time.

Is this it? Forever?

I pick him up from school to take him to the pediatrician and I can’t get him out the door. He throws himself on the floor and refuses to stand. I can’t do this today. I can’t be patient. I can’t handle his dropping the way I’m supposed to handle his dropping. I can’t think, I can’t be calm, I can’t be in control, because it’s taking everything I have to focus on a single thing at a time outside wave after wave of stabbing pain in my head. I can’t carry him today because it hurts too much, so I’m begging please…please…please get up.

We go in the office building and he refuses to climb the stairs. He very slowly crawls up them with repeated begging from me. We get into the waiting room and he doesn’t want to sit down. I tried to sign him in and he bolted for the door. I chased him and he dropped to the floor refusing to get up. The receptionist waves me away; she’ll sign him in for me.

Is this it? For the rest of our days?

We are called back into an exam room, and he drops to the floor just inside the door; he drops to the floor at the corner; he drops to the floor outside the exam room and I give up. I just grab his arms and drag him in. He tries to get out the door. He paces, he hops, he squeals, he vocal stims. And I am dying.

My head is freaking killing me from the combination of his constant movement and vocal stims, Goofy’s chatter and rustling of the exam table paper, and my increased physical activity trying to corral them both into a safe/manageable area while trying to talk to people.

And they just won’t stop.

We leave the exam room and I’m waiting for a note for school so I don’t get that damned letter, and Alex is dropping to the floor. Crawling around. Twisting and turning. Trying anything and everything to get away from me. He doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t want to leave. I don’t know what he wants.

I finally get him out through the waiting room. He doesn’t want to go down the stairs. I cannot even get him through the door to the stairs because he’s fighting me. He throws himself on the floor so I can’t get him through the door, and then Goofy disappears through the door at the bottom. I’m begging and pleading with him to please just come on.

Finally, I get him in the door and halfway down the first set of stairs when a woman pokes her head in the door to see why there is a smallish unattended child on one side of the door and what sounds like an epic battle on the other. I’m trying to see what the hell she’s doing with my kid, while trying to convince Alex to come down the stairs, when he suddenly chooses to leap at me instead of walking down the next four steps. God, I hope he didn’t break his ankle.

Seriously, is this it? Is this the rest of our life?

It’s bedtime. I put them to bed and Alex doesn’t want to sleep. He wants to scream and jump and throw things and bang on the walls and kick the closet door over and over and over while I sit in the dark in my room where he can’t see me and pray for mercy.

I can’t take this. I need my sweet baby back. I am not strong enough to handle hard autism. If I can’t have my sweet baby back, can you at least make him sleep? Please? I’m so tired.

And then…

“Good morning, good morning, good morning to the whole wide world. Hi there, my baby, are you ready to get up? Want to go to school?”

Lots of stretching, before he bounds from the bed with a big smile and a screech; then runs off through the house.

Sitting with his cereal, Alex has a teething ring beside him. He also has a teething ring in my pocket and teething ring in my purse, yet he leans over to gnaw on my hand. I lean over to him and he lifts his hand to wrap it around my head, grabs my hair and pulls me close. He opens his mouth and gives me one of his rare kisses.

Waiting for the bus, the Goofy child is dancing around; talking to me, talking to his brother. He is excited and proud of himself for being a good brother, because he gave Alex a pumpkin sticker on his chest. Luckily, Alex is too busy examining the awesomeness that is his teething ring to notice the sticker and that buys me some time to let his brother be proud of himself. I can ask the bus aide to take it off.

The bus comes. We take off across the yard, and he does his happy flappy jig all the way to the bus. He gets in his seat and I walk back to the front door, meeting the Goofy child halfway there. Alex watches me from his window. I wave and they pull off. When they make their left, I go inside.

Is this it?

I don’t really know, but I can tell you that if this is it, it’s still a pretty damned good “it” to have.

Mac lives with her husband and two boys in St Louis, Missouri. She blogs about the organized chaos of a family living with ADHD and severe autism on her blog, Homestyle Mama.