Real Talk: Parenting + Autism

My oldest is loud, boisterous, energetic, dramatic, spastic, and silly about 99.7% of the time.

She’s rarely ever quiet... unless she’s asleep or not feeling well.

I love that about her.

She makes me laugh constantly - even when I’m mad or frustrated with her, I can’t help but laugh at some of the silly things she does or says.
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My youngest has sensory issues.
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Tonight I experienced a real LIGHT BULB Moment:

Her loud, overly-dramatic, hyper-activity - more often than not - triggers his sensory issues.
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No wonder life seems so stressful and chaotic when we’re all home together.
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When they leave for their dads’ - I tend to hole up in my bedroom to decompress and sleep as much as I can.  I didn’t understand why I felt so depleted or why I could literally stay in bed all. dang. day. on the days they weren’t here if I didn’t have work or school stuff to get me out of bed.  I didn’t understand any of that until tonight.

What started as a mildly stressful evening quickly escalated to an uncomfortable tension that ended with all of us being sent to separate corners of the house for a few minutes to regroup and decompress.

A Positive that came from it:
I opted to turn it all into a teachable moment.
I had her look up “sensory issues” and “autism”.
I made her read what she found out loud and then asked her what she took away from what she had just read.  I asked her to apply it to her and her brother.

I shared with her some of the thought processes and constant worries I struggle with privately.
- Daily worries about his nutrition.
- Daily worries about his safety.
- Daily worries about his education and his future.

I told her about the process I started months ago of trying to get her brother qualified for other therapies outside of school to increase his chances of living and leading a normal life.
- Endless phone calls, emails, and applications.
- Incessant research for information and resources.
- The constant worry of: Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough?
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Tonight could have easily been a train wreck.
We all could have gone to bed angry, hurt, frustrated, and sad.
But because I was able to share some of my biggest fears, concerns, and failures as a mother with my daughter, things were diffused from a place of utter frustration to a place of understanding.
I’m blessed that she was open to listening.  She truly wanted to gain a better understanding about her brother’s issues.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Mom-ing ain’t easy, but I am feeling so lucky that I get to be their Mom.

One Year

Well, Xander is a year old!  

I can't believe a whole year has gone by!

It was a good year, but it was definitely one of major adjustments and re-prioritizing.  

I remember talking to the lactation consultant at the hospital the day after Xander was born.  She asked me how long I planned to breastfeed.  I told her I was going to TRY to make it a year.  She was very happy by my answer and told me that was an excellent and very realistic goal.

And here we are!  - A year later.  - Still going strong -- even after the many, MANY times I cried (and screamed), "I want to quit!"

Breastfeeding is, by far, one of the most difficult, most challenging things I've ever done in my entire LIFE. 

I am so thankful I was able to master it this go around.  

I am proud of myself for sticking with it even when it was a HUGE inconvenience, especially considering all the out of town work I had over the course of this past year.

Pumping several times a day to keep your supply up, storing expressed milk in tiny hotel room freezers, making special trips to special grocery stores to buy dry ice so I could get all of my expressed milk home safely in a small cooler without it spoiling and going to waste -- Ugh!  What a royal pain in the butt!  - Just a small part of all the stuff no one tells you about nursing children!!

I can see why a lot of moms choose to nurse past the 1 year mark.  I understand it more now than I did ever before.  Even though I don't believe my personal choice will be to nurse much longer, I completely understand and support other moms in their wishes to continue on past a year.

As nursing moms, we've worked SO hard to master the art of nursing and just when it starts to get easy and has almost become second nature, it's time to wean your little boob monster.  It's really kind of sad.  

Anyhow, a year of literally sharing my body...  On top of the 9 months prior that the baby was IN my body.  That wasn't easy.

But I did it.  And I'm so grateful.  

Xander is such a blessing.  He is the sweetest little soul.

He is crawling, standing, cruising, climbing and taking wobbly little steps!  He says "Please" and knows how to sign the word for "Milk".  

He has 8 teeth.  Sucks his thumb.  Loves sweet potatoes, green beans and bananas.  

Smiles, laughs and gives sweet, slobbery kisses often.  

He is a total momma's boy, but has started to cry if dad leaves the room without cuddling him first. 

And he LOVES his big sister SOOOO much.  She's such a good Big Sis!

Lost

There's been an inner struggle happening lately.

I knew it was only a matter of time before it presented itself.  - After all, this isn't my first go-round raising a baby.

It's no big secret that I was super indecisive about choosing to have another child.

I went back and forth.  - Yes, then no; then no, then yes again.  

I guess I was a realist of some sort.  I knew how hard it is to be a full-time parent to a helpless baby.  I was painfully aware of all the obstacles that come along with having a new baby: sleep-deprivation, ZERO time for yourself and very little energy for / time with your spouse.  I never forgot about those things like I've heard other parents say.

The struggle was real.

I am super career-driven.  I work all the time and LOVE what I do.  My career has only managed to get more and more busy with each passing year and I feel super grateful and blessed for that considering there are makeup artists everywhere in Nashville now.

In addition to being a workaholic, I'm also admittedly pretty selfish of my personal down time.

I knew having another baby would make me rethink my priorities in both respects and I happily chose to do it.

With Emily's dad and I sharing custody, I was able to have a "break" from parenting a couple days a week and every other weekend - granted, that didn't start till she was almost a year old.  It wasn't easy to be away from her at first, but as she got older, it was nice to just have a day or evening - or sometimes both - all to myself.

Ultimately, those kid-free days allowed me to make friends, have somewhat of a social life and work at making my business successful.

Xander is 7 months now.  

I wanted to enjoy this year of being a mom again.  I had very strong feelings about being a part-time stay-at-home mom and not putting him in daycare.  I didn't have a choice with Emily and once she started daycare she was sick all the time.  I wanted different for Xander.

I knew going into this that we wouldn't have reliable help with childcare during the week from family and I'm super thankful my career allows me so much flexibility and the CHOICE to stay home with my son.  I'm also thankful my husband has loads of flexibility in his work too.  I believe if those last 2 statements weren't true, we wouldn't have chose to try for another baby.

But despite my flexible work schedule, it seems that most days I just end up feeling super lonely and starved for adult conversation and interaction and ultimately longing to be working.

In the last few months especially, I've realized that I have spent the last 7 years of my life hyper-focused on my career.  I chose work instead of devoting time and energy into cultivating lasting friendships.

Now I only have a handful of close friends - none of which have small children, if any children at all.  - And the few friends who do have babies, all live 45 minutes away.  - Furthermore, the few friends who live close to me all work day jobs during the week and are off on weekends.  I'm off during the week and work most weekends -- especially during wedding season.

I have even tried to reach out of my "comfort zone" and join a couple of local mom groups in the hopes to make some new mommy friends and participate in some play dates... BUT...

1) I just don't feel like I fit the "cookie-cutter" mold for moms in these particular groups. (It's probably all in my head, but I've never felt like I blossomed into motherhood like most women do.)

2) All the play dates / meetups are at 9 in the freaking morning!?!  - My son is a night owl who doesn't go to bed till after midnight and then likes to nurse alllll night long, so we sleep in.  - Surely I'm not the only mom in Nashville whose baby does this, am I?  - And if I am, that just further supports point #1.

- So now let's talk about personal time and time with my husband.  

Xander is SEVEN months... I mentioned that already, right? 

In 7 months, the Husband and I have had ONE date night.  - And that only happened because Dianne and Heather are awesome and so graciously offered to come to our house to babysit our kids just so we could go do something.

We went to dinner.  Mexican.  I was able to order whatever I wanted to eat and utilize BOTH of my hands while eating it!  So I ordered FAJITAS.  - Then we went to Starbucks and Books-A-Million. Nothing extravagant or special.  Just a nice kid-free night out.  We were home before 10pm.

When you have a child that co-sleeps AND wants to nurse constantly into the wee hours of the morn, you can pretty much toss intimacy out the window.  My body no longer feels like my own to share with my husband...  Most days it feels more like a life support machine or a cow on a high producing dairy farm.  It's not that the desire isn't there to be close to my husband, but considering the lack of sleep / energy paired with being completely "touched-out" from having a baby attached (literally) to me all day, then throw some leaky boobs, spit-up, baby pee &/or poop in the mix, and there you have it.  Every reason (or excuse) in the book to not want to be intimate with your spouse all rolled into one: I just don't ever FEEL sexy anymore.

- And while we're on the subject of being "touched-out" - let's talk about alone time.  

I've had ONE pedicure - mid-May, I think - since before Xander was born.  Keep in mind he was born in December, so my last pedicure was probably towards the end of Summer or beginning of Fall.

I lucked out and was able to score a $10 massage because my BF had extra massages on her membership that needed to be used by a certain date.  So this past Sunday, we went.

It's the first thing I've done for myself that I scheduled on a day where I was off from work all day.  

- Usually, I schedule my hair appointments (cuts only) - or the one pedicure I had - for days where I'm already going to be out of the house for work, so tacking an extra hour on to my time away from home really isn't that big of a deal.  

So yeah, I scheduled a massage with my best friend and left the kids with my husband for a couple of hours.  Guilt-free.

- Except it wasn't guilt-free.

It's NEVER guilt-free - but not because my husband makes me feel guilty, because he doesn't.

It's because I'm a mom.

- And spending "unnecessary" time (that's not work-related) away from my kids makes me feel like the worst mom EVER.  

- And spending money on myself for fancy extras like hair cuts, pedicures and massages takes away from the money I should be spending on taking care of my family.  

I know this is all in my head.  I know other moms feel this kind of guilt when clearly we shouldn't, but no one talks about it.  Why do we do this?

I'm not trying to complain.

I KNOW I am SUPER blessed with my sweet little family.

I have so much to be thankful for, and I AM thankful!  

Both my kids are GORGEOUS and HEALTY.

My husband loves me and is always happy to see me regardless of how I look, smell or act after a long day of solo parenting with a fussy baby and a sometimes overly sassy, smart-mouthed tween.  

But ultimately both my kids are extremely good kids.  - And Xander is a really GOOD baby.  He's amazing.  - And I'm so glad for that. 

But I guess even the easiest of babies aren't easy all of the time.  - Raising babies just isn't an easy thing to do.  - Especially if you have little help.

They don't say "It takes a village to raise a child" for nothing, and I believe that more now than I ever did before.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not-so-secretly jealous of all my friends who have their moms and sisters and friends around all of the time to help.  I wish I had that.  Every single day.  But I don't, and I know I won't.  

So I resign myself to accepting that it's just us.  - And we just have to do the best we can for each other.

My prayer is that God puts some awesome moms in my life that I can be "just me" around and if He wants to do me a real SOLID, He will help me find a church where I feel at home in. - Also praying for an abundance of patience for others FROM ME and FOR ME from others.  - And for peace, strength and courage to keep on keepin' on with a more positive attitude and with kindness in my head as well as my heart.  Amen.