Don't call me normal

There was once a time in my life when I tried to be "normal".  Oh I was naïve back then, even though it wasn't all that long ago...

Normal looking, normal acting, normal wife and normal Mom.  It doesn't suit me.  At all.  Striving for mediocrity was never something I was into or good at.  Fitting in never worked.  I was always the kid who stood out, no matter what for whatever divergent reason.  Wrong hair, wrong clothes, wrong interests, wrong wrong wrong.

Act normal, be normal, do normal.  Guess what?  Normal sucks!  Normal is boring and fits me like a pair of size 2 jeans (snort) ummmm, yeah not really!

The day I stopped caring so much what others thought was the day I lost a cumbersome amount of weight, and no this was no miracle diet....It was so bloody freeing I wondered why I had waited my whole life to do it.

We just returned from a Timothy-less vacation, me and my two girls.  Was it hard to leave him behind?  Damn right.  Did I miss him?  Every day.  Would I do it again?  Absolutely.

What's this gotta' do with autism you wonder?  Its the autism that set me on this path of freedom.  As shitty as it can be some days, autism has opened my eyes to many things and folks, they are WIDE OPEN.

 How you ask? 

Watching my child be judged based on his appearance or  his behaviour.  Watching my parenting skills be judged and even dissected.  So I stopped watching.  I do me and I do my family and that's all that matters to me now. 

So before you give me a dirty look or shake your head at us~ because you don't understand~ check to see if I'm paying attention to you............I assure you I'm not.

 

till next time...........

 

Betcha didn't see that coming....

I've been away from the blog front row for a few weeks (okay maybe a month and a bit if I'm being honest and guess I should be) to sit back and observe my life as it is now.  Our new lives as separate parents, as friends, and, well, separate people.  I get myself and the kids up and take them to our (fabulous xo) private daycare in the wee hours of the morning and then drive the forty five or so minutes to my place of employment where I spend the next twelve hours working.  In the meantime, Timothy has been taken to therapy or school, or both; and then waits for me at daycare when I pick him and his sisters up at about 745pm.  The days are long, no doubt, and often leave me wondering...


                 why am I doing this..............?


I'm going to share a secret with you.

Ready???

I'm deliriously happy.

I am a single working Mom to three kiddies.  The youngest carries a diagnosis of lower functioning autism and is a year + into toilet training with no end in sight but holy shiz he is ALMOST dry all day long now (YES! Fist pump!).  Timothy  is the reason I know my LCBO clerk by her first name.  and why I need medication to sleep most nights to stop the worries from taking over my brain.

 My older two girls Skylar and Casey are "typical" (whatever that means) tweens who like the run- of- the -mill tweenie things.  They test my patience every, single, freaking day. 

What the important piece here is, is that

we are all four of us in this together,  this AuTiSm piece. 

Every day we try to find the PeAcE in the PiEcE of this autism flavored pie.  Often its hard to find; hidden behind that green pepper of aggression, or the mushroom of meltdowns that nobody likes.

I can't predict the future, hell I can't even predict what tomorrow will look like.  I do know what I will look like~ what I will feel like and its peaceful.  Come what may, bring it on and I'll do my best to be ready.

                                                                            Cheers!

                                                                         Love Trish.