Sorry I haven't felt much like writing lately. I've been frustrated with Sean and while I want to be real and honest with this blog, I also don't want to come off as this ogre mom....
Remember when I was counting down the days to summer? I've always enjoyed the summer so much with my kids. Stress-free, care-free days....
It hasn't been like that and I don't know why.
I'm not working my day job this summer. I work only two nights a week. I'm more care-free than I have ever been.
But it's not feeling like that....
It's been tough for me dealing with Sean's growing teenage angst. I guess I should count myself lucky that he is experiencing it at all. Isn't that "normal"? Don't parents of typical teenagers go through it?
The sighs and the pained look on his face when I suggest anything other than sitting at the computer are beginning to wear on me.
I tell him the schedule for the next day every night before bed. It's habit. He should know it's coming.
Yet, he looks at me (or as much as he can look at me) and his face tells me he just wants to be left alone.
Big, not-so-fun things have happened this summer. The washing machine shorted itself out, the roof needs repairing, the DVD entertainment system in the van broke. I need to take care of things. I need to leave the house. And... I need to take him and his sisters with.
I can't remember what I said yesterday while standing in the kitchen but if his eyes were capable of looking at me, they would have rolled. Sean rolled his head instead....
I called him out on it and the teenager in him quickly denied the act.
But he did it all the same.
So it's been difficult these past few weeks....
How do you deal with an autistic child who wants to stick to his own routine, his own world and a burgeoning teenager who also wants to stick to his own routine and be in his own world?
You have to wonder if they are indeed one in the same....
It's going to be a crazy fine line I navigate these next five or six years. What is teenage angst and what is autistic anxiety? What is disrespect and what is merely the autistic side of Sean?
I've always told Sean and others that being autistic doesn't mean you have a free pass in this world to act as you please.
In other words, there's being autistic and then there's being as ass.
This is not The Little Drummer Boy and I don't want to be keeping time at the manger...
And I don't want to be the ox... but I believe I am.
Today was a go nowhere day. I didn't even send the kids out into the yard until well into the afternoon. I kept it quiet and I let Sean have his distance, as well as his beloved computer games.
I think we both needed the break from each other.
Call me naive, but I even think that Sean may have felt a bit of remorse over yesterday. He asked if he could work on his merit badge booklet while he was outside.
That made me smile.
Tonight, when I arrived home from work, I walked into his room to say good night. We chatted for a bit... something about his hernia surgery when he was two years old.
I said my good nights...
And then he smiled at me.
Maybe I'm not the worst mommy in the world....
Maybe I'll get lucky and these teenage years won't be so bad...
And now maybe I have the song stuck in my head...
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum...
Great... good luck with that!
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