Two years! Somehow the time got away from us! It’s hard to look at our site and realize that our last post was that long ago. We didn’t set out to abandon this. We’ve had so much going on in the past two years, and we’ve thought constantly about writing about it. For whatever reason we just didn’t.
But, we’re back!
Lately it seems like we’ve been having more bad days than good ones. Belle has really been on edge, which in turn puts us on edge. Every time we’ve thought things were getting back on track it’s all been thrown off again. Tempers have been short; minds have been lost; a fresh patch of gray hair has made an appearance.
It’s been stressful, upsetting, confusing, and–frankly–annoying.
I’ve found that people have this tendency to try and one-up your situation. They always have a story of their own to tell that’s equally as bad, if not worse, than whatever yours is. It’s like a ploy to minimize the importance of your story; to let you know that whatever you’re going through is nothing compared to what they’re going through. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but I’ve always been a listener, and I hear this kind of thing a lot. And it’s annoying.
It seems that autism has been gaining a lot of recognition lately, which is fantastic. Since we’ve joined the blogging world, and Instagram, we’ve found that there are so many other families out there that have been impacted by autism, and are publicly sharing their stories, and knowledge. It’s even trending in Hollywood (Atypical, the A Word, the Good Doctor). The world is learning that autism really does exist.
I think every parent worries about their child going to school. It seems that in the current times there’s a lot to worry about. We leave them all day long in the care of someone else, and have to trust that they are doing their best to make sure our child is as safe as possible. We have those same concerns, but one thing that stands out above all others–for me–is bullying.
Bullying remains a huge problem, and anyone can be a victim to it. It’s unfortunate, and extremely sad. I want to hug every child that has experienced bullying, and explain to them that it’s not their fault. In fact, if you have ever experienced, or are currently experiencing bullying, please know that it’s not your fault. The short-sightedness of others causes them to feel threatened by anything that is different. Even adults get weirded out by little bugs, and squash them.
My thought process for this post started out like most of the others: I wanted to think of something adorable that Belle has done that I could mix autism with, and write about it. But that’s easy. In fact, it’s so easy that there are already thousands of blog posts out there that follow that concept. And those stories are great! It’s fun to write about Belle’s personality, and I very much enjoy reading those stories from other parents with children with autism.
But then I started thinking about how we didn’t start this blog to only dote upon Belle (as much as we may want to). It made me wonder what I could write about that would actually be beneficial to her, us, parents of children with autism, and other children with autism. Then I remembered one of the first conversations that Belle’s mom and I had that led to the idea of sharing our story.
At this point it’s no secret: Belle has autism.
Things like communicating, expressing how she feels (except anger; she’s good at anger), and breaking her focus can be troublesome for her. She always has to have something in her hand, and a lot of times is trying to put something in her mouth that she shouldn’t. We don’t experience a lot of meltdowns, but she’s had them, and they f***ing suck. The worst one led to her putting her head through a window, shattering the glass, and cutting her forehead (story to come). We’ve since replaced all of them with windows that have tempered glass.
This isn’t everything that makes up her autistic characteristics, but it’s a generalization. The truth, though, is that everything she does isn’t always because of autism.
The likelihood that Belle has something in at least one of her hands at any given time is very high. The likelihood that she has multiple things in both of her hands is even higher. Small pieces of nature that she finds outside on our walks, or in the yard have been her favorite little things lately. Leaf stems, walnuts, pinecones, and cherry tomatoes that she steals from gardens (Shhh!). Our neighbor behind us has a parking spot that’s filled with those colorful fish tank pebbles. Ugh! Those d*** fish tank pebbles! Belle especially loves a handful of them things (we’re about ready to pay to have it paved for him).