Who's this Johnny on the spot, anyways?

It's November!!  What?  What the heck?  I am so lost...the months slipped me by and I haven't written all that I wanted to write or shared with all of the families as I had wanted to share, but for all of the autism families out there...this IS what it is like.  This is what it means to be an autism parent...anything we try to get done seems to allude us on a daily basis.  Sometimes the bare minimum is all we can dare to muster.  For a long time I used to beat myself up over this or feel like I wasn't quite making the grade, but after fourteen years as an autism parent I have learned that I am.  I am doing so much more than I ever realized and that comparing my life with the lives of other parents whose children follow the recognized 'norm' was unfair to me.  

The reality is that it's hard.  It's hard to spend over a decade sleepless and exhausted with limited physical help...with a single child on the spectrum.  I have two.  I realized that I had to give myself a break and accept that I was doing as much as anyone else could given the circumstances.  This doesn't mean we as parents with children on the spectrum need anyone else's sympathy.  It really doesn't.  

It means exactly what I said it means:  autism parents...give yourself a break!  You are doing amazing and above all else, forget about what everyone else is doing because that's their lives.  This is our life and we just need to live it the best way we can.  So on those days you think you should be doing more?  I bet you anything that you are doing as much as you possibly can.  

I realize that not everyone will understand this and most will be the closest people to us.  They don't mean to, but they just have no clue.  They have no way to.  They aren't autism parents.  They are what I affectionately refer to as mainstreamers.  They are people whose children fall within the 'norm' for development, most have no significant issues with speech or sensory processing, and many of their kids finally sleep after they reach three years old all of the way through the night.  They will never know the worry of their child waking and leaving their home in the middle of the night because it's what they do:  wander/run.  They will never know the looks that people give or snide comments from strangers about their children, they can likely communicate with their child (for those of us with children who have speech issues).  And above all else, their child will be accepted by the rest of the world in ways that ours may never be.  Yet we manage to make it through our days doing what so many would deem impossible.  

So if you're like me at all and feel like things just keep slipping you by?  Let them slip, don't forget about them...but just let them slip if you need to.  They will get done eventually and likely better than if you would have been Johnny on the spot about it anyways.  

And as for me?  I will be meeting with families soon enough.  Just watch and wait.  There are three in the queue as I write this and one update on the first family I ever wrote about.