The next step in our lives is for the boy to go off to Middle School and start 6th grade. He is terrified and so am I. Of course he does not know that I am just as scared as he is. I have already met with his SpEd teacher and she has met the boy, which is great because now I don't have to explain him to her. So that is one angst off my list. Mind you the boys' list is totally different from mine.
Mine is..... without a younger group of kids to play with where will he gravitate too, will he be alone? Will his friends still be his friends? Will they have the same lunch or will he sit alone? Will the older kids pick on him because he is the size of a freshman in HS in the 6th grade, will he be bullied, can he handle the social dynamics of MS?
His concerns are, is my locker close enough to my classes, will I have a crummy bottom locker? Is my saxophone really at the school already? what kind of science will I get to take?
I have to remind myself that the boy does OK, it's not my level of comfort but he does OK. My angst is not his. I (we) have never treated the boy differently, we just handle him differently. Meaning just because he is has a label doesn't in any way shape or form give him permission to act out, perform lower than he is capable, or in any way is it to be used as a crutch. That being said, I speak to him differently, I know he will not "look me in the eyes when I am talking" to him. I cannot yell at him because he dissolves, a stern "do you understand me" is enough to have it in stone. I give him more one on one and side to side time than I do the girls. He needs that, he looks for it. The girls get it too, don't get me wrong, just for shorter amounts of time and way different activities.
I recently have let my self venture into the world of ASD mommies and Autism groups and blogs. I was tired of feeling like I wasn't a good enough mom because I didn't shit glitter and my world was not rainbows and unicorns. In these groups I have found real parents, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents that experience life everyday like I do. I don't know if I didn't venture out to them before because 'the boy really isn't that bad" so I thought I would not relate or if I yearned for normal. My normal is not normal, not in any since of the word is it normal, it is however AUsome, and now I see my world in a whole new lite.
The boy will be fine, will we fall? YA! Will we cuss and cry and meltdown? That's a given. But, it's OK because that is who we are, we fight for what we have to and the rest we carve out, on our own winding road. It might be longer, darker, and be far more up hill, but, it is ours and we like it that way. Do I wish it was not so rough?... sure, who doesn't? Who wants their kid to struggle, who wants to see heart break? No one. This next BIG step is HUGE but just like everything else we will find our way. It might not be straight up and over but we will get there and we will look back through our storms and find our rainbow, through the dark clouds and rain we will see it right before the next step. We might not have rainbows and unicorns all the time, but when we do they are bigger and brighter and mean more to us, because we earned it.
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