It is 4:28 a.m.

I’m sitting in bed in the dark with my laptop and a Coke Zero, ice pack on my oh-so-not-able-to-run-anytime-soon knee.  I am “watching” the reject-y (not a word – I know – don’t be so judge-y) programming that Nick Jr. tries out in the wee hours of the morning. Probably once they were destined for PBS rotation, but then again, weren’t we all destined for something at one time?

Oh, in case it warrants mentioning, Peter is here with me.  Awake, since 3:10.  Which wouldn’t be so intolerable were I not to have made the unfortunate choice to have some “me” time last night and stayed up until 1 Facebooking and watching Tosh.0.

10 years ago this would’ve been a pretty awesome night.  Minus the Nick Jr. and Ice Pack (I think there has never been a better time to personify inanimate objects with random capitalization, by the way) – and plus a Hot Tub and and Arbor Mist fount.

It seems there is a unique level of Dante’s Inferno relegated for parents of children who don’t sleep.  We spend our days in a state of bleary-eyed subconsciousness somehow making it to school, therapy appointments and play-dates (well, not always the play-dates).  We might even make it to a conference call, get to the grocery store, or respond to a few emails from last week month whenever.

I’m not sure that I’m ever appropriately “present” when we’re on one of these benders.  The truth is that it’s NOT 10 years ago.  I can’t just blow off class and sleep it off, or pop a few No Doz and schlep my way through an 8 hour shift selling Electronics at Sears.

I can’t say that I didn’t bring this on myself.  My insensitive and naive comments about 6 p.m. bedtimes and 7 a.m. wake ups for the better part of years 2 and 3 seem so smug and superior now that I cringe as I recollect.  Even then, I knew I was playing with fire.  I kept telling myself that I could handle anything because at least he, unlike so many of my friends’ children, slept.

Karma is kind of calculating and maniacal like that.

So please excuse me (us) if I (we) don’t respond to your messages in a timely manner, or forget to enclose the check with the water bill, or take an extra 30 seconds to recognize that the light is in fact green.

The life lesson I’ve taken away from this is to cut people more slack, because you never know what’s really going on in their life.   I certainly cannot be the only one watching the “reject-y” shows on Nick Jr in the wee hours of the morning – sub par programming or not – they still cost the network more than running that psuedo dog-whistle sound and ROY G BIV bars.

Invariably, there comes a point in a mother’s life where she looks in the mirror and realizes that she doesn’t recognize the woman staring back.

Where she stares blankly when asked about her interests.

Where entires weeks are swallowed, indistinguishable from each other, all entailing cleaning up pee, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Nick Jr.

Where any existential thought is thwarted by reality.

When she looks in the mirror she searches to find the light that once filled her blue eyes.  She marvels at how she can trace the damage of every single french fry and donut over her tired, not at all youthful, body.

She wonders when and how and why this happened?  What is it about having a child that caused her to give up on herself?

Can’t a woman give every piece of her heart to her child and still have something left for herself?  Or is that the epitome of selflessness?

Because once she was full of insight, eager to conquer the world, desperate to succeed.  And in that young woman was a captivating beauty.  Where is she?  She couldn’t have disappeared.  We can have the best of both worlds right?

Right?

It’s just frustrating enough to make you want to run.

So I did.

I laced up my running shoes, grabbed my iPod, and hit the trail.

It was 98 degrees.  The air was heavy like it can only be in Carolina.

But I ran, and the thoughts they flowed, a prose undeniably mine.  Tinted by my experiences and my perspective.

Mine.  They were mine.

But then something wonderful happened, as I ran, I let them go.  I forgot my epiphanies.  Instead, I found myself being solely in the present.  Not overthinking.  Not really trying at all actually.

It was me and the rhythm of my feet on pavement, my breathe, the music.

That’s when I found that girl.  The one from before.  She didn’t need to dissect her feelings on life, because she was too busy living it.

Every day for the past week I’ve laced up my running shoes.  Every day I have had 45 minutes to be that girl.  To be myself.  To reacquaint myself with that girl I thought I’d lost.

There’s no guilt either.  Because I run, I am a better mother, a more empathetic wife, a stronger woman.

It’s not wrong to keep a little something for ourselves.  In fact, it’s detrimental not to.

On October 9th I’m running the 5K in Downtown Raleigh for the Autism Society.

I’m running for Peter, yes, but this year, it’s mostly for me.

Will you join me?  Or, if you can’t, offer your support?

2010 Triangle Run/Walk for Autism

I’m pretty sure every parent has moments where they have no idea how to respond to their children.

I think we’ve all felt helpless and defeated at some point.

If you haven’t, well that’s fabulous, why don’t you stop reading and go make a pie or something.

I think it’s also safe to say that I have had this helpless and defeated feeling more often than most mothers.  Perhaps because I face some unique parenting challenges, or perhaps because I am weak.

That being said, this is the story of Wednesday.

Peter and I had been cooped up in the house for the morning.  We were getting ready to meet my inlaws to take Peter and his cousin to a children’s museum.  But we had a bit of time to kill and were both feeling restless.

It was lunchtime.  Peter loves going to the mall for pizza.  It’s easy.  It’s cheap.  And I’m all for anything that doesn’t involve my oven when it’s 100 degrees outside.

Generally I bring the stroller as sometimes P gets overstimulated and impulsive and runs.  Sometimes he gets angry or sad and lays down…anywhere…roads, parking lots, elevators, you get the picture.  When he’s laying or rolling on the ground I really struggle to pick him up.  He’s half my size, maybe more, and strong.  Very strong.

Laying, rolling.  In parking lots.  Into roads.  Anywhere.  Screaming and stiffening his body so that it’s practically impossible to pick him up.

He does not do this on purpose.  He is not just having a temper tantrum.  His world is completely topsy turvy and he’s fighting just to be present.

So Wednesday, as we pulled into the Pay Cee Jenny (JC Penney) parking area he saw the California Pizza Kitchen sign.  We were going to go to the food court, that’s what we always do, but he read pizza and wanted to go there.  I told him it was different and that we had to wait and sit and…and…he was really excited for a big boy meal with Mommy.

I didn’t put him in the stroller.  It wasn’t a long walk and I didn’t want to deal with navigating it through the restaurant. As we reached the door he started to freeze.  I tried to abort and keep heading for the food court but he stood there staring longingly at the pizza store.

Might as well I thought.  But as soon as I opened the door he screamed and threw himself on the ground, his lip trembling, body shaking, struggling to catch his breath.  He went from excited to trepidatious to total meltdown in the span of less than a minute.  He was crying that he can’t do it.  He can’t go in.  It’s too scary. He doesn’t like it.  It’s bad.

So of course I tried to get him out of there. I told him he was right.  The other pizza was way better.  Let’s go there AND get a cookie.

While every upper-middle class pious bitch in the Triangle gawked.  Naturally.

I carried him out of the store.  Hoping he’d calm down.  That I could at least get him to the food court or car.  But then he began sobbing that he wanted to go back, back, BACK to the pizza store.  ”I can do it.  I’m so sorry.  I’ll do it.  I’m not scared.  I’m not.  I’ll be nice, Mommy.”

“Okay, I breathe <audible breathe> in <pause> and out.  See, I’m all better Mommy.  I’m sorry.  I’m better.  I will do it, Mom.”

But he’s not better.  He’s definitely not better.

Did you read that though?  He’s sorry.  Talk about heartbreak.  He’s sorry for something that he has absolutely no control over.  He feels responsible.  Oh I know that feeling.  I hate that feeling.  Have I shared that flawed logic with my child?  I hate myself in that moment, and in many after, it replays in my dreams, in the still of the night.

I hate hearing my child apologize for losing control of his emotions.  For fearing something that he absolutely should fear.  Walking into CPK is not, for him, what it is for you and me.  It’s a world of sounds and lights and people…and…expectations.  It’s incredibly hard work.  It’s confusing.  It’s like entering combat.  No really.  It is.  It’ s like he’s walking through a mine field trying desperately not to explode.   The pressure to not buckle when there are so many unknowns.  That’s an awful lot for a little boy.

But worse, he wants to fit in.  He wants to take these challenges.  So he IS sorry.  He’s sorry that he can’t.  That he doesn’t have the tools.  And for that, I am sorry.

In the end he was thrashing about so inconsolably that it took all my physical/emotional effort to lift him from the pavement and carry him over my shoulder, shoes flying off, the whole time screaming “I’m so sorry, Mommy.  I want to go to the pizza store.  I will do it.  I am so sorry”…and we went back to the car.

And the shoes, and my purse and my dignity were lost somewhere between the inconviently placed handicapped spot and the pizza store.  Along with a dozen gawkers.

To get him into the car I literally had to use all of my weight to shove him into the back seat.  I got into the driver’s side and turned on the air.  He continued to scream and cry.  And then I lost it.  I sobbed.  Big deep gutterell sobs.  While I plotted how to get back to get his shoes, my purse…

I finally ran as fast as I could to the curb, collected our “things” and back…crying…out of breathe…sweating…making sure to give the gawkers what they wanted.  So they could tsk tsk…  So I could hate them forever.

We sat in the car, while he screamed himself horse.

“I’m so sorry.  I can be nice.  I can do it, Mommy.  Please-oh-please-oh-please Mommy.  I want to go to the pizza store.  I’m so sorry”.

Me whispering quietly “Shh, it’s okay, I love you.  It’s not your fault.  I’m so sorry.” through my own tears.  For 10 – maybe 20 minutes…time stood still.  I silently berated myself for putting him in that situation.  For being so stupid and careless.

Then my sister-in-law called.   I tried to explain to her and my mother-in-law but no one could hear me anyway.  I put her on speaker phone and as her voice pierced the air he immediately began to breathe more regularly.

She calmly invited him to Titi’s Pizza Kitchen.  Cheerfully she ran down a list of silly toppings like play-dough, paint, bird seed, and silly string.  Taking his “order”.

He began to giggle incessantly.  Recovery was instant.  I rushed around and got him in his carseat and we told Titi we were on our way.

And sure enough, when we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Titi was in the kitchen, with a chef’s hat, a menu, pizza dough and all of the fun ingredients.  Grandma played Hostess.

Grandpa came home shortly thereafter with Dominos.

As my world slowly stopped reeling.  I realized that it’s true.  I can’t do this.  Not by myself.

But that when I feel most defeated, that’s when my family and friends step in.

Because they are here.  They love him and understand him and will go to any length to make his world safe.

And isn’t that what we all want in life?  Someone to do that for us?

It’s good that Peter is an only child.

Good in many ways.

Like good that I don’t have to ever be pregnant again.  Cause gaining 65lbs on 4 1/2 months of bedrest (and the almost dying and going blind part) was kind of a drag.  Plus I don’t think Gus particularly enjoyed pushing me around Home Depot in a giant orange wheelchair while I was eating a hot-dog with Grape Crush from the vendor out front (Sabretts, of course) and barking out orders for paint swatches.

Good because I don’t have the money or the inclination to start taking “the speed”, or whatever you kids are calling it these days.  I can hardly stay on top of this one’s schedules and antics, how would I divide myself?  On that note, were it scientifically possible to “divide” oneself, I’d totally be selfish and have a svelte runway version of myself for show and keep the “other bits” locked up The Man in the Iron Mask style (which may or may not be the last movie I saw in the theater).  So clearly that wouldn’t work, besides, that technology is so twenty years from now, and my eggs will totally be worthless by then.

But mostly, good because with Peter being an only child I don’t find myself constantly comparing our developmental journey every step of the way to some ideal “benchmark of typical”.

I do it enough, mind you.  At school.  At Chuck E. Cheese.  At the playground.  At Target.  While playing with my adorably precious and absolutely wonderfully on-target-in-every-way nephew…

It’s an injustice to Peter’s amazing accomplishments, nature, specialness for me to do this.  But sometimes, ignorance is not bliss, in that when realizations do strike they are violent, jarring, deeply saddening.

Perhaps with a sibling it would be easier after all.  I mean, maybe the differences would subtly make themselves known, leaving more time for…grieving?  Celebrating?

Cause if there’s one thing we know how to do – it’s how to celebrate Peter.

I dunno guys – I just think – if I could take away the pain he feels.  The immense struggle that ordinary interactions bring him.  To never have to keep him from something he so desperately wants to participate in because he is overwhelmed and unable…

I would in a heartbeat.

I can celebrate the uniqueness and quirk that comes with Autism.  We don’t mind being different or working harder.

It’s just that until the world can be more welcoming for everyone, until people stop staring, and tsking, and ushering their children away in detest, he needs all of me.

And that’s perfectly alright, because I honestly don’t believe I could ever give myself to another human being in the same capacity again.

Why mess with a good thing?