Brothers

Oliver and Sami kind of circle around each other. They are here together, brothers, but rarely ever doing the same thing or interested in doing so. My own brother came for a visit over Christmas and stayed at my mom's house across town where she lives with my younger brother. Driving over there one afternoon, Sami said to me from the backseat: "Isn't it funny that Paul knows Gram and Patrick, too?" So I explained to him again that Paul and Patrick were my brothers and that we were all little kids together, just like he and Oliver were brothers. "So did Paul bite and kick you all the time, too, then?" His question, asked with such innocence, was bittersweet and I answered with an ounce of truthfulness that yes, sometimes brothers do that and that mine were especially wicked. Not much of a stretch, that.

Tonight while their father was cleaning the post-dinner disaster area that is our kitchen, I sequestered the two youngest children in their bedroom with instructions that they either play with the fifty or so matchbox cars that were strewn around the room or clean them up. Then I laid down on the bed and watched, too tired to really interfere much. Oliver hopped around the room measuring his now ever present spoon against all straight lines within easy reach. Sami jumped from bean bag to bean bag. In a last ditch effort, I reminded them that if they weren't playing they were cleaning. Oliver half-heartedly picked up a car and sent it down the orange track that had been rigged to the door frame while Sami watched. Then Sami's inner foreman took over and he suggested that the two of them build towers out of the large cardboard blocks scattered about one corner of the room. I watched while Sami instructed Oliver where to place each block and was stunned to see Oliver retrieve block after block while following Sami's directives.

"No, put the block like this. The other way, Oliver. Yeah, that's right."

Once they had built two towers Sami showed Oliver how to put the track on top of the tower to give the cars real lift as they were placed at the top of the track by a little pulley system. Without any prompting or input from me, the two of them took turns placing cars on the track and watching them fly from the end into a great heap on the floor. When, on occasion the track or the towers fell down, Sami or Oliver or both would race to repair the damage.

I became much less exhausted moment by moment, watching them play. Play. Together. My boys. I wondered if I would ever see it.

Occasionally, Oliver would stop what he was doing, walk over to his brother, put his face at Sami-level and grin, nose to nose.

At last: the part of brotherhood that doesn't leave someone bleeding.

Little Things That Mean A Lot

Nik and I have been having lots of moments lately when we look at each other and say or think: "Wow! This wouldn't have happened a year ago!" When I think about each little thing individually they don't seem that remarkable, but taken altogether they make my heart sing. So I hope you won't mind if I do a little boastful blogging and share some of those little successes with you, my friends who get why the little things mean so very much.

1. As reported in my last post: We now have fork and spoon success!
2. Some of you may remember my pleas last year for alternative winter coat ideas. The boy would NOT wear anything that zippered, buttoned or snapped. We spent a lot of time indoors. This year it has been a total non-issue. In fact, when he knows we are going out he hunts around, finds his coat and puts it on himself!
   
3. Shoes and socks also get put on and stay on. Mostly. And they always have to be Crocs.
   
4. Oliver no longer has the need to ride in the carts when we go shopping and, in fact, prefers to walk along with me and explore the environment.
5. We can now drive past my mothers street and house without stopping, without issue.
6. Oliver is no longer afraid of the sound of the shower and even enjoys taking them!
7. When we visit the children's museum in our town, Oliver now explores the exhibits instead of spending all of his time fixated on the Thomas the Train face on the train table.
8. When we leave the house, Oliver holds the door open for me and for Sami (as opposed to letting it slam in our faces).
9. When we get in the car Oliver automatically puts his seat belt on and does not remove it until we get where we are going.
10. Oliver will now sit contentedly and look at a book. He will even prolong storytime by bringing me book after book.
11. Oliver has conquered his fear of the local public swimming pool (actually his fear was of the bubble that houses it in the winter time) and now he can hardly be persuaded to come home.

And the biggest and best -- the one I appreciate the most:

12. For the past month, whenever he has awakened during the night he simply turns the light on and goes back to sleep on his own! We've only had to give him Benadryl one time in four weeks!!

A Spoonful of Carrot

If I could go back in time and tell my early-diagnosis-self a thing or two, I know just what I'd say: don't sweat the small stuff. Of course I'd probably also want to take my shoulders in my more wizened hands and shake good and hard. I could have used that back then. But this business about the small stuff? So important. When I look back over the countless things that occupied me, that took up emotional space that I was borrowing from something more important, well, I see that those things weren't worth the amount of upset that I caused myself, Oliver, and the rest of the family. The list is long and varied: wearing shoes and socks, wearing a coat, eating with utensils, biting fingernails, picking the nose, licking this, that and the other thing. ... um, that poop thing. ... well, you get the idea. Some of you may know that while you are in the midst of these things they feel like such a very big deal. In the midst of it there were times when I felt at war. I felt that I needed to conquer or -- in the terms of ABA -- to extinguish. Now I can only shake my head at myself. This was my child, not my enemy.

I'm reflecting on this lately because Oliver is newly interested in utensils. Yes, you read that right: spoons, forks, knives, ladles, whisks -- you name it. At first I didn't really pay much attention, Oliver just seemed to always have a fork or a spoon in his hand. But we spend a lot of time in the kitchen together. Then I slowly realized that our meals were without drama. They were without the monitoring and reminding. (Oliver, don't forget to use your fork. Your fork, Oliver!) And it only smacked me in the head when I realized that Oliver was now using utensils for everything. And I mean everything. Witness this photo (that I took especially for Keen):

Can you make that out? Yes, that's a carrot he's eating. With a spoon. (I don't know: why am I not worried about this? Isn't this an obsession? Maybe I only find it so utterly delightful because it is a useful obsession in my mind.) But anyway. If I could go back in time I'd tell myself that this is the way of things. In the end it doesn't really matter if he chooses to eat his spaghetti with his fingers and his carrots with a spoon.

So then what does matter? Well, I don't know. I'm still in the process of figuring it out. My eternal process. But if you were to ask me now I might say something so obvious that I'll end up giving myself away. You might realize by my answer that my journey to motherhood was slower even than I first reported. But I'll go ahead and say it anyway because it is something that has been occupying so much of my thinking of late.

If I could go back in time and change one thing it would be this: I would spend far more time making sure that Oliver knows that there is no "right" way of doing things, of thinking, of being. And I wouldn't just tell him that, I would really believe it. You see, for me that is the real key. In fact, not to give myself too much importance here, but sometimes I wonder how much of Oliver's anxiety has to do with the autism and how much of it is due to my reactions to the autism -- and all the sweating I've done of the small stuff.

So, I'm just curious: if you could go back in time and tell yourself one very important thing about this journey you've embarked on -- what would it be?