The trouble with "normal"

Once upon a time I thought my life was perfectly normal. That was before I started to wonder about my son. I think the first time I seriously was concerned about his development was right after my daughter was born. Q was 2 and a few months. We had been moderately concerned about his language development due to a few ear infections but I wasn't truly worried. It was when we brought his sister home and Q could not handle her crying that I started to wonder what was going on. She would cry, as all newborns do, and then he would cry as well. I would ask him "What's the matter?" and Q would just parrot back "What's the matter Mama?" And so I would say, "That's what I asked you." I didn't know at the time that this was a sign of Autism. They call it echolalia. The child either can't understand what you're asking or can't put together an answer and so they just repeat what you said to them. We kind of thought it was cute at first but after awhile it was simply annoying. To have both of them crying at the same time made you want to pull out your hair. I didn't realize that for Q, who has significant sensory issues, that the noise of his sister's crying was just overwhelming his system.

I don't want to get into a whole accounting of how we figured out there was more going on with Q. That is for another time. Tonight I spent some time with some friends, other moms that I met last year when Q was in a private cooperative preschool. God do I miss them. I miss that normalcy. That time when life seemed so simple. I don't even know how to describe how I feel about losing this normalcy. All of the other moms of the kids in Q's class are still living in that normal land. Their kids went on to the next year's class in that preschool. My kid attends our school district's special ed preschool. Those moms all still get together and see each other when they co-op. It was a community I was briefly a part of before my life was blown apart. Now I watch from the sidelines hoping that I can get Q back into that preschool a few mornings a week next year. Even still he'll split his time there with the special ed preschool.

Don't get me wrong he is where he needs to be right now. The county's program is great for him. He wouldn't be doing nearly as well if he was still at the private preschool. But damnit I got up at 4:30 in the morning and stood in the registration line to make sure Q got into that private preschool. And it was just another thing that had to be let go in light of Q's diagnosis. Life seems to be split to me. There was a time before the dx and the time after. On my good days I see autism as a way to simply describe Q's issues. It tells you a little about his strengths (anything visual, incredible focus) and his weaknesses (language, social understanding, abstract concepts, self help skills). On my bad days I see it as the thing that took away my innocence, made me look at my son differently, and caused therapy to be the overwhelming constant in all our lives. Our money, time and hopes all go into therapies that, at least for now, seem to work well. That is great but there is always the question of should I be doing more. How can I assure that Q is able to lead a happy independent life someday? This is the thought that makes me lose sleep at night.

I love both my children more than I could ever explain. But oh some days what I would give to be a "normal" mother and have "normal" worries. My life didn't go in that direction. So I meet these moms and know that I now live in a parallel world. Schmolland indeed. And yet to get normal would mean to give up my little boy. So I give him a hug and head out for another hour of therapy praying not that he somehow learns to become normal, but that he can teach me how to love being a visitor from another country.