The other day I was looking at Adrian. He’s an adorable little boy. Big blue eyes surrounded by long eyelashes. Looking older all the time. He was sitting there quietly. Not stimming. Just sitting there quietly and as I was watching him I grieved. I was so sad. What would he be like without autism? I don’t want him to grow up and have to live with mom and dad forever. I want him to grow and be able to be the man of his house and accomplish everything he wants. So after the grief usually comes guilt and anger. Of course I always love Adrian for who he is and he means everything to me so I feel bad about grieving what could have been. And then anger that I can look at my girls and imagine a much more positive and fulfilling future. My thoughts of Adrian’s future are riddled with turmoil and concern and that makes me angry.
Lincoln is stimming a lot, well at least what I think of us as self stimulating behavior. He picks at my face and moles constantly and pulls very hard on my ear lobes. He searches for individual hairs on my head to pull out and he grinds his face and head into my face and head. He grinds and grits his teeth. I don’t want to go through all this again. I really don’t. When I was pregnant with Lincoln and someone asked me about him possibly having autism I responded with “we’ll love him anyway, just like we do Adrian” and we do and always will, I just pray his challenges aren’t as difficult to overcome as some of Adrian’s have been.
Lincoln is starting to talk in some full sentences and has many more words then Adrian had at his age. I hate comparing them but it’s really hard not to. Tonight Lincoln got it in his head that he was going to clean the house. So this little 3 year old guy is running around like a wild man picking up blocks as fast as he can while being cheered on by me and Sanura. Then he ran out to the kitchen and was trying to scrape leftover food from a plate into the garbage. After we got the plate dumped he handed it to me and said “here ya go” one of his common little sentences he uses. It was so cute.
I love my boys so much. I’m so glad to have them but sometimes I still wish that things were a little less complicated and a little more normal.