Interior Decorating: The Autism Edition

All this week I've been watching Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram fill with photos of my friends doing the January Photo A Day Challenge.


I didn't join in on the photo a day challenge myself so it has been fun to see everyone's submissions thus far.Day 1 was especially nice quite a number of my online pals rarely (if ever) post pictures of themselves and it is always nice to put a face with a name.  Day 3 was filled with many pictures of children, pets, family heirlooms, and other things we adore.  
However on Day 11 I learned something new that surprised me.  I saw bedspreads, throw pillows, decorative dust ruffles, and even chandeliers hanging above the bed.  This gave me a good chuckle because if I had taken a picture of my bed you would have seen a myriad of 15' fishing poles laying across a large gun rack on the wall above our bed.  I'm guessing that would have received some interesting second glances to say the least.
This got me thinking about my house in general and how having children with autism has shaped not just who we are as parents but how we live...as in literally "how" we make living in a house with 2 autistic kids safe and as stress-free as possible.
Currently we live in a third floor condo with approximately 900 square feet of living space which includes a balcony.  We have 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and minimal storage and closet space.  Functionally this means that anything the boys should not touch or play with has to go in our master bedroom.  This leaves our room looking like something out of TLC's reality show, Hoarders.  In our room we have stacks of boxes filled with breakable items, electronics, Mike's ham radio gear, as well as a large bookshelf and 2 dressers holding our clothing as well as the boys' items.
The boys' room itself is rather bare and that is for a very good reason.  Any furniture we put in there becomes a launching pad for Noah who loves to scale anything that sits still for more than sixty seconds and then jump off of it.  
Currently their room looks like this:

We have tried putting a simple bookshelf and toy box and the boys destroy them.  We all remember what Noah did to his bed a couple months back, right?  That was par for the course in the life of almost any item we put in their room.  In fact, they have only a handful of books because Noah loves to shred them into small pieces of confetti and then eat them.  We also found that the boys don't really play with a lot of toys.  So over the years we have dwindled our collection down to the things they will.  For Noah this means dozens and dozens of foam letters because he loves to spell out words on the floor.  For Sam that means apps for his iPad, Wii games, and music CD's.  He really isn't all that interested in playing with toys unless they run on batteries or play music.
To keep the boys safe in their room we have installed the Guardian Angel window bars.  These little beauties mean that in the summer we can open the windows but not worry about the Trouble Brother falling three floors to the ground below.   Unfortunately it also means they want to climb *ON* the top of the bars and so we had to improvise and install thin sheets of plywood between the window and the bars.  This makes their room much less attractive but a helluva lot safer.  That basically describes most homes with an autistic child.  Not very pretty, but safe; and in the end that is what really matters.
The most creative part of the boys room is the graffiti we have collected on the walls.  This is almost 100% Noah's doing and over the years it has changed from simple scribbles, to numbers, to full sentences and designs.

"The Baby Einstein Presents" we're never selling this house without some MAJOR refurbishing!

Musicians make big bucks, right?

Even Picasso had to start somewhere.  
Mike and I like to dream about buying a single family home someday.  Something with a fenced back yard where the boys can jump and play to their heart's content.  A kitchen that is big enough for both of us because we both like to roll up our sleeves and cook side by side but in a tiny kitchen it's more like attempting to waltz while holding scalding water.  We would love nothing more than to have one room as an indoor playground/ therapy room with a swing, climbing bars, and a giant papasan you hang from the ceiling.    But for now this is the stuff of dreams.  
And that is okay.
Our current home may be small, it may be crowded, it may have Crayola graffiti on the walls, and mattresses that have to be carried out into the dining room every morning to prevent jumping but it is ours and it is where all my favorite people live.
And that is enough.

Enough with the "Sophie's Choice" nightmares

When I was in high school I read William Styron's novel, Sophie's Choice about Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother forced to make a gut-wrenching choice between two unbearable options upon entering a concentration camp.  She had to choose which of her two children would live and which would die in the nearby gas chamber.

At the time I couldn't comprehend how anyone could make a choice like that.  Now that I am a mother of two myself the mere thought of it leaves me feeling physically ill.

Then why for the love of God do I keep having these same type of nightmares when I sleep at night?

At least once a week I dream that something horrible and awful happens to my younger son, Noah.  Last night it was watching him die slowly in a car fire as I frantically tried to free him from his car seat.  Other times he is falling down a deep crevice and I am frantically flailing my arms as he slips through my fingers and disappears into the dark cavern below.  Other times I dream I am walking alongside a busy street holding the boys' hands and Noah darts away from me and into a busy intersection where he is hit by a car.  This painful list goes on and on...and it kills me.  Slowly.

More often than not these nightmares leave me only with questions.

Do all mothers have these type of dreams?  Is it always about the same child?  Am I going certifiably insane? 

Actually, I think I might know the answer to that last one.

I don't understand what purpose nightmares such as these serve?  Are they supposed to make me more paranoid about something happening to one of my children?   Because being a mother of a special needs child isn't enough?

Everyday I hear the horror stories of children with autism wandering away from their homes or their schools and being found floating face down in a nearby swimming pool.  Or the statistics that tell me that my boys are 4 to 10 times more likely to be sexually abused by a pedophile who sees them as an easy target because of their diagnoses.  Trust me when I say I don't need to feel any more anxious about the safety of my children than I already do.

Or maybe these nightmares have absolutely nothing to do with my boys at all?  Perhaps they are trying to tell me something else about myself?  Something I can't see when I am awake and trying to protect myself from seeing it? 

And maybe, just maybe, this blog post just got waaaaay too new age-y?!

I guess what I am trying to say is that these nightmares can bite my ass.  They make me feel like shit the next morning and really only leave me sad and wanting to place both of my boys in a protective bubble environment to keep them safe for all eternity.

Then again, that could be the whole point right there.

Falling off the four letter word wagon

Some of you may remember a post I wrote about swearing a year ago.  At the time I wrote that post it reflected my true feelings about the use of various four letter expletives and I maintained my steadfast decision not to use them for quite some time.

But not anymore.

My change of heart about colorful vocabulary words has not come about because of any abrupt changes to my life.  I'm still happily married, raising two kids with autism, and sharing a small condo with an eighty-five pound Labradoodle that thinks he's a Pomeranian.

I've just realized that I don't much care for censoring myself anymore.

This doesn't mean that I walk around slinging the F-word every which way it just means that sometimes a good "Fuck this shit" says a lot more than "Gosh darnit I feel frustrated".

I don't swear in public places or in front of children because I think that's tacky and rude but if I am at home, ranting on Twitter, or talking on the phone with a friend I'm going to say how I really feel.  And sometimes that calls for a four letter word here or there.

I've also taken the profanity filter off of my Intense Debate commenting system on this blog.  So, if in the past you noticed your comment of "What a Fucking idiot" looked more like "What a ****ing idiot" you'll be glad to know that those pain in the ass stars have been 86'd and your freedom of speech has been restored.

I don't think this change is going to rattle any feathers amongst those who read my blog or hang out with me in real life.  The only people who might take offense are those who believe that the use of any swear words is evidence of an inability to formulate an educated response to a situation.

To which I'd say, "Peace out bitches and  don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!"