labels

I went to Barnes and Noble with Oliver the other day; or as it's called in our house, "The Thomas Store", thanks to the huge Thomas the Tank Engine play area they have there. Violet was at the farm with her daddy, so it was a special Mommy & Ollie outing. Unconsciously, I migrated over to the 'child development' section, looking at the autism books, and I came upon this:

Have you read it? My sister was telling me about it recently; she had bought it to read to her kids. I had heard of it, but never spotted it in a store before. I guess I had kind of hesitated, too, because the authors are Holly Robinson Peete and her daughter, Ryan, who I'm kind of the fence about. She's blessedly no Jenny McCarthy (i.e Playboy bunny, vaccine eliminator and autism "curer"), but she's still a tad too 'autism glam' for me. It's hard to read about superstars with a billion dollars who can get and try everything for their kid.

Anyhow, I sat on the floor and paged through the book that day. A lot of parts moved me.

The whole twin thing; how they grew together in their mommy's belly. How the typical twin had typical interests, but the autistic twin liked more unusual things. I liked that they used the word "autism"; I've never seen that in a children's book before. Tears fell when I read the part about how the mommy felt really sad after the brother was diagnosed. I like that Ryan talked about how sometimes she gets frustrated with her brother, but also wrote about the special things they did just the two of them.

I didn't buy it just then, but I felt like I would.

Then, last night, tossing and turning and stressing, I found myself thinking about "My Brother Charlie" and what it would be like to read it to the twins. Oliver would respond really well, I thought. Maybe even be able to relate a bit. I imagined Violet lingering nearby, not one to ask to be read to, but wanting to glance at a page here and there, and listen to mommy read.

It struck me then, what would happen when we got to the word, "autism". Oliver would say, "Just like Violet has!"

And Violet would hear. And she would say, "I NOT have autism!!".  Oliver would retort, "Yes you do, Violet! Mommy and Daddy say you have autism and that's why you have trouble sometimes!!"

oh.

How the HELL do I have a conversation like that? Its not that I'd ever lie to Violet or hide it from her, but how do you tell your daughter she has a developmental disorder? How do you tell her that her brain is different from all of her friends? How do you put a label on her at four years old? My stomach hurts at the thought of it.

No book for us. At least not now.

cowboy boots and silly tongues...

sweet girl is really into mommy's boots lately!

sharing Popsicles with Saydah!

at baby Penny's first birthday party. Yes, Violet is wearing a tutu.

brother and sister

I will be the first one to say that having twins is hard. And that having 2 three-year-olds is hard. And that having an autistic child is hard, and having an autistic child and a typical twin sibling is super hard.

But more than anything, having all of the above is an amazing gift. Ack, so cliche. I don't know how else to say it. There is simply nothing more astounding to me in the world than seeing the love between my kids. Watching Oliver give Violet the ability to use her words (literally using on her ABA sometimes, "Violet, say, 'No thanks, Ollie'"), strengthen her confidence, teach her how to pretend play or encourage her in social situations.
Also, the part I didn't expect: watching Violet teach Oliver unending patience, selflessness ("Mommy, I will turn off this episode of Little Bear because the frog in this part scares Sissy") and tolerance of people who are different. And, of course, all of this on top of the usual sibling play, fights, silliness and craziness.

Moments happen sometimes between my children that I feel myself try to become instantly invisible. I freeze, remaining as still as possible, not even blinking, so I can breathe in every second of it and burn it into my brain.

Recently, we were at the grocery store. Not an easy outing with both kids, but I was on my way home from somewhere and just needed a few things, so in we went. We got the giant, car-on-the-front cart, because Ollie likes it, and normally I can get Violet to sit in the big part of the cart (meaning I have to get creative about where the actual food goes). Today she wouldn't go in though, so I caved and let her walk with me, holding my hand or holding the cart.

As often happens with us, the first 5 minutes of our outing was fantastic. I literally got a warm feeling in my tummy at how awesome it was going ("yeah! we did it! I've finally figured out how to go somewhere with both kids!").

Dumb, deluded mommy.

We turn the corner out of the first aisle and V sees her opportunity to make a run for it. She dashes from me, running though the deli section, heading to produce (her favorite, if you were wondering. Not to eat, of course, but to admire and caress).
I have a moment of hesitation: Do I leave the cart and Ollie alone and chase Violet? Grab Ollie and run after Violet? Race and weave the huge cart through the store to find Violet? It all sound rotten, but my instincts kick in.

"Ollie- stay here in your car and don't move. Mommy's got to grab Violet and I'll be right back."

I through the store and find the laughing girl with her hands in the apples. I pick her up and hurry back to Oliver. She's crying, everyone's staring.

Returning to the cart, we see that O has made a friend; an employee of the store.
"There's your mommy! Mommy you are bad....."

I focus on the woman, wiping the sweat from my brow and try to ginore Violet chomping on my shoulder.
"Your mommy left her purse in the cart! Someone might have stolen it!"

Yeah, that's totally what I was concerned with. Um, did you not see the whole three-year-old-in-the-apples performance we just put on?

I blather on with thank yous to her for watching Ollie, and, of course, my purse, and in the process, Violet wriggles out of my arms. And runs. Again. Back to the apples.

This time I ask our new friend if she could watch Ollie (and...wait for it....my purse) while I get Violet. Off I speed again...Same scenario, take two.

Returning now, I see Oliver deep in conversation with the employee. She looks up when I arrive with my screaming daughter and says,
"Your son just told me she has autism!"
I chuckle a bit as I catch my breath, "Did he? Wow. Yes, she does. That's why she keeps running away from me."
After this was some sort of conversation with her telling me someone she knows' cousin's friend's son has autism...I try to be polite as I force V into the cart. Somehow in here, I'm grabbing a baba for bribery, and the woman tries to take Violet out of my arms- I'm still not really sure how it happened, but you can imagine that Miss V was NOT having it, and wailed to the heavens.

I begin to politely tell the woman how it's not the best idea, when I hear my boy's voice, small but firm,
"YOU PUT MY SISTER DOWN RIGHT NOW!".

He has gotten out of the car-cart and is standing, looking at us. I swear to you, his little fists were clenched at his sides. It struck me so; I held completely still, partially stunned by his forcefulness and courage and partially overwhelmed with emotion and love.

"YOU DON'T TOUCH MY SISTER!"

The woman let go of Violet in my arms, and I crouch down to talk to Ollie,
"Hey, sweetie, it's ok. Thanks so much for protecting Sissy. You are an awesome brother."

I thank/apologize to the woman as we steer away, my mind still on Oliver. Such an amazing show of love on his part; such a gratifying and illuminating and heart-exploding moment for a mommy. I squeeze my girl tightly as Oliver drives us and our cart through the store, thinking how beautifully lucky she is, we all are, that she has a twin.
And that her twin is Oliver.

open letters

To the driver behind me,
I know your natural instinct might be to assume the slow driver in front of you is either A. old, B. drunk, C. texting or D. all of the above. In reality, I am a sober, relatively youthful, cellphone-on-the-floor driver with an autistic daughter who happens to be freaking the hell out at the moment. I am slowing down so I can try to pull over before my daughter vomits. Most likely, I won't make it, and will rush to get most of puke off before it soaks into the car seat and floor; also likely is a swift kick to my face in the process.

Please lay off your horn, and try to keep your middle finger unextended. Give a fellow driver the benefit of the doubt instead of making her say even more curse words even louder than she would anyway. Patience is contagious, dear driver.

kindly, Aimee


To the woman behind me at Target,

Yes, I do know that a three year old is too old for a child to have a baba, and I'm thoroughly impressed that your junior went right from "the boob to a sippy cup". However, I'm kind of busy right now teaching my daughter to use words, communicate with others, not run into the street, stop digging grooves into her face with her fingernails and to only eat four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a day instead of 6. If the baba helps me do some grocery shopping for a half hour, I'm ridiculously cool with that.

Unless that was an offer to shop for me?

Kisses,
Aimee

Dear idiot staring at me at the Y,

Yes, dude, this is what a tantruming child looks like. This is, sometimes, what autism looks like. Put your freaking eyes back in your head and go ogle some lady on the stairmaster.

-A


and finally,

Dear other patrons at Starbucks,

Yes, I know it LOOKS like I'm spoiling my child, thus meriting your THREE eye rolls at me from your table. However, sometimes with autistic children things need to be a certain way, in a certain order. While I'm working on lessening the need for this, I'm pretty sure Starbucks isn't the place to do. Therefore, when my daughter's straw falls into her vanilla milk, and she throws herself on the ground sobbing, it's just the right move for me to simply buy her a new one, with straw intact.

You should be thanking me- do you have any idea what her tantrum would've done to your morning latte (see vomit and kicking, above letter)?

Caffeinatedly yours,
Aimee

happy halloween!

posing in Halloween shirts in the morning. have I mentioned on here that Oliver has been obsessed with pumpkins this year?

"hey, you have antennae!"
"hey, you have antennae, too!"


elephant riding a pony....

it was a very sober Halloween
but I'll take blank stares of confusion over last year...

so tiny and upset!





Ruby in the ball pit- so sweet!

Mollie, Scott and Eli aka "Larry", with Violet looking on

playing in our neighbor's light maze

Oliver was a little scared of the Incredible Hulk (and yes, that is a diamond stud in the 4-year-old Hulk's ear. Reason #62 why O and V won't be growing up in this neighborhood).

Ezra is a big boy (and big monkey), and was bursting out of his costume! Too cute.

we had the BEST Halloween! A very busy and exciting day, and the babies had a wonderful time! Actually, so did mom and dad!
in the morning, cousins Trevor and Ruby came over (Ava was celebrating in school!), and we played and posed for photos in costume. It was hilarious! The babies loved looking at each other in costume, Trevor loved his trunk ("shrunk"), and everyone loved looking at Ruby.
Daddy got off from work early; in fact, he was one of two employees to even show up at work, because of the World Series Champion Phillies' parade. We met him at the playground, and had a great time- it was 65 degrees on Halloween! A weird thing there, too- I usually think that seeing a ladybug is kind of a rare thing- at least here in Philadelphia. At the playground on this day, though, they were everywhere flying on us, all over the slides and swings- SWARMS of them! Pretty cool, since Violet was dressing as a ladybug!
That evening, our friends Scott and Mollie came over with their sons, Eli and Ezra. Now, generally, I don't have a lot of positive things to say about our neighborhood, but Halloween is the best night of the year here. Everyone sits on their porch, adults dress up to play with the kids, one neighbor shows a movie on the front of his house. We had such fun! It was almost-three-year-old Eli's first time trick-or-treating, and Oliver and Violet tagged along. 10-month-old Ezra the Curious George monkey fell asleep on his dad's back. Eli was Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales, and was adorable.
We had some good laughs and the best Halloween!

The next day we went to play at this awesome new playhouse, called the Smith Playhouse in Philadelphia- we LOVED it!

Shoot- I can't believe I didn't think of "Branch" and "Baby" for my twins' names!?

finally, a little laundry action....

almost Halloween!

We took a fun drive to the Poconos this past weekend to visit with Uncle Mike, Aunt Denise and little Ben (although he is almost my height, he is doomed to always be "little" next to tall and elder Ben). We went to a great pumpkin patch, and then had a delicious dinner at their house. It was the first time we took a full day trip anywhere, and the babies did beautifully! They slept the whole two hour drive up, and had a wonderful time running around the pumpkins, playing with the dogs, eating yummy Halloween-y things and playing with their cousins.
Little Ben was our ring bearer 5 years ago (and 10 days!), along with Ava who was our flower girl. I thought it'd be fun to compare how much they've grown up!

awwww...still hugging!!

Lastly- the two big piece of news in our house.
1. Peanut was reading this little Halloween book I got her, where there is a little "peek-a-boo" flap on every page. She sits alone and reads her books a lot, but this time, she sat there, turning every page saying "peek...BOO! peek...BOO!" and opening and closing the flaps! SO CUTE!!!! My mom and I tried to get it on video, but she only did it for a few seconds at the beginning (that's Ollie in the background playing with the pots and pans):




2. Our new ball pit. An awesome find by the big deal-finder! The babies LOVE it- and I think it's the one toy they can play with together and have no grabbing or someone seeing that the other's toy looks better!