We recently bought a new house, and its quite dated. I'm thinking of painting it a warm cream, and painting the roof a soft black? I'm not sure if I should paint the window frames black or keep them white? Any ideas are welcome. The deck needs an upgrade too and I'm thinking a warmer/lighter colour.
I'm curious about potty training timelines for autistic children.
At what age were they potty trained (daytime and nighttime)?
I'm interested in hearing a wide range of experiences. Thanks in advance!
My first mistake was going alone with him. My husband and younger daughter were both sick at home. My husband has the golden retriever personality type, and I don't think I'd realised how much I rely on him to regulate me emotionally.
It was absolutely heartbreaking.
My son is 4.5 and in a mainstream school. He's conversational now, but he's still so far behind his peers socially and developmentally. He's also incredibly socially awkward. I watched him make a few attempts to join in with the other kids, and they mostly ignored him. His teacher says the other children like him, and maybe they do in the classroom, but that's not what I saw today.
Then I got talking to a parent of an autistic teenager. She was saying that a lot of online autism groups are full of parents of young children who cling to the hope that their child will eventually "catch up," when in reality many children with developmental and receptive language delays continue to have lifelong cognitive impairments. She said people often compare their child to the highly verbal, Asperger-type presentations without realising those children typically didn't have early developmental delays. Whether she's right or wrong, the conversation completely got into my head because those are exactly the fears I've been carrying.
I've also found myself wondering whether there are different biological subtypes of autism. Sometimes it feels like there are children whose autism is primarily neurodevelopmental and others where it follows some form of neurological injury or insult. I feel in my bones that my son is in the latter group. I feel like this happened to him and he was not meant to be this way and that hurts me more than I can express. The guilt is crippling.
Then there was the social side of the party.
There was a group of mums chatting about girls' trips, party buses, Cochella, Burning Man, Ibiza... and I realised I couldn't relate at all anymore. These days, a bath and a glass of wine feel like the biggest luxury imaginable. I feel like autism has taken so much from me too—not just from my son, but from me. My sense of self, my confidence, my desire to socialise. While everyone else was making friends and organising playdates because their kids naturally gravitated towards one another, I just felt like my son and I were standing on the outside looking in. I felt like such a fucking loser.
By the time I got back to the car, I completely fell apart.
I was crying so hard that my son looked at me and said,
"What's wrong, Mommy?"
I told him I was feeling sad.
He looked at me and said, "You shouldn't cry. You should smile."
That absolutely broke me. I know we have it better than a lot of people out there but I'm only surrounded by neurotypical kids and the gap is MASSIVE.
I don't really know why I'm posting this. I know I sound like a whiny little bitch but I can't help but feel my life is so fucked.