I am not a supermom

Not even close. I love my kids but damn, motherhood aint easy! Having twins is definitely a challenge and having Bubba on the spectrum means that challenge is even greater. Bubba is definitely high functioning which I thank the powers that be for every day. I am not one of those autism warrior moms. Nope. I do not want the test of having a child who is aggressive, smears feces, and is a threat to his sister. I know that it would be a test I would totally fail. In fact, I recently got admonished because I stated that if I had a child like that, I would put them in residential care. Oh my, is that ever something it is not okay to say, especially on a page about autism. I was accused of being a bad mom, and that just pissed me off. Why is it that in some communities dealing with autism, it seems like people feel that children on the spectrum should be loved MORE than their neuro typical siblings? That seems absurd to me. I love Bubba and Little equally, and I would never allow one to put the other's safety or happiness at risk. If that makes me a bad mom, so be it. I guess I just don't view autism as being a gift, or "sparkly" or some fantastic dream. I view it as something that my son will have to fight through, and I will always be there to help him. Autism doesn't make him special, he is special to me because he is my son. Both my husband and I expect the same things from him that we expect from his sister, we don't go out of our way to make things easier for him. I don't know if we're right or wrong in doing this, but it's our way and it seems to work...at least for now.

walkability

Lately I've been thinking about a photo exercise that a friend of mine did where she took photos of everything within a two block radius of her home. The idea was to see what you lived near, and gain an appreciation for your surroundings. She lives in a great area of New Orleans near many awesome cafes and shops so her photos were lovely. If I were to complete that same exercise though, all I'd get would be photos of houses and maybe a gas station or two. Where we live, you have to drive everywhere. It's a real pain in the ass, especially with twin two year olds. I remember when my husband and I were moving here from Chicago, we just wanted a house so badly we didn't think much about just what sort of lifestyle we were moving into. Now it's all we think about but we're trapped. The down housing market means we're stuck in this house for a while unless something miraculous happens. I know as soon as we can get out we'll be moving somewhere more friendly to a pedestrian lifestyle. I think these days many people are finding that it's better to have a smaller space in a more dynamic area than a larger one in the middle of nowhere. I just wish that was a lesson we had learned earlier.