Is it good enough?

Have you ever sat and wondered if everything you are doing is good enough? Lately that's all I do....  Especially yesterday which was a horrific day. I do the very best that I can on a daily basis and sometimes that goes hour by hour, minute by minute. This is not to say that other people are not doing the best that they can, I'm just talking about me.

I try very hard to get the kids out when I can. Typically that has meant the pool because we are members so I don't have to pay to get them in, they love it and I don't have to worry quite so much about them. Until recently anyway because Thomas is so wrapped up in his brother. Of course his brother has seen friends there and wants to be with them. Now I don't expect that people are going to sit and talk to me at the pool, even if they are people who know me. I've come to realize now that a lot of people sometimes shun away from us and that's ok. Yesterday we had an incident where a child at the pool took a toy out of Thomas' hand (after Thomas threw one) and threw it in the big pool. Of course to this child one bad turn deserves another, however as this child began to explain to my Autistic son that his horrible behavior deserved for that toy to be thrown in the pool was where my emotion began to run. Thomas cannot understand things like this when you tell him. To him he saw the action of the toy being taken away and my oldest son tried to come between the other child and Thomas to no avail and however was unclear on the right thing to say knowing Thomas was extremely upset and could not comprehend what this older child was saying to him. I of course made my children leave (it was time to go anyway) and was later "scolded" in an email by this parent.

I do get very emotionally involved when it comes to Thomas and most of the time I can't separate myself from that. I  am very involved and I am on a mission to give out as much information about Autism and Autism Awareness as I can. I tried very hard to get help for my son when he was 2 and no one would help me. It took me 2 years to get anyone to listen to anything I was saying and to really hear me. I'm not saying we could have fixed anything, no he would still have Autism, but maybe just maybe some of the things he has going on might not be as severe.

To the parents that think I go to far with awareness, try having your child not look you in the eye when they speak to you. Or when you are sitting at the dinner table have them tell you "don't look at me" "stop talking to me" Have your child throw a tantrum for hours on end with no stopping, nothing you can do to console them. Be in a restaurant and they must get up and jump behind their chair, run around the table or just "stim" in some way while the people around you just watch. Be in Walmart, Target, etc and he has a meltdown screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs. It feels like at any moment the police or DSS will show up. Have him bang his head on the furniture because he just has to. Or have a 12 month old that won't talk and just grunts and is taught sign language because they can't tell you if he will ever speak, but they can't tell you why.

Those are all the reasons that I am doing this and pushing so hard and because I care, I love my son and I hope it's good enough!