Waiting for the Other Shoe...

When we were dating my husband confided that one of the downsides of having Attention Deficit Disorder is that he spends life waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things improved after he began taking medicine almost 20 years ago and got even better when he married a wife who has his back and 99% of the time picks up his loose ends (even fixers are off their game once in a while). Yes, I was the annoying student and then the diligent lawyer who 99% of the time succeeded with hard work, talent and true grit always confident of my ability to at least get the job done. It wasn't until after our 19 month old son was diagnosed with autism that I truly began to understand my husband's world. Our son is unpredictable and needs care 24/7 especially when exploring the world. Impulsivity remains a challenge as does his sometimes unpredictable susceptibility to being overwhelmed and melting down with defensive behavior putting himself and others at risk for injury. Things have improved greatly for our son in the past two years but challenges still remain especially as he explores the world more. Because our son needs me to be hyper vigilant, I, too, spend my life waiting for that other shoe to drop or that door to close. Since our son began attending Chrysalis Academy 5 years ago I stopped waiting for the other shoe while he is in school unless the cell phone rings and the caller id says "Chrysalis Academy." It happened to me yesterday while I was in a meeting. Luckily the call was about a cancelled after school session not a problem with our son. However, until I walked out into the hall and returned the call, I felt myself dreading that other shoe. There are few places besides home, school and the homes of friends from the autism community who understand our challenges where we feel truly welcomed. When out in the rest of the world we don't take anything for granted because we know we could be a melt down away from a slammed door. This spring our family joined SpoFit, a fitness center especially for those with disabilities and their families. The staff and other members have been amazingly welcoming, tolerant and accommodating. However, you just never know. Last Tuesday our son was in the men's locker room with his father changing after swimming. Unbeknownst to me, my husband had been letting our son roam the men's locker room as long as he was dressed and within hearing distance. This time as his father was naked, our son left the locker room and decided to climb the SpoFit Rockwall two and a half stories to the top without a safety harness or someone belaying him. I was afraid that the SpoFit staff would decide that the liability was just too great and ask us not to return. Instead, the other shoe didn't drop and the door remains wide open. The staff recognized it was a misjudgment by a usually vigilant parent and offered to work with us to make sure that our son continues to grow while safely enjoying SpoFit. So, now we're all working on it!

What a Father Does

In September my husband and I will celebrate our 14th anniversary. Our life certainly doesn't look anything like the life we imagined and planned during our engagement, but whose does? Together we've faced our share of challenges and through it all he is my rock. While we disagree on politics (I married a conservative Republican 4th Degree Knight of Columbus Catholic although I have corrupted him a bit), we do agree on the most important thing. No matter what, our family comes first. When it was just the two of us he took chances with his career several times while I waited to restart my career as we first tried to have children. Circumstances changed (he was laid off and his preferred career path was outsourced to India, we have a child who has special needs) so for the past decade he has been in a job that he enjoys but isn't his dream job and my career has yet to restart as I am too busy taking care of our son. Neither of us regrets the choices we've made because we made them together based upon what was best for our family. Neither of us thinks that we've made "sacrifices." As our circumstances change we'll continue to re-evaluate the opportunities before us first always trying to do what is best for our family as we've done throughout our marriage. This weekend we heard about a father who put his own safety first and abandoned his children in a life threatening situation. My husband was very clear that he would put our son under a seat, wrap me around our son and then throw himself over me praying that any bullet wouldn't penetrate all of us. I'm not surprised by my husband's reaction and I have no doubt that he will do so instinctively if ever we find ourselves in such a nightmare. It's one of the many reasons I fell in love with him despite our differences. The past few months I've watched the media coverage of the Sandusky and Lynn trials. While I never did criminal defense work, I spent a decade doing Family Court defense work and represented more than my share of child abusers. Each of my clients got the best representation of which I was capable; especially those who morally repulsed me. I tried harder in those cases to ensure that my personal feelings didn't compromise my professional efforts. Those cases were the most challenging for me but I was able to sleep at night knowing that I fulfilled my professional oath while praying that the system worked as it was designed. When that was no longer true I moved on. In my old neighborhood sometimes street justice was discovered in the Dyke Road Ditch. It is the marshland between the Mohawk River and the Barge Canal that can be seen from the Dyke Road overpass above. In the past it was common after the spring thaw (in the Mohawk Valley the snow usually begins around Halloween and the grass is once again visible around Easter) to find a dead body or two in the Dyke Road Ditch. While I certainly don't embrace street justice, I am appalled that institutions like the Catholic Church and Penn State not only condoned such horrific child abuse but actively conspired to cover it up rather than first doing their best to protect those entrusted to their care and when they failed in that duty, seeking justice on their behalf. We Catholics call our priests "Father." In my lifetime I have been privileged to know many men who deserve that title. My father's best friend as I was growing up was a Catholic priest who was a Dutch Uncle to us. I have no doubt that just like my husband, he instinctively would have put himself between any innocent victim, especially a child, and danger because that is what a father does. I also have no doubt that he would have called the police if he knew that child abuse had occurred even if the abuser was a fellow priest because he understood that even though he had a duty to the Catholic Church, his higher duty was to be the embodiment of Christ on earth. While I continue to be deeply saddened by the behavior of the Catholic Church Hierarchy, too many of whom still don't understand their priestly vows, I cling to hope that those priests who do understand along with the nuns and the rest of us laity who make up "the Church" eventually will persevere and the institutional Catholic Church will change it's practices and actually follow it's mission to be the embodiment of Christ on earth. In the meantime, my husband and I remain as cautious and vigilant as possible about who we allow near our son as he is unable to protect himself because that's just what mothers and fathers do.

Don't Go 4 Wheeling in a Ford Focus

We did some back road exploring this afternoon in the middle of farm country near our suburban home. We ended up on a literal road to nowhere (it ended with a dirt road left & right). Along the way there we passed through standing water (it looked like it was from an irrigation leak) at one juncture and sand across the road at a wash left from the 4th of July rain. On the way back my husband misjudged the sand on the other side of the road and in a Gomer Pyle moment (Shazam!) we were stuck. It reached 109 today here in the Valley of the Sun. Thanks to the kindness of a stranger passing by who had shovels in the back of his truck (digging out didn't work) and then the farmer with a tractor he summoned, we were on our way after only 2 hours. Luckily we had plenty of gas (the car exhaust was unobstructed so we ran the air) and something to drink. I didn't kill my husband when he misjudged the sand & got stuck. I was frustrated but kept my cool when my cell phone had poor reception. That made calling AAA challenging although my husband finally got through while waiting for the farmer to arrive with his tractor. I even restrained myself from killing him when after all of that, my husband reached in his pocket and pulled out his work issued cell phone (plenty of bars) that he forgot was there. Fifteen minutes later the farmer came with his tractor and we were able to cancel AAA. We had to remain calm because our son was with us. He picks up on the emotions of those around him and easily overloads. I am proud to say that our son did not meltdown at all, not even when his father helped him pee outside in the hot sand. This is the second car emergency our son has dealt with in the past week. Last Sunday morning he and the woman who works with him were at the park in our housing development half a mile from the house and my car battery died (another AAA call as it is their warranted battery). When I didn't answer my cell phone (it needed to be charged) nor did my husband (his was dead too), they walked home. My son didn't meltdown then either. He has come so far in the past few years! I'm still thinking about killing my husband after my son goes to sleep, but I'll probably be over it by then. In a few months we'll be married 14 years. With him life is a series of little misadventures. I should be used to it by now. We make a pretty good team though. I'm the one who spotted the kind stranger driving by and my husband flagged him down. I'm the one who reminded him we pay AAA annually and he walked around until he could get a call out. When we got home we took a refreshing dip in our pool (another of his misadventures spanning a month of weekends to set up a "portable" above ground pool in a box) and everything looked much better. Tomorrow we'll laugh about our attempt at 4 wheeling in our Ford Focus and maybe we'll even choose another back road to explore.