The New Goal

It's been such a long time.  I keep thinking "I should write about this" when Mini does something amazing, or not so amazing.  Writing things down has been a sorter-outer for me during the last year, when things were not at all sorted out.  In fact, when things were haywire.  I have appreciated the gestures of support that these writings have inspired in others.  A facebook message, a container of granola, a card in the mail.  These were all things that got me through from one day to the next when I felt like life had me in the trenches and I was unable to claw my way up the side- even to catch a brief glimpse of what the world was like up above.

We are continuing on here, with this crusade against Autism.  And at this moment, I'll go ahead and say it:

WE'RE WINNING.

There is a very important reason we're winning, and here is he moment everything changed.

We had family pictures taken back in November and I did a great many things to prepare our Mini for his interaction with the photographer.  I showed him her pictures, I talked about her by name, I told him about playing with Daddy outside and helped him learn to walk with Pumpkin holding her hand.  When the day came he knew he was "going to see Miss Erica!"  Somehow, he connected with her instantly.  He smiled and said hi and just started running around, happy.  So, D and I were sitting with Pumpkin on the stoop, and Miss Erica seized the moment and asked him "Run to me!  Look at me!  Look at me and run!  Look at me, Mini!" And he just kept running between us and Erica, smiling and happy.

He did a FABULOUS job throughout the photo shoot, and was a total ham.  He just loved Miss Erica and we will absolutely be returning to her for our next round.  

The BEST THING that came from these pictures though, was my first profound moment of understanding about how my little guy thinks.  When we were looking through the pictures, I saw this one and said "Hey Buddy, what are you doing here?"  In the picture above, most people would answer that question "Running!"  But Mini, with his sweet little brain, put himself back in that very moment with Miss Erica, to think about what he was doing, and he said "I'M LOOKING AT MISS ERICA!!"  

Wow.  

I sat stunned, amazed, awed by this introspective little boy I made four years ago.  

"Yes baby, you ARE looking at Miss Erica!  Good job!" I said.

You see?  This is what being his mommy is about.  This is what I have to do- I have to learn how Mini's mind spins his Life.  And then I have to help him USE that, and incorporate that with the rest of the world.  How many people on the planet would have answered "Running" when I asked that question?  99%?  99.8%?  But not my Mini.  And that is one of a million little things that he will think, do, say, process, that will be different from 99.8% of the world.  

He IS, in fact, looking at Miss Erica.  He is also running, but that wasn't important to him in that moment.  He runs without thinking, he runs for fun and because he can.  Looking at Miss Erica was his focus, so THAT is what he remembers.  Isn't that just totally amazing?

My goal used to be to move him over to the 99.8%, but I've learned that can't be my goal anymore.  Now, my goal is to help him understand that even though his response isn't the usual one, HIS RESPONSE IS JUST AS TRUE.  Who Mini is is JUST as true, JUST as valid, JUST as honest as everyone else.

And there has been such freedom for me in that realization.  Although we do have the goal of helping him learn the way the world works, and helping him learn to function in a world that works in a specific way, I have developed this new goal.  The new goal is to help him learn how HE works, which is wonderful and truly, remarkably unique, and that he can fit that into the world if he works at it.  

I can't tell you honestly that I've stopped getting annoyed when his typical Autistic traits crop up.  He will say the same lines from a movie over and over and over again and it drives me crazy, he will tap his fingers together in a very distinct way *all the time*- in water, in sand, on the surface of new textures- and I want him to stop because no typical 4 year old does that.  He says inappropriate things to strangers, struggles with transitions from time to time, and I have to monitor his interaction with other children LIKE A HAWK because typical children don't understand him.  I hate that.

But arriving in this place of peace about who he is overall and reformulating my own internal goal for who he should become in the future has been absolutely life changing.  He is brilliant, in his own way.  He has something so enormously unique to offer us- you, me, the communities he'll interact with throughout his life.  One little sentence taught me that and I've spent the last few months growing into it.  Now that I get it, I feel like I can breathe again.  Before, I felt like I had to grow Mini out of who he is so that I could make him into something like everyone else.  I knew, deep down, that was an impossible task.  The task of growing Mini into who he actually is something I can actually do.  So often when I've struggled with things in life, I've learned it was all because I had the wrong goal in mind.  

Thank you, Erica, for being the catalyst that taught me the right goal.