It's Blue Autism Molly Mom.

If God came to me and said "Carey would you change the course of your life?" I would say "No. But thanks for asking." And this is true. Life has brought me here, there, and many places I never really wanted to go. But, most of all, life has brought me here. So here I am, in Wells, Maine with 4 children I adore and a husband who I love completely. We have the ups, the downs, and the all arounds. And on this day in particular we have Molly.
Everyone of my children is something extraordinarily beautiful to me. I love them all with complete heart and soul. Which is how it should be. I favor none and I love none less. But with the simplicities of this natural occurrence comes the complexities of individually loving each one of them in a very special way. I am a pure mama bear who will protect each one of them to my death. And when action is called for protection I will pounce right on it. I have marched into the principal's office with my guns ablazing and my flags flying high protesting bullying, and ridicule of my children. I have fought the world and the cruelities it brings against children in general. And I have made conscience decisions to do whatever it takes to teach my children life lessons and be there for them to help cushion the blow when something hits them hard. So I would never take this journey of life down a different road. I am satisfied with the things I have and I am satisfied knowing that life will always be a roller coaster ride. Molly, on most days, seems to be the conductor of this ride. With Molly a dull moment would gladly be accepted, but will always fall short of making it to my doorstep. Molly reminds me every single day why parenting is the hardest job of all. She is a significant source of stress and impractical tears. But she is Molly. My Molly. The autistic barrel of cannonball fun. She rolls into town riding on the winds of chaos and leaves your town in reckless abandon. And you will always welcome it back. With loving eyes fixated on you she will make you question your own sanity, forgetting that sometimes she has lost hers, as well. So on this day I welcome her wholeheartedly to continue being her. I welcome back the everyday mundane repeats. I wait for them to come. And they always do. I wait every morning for Molly to say to me "Molly Mom where's Gretchen?" And to reply "She's at school, Molly." Only to have her correct me with "No Molly Mom she's at school her Mrs. Brown's class." And this will be repeated on the hour every hour until Gretchen has returned to us. In her mind she knows that this reassurance needs to be fulfilled in order to make life continue. In my mind I'm thinking "Polly the parrot has nothing on me." But if this is what she needs then this is what I will give to her. She is my color blue. She is my constant companion in the battle to make people understand that these children are special, but not in the institutionalized way. They are special in the way that makes everyday a new day. They may not act like we expect them to, they make not talk like we want them to. And that's fine with me. I  declare myself bilingual, because I can not only speak English, I can speak autism as well. Molly's autism. When she asks for her red I know just what to get. And when she asks for her one I know just what she wants. And when the ignorance of people has taken its toll on me for the day, and when she sees me crying and asks "Oh no Molly Mom you okay?" I know exactly what to say to her. "Absolutely."  In this moment I will always be okay.
On this day when you wear your blue make sure you know exactly why you're wearing it. It's not just a color to symbolize a day. It's a color to symbolize the fight that we all go through for our children. No matter how young or old they are. No matter their abilities and disabilities. We will always wear our colors to show the most important thing of all. These are our children and we love them for who they are and what they mean to our lives. So today when I wear my blues I will have the constant sound of Molly in my ear saying to me "It's blue autism Molly Mom." And as I grin and remember how she woke me up at 5 am screaming to find her pirate's hat my reply will simply be "You bet your sweet little cheeks it is, kiddo."

In the absence of being there is a hole in my shoe.

Through the course of my life I have learned several lessons. The first and most important one being that someone will always be there for you even when you think no one is around. The second one I learned is that someone will always try to find a way to disrupt the balance in your life even without the knowledge of doing so. And the third I learned is that if you put a sandwich bag on your foot when you have a hole in your shoe you will be just fine walking in treacherous weather. Which translated means no matter what people throw at you, you can block it from interfering with your life. Plus your foot will stay dry. People are rude, thoughtless, ignorant, and just plain ridiculous. Now granted I can be a savage beast when provoked, i.e. eating the last kit kat bar and not telling me, cutting me off just to NOT go any faster...you get the point. But of the many things I do, one thing I do not do is throw nasty insults at a child. That's right.....you knew this was coming. Take for instance my little Miss Molly. My dramatic, karasmatic, tumultuous bundle of everlasting joy and everlasting hysteria. It comes as no shocker that she is a screaming demon in the body of a four year old, and it's also no surprise that she is as much "normal" as she is autistic. I know this child like I know a good chocolate cream pie recipe. To a T. Which is why I know that this particular child is beauty incarnate not  just by the way of looks, but by the sweetness of her soul. This very soul belonging to that of a four year old. A baby. A child who has roamed this earth for a mere four years. So it makes me sit here and wonder over and over how an adult can be so cruel about a life so small. How can someone who has wandered this earth for over 3 decades look at a little life and remark in a way that is not only disgusting, but borderline astounding. As an adult shouldn't the "Been there, done that" scenario apply? I guess I have either grown too naive, or I just expect too much from people. I have gone through a journey with a child who just started to talk a year ago. I have walked hand in hand with a child who, to this very day, is still grasping to understand something she doesn't but everyone else does. I do not excuse her behaviours with the constant plea deal "Sorry officer, she would have known not to set Burger King on fire, but she's autistic." I do excuse her behaviours when she is genuinely afraid of someone or something and she cries. Because this is not just an autistic thing this is also a child thing. So have I grown partially insane in my thirties when I question why an adult-a child who has grown for many, many years- is caught by this child's siblings saying something disgusting? Have I become too sensitive or too soft when I get not only spitting angry but saddened when I'm told by two children not over the age of ten that they were heartbroken when they heard a grown man talk horribly about their sister? I am baffled how a grown-up, who is not only family, but a "doctor" in the making can sit there in earshot of an 8 year old and a 10 year old and say-about a child who was THREE at the time- "All that fucking child does is fucking cry. Well isn't that fantastic. Here I am struggling to help guide this child through the aisles of Walmart without some 41 year old woman still wearing her Tweety Bird pajama pants remarking about what a monster that kid is, when I have the same nonsense hitting home harder than I thought. So on goes the sandwich baggy, because you may see a pain in the ass child who only cries, but I see so much more. I see a timid yet fearless contradiction who will cry, and kick, and scream at you and then turn around and tell you that she loves your beautiful shirt. So I, the woman formerly known as mom to my daughter and now known as Molly Mom, will let the world have its gluttony of  visciousness. Far be it for me to make someone else feel like they've done something wrong when really all they were doing was being honest in completely ripping apart a child. Who am I to make that person feel upset for this heinous lack of judgement when, mostlikely, all they were doing was trying to feel better about themselves. This is the new world order. Feel bad about the way you look in the mirror? No problem. Just go up to a 9 year old boy at McDonald's and tell him those french fries make him look fat. And I know I have the rantings of an 80 year old alcoholic woman who was once a broadway star, but isn't the way of the world suppose to be this way? Aren't we as parents supposed to get protective over our children? There is no way on God's beautiful green earth I would feel anything less than hostility towards a person who shreds his filthy claws into not only her back, but mine as well. I have four beautiful children. Children who are not perfect, but children who envelope my life with love. These four children encase my world everyday with nothing but reasons for knowing that life is purely amazing with each one of them in it. They are all different. They are the tenderheart, the brainiac, the warrior, and the adventurer. And they are mine. So maybe I would be more insane and more naive for believing that the ravings of an insignificant being mattered in this chaotic, nonstop, beautiful world of mine.