Leap Day

I was reading a Facebook posting about a stay at home mom raising four children.  She is homeschooling them and the youngest has autism.  Apparently, her sister-in-law sent a package to her house which contained gifts for all of her children, except the one with autism.  When her husband called to ask his sister if she forget to include the gift to their little one, the sister replied, "No, I didn't send one.  They have autism.  They aren't going to know they didn't get one."  To say I was disgusted was an understatement.

The author of the Facebook page asked for people to write a blurb so that they could send it to this 'sister' to show her how incredibly hurtful it is for her to have done.  I wrote a blurb.

My little boy is going to be three years old in two weeks.  I am terrified to have a party for him, for people to come over and give him presents.  Christmas was so terribly hard on him it broke my heart.   You see my little boy has autism (and some heavy duty sensory problems), so sometimes it is so much it takes me weeks to decompress him from the ‘noise’ that invades his head.  

He knows everything.  He can sense it.  I can see it in his face.  His heart is so big and so loving that I am utterly devastated when he is treated differently by my family and people in town.  He is too loud (he doesn’t talk, so he makes noises), he doesn’t like to play like other kids, he doesn’t eat food like a ‘normal little boy’, and the list goes on of things I hear.    I tried to make excuses for them, they just didn’t understand but I refuse to.  I refuse to allow their intolerance and ignorance hurt my little boy’s heart and soul.

I am so incredibly proud of my baby.  I am his biggest fan and cheerleader.  And I will never allow someone’s ignorance or stupid behavior to hurt him because they don’t hear the music that he moves to.

HH, mother of a boy with autism

My little boy's birthday is coming up.  I don't know what to do about it.  He did not handle Christmas well at all.  It was simply too much for him.  My mother asked me about it the other day and I can't seem to get her to understand all of the problems that come with something like this.

I don't know, I still don't know how do handle it.

I am sending a children's story to a friend of mine who does illustration (he is amazing).  I want to see what he does with it.  I think it would make for a really wonderful children's book.  I would want someone to read my Wyatt books like this.