If I were a good mother, I’d read to Nat every day, on the chance that it would spark something and he would eventually read to himself. Or maybe it would make him want to talk. But I sit here, sleepy and addicted to my own book, comfortable in the big armchair. Nat seems happy in his room. Didn’t I hear him laughing up there? Fake laughter, but still. Something he enjoys.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I’d go upstairs and engage him so that he is redirected from fake laughter.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I’d have Nat make his own lunch. I would start with small steps. Choose your snack. Get a baggie. Eventually he would find the entree. Let me know when we needed to buy more. But that’s a stretch. He could do the snack, the baggie. He’d find an entree. He already can do that. But letting me know when we needed to buy more? That’s a whole new set of skills. That’s a leap that autism jumps up and blocks.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I’d type with him on Facebook. I would force us to wait for the words to catch, for his attention, his comprehension, to spark. For his fingers to type.\u00a0 But haven’t I done that? He struggles so much with reading the posts, with understanding what was said, what is expected of him. He does not understand what comes after someone talks to him. Only what he has been directly taught. I ask him what is on his mind, what does he want to say, and he types our names. The five of us.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I’d feel happy with that.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I’d have signed him up for therapeutic horseback years ago, not just now that I found out he liked horses at camp. But I remember, so long ago, the two places that offered it were full. Waiting lists for years. They were also located 50 minutes away. Also, how do you pay for them? You have to call your insurance? That’s the worst thing next to car repairs and taxes.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I would have researched that program everyone talks about, in Merrimac, an hour away. Such good things about it. Horses, shared living, everything. But I don’t want him to live that far away. And I don’t want to discover that once again, everyone was a little wrong. Nothing’s perfect, but I never stop feeling like it is at first.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I would research maybe five programs before choosing where he is. But I stop because it is so tiring to go, to tour, to explain who Nat is, to watch them try to understand him themselves, to include him. It’s boring. It’s sad.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I would have realized he was unhappy for a reason. Losing weight for a reason. Holding his body stiff for a reason. I wouldn’t have stopped at a psychiatric solution. I would have insisted on an investigation. And back when we thought he had pain somewhere on his lower right side, I would have pushed the ER doctors to do an x-ray. We would have probably found out way back then that something was very wrong either in his apartment life or his workplace or his program.<\/p>\n
If I were a good mother, I would know how to parent Nat and I would have the endless energy and wisdom to follow through.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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If I were a good mother, I’d read to Nat every day, on the chance that it would spark something and he would eventually read to himself. Or maybe it would make him want to talk. But I sit here, sleepy and addicted to my own book, comfortable in the big armchair. Nat seems happy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-19F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4443"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5579,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions\/5579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}