Autism and Scrambled Eggs

I am beginning to learn that sometimes it doesn't matter what I do...things just tend to be chaotic.  I would love to blame everything that is dysfunctional in my life on autism, but that just wouldn't quite be fair.  I had my fair of dysfunction before I had my children...the autism just adds whip cream and a cherry on an already super-crazy life-sundae.  So lately when life has been handing me lemons, I have been pointing the finger at the Big-A.  If it weren't for autism we could all go out to eat more often.  If it weren't for autism we could do this, that, and the other.  If it weren't for autism my life would be so much easier.  It is so nice to have a punching bag for everything that goes wrong.  When you don't have a dog to kick...just blame it on autism. 

This past Saturday was especially challenging.  Our very small community (Tickbite...not even making that up) has a festival every year to celebrate shad.  Most every small town in North Carolina has a festival of some sort.  They celebrate dogwoods, magnolia trees, watermelons, and even collards.  Well, in our community we celebrate The Shad.  For those of you who aren't aware a shad is a seasonal fish that runs in local fresh water rivers and creeks during early spring.  People here worship the Shad Festival like it is the running of the bulls in Spain.  They celebrate the festival at the end of the week with a huge parade and all the participants are your neighbors and family. 

My husband was so excited to take the kids that he started planning our family outing to the shad parade.  I stopped him.  I reminded him how Logan couldn't tolerate the last parade we took him to and that parades cause him to become overly stimulated and would ultimately cause him unnecessary stress and meltdowns.  We agreed that my husband would take our four year old and I would take Logan with me to his older brother's baseball practice.  Logan loves to be outside and I thought baseball practice was the lesser of the evils. 

We get to practice and my oldest son (who has Aspergers and dislikes parades as well) climbed up on the top bleacher and involved himself in a Nintendo DS while my 10 year old ran out on the field.  I strapped "Spongebob" into his harness and we began to walk around the outside of the field.  I had my reinforcements...a pack of gummy bears, bottle of bubbles, and a musical toy.  After the gummy bears were gone and the bubble solution was now soaked through the leg of my capri pants and the musical toy tossed into a tuft of clover that hadn't been mowed, the madness ensued.  Smiling one minute while having the time of his life, now my child was in the throws of what might go down as one of the most famous and notorious tantrums of all time.  What set him off you might ask?   That is only to be answered by him and the good Lord.  There he was on his stomach lying in the grass...headbutting, shrieking, and screaming.  I was looking around like I always do to scan to see who was staring...initial headcount revealed two coaches, 9 ballplayers, five mothers, and six kids playing nearby.  The only person who wasn't staring was my oldest son who had probably just unlocked a new Poke'mon and has become so completely immune to these episodes he hadn't noticed.  I made eye contact with my 10 year old who was standing on the pitcher's mound and I was met with a look of utter horror.  I decided for the sake of everyone else's sanity I would sacrafice my own and hauled my son, kicking and screaming, to the car. 

Once in the car, after inhaling 3 juice boxes, the meltdown continued.  At this point, his clothes were completely soaked with Hi-C fruit punch and there was no way I was about to get him back out of the car.  While he headbutted, thrashed, and screamed for 45 minutes, I sat in the driver's seat listening to some 80s/90s radio station.  I could see some of the other mother's staring over at our suv, which was now swaying like two teenagers parked on Lover's Lane.  I wasn't sure if they were staring at the rocking of our car or the screams and shrieks that were being emitted.  I turned up the radio to try to drown him out..."Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin' anywhere....".  I was thinking about how great that midnight train was sounding when I saw the coaches calling all the players in and my older boys came to the car.  My ten year old starts complaining as soon as he gets in the car.  "We can't go anywhere"  "Why did you have to bring him".  I just shook my head and headed home.  "Damn Autism.", I thought.

Once home my husband pulls up right behind us and he and our four year old come in grinning from ear to ear.  They were both donned in Mardi Gras beads and my husband was holding a bag of cotton candy and he began telling me all about how much fun they had...blah...blah...blah.  I told my husband how much fun I had and that we had might as well all gone to the parade together.  It has become apparent that it doesn't matter what we do...Autism is in control.  I told my husband I needed a break.  More like begged for one, in all honesty.  I pleaded that I needed to run to the grocery store and that I needed to go alone to clear my head.  He knows I can't grocery shop with Logan because he screams in the store from the time I walk in until the time I walk out, so he agreed to watch all the kids so I could get out for a while and get what I had justified was a much deserved break. 

Relieved to have some me time, I headed out.  I tried to stretch out this shopping trip as long as I could to give myself much needed relaxation and retail meditation.  I only get to go grocery shopping about twice a month so of course we needed tons of stuff.  I grabbed a cart and got on my way.  Of course...halfway through the store the wheel on the front of my cart became lodged in a east/west fashion and wouldn't roll.  I had way to many things to transfer so I "rolled on".  By the time I was done shopping the cart was weighted down with tons of frozen foods, snacks, milk, bread, and meats.  I could hardly see over the top and the cart was so heavy I could barely push it and the front right wheel had taken the day off completely at this point.  I couldn't push it.  I stopped and wiped the sweat off my forehead.  People were walking by staring at my cart because it was overflowing.  I began to push the cart with one arm on the bar and the other hanging onto a carton of eggs on top.  It wouldn't move so I had to start shoving the cart with my right hip.  I did this all the way to the register...pushing it with my hip.  I tried to avoid the stares, pointing, and whispers from everyone as I did the electric slide all the way to aisle three.  I got behind two other ladies and found it annoying that I was being stared at and whispered over and Logan wasn't even with me.  This completely defeated the purpose of getting away alone.   I tried to not let it bother me while I held onto all the items that were a hair away from falling out of the cart, especially the eggs.

After loading all the groceries onto the belt, I held onto the eggs because I was scared they would break underneath all the other groceries.  The cashier was nearing the end of the line and asked if I wanted to hand her the eggs.  I told her I wanted her to ring them up last because I was afraid they would break and I had a special place in the seat of the cart I wanted to put them.  She finished up and I handed her the eggs and then placed them in the one spot in the cart that wasn't covered in bags of groceries.  I did the hip boogie all the way to the front of the store and out the door to my car and walked right into the beginnings of the severe weather that was forcasted to hit our community.  The wind had picked up and my hair was blowing all over my face and I couldn't see a thing.  I just continued to hip-shove the cart all the way to my car.  I got most of the groceries in the back while the wind blew stronger and stronger.  Finally I grabbed the carton of eggs that I had held onto with such determination and as I was about to put them in the front seat with me a huge gust of wind came and blew against me so hard that I lost my footing and let go of the eggs.  I heard them hit the ground with multiple cracks.  As soon as I detangled the hair from my face and wiped the sand from my eyes, I looked down and saw the precious eggs lying on the ground in a yolky mess.  I just stood there...wind whipping...hair blowing...eggs running...and laughed.  I laughed so hard my sides hurt.  I leaned up against my car and laughed so hard that I could hardly stand myself.  It really hit me...I can't blame everything on autism.  This is life.  No matter how crazy or challenging autism might make things...life is challenging and crazy anyway.   I can't constantly try to predict and manage every little aspect of life.  I can't be the event coordinator 24/7 for our family, because life is unpredictable. 

I came home from my trip refreshed and with a new attitude, but not because I had this really relaxing and rewarding experience, but because I had an egg-salad style epiphany that I can't control autism and autism isn't always controlling me.  I am learning you are going to crack a few eggs every now and again with or without autism.