"Simply Mommy"

　
This Mother’s Day I am going to celebrate being a mother to my children. I am going to bask in the glow of their smiles and the warmth of their touch. I am going to forget about the everyday chaos that is autism.

I am going to be the mother that bakes cookies and not the mother that hauls children to therapy appointments. I am going to be the mother that celebrates my children’s lives and not their milestones. I am going to be the mother that plays board games instead of charting routines. This Mother’s Day I am just going to be “Mom”.

I am the mother of four boys and the oldest is twelve with Asperger’s Syndrome and the youngest is two with classic autism. I don’t get the luxury of ever just being “Mom”. You see, most mothers celebrate motherhood and raising their children everyday. But in the life of an autism mom we don’t have time to stop and cherish the simple things, for the simple things are lost. They are lost like the voices of our children and their gazes that never meet our own. Mothers raising children with autism are constantly planning and weaving in and out of routines and meltdowns…dodging the next obstacle or challenge.
Mother’s raising children on the spectrum aren’t taking children to play dates, baseball games, dance classes, or birthday parties. No, we are different creatures, us autism moms. We are blowing bubbles, using deep pressure therapy, singing, motivating, encouraging, soothing…and there are no breaks.

There isn’t a “Mommy’s Night Out” for us mothers. We don’t leave our children for a simple dinner date. We don’t trust a babysitter to watch the kids for an hour. We also never rest, even when we sleep. We lie down at night and pray that tomorrow will be a better day for our babies and we wake up the next morning only to face the same struggles that we endured the day before. Again, there is no time to cherish the little things.

So this Mother’s Day I am going to celebrate being a mother to my children. That’s it. Just being a mother. I don’t need flowers, or a bracelet, or lunch at a fancy restaurant. I just want to be “Mommy”. I just want to watch my children laugh and play. I just want to soak them up for one day. I just want to take it all in…all the things I don‘t get to enjoy because autism controls our life. The things most people take for granted are the gifts that I will treasure this Mother’s Day.