A Bit of Confession

Last weekend Distracto was brutally honest with me. As we were running through the weekend’s agenda on Friday she realized that The Growler had another volleyball tournament and that likely meant she and The Gaminator would be displaced and need to spend a night at my folks’.  Now, let be clear that my children LOVE their grandparents. This conversation that ensued had nothing at all to do with my parents, but rather was a simple and honest heart cry of perceived unfairness.

Distracto: Again?! Why does she have another tournament?

Me: Because she does. She plays on a club team Babe. The season runs through April so she is going to keep having tournaments for another month.

Distracto: OK. I get that. But why do you and Dad both have to go? You both always go.

Me: Because we love watching her play. Just like we love watching you dance.

Distracto: And you came to how many of my games? (she dances on the drill team)

Me: I came to all of your home games.

Distracto: Right. My home games. Not my away games. All of her tournaments are away. You don’t even stay for the whole football game when you come to see me.

Me: (Really nothing I could say that)

Distracto: MmmmmmHmmmmm. Salt.

Me: I’ll talk to Dad. Maybe only one of us will go this time.

In the end, only one of us did go. Perfecto took The Growler and I stayed home with Distracto and The Gaminator. We went to church together (tourney was on Sunday morning), picked up the week’s groceries, tended to some household chores. Nothing special. She wasn’t asking for special. She was just asking for normal. She was just asking to not have her life disrupted yet again so that both of her parents could attend one sibling’s event.

Raising three kids is not simple. Raising three kids with disabilities is really not simple. All the logic in the world about how this really wasn’t fair was not going to penetrate the rigid thinking of my eldest Aspie. They best way I could serve my kids was to let Perfecto go to the tournament.

Did you hear that? “Let Perfecto go to the tournament.” As though the prize is getting to go. So, here is the wee bit of a confession.

It really does feel like the prize is getting to go.

When we both go to a tournament, for that period of time we get to step totally out of the world of autism and life demands, and just be parents watching their kid play ball.

We experienced this when The Growler was younger and was playing tournament softball. We loved it. When that team fell apart (I’ll save the ridiculous softball parent drama rant for another day) it broke our hearts. After much contemplation I realized that I wasn’t really sad that we wouldn’t be spending endless hours at the ballpark. I wasn’t really sad that The Growler had no team because I knew she would still play rec ball and for goodness sake she was only 8 years old. This wasn’t life altering stuff for her. No, I was sad because I wasn’t going to get that bubble of “normal” on tournament weekends. For those hours I got to just be a mom watching her kid play ball.

I don’t think that Distracto really meant to convict me on this particular topic. I think she  was just saying that it seems unfair that both of her parents  travel for her little sister’s stuff and we don’t even stay for the whole game for her. She’s kind of right. I could have given her a speech about how as a family we have to sacrifice for each other, but what she was saying was that she doesn’t feel like the family sacrifices squat to show up for her. While the thought isn’t entirely accurate, I heard her point. It felt unfair. And I knew the truth. It was unfair.

So, I let Perfecto go to the tournament. I have no idea if he feels any of this stuff I am talking about. I haven’t really talked with him about it because on some level I am a bit ashamed of myself for wanting to escape life and go to the sports cocoon.  It’s embarrassing to admit that life raising three kids with disabilities is hard. I look around at our life and I see that we lack for nothing. We have more THINGS than we need, we have good friends to walk through life with, we have a church home that we are growing in. Why in the world would I need to escape life?

Mostly because I get tired. Nobody talks about the exhaustion of hyper-vigilance that parents of kids with disabilities feel. We don’t discuss the emotional toll it takes. We don’t even really talk much about autism much anymore because it just is. It is part of our life. But the truth is, sometimes I like to escape. I’m glad I didn’t go last weekend, but if I’m honest, I must confess that sometimes I like to escape. Sometimes The Juggler needs to just hold one thing at a time.