Now you see it, now you don’t.

My 10 year old son has Asperger’s. If you’re not familiar with what that is, take a look here.

Some days, I don’t see it. Sometimes his teachers wonder why he has an IEP. Most days, he looks and acts just like any other 4th grade kid.

And then, when I forget about it and nearly convince myself that maybe he’s “over it”, a tsumani comes crashing to the shore and I didn’t even get a warning siren.

If you want to know what having a child with Asperger’s is like, imagine walking through this meadow.

Can’t you just hear the birds singing and feel the warmth of that beautiful sun?

And then, out of nowhere:

The situation blows up.

Take last night as an example:

We went from school/work to the store, to baseball practice, an then to dinner out for my birthday. It was busy. It was late. Already past the kid’s bedtime. But, we threw caution to the wind so we could do all the things we needed to do that day AND celebrate my birthday at a nice restaurant. As dinner wrapped up…..

Daddy: “The kids sheets are in the washer and so, when we get home, they aren’t going to have anything to sleep on.”

Mommy: “Right, ok. Well, we’ll just have to use the sleeping bags for tonight.”

Son: “No way. Nooooo way. I am not using a sleeping bag. I hate them. You know that.”

Mommy: “I know, buddy, but, I’ll open it up and you can just sleep on the soft part and use another blanket to cover up.”

Son: “No! Then I won’t sleep. I’ll just lay there and no be able to sleep. I don’t want to do that. No.”

Tears filled my son’s eyes. His anxiety about not sleeping has been really high lately. In fact, his spectrum-y behavior lately has been more consistent. It’s not a surprise. End of the school year craziness tends to mean more of that. I know that.

Mommy: “Ok, bud. I understand what you’re saying. Why don’t you walk outside for a little bit to calm down.”

He walked away with slumped shoulders still trying to keep those tears at bay.

A 9:30pm Target run solved all problems. Truth is, he has needed new bedding for a while but, I kept putting it off because I knew that this change would be tough. I found the bedding that was most like the stuff he already had and loved and when I came in with it, he gave me a big hug.

Not just his normal lean into my body with his arms folded against his chest “hug”. A full on arms around my waist hug.

Then, it was my turn to fight back the tears.

“I love you, buddy.”

Daddy love

I wrote an article earlier this month that talked about how I can’t stand men-bashing commercials. You can read that here if you missed it.

Well, obviously, Dove reads my blog. Because they have made a beautiful Daddy commercial that is going to air during the super bowl.

Oh, the crying.

My husband is a wonderful father….for many reasons, really. But, the main one (IMHO) is that he has always been the one to get up with our children in the middle of the night. The only exception to that is when they were babies and needed to be nursed….but even then, he would get them out of the crib and bring them to me and then put them back in their crib when they were done. Yes, he is my superhero, forever and ever. Amen.

Our daughter, who is now 5 years old, wakes up during the night about once a week or so. The first thing she does is call for her Daddy. She wants her Daddy to come and refill her water because she is thirsty. She wants her Daddy to turn back on her star light that went off in the middle of the night. She wants her Daddy to tell her that the dream she just had about vampires and bats is not real. Her Daddy comes, every time, without fail. He is there with patience and love, rubbing her back until she falls back to sleep. What a beautiful demonstration of unconditional love. She doesn’t know it, but in these middle of the night episodes, she is learning that her Daddy is there for her, no matter what.

   Daddy and his crazy-haired little girly.

I sometimes forget that I still have a need for that unconditional love. I need to know my Dad is there for me and that he supports me. Yeah, I’m 35. Yeah, I have my own family. But, sometimes, I just need to hear of my Daddy’s love for me.

I’m in a scary transitional part of life right now. I left a comfortable part-time worship director job to step out in faith and tryout for full-time worship director position. Part of the tryout process was for me to guest-lead worship at our new church with a team of new people on a Sunday morning. 2 services filled with hundreds of people I don’t know. I did my best to portray confident leadership even though I was terrified that at any moment everyone was going to figure out that I didn’t have what it takes to do this.

After the last service this Sunday, thoughts raced through my head about the little mistakes that were made and I fought hard to not go to a place of mentally beating myself up for the 5% of things that went wrong. As I was talking in my head to myself about the 95% of things that went beautifully right, my dad came up and gave me a hug. You see, he had visited my new church that morning to support me in this transition.

“Thank you for sharing your God-given talents this morning.”

“My pleasure, Dad,”

He went on: “What was really neat to see was how comfortable you were up there. You look like you had been doing it forever.”

Tears started to form in my eyes….

“But, even better than how comfortable you were was, how real you were. I could tell that you really meant EVERYTHING you sang and said. From the lyrics of the songs to the prayer at the end, I know everyone could feel how true these things were for you personally….and that makes it really easy to worship right along with you.”

The tears flowed. “Man, thanks Dad…..that is really meaningful.”

Yes, sometimes, an old girl like me still needs her Daddy. I love you, Dad!

My dad with our little baby girly.