{"id":1258,"date":"2010-05-14T08:57:21","date_gmt":"2010-05-14T15:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2025-11-03T10:11:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:11:52","slug":"mothers-day-love-aspergers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1258","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day, Love & Aspergers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes,\u00a0 it’s a bit late to blog about Mother’s Day.\u00a0 Bite me.\u00a0\u00a0 I seem to always be a bit behind.\u00a0 Ironic since I’m rarely late to an appointment, but that may be the level of anticipation to some of those “appointments”. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So my Mother’s Day was rather peaceful.\u00a0 I didn’t have a\u00a0 play date the\u00a0 night before so I could be there in the AM when\u00a0 my boys woke up and thundered into my bed to cuddle me.\u00a0 (They actually spend about 5 minutes cuddling me and 25 minutes playing and wrestling around in my king size bed.\u00a0 Alternating between burrowing under the covers to tickle each other or fart on each other [they ARE boys] or pile on top of each other.)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

No breakfast in bed, no gifts other than what the 2nd grader made in school.\u00a0 (Same teacher so now I have 3 colored candle holders… whee.)\u00a0 But that was fine with me.\u00a0 Because Mother’s Day fell on the monthly No Electronics Day Sunday.\u00a0 So after I made them clean\u00a0 my house (what they do every Sunday or Saturday, this time including washing the walls) we played board games.\u00a0 Okay, the 2nd grader and I played Hullabaloo (like twister for Kindergartners) and the older two and I\u00a0 played Star Wars Risk, which took 45 minutes just to figure out how to play!\u00a0 They valiantly lasted another 1.5 hours after THAT before begging me to let them give up.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And in reading my favorite blogs I came across this from The Bloggess.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Love and Asperger\\’s<\/a> It teared me up. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

See, my oldest has Asperger’s and I’ve had conversations like that one.\u00a0 Because the treasure (and sometimes the burden) of the Asperger’s child is they WILL ask those questions that many of us hold silently, deep in our hearts.\u00a0 Questions like, “Am I good son?\u00a0 Are my brother’s better than me.\u00a0 Do you think I’m incapable of making friends?”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, the challenge of an Asperger’s child makes you incredibly creative as a parent.\u00a0 Because they question you on a deeper level (and they often remember EVERYTHING you answer them!)\u00a0 They rarely just sit back and learn from observing others around them.\u00a0 They’ll study things, facts, events (my son is currently obsessed with WWI – yes, really) but rarely people.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps that is what makes us different.\u00a0 The obsession in studying things and facts and events for the Asperger’s person, perhaps we have the same obsession but the\u00a0 rest of us have channeled it into studying each other.\u00a0\u00a0 We just happen to call it “learning the social graces.”<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My Asperger’s\u00a0 son is just starting puberty.\u00a0 He turns 13 in a few months and he’s anticipating his “teen” years with endless questions of what middle school was like for me when I was 13.\u00a0 (All I can think to say is, we called it Jr. High not Middle School, and like all school it sucked… but I don’t say that.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And true to his nature the conversation went like this…<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke:\u00a0 Mom, guess what I just Googled?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0\u00a0 Um, World War One?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke:\u00a0 No<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0\u00a0 World War Two?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke:\u00a0 No<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0\u00a0 The Vietnam War?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke:\u00a0 No <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me:\u00a0 I got nothing.\u00a0 I give up, what did you Google.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke (big grin on his face):\u00a0 Adolescence!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Parent Me in my Head:\u00a0 Holy Shit, where did THAT lead him!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Writer in my Head:\u00a0\u00a0 OMG, that’s hysterical!\u00a0 Great material!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me who answered Luke:\u00a0 Wow… you know puberty is a process that takes years and isn’t going to magically happen when you turn 13 don’t you?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Luke:\u00a0 Yea, I know.\u00a0 I just want to be prepared.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Me in my Head:\u00a0 Oh well, done is done.\u00a0 At least he’s taking the initiative!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes,\u00a0 it’s a bit late to blog about Mother’s Day.\u00a0 Bite me.\u00a0\u00a0 I seem to always be a bit behind.\u00a0 Ironic since I’m rarely late to an appointment, but that may be the level of anticipation to some of those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twirling-my-skirt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}