Being on the “O” line, for our G man

  
It has been a little while since I have written about our wonderful lives.  I guess we have just been busy living in the trenches of the autism world.  

I imagine we (my wife and I) are linemen in the NFL.  I love football.  Specifically the NY Jets!  (Pointless info I know, but…)  And linemen, they do all the dirty work.  They are the foundation on which the entire team stands on, with seemingly never getting any of the credit.  They just keep grinding it out.

So do we.  So do all parents.  Every day is blood, sweat, and tears.  Each family with their own form of struggle.  From the never ending repitition (literally 600 or 700 times) of trying to teach the process of putting pants on with the tag in the back.  To prepping him countless times in conversation over the weekend that there will be a minor change to his Monday schedule, so it is easier for him to bear when the time comes.  To the attempted potty training this past YEAR  (which of course he has done an awesome job so far, we are just still quite a ways away).  The list goes on and on…

We think about this stuff every minute, of everyday.  Always seeming to weigh on our minds more than it should.  

Lately I have been wanting to play a different position.  I don’t want to worry, and hurt, and feel consumed by this god damn diagnosis.  I want to be the quarterback who has all the looks, and charisma, and smarts, and fame.  I want to just be smooth like that.  Have my life be smooth like that.

And just when I need it, we get a moment like that.  My family is in the bathroom doing bath time.  Greyson is in the tub talking up a storm (like pretty real conversation).  He is interacting, and engaging with us.  G man is just flowing back and forth in the water looking like a polo star.  He has such a beautiful build to him.  Grant is giggling and using his beautiful words with his mother to my right.  His chubby cheeks are just plowing out from the corners of his mouth.  Those beautiful white chompers just daring me to match their happiness with my own.

For a few minutes, everything felt pretty smooth.  I had tears in my eyes as I rinsed off my oldest son.  

Even so, we still had a partially pooped diaper sealed up on the sink behind me.  Grants soiled clothes from his filthy dinner (as always) on the floor.  Jet the dog licking the water from the brim of the bathtub.  I’m still in my dress pants from work as always.  And it seems the toilet needed a flush, with no one to blame.

Still felt smooth…

It is a weird kind of feeling that I get wrapped up in every now and then.  Frustration and guilt, yet a feeling of such tranquility and peace.  We have been battling for a little while now, and this is just the first series of a very long game.  But, I think we helped to score a touchdown on this series.  Or maybe it was a field goal.  Okay, it was a long field goal attempt that missed wide left…

It doesn’t matter, because we scored another beautiful moment, in our life, exactly the way that it should be.

This is our life, and my wife and I, we are the “O” line for our G man.