We’re coming off Easter weekend and a week where I was traveling. I am literally writing this about 2 hours after landing from my photography convention. In the before time, where I was blissfully childless, I imagined holidays as a magical time. I imagined a Christmas morning filled with excitement, a sleepless eve where my children were giggling all night in their rooms desperately listening for hooves on the roof. In short, I imagined the excitement I felt as a child in my own hypothetical children.
Then, I had children. Let me just tell you, that being a parent around magical holidays is HARD. I think this is true for parents of atypical and neurotypical children. Creating magic is impossible, unless you are a magician. I am not. So instead, its hours searching stores, browsing amazon, hiding the gifts meant to be from the enchanted holiday figure. It’s exhausting.
I am just going to come out and say this, I have always struggled celebrating holidays with Rivers. He doesn’t buy into the magic, he never really felt the excitement in the unknown. In fact, this last Christmas was the first time I felt like he actually understood that Santa brings him presents on Christmas eve. And even then, he wasn’t this mysterious man living in the snow to fly over homes and sneak down their chimneys. He was just simply the reason that presents were on the fireplace on Christmas morning. He just didn’t seem to get it, it was just factual because he believes what I told him.
I felt a tremendous amount of guilt about this. He believes what I told him, and I feel an obligation to be honest with him. And I don’t say this as a mother of an ordinary child, where there is a bit of guilt knowing that when the truth comes out they will know you lied to them. This is guilt because of how his brain works, and how he processes information. He is incredibly literal, if you watch The Big Bang Theory, think Sheldon Cooper. How he doesn’t understand sarcasm, that is Rivers. And because he is 6, he doesn’t have the front lobe capacity to process the logistical impossibility of these things.
So not only am I a guilt ridden liar, I struggle to find what sorts of things to buy Rivers. He’s never been into toys, but somehow we have also never had a shortage of them. Last Christmas he asked for a watch and 3 door closers. Yes, you read that right. A door closer, a device that you attach to your door that will automatically close them behind you. You can find them for about $12 at home depot. We currently have 5 installed in our home, with 1 disabled after my husband had a specific frustrating incident with one of the doors. So what in the world do you buy a kid who doesn’t like toys, for a holiday? If you find out let me know. This year, his Easter basket was stuffed with some items I would consider less than fun.
Rivers is obsessed with numbers, and I mean that literally and not in the generic more playful meaning like “OMG he is totally obsessed with numbers”. I mean he is hyperfocused on them. He taught himself basic math before kindergarten, tries to count to 1000, you get the idea. At the time I bought these number disks he was assigning every good thing someone in our family did a point value. So cooking dinner was worth 10,000 points some nights and other maybe 5 points. When I found these disks and the coins in the dollar spot at Target I knew it was a win. You can also find them at Learning Resources online. The tape is because he creates with it. Up until this point we had only used blue painters tape and some white gaffers tape I used in my photography business. So when I found this colorful tape, I thought we might expand his creativity.
All in all, we did ok. I don’t consider Easter in the same realm as Christmas, so the excitement level was exponentially low, as expected, but still fun. We went to lunch at a park with my family where we hid eggs and ate fried chicken. But as I stumble through this journey, I am learning to manage my expectations around these holidays. I am mourning the loss of the holidays I expected. I spend them confused on what to give, and how to celebrate. How do I perpetuate the magic for my younger, neurotypical child, while still giving and managing the needs of my oldest? Is it even possible? I think, that its time for me to learn to be ok with what we have and what we are, instead of hanging on to the idea of what we are not. I wish it were as easy to do as it is to say.
Typically Atypical 