A Day with Autism, Tears, and a lot of Chocolate.

Im coming to your screens today from cloudy Oregon, in my living room, on my couch, with a teary little girl suctioned to my side. On days like today, there are no amounts of fake sneezes, chocolate animal crackers, episodes of "Oddbods," or even straws that can put a smile on Avery's face for more than one minute at a time. I don't have a name for the hard days yet, but I'm sure i'll come up with one soon. For now, we can just call them "dark days." (Send a shiver down your spine? It should, they suck.) For no particular reason (at least to us,) Avery woke up with wailing and tears, so like any parent, I instantly jumped to all of her favorite things (because giving kids everything they want is totally constructive, right?) Okay, follow me here.

I walk into Avery's room, and start the same routine as always:

(Really over-the-top:) "Good morning sweet girl! Did you have good sleeps?! (Yes, sleeps.)

Continue with the good morning song- thank you mom for that gem. Avery covers her ears, which makes me do it louder.... hehe.... then she smiles, she knows what she's doing.

Now, sometime between lifting her out of her crib and changing her diaper (which is like, 4 seconds,) something went very wrong in her little world. But hey, I can handle a little crying, so I proceed with the morning routine. There are tears. LOTS of tears. At this point, going back and trying to change whatever happened in that four seconds is pretty much impossible, so now what?

I'll tell you what. Never ending stream of chocolate animal crackers and juice. Judge me, do it.

Yep, that's right, I gave my almost three-year-old chocolate animals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And guess what, I would do it all again tomorrow if it made her world make a little more sense. Because while her smiles make me the happiest and luckiest mama in the whole wide world, her tears destroy me (and my schedule, sorry, had to go there.)

Today we went on to conquer clothes shopping for daddy, a Goodwill drop off, AND Costco. And you better know she cried the whole time, PLUS the car rides in between.

I think at some point Jason and I just have to go on with our schedule and hope that all of the crying and biting and hair pulling will stop. Should we have just spent the day inside? Should we have turned around and went home when the crying didn't stop a few miles down the road? I don't know, i'm winging it, remember?

Was it a seam on her sock?

The way her hair was put up today?

The ratio of water to juice in her cup?

A headache?

Tummy ache?

Did the pinky toe on her right foot hurt?

I don't know, but i'm trying!

Whatever happens, I know it'll all be great in the end. Wanna know why?

Because with an obscene amount of chocolate and apple juice running through her veins, Avery finally just got off the couch, hopped in her ball pit, and is loving every second of it. So yeah, we made it through the day, and Avery still has Autism, and self harms, and has no words, and cries uncontrollably for unknown reasons. But if not us, then who?