Don’t Be Afraid

As a mom to a child with autism, I feel like one of the hardest and yet most important things is getting our family out to do stuff together. I’ve said before that sometimes it goes great and sometimes it doesn’t go so great but we dust ourselves off and keep trying. I honestly get frustrated with myself because I have so much anxiety about just regular outings. It involves so much planning and I’m honestly scared of what Korban will do when we get wherever it is we are going and what people’s reaction will be to him. We’ve had way more good experiences than bad ones but the fear never leaves me. 

Yesterday afternoon Brad’s parents returned from their vacation and called to ask if they could stop by our house on the way back home. Of course we said yes and were so glad to see them. While we were visiting with them Korban started to holler that he was hungry. (That’s a regular occurrence. Lol) So we decided we would go out to eat. 

The restaurant we picked was Country Squire in Iuka. None of us had been there in a long time, but that was my parents’ favorite restaurant when I was a kid and we ate there lots. Isn’t it funny the things you remember from when you were a kid? I remember we always sat in a booth in the back. The walls are finished with small rocks and there was this one smooth stone I liked to rub. They had apple rings on the salad bar and my parents used to get them for me. I can still remember the way the color bled out onto the napkin and dyed  it pink. I don’t remember this story, but my dad used to love to tell it. When I was little enough to still sit in a high chair I got those little paper cups like condiments come in and started spinning them on my thumbs. One flew off and landed on the table of the people eating next to us. Ah, I was a weird kid. If you know me as an adult, that’s not much of a surprise. 

Anyway, the point is I have a lot of fond memories of this place and I was really excited to be going. At least I was until we started driving there. Korban is still so jealous of me talking or interacting with people and was mad that I had been talking to his grandparents, even though we hadn’t seen them in a week and everybody had tried to make him feel included. He started asking if I was going to talk to them while we ate, and threatening to scream. His scream is so loud and awful and I knew he wouldn’t leave peaceably if things started going badly and would cause a scene. I started panicking inwardly. I had Brad call and ask if there was a wait time to be seated and started trying to prep the kids on how to act. I was just thinking “Get in there, eat, and get out.” We had the iPad with us of course, and Selah had her frog purse packed with coloring stuff, cool pens, Star Wars stickers, notebooks, etc. We were prepared. I just never know if it’s going to be enough. 

We got there and walked in right behind another family. We had to wait a minute while they cleared tables and pushed them together for us. There were some seats up front so I sat the kids in them while we waited and kept reminding Korban not to talk loud and trying to keep him happy. They had the table ready for us in a minute and we went and sat down. I don’t know whether the Holy Spirit moved in Korban or his meds kicked in or both, but his mood shifted and dude was a joy to eat dinner with. 

He talked loud, but that’s just him. He wasn’t angry or upset. And he had some really decent one-liners during our meal. Some examples: 

(Hollering down the table): “Hey Mammaw, do you wear lipstick?” 

Charlotte: “No, I don’t.” 

Korban: “ME EITHER!” 

My personal favorite—“I like tartar sauce. It’s like sauce but with tartar in it.” 

And this one, as he shoveled food in—“My hand hurts. I think I’m getting arthritis.” 

Sometimes he says the blessing before we eat and it generally goes like this “THANKYOUGODFORTHISFOOD. BLESSITTONOURISHOURBODIESANDOURBODIESTOYOURSERVICEAMEN.” All in one breath, because he is ready to eat. But apparently he decided last night was a special occasion and he announced unprompted that he was about to pray and then dramatically folded his hands and proceeded to tell each of us to close our eyes. Then he prayed like a preacher at a tent revival. He blessed the food and everyone in our family. He asked God to put a hedge of protection around us and to let no weapon formed against us prosper. He was on a roll and it was great. Very sweet. So things were going well. 

When I went to the salad bar I had an unexpected encounter. A man came out from the back and said “Excuse me, was that your son that was sitting out front earlier?” Even though things had been going great I thought, my heart kind of jumped into my throat. I was sort of braced to hear “What’s wrong with him?” or to have to apologize for Korban talking loud. It wasn’t any of those things. The man kindly asked “Can he have sweets?” I smiled and said yes, that he loves sweets. He asked what he liked and what my daughter liked and if it would be okay for him to send them something when they got finished eating. I said of course and thanked him profusely. 

So when we finished eating our waitress brought out a platter filled with brownies, ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. I thought Korban was going to vibrate right out of his seat he was so happy and Selah was tickled pink too. 

Look at those faces! Korban’s eyes are cracking me up. 

Look how full his cheeks are! He’s like a squirrel. 

Nomnomnom

Selah’s curls were kicking and so was her daddy’s beard. 

He’s got that fork ready, y’all. 

So it was the owner who sent the kids the dessert and it really, really meant a lot to me that he did it. I was feeling pretty apprehensive before we sat down to eat last night, but it ended up being the highlight of our week. I said all this to say to other families that are in our shoes, especially with kids younger than Korban, do like Dory and just keep swimming. I know it’s hard. Some things have gotten so much easier as Korban has gotten older and some new challenges have popped up. I still get scared and want to hide under a rock at least once a day. But if I had done that last night I would’ve missed this. There are a lot of good people left in the world, and I want to be one of them. Please be enouraged, and remember to be kind to others. You don’t even have to give brownies and ice cream but my goodness what an impact it made on my family last night. A very sweet treat indeed....

Like A Boss

Korban is at an odd stage right now. Technically, physically, he is 12. He is a preteen. Mentally and emotionally, he is much, much younger in many ways. The best way I can think of to describe it is imagine raising a toddler who is roughly the same size as you. Korban is more advanced than a toddler in many ways, but he’s definitely still so impulsive, unreasonable,  and emotional and it’s not like I can just pick him up and tote him out of a store if things go south. He is making progress in so many areas but sometimes it just feels like one step forward and two back. 

This past Sunday he came to me while I was cooking breakfast and asked me to pull a wiggly tooth. He isn’t dramatic about pulling teeth thankfully, but he generally wants them GONE when he can feel them moving. I was elbow deep in biscuit dough and told him I couldn’t pull it right then and he accepted that and walked off. A few minutes later he returned, tooth in hand, and proudly told me he pulled that tooth “like a BOSS!” He sure did and we were all really proud of him and made a big deal out of it. I’m so glad he is starting to be more independent and can do things for himself. And then there was yesterday....

Yesterday afternoon Selah was sitting at the kitchen table working on her math, I had already started getting things ready for dinner, and Korban was in his room sitting on his crash pad, flipping through a picture book. At least that’s what he was doing the last time I checked on him. I was turned around to the sink washing a dish when I hear Korban’s voice behind me and he said “Hey Mom! I cut my...” Based on his history my mom brain is filling in blanks like “cut my hand, cut my arm, cut my ENTIRE LEG OFF!” So I spun around in a panic. Hair, y’all. He cut his hair. So on the one hand I’m relieved (very relieved) that there’s no blood and no injuries. On the other hand, my 12 year old now looks like Jim Carrey did in Dumb and Dumber. I did some deep breathing and told him to show me the scissors he used. He took me to his room and showed me a pile of hair on the floor. Hair that used to be on his head. He was so proud of himself and thought the whole thing was hilarious. No regrets whatsoever. I decided I need to step back for a minute and connect with Jesus so I left him in his room and walked back to the kitchen.

 Selah was making deviled eggs for her daddy. She is very good at that. She had broken one of the boiled eggs as she was peeling it though, so she was feeding it to her new puppy. Her new, not quite housetrained puppy. So I explained that probably wasn’t the best idea and as I’m going over that Jim Carrey Jr. pops back up in my kitchen and says “Look Mom, I cut it more!” I didn’t really think he could make it look worse, but trust me, he did. How did I not think to confiscate the scissors when I left his room? More deep breathing. My boy looks like this:

And again, he is still SO PROUD. He said “I cut my hair like a BOSS!” I’m thinking “Dude, have you seen your noggin? This is the opposite of a boss!”

 I didn’t say that out loud but at some point in all this he realized I wasn’t quite as thrilled as he was and he scooped a handful of his hair off the floor and said “Will you help me glue it back on?” I got so tickled at that and couldn’t stop laughing. But seriously, when he does things he doesn’t understand that they can’t easily be undone. 

We’ve had a long talk about how we don’t cut our own hair and how we go to the barber shop for that. Selah, who graciously offered to “even it up” herself, told him “Korban, you need a PROFESSIONAL!” 

Sister ain’t lying. He needs a professional. We are going to get his head buzzed this morning. Once he gets something on his mind he can’t let it go. He was still getting ahold of scissors and trying to cut his hair more last night. I had no idea we owned so many pairs of scissors. We apparently also need to own a safe to store them in. He also decided last night that since I wasn’t happy about the whole hair cutting business, he’d just fill in the bald spot himself. With a magic marker. I kid you not. 

I gotta at least give him credit for creative thinking on that one. And as one of my friends pointed out, he used two colors! Orange and green, maybe he’s getting ready for Halloween. Selah said he looked like a rock star and I thought about letting him rock this look until November. If y’all see me out and about with my kids looking any sort of way just pat me on the shoulder and pass me a coffee, please.