Thursday, February 14, 2008

A Little History

3229 Days.
 
77496 Hours.
 
8 years, 10 months or so.
 
That's how long I've lived with a child on the Autistic Spectrum as of this post.
 
I've been married for more than 10 years, we have a dog, a nice house, 2 cars, in-laws, and the mortgage.
 
I was so happy when my son was born. See, my wife is a little older than I am, and the doc told us she only had a 15 percent chance of getting pregnant due to her age, but we had decided that if she did get pregnant we'd be happy, and if she didn't, we wouldn't worry about it.
 
Several months later, (after a mostly disasterous anniversary trip and a slightly less-than-energetic vacation) she showed me the little dipstick pregnancy test thingie with the pink plus sign showing.
 
The usual amount of time later, our son was born. A wailing 6 pound, 15 ounce baby boy, with 10 beautiful long fingers and 10 little toes, and a tuft of hair that had given Mommy heartburn for several weeks prior to his arrival. He scored an 8.5 or 9 on his Apgar test and we were on our way as new parents.
 
More on the hospital stay later.
 
Holy Shit! Why is it that no one tells you that you'll never sleep again? I guess it's to keep prospective parents from veering away from having children. If we actually knew how much work being a parent is before becoming one, no one in their right mind would volunteer to put themselves through that!
 
Feed the baby, change the baby, hold the baby just so, see how nicely they nap during the day? Oh, that's because they have their days and nights mixed up!
 
Baby's crying, okay 3 things, hungry, sleepy, or in discomfort. Just ate, check. Right after getting up from nap, check. Diaper? No, still clean from the change right after getting up from nap, check. Still crying. What now? Pick him up and he quiets some, but is still whimpering.
 
Find a passage in one of the baby books about relieving gas pain. Basically, fold the child up on your lap and (always very gently) squeeze the gas out. Wife and husband watch in awe as husband does this maneuver over and over for several minutes while the child continues to fart. Both are now laughing so hard tears are running, and the farts continue. Squeeze, fart, squeeze, fart. Finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes, baby quiets and his mood improves. Score another win for the exhausted, but happy parents.
 
Enough for now. . .

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