Morning again!

I'm being horribly lazy this morning, and am sitting on my couch surrounded by the blankets I have yet to put back in the bedroom. I should be outside, feeding Buddy and cleaning up the poop in his paddock, and moving him to the pasture. I should also be watering the plants, feeding the dogs, and coming inside to clean the house and feed the kids. But, since no one is here to make me do any of this, it'll wait another few minutes. Kids are still sleeping, thank god. Sierra woke up at 1:30 screaming her head off, I think she had a tummy ache. She let out the most foul, horrific belch right into my face. Ugh. Anyway, she should be tired after all that. I know I am. I woke up from a dream that I was in Spain, in a castle, looking for a place to pee. Admittedly, when I awoke, i had to pee really bad. Funny how those things make it into your dreams.

Tonight is Open House at Jaymes' school, where I get to meet his new teacher and decide what I think. I don't know how to handle it, honestly. What if she's a complete moron? What if she makes it clear she has no intention of doing anything special to help Jaymes succeed?Ok, ok, not fair to badmouth her yet, she might be really great.

I'm sad that none of Jaymes' friends are in his class this year. He had A. and L. in his class last year, they're twins who live one street over with their 3 siblings. I cannot imagine raising 5 kids without going nutty, but their mom does it! Anyway, Jaymes loves those kids, and it's sad that he'll be without them. Everybody went off to Kindergarten, and Jaymes is stuck in Pre-K.

Question, for those of you who have or know autistic children:

How do I tell how severe Jaymes is? Sometimes I look at him and wonder if i somehow imagined this whole Autism thing, if I took a few bad behaviors and made it into something it is not. Maybe he is entirely normal, and I just blew regular toddler tantrums out of proportion.

The reason this comes to my mind is this. Sometimes, Jaymes is sweet and loving and "normal" ish. He says "hiiiiiiiii!" when he sees kids to play with. That's not Autistic, is it? He cuddles up on my lap to watch TV (although he does get up and down a zillion times), and to love on me. That's not Autistic. He's perfect in school, supposedly. That's not Autistic.

He has his days, and his moments. True, if you say "no" or irritate him at any time, he slams his head into something and screams at you. But maybe that's because we yell too much? It seems that yelling at the top of our lungs is the only way he even hears us. Any lower and it's like we didn't even speak.

Doctors and therapists do not tell you what they think, when asked. I guess they can't, but I wish they would. It pisses me off, not being able to get a straight answer from the people who matter.

I guess this is me acting like the parents I've been known to poke fun at- the ones who can't come to terms with their child's problems and insist he is normal. I kow Jaymes isn't normal, but I can't help but cling to the thought that maybe my mind has turned this all into something it is not.

Enough with the deep thinking. I prefer to drown my sorrows in extremely childish, goofy posting on FHOTD.