When the Abnormal Becomes Normal

Well it wasn’t pretty but I did it. I actually put on a swimsuit today in public.

Today we took a daytrip to Lake Sonoma in the boat; without Dominic. We brought a picnic lunch and our new wakeboards and had high hopes for a fun day with Jimmy. For a second I felt guilty about leaving Dommy home with Grammy and Papa but I knew for everyone’s sake involved it was the wise thing to do. Besides, he had a fun day with his grandparents having a picnic at the park. I wonder if he even misses us when we leave.

Taking Dominic in the boat has been somewhat trying in the past and he has not made much progress with his behavior and now with his seizure condition, I just wanted and needed a break. Sometimes I feel like it is not fair or healthy for Jimmy to have such chaos in his life. The focus is so much about Dominic’s health, behavior and autism and we often refer to him as the fun wrecker for obvious reasons.

As I’m typing this I’m watching the Doodle in rare form; tip end tables over, rip my cookbooks to shreds and throw things on the floor.

The last time we took Dom to the lake he threw as much stuff out of the boat that his little sweaty SPF 50 body could lift, including our lunch and my sunglasses. It was hot, he was miserable and hated wearing his life jacket; the screaming didn’t help either. So today we made the executive decision to leave the Dom at home and have some peace, quiet and quality time with Jimmy. I’m so used to being on edge at home and the stress level around the house is pretty high. I’m not as patient with the people I love at home, including Jim, Jimmy and my mom. My uncle told me the other night on the phone when I was telling him I had no patience, he said, "Angela, if you had "patients" you'd be a Doctor". It took me a minute to get it, but it made me smile.

What I notice now when the Doodle is not around screaming and tipping things over, he is all Jim and I can talk about. How much we miss him and wonder how he’s doing and what kind of trouble he’s getting into and why this is happening. We’ve become so used to the abnormal in our lives that the chaos is now normal.