Sucess, Failure and Soup

When I first imagined life with my new Princess, I expected the first several months to be many ups and downs, and plenty of sleepless nights. Now, almost four years later, it's supposed to be mostly balanced. By now, most children are sleeping through the night, perhaps different times for bedtimes, different struggles to get there; but by the time they're out, that's it until morning.

4:00 am is a time where most are usually asleep. The only real activity amongst the family is deep breathing, and perhaps some snoring. Not in my house. Usually, at that hour, there are at least two members of our household up. The Princess and myself. Depending on the night, it could be pleasant, or it could be miserable. There could be many ups and downs, or there could only be a few. The one constant is that there is almost always someone awake in this house at all times. As I'm sure you've assumed by now, our first attempt at night time meds aren't working as effectively as we'd like.

The first week was great, from there we went straight down hill. The other night was probably the first time that the Princess had woken both the King and I. It was a particularly tumultuous night. The day before was a rough one. Paired with little sleep, and two royals who simultaneously felt the need to scream at the mommy all day, I was in tears by the time the King got home. This happens sometimes, but with the extra pair of hands, things went smoother and eventually everything was peaceful. Until 3:00 AM.

That's when it started. It started similarly to every other late night. The Princess is screaming, I try to change her, get her some milk and a movie. This was not enough for her, and that's when some head banging began. My nerves already shot, that was the final straw, and the tears started flowing again. I attempted to feed her, attempted to get her to calm down, but to no avail. The King decided to step in to lend a helping hand.

When usually the Princess sees her daddy, she's immediately all smiles, this night was different. She kept going right back to the wall to commence head banging. When he tried to redirect her, she went to a different wall. It came time to try to protect her from herself, and he fought to keep her in a hug with him. She's strong. Honestly, when she's in these moods, my only hope is to get between her and the wall. There's no way I can get her to stay in one spot.

Finally, we were able to get things settled down once more, and after reflecting with the King, I realized-- Probably for the very first time-- how lost he really felt in all of this. He's always held this stoic attitude, and perhaps so have I. For the first time I saw his vulnerability in not knowing how to deal with our autistic Princess. It was heart breaking, and heart warming all at once.

We both woke up sleep deprived the next morning, but honestly, I rather see him in a new light these days. He, like me, is just doing the best he can. That's all we can do. That and find extra things to channel the frustration that come with the hurdles. To channel my extra frustration lately, I've been cooking. It's funny because at one point, the word "domestic" in any way was akin to a four letter word. Never let it be uttered, lest it summon up something as unholy as, say Beetlejuice. I digress.

What I've realized is that for me, cooking has become an outlet. My "do-over" button. Life to me trying to raise a Princess with autism is like a series of attempts and failures. I attempt to get her to eat something else, I fail. I attempt to get her to sleep at night, I fail. With each new attempt, I hit another brick wall. Cooking though, I can follow the guidelines, I can experiment. Usually if I fail, I can pinpoint an exact step in which I failed, to correct and be successful later.

As selfish as I feel to say it, it helps boost my confidence. I love the fact that after all of my effort, I can taste it and be proud that I created this. The look on the Prince's face as he eats and enjoys each new menu item warms my heart. So much better than baby food. This is the confidence I think I've needed to continue to push forward and attempt and fail. Eventually, though I wont fail. There will always be small successes, and big successes. Small failures and big failures. Each as significant as the other. In the meantime, between the successes and the failures, I will cook.