Being a stay-at-home for 15 years (hard to believe it's been that long) the weekends seem just like another day of the week. Saturdays we usually go to Mass, hang out as a family and kind of goof off. Sundays are reserved for washing clothes, getting ready for the week ahead and used to be when we would have my mother-in-law over for dinner. My husband was an only child and my mother-in-law was very close to him. As my mother-in-law got older and I got to know her better, I feel like she was one of my best friends. I would wash her clothes and try to visit her as much as I could. Starting with this time last year she started having a lot of memory problems. Around the Christmas of 2010, she was admitted to the hospital because she wasn't eating. As we soon discovered she had advanced dementia. While the kids were at school my husband and I would go to the hospital and sit by her bedside. She was really not able to communicate very well with us. It was heartbreaking to watch my husband sit by her side and her not be able to talk. About a week or so before she passed she had a few moments of clarity. I wrote them down on a slip of paper and keep that piece of paper with me to look at when I am missing her a lot. My mother-in-law had a lot of siblings and she was the last of her siblings to pass away. I used to tell her a lot that I thought she was very strong. I feel like I learned a lot from her and feel so blessed to have known her. I really miss her (it's been almost 6 months since she passed). What I wouldn't give to have her over again for Sunday dinner :)
When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...
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