Saturday morning, the kids and I ran into the local Target to get a few last minute items for Christmas. The store wasn't too crowded and the lines weren't long. When I got to the register, I started putting my items onto the conveyor belt. I heard one of the clerks at one of the other registers say, "this lane is now open." I saw a gal out of the corner of my eye coming with her cart behind me. I said to her, "do you have enough room to squeeze by me?" She didn't respond, but instead shoved her cart through, hitting me along the way. I looked at the clerk waiting on me and said, "that lady just hit me!" He said something like, "it's that time of year." I'm sorry, but it's never okay to ram a cart into someone. I looked right at him and said, "after you finish ringing me up, I think I'm going to go over and talk to her, don't you think I should?" The clerk said, "you probably shouldn't, how about I knock $5.00 off your total bill!?!?!?!?" I told him he didn't need to, but he did anyways :) Since Lauren had been walking Dominic around the store while I was checking out, I started to recant my story to her as we were pushing our cart back. As we approached the lines of empty carts, a young dad with a baby carrier was coming into the store. I said, "do you want our cart?" As he put his son into the cart, Dominic said, "little baby!" I asked the dad, "do you mind if we take a look?" He was like, "sure!" This sweet little baby was chewing away on his pacifier and I said, "Lauren used to love hers!" He smiled and we chatted for just a bit more. I have thought a few times about our trip to the Target. I could have easily chose to get into it with the woman that hit me with her cart. I think it was a much better choice that the kids saw me keep my "cool!"
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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