Patience

I am about flat out of patience. It's not a good place to be, when you've got a gifted child who pushes buttons, and a severely autistic child.

This happens every year, around this time. While my in-laws, visiting Norway for the summer, start getting antsy for their grandchildren, I start getting antsy for a break, just an hour or so to myself when there's no one who needs me to be "Mommy".

The heat starts reaching the unbearable zone on the thermometer, and everything just starts seeming ridiculously hard. Mr. Smarty Pants can't find his flip-flops for the fifth time in a row? It's a national crisis. Mr. Autism throws a meltdown in the car again and kicks the seat for 3 miles while screaming bloody murder? My blood pressure spikes through the roof.

My beloved wants to work more and more and more overtime to finish up projects? Spousal abandonment.

And of course, I don't say anything. It just builds and builds and builds until something sets me off and next thing I know I'm on the train to crazytown, beating rugs against the house, rearranging the furniture to scrub the floors under it, sweeping, scrubbing and dusting away my frustration because I'm afraid if I don't I'll just start crying or screaming like the mad first wife in Jane Eyre and that'll be that.

I need a break. I need a couple of hours off. I need a little help.

And I know it's not coming until late August.

Mr. Autism's summer camp ends today, which is good and bad. It's good, because the running back and forth across town is expensive and chaotic, he gets really overstimulated at camp and Mr. Smarty Pants is jealous that Mr. Autism goes to camp all day. It's bad, because he loves camp, and it's a place for him to go have fun for 6 hours a day. There's nothing else for him to do until school starts.

Mr. Smarty Pants' basketball camp ends tonight, with the dreaded family night. This is just plain good. Mr. Autism hates dropping him off at 6 and picking him up at 8:30, when he'd rather be in bed. Mr. Smarty Pants complains about having to go (even though he has fun once he's there), and he keeps getting injured because he doesn't pay attention to where the ball is. These kids, gentle as lambs during soccer season, have been just plain aggressive once you put a basketball into their little hands.

Also some of the parents just plain stare at Mr. Autism, rollin' in style in his McLaren Major Special Needs Stroller so he doesn't run away. Ask, if you're curious. Don't stare.

But, the weekend is coming, and I will have 2 days of being able to say "Go ask your father." Today, I am just praying for patience.