#30facesofautism 2020 - Day 14

Day 14 - I had a truly proud mother moment earlier this year. Not. Baby Girl made her way to my office at the end of the day with two “new to her” LOL dolls in hand. You might remember from the past that LOL dolls are her obsession. Well they weren’t new - new and Baby Girl has a cool slide of hand from time to time so naturally I assumed they were lifted from a poor unsuspecting friend. I immediately began questioning her and by 6 PM remember she’s exhausted and done so her answers were jumbled and guiltish sounding. Because I couldn’t get a straight answer I decided she needed to leave them at school until I could get to the bottom of who they really belonged to. She cried huge crocodile tears but I stood firm,  committed to disciplining this situation properly. On the way out I texted her school tribe with a picture of the evidence and a confession that I was sure she had grand thefted them and we would get to the bottom of it in the morning. By the time we got buckled in, the tears still flowing, a message from her Para popped up “Tickets baby!”. The realization of what I had done hit me like an eighteen wheeler full of LOL dolls. She bought them from the class store - with success tickets she had earned - likely for making good choices and the right things! I slammed the car back in park and we ran back in that school to get those dolls. I would have crawled over A million tiny LOL doll shoes to get them for her if I’d had too. She was beyond elated. I literally had to get home so I could lay on the floor and cry. I hate that autism had stolen my ability to clearly understand what my Baby Girl was trying so hard to tell me. Heck, an 8 year old should even be able to tell a pretty convincing lie if they wanted to but that is not our life. Ours is jumbled and hard to articulate or comprehend sometimes. Ours leads to misunderstandings, even for this Mama who seems to speak Avinese better than anyone else. As hard as it is, it also demands the need to extend more patience with her, which translates into affording us the opportunity to practice that level of patience with others. As I tucked her in that night I pulled her close and told her how deeply sorry I was - her precious and sweet response was “I know” as she hugged me tight and demanded extra kisses. I crawled back to the den floor to lay there and cry again - this time covered in the grace extended to me by a language impaired Baby Girl who really DOES understand. 🙌🏼 #30facesofautism