Nothing is “Normal” at Our House

Date: January 5, 2014
Author: Scott Long

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So last night our family did something together for the first time ever. We watched a game…well, at least for the 4th quarter. My twins are starting to like sports now and they sat next to my wife and I sat on our sectional. Maddie was tired and she slept next to us.  This is the first time I can ever remember in the twins 5 and a half years on this planet that we had all sat on the couch for more than a minute together. It felt good. Wow, is this what it can be like for typical families?

We are Colts fans and if you don’t know how the game transpired, they were down 28 points in the 2nd half to the Chiefs, only to come back and win the game. It was about as thrilling as it gets. Now of course, we had to mute our cheers, as Maddie has a meltdown when you yell loudly, but it still felt nice to have our whole group together. When the final tick went off the clock, I pulled everyone (including Maddie) up to hold hands and do a victory dance. Knowing Maddie was not going to be totally into this, I chose the song Turkey Time to make as our dance song, since it’s her current fav to watch on youtube. So we are singing the lyrics in a ring around the Rosie manner. It was goofy as shit, but everyone was laughing. It was the laugh of victory pulled from the tight jaws of certain defeat.

Families of kids with developmental disabilities (and especially families that have twins, as well) don’t get many moments like this. As I said, this was the first time I can remember watching a completely uninterrupted quarter of the game with Susan in over 5 years. It felt really good. I’m sure most families don’t think twice about sitting on the couch and watching a show together, but for an hour we did something that seemed as unlikely an occurrence in the Long house as us scaling Everest together.

After the celebration, Mom got up to do some things in the kitchen and within a minute of turkey time, 1 of the revved up twins bumped their head into Maddie’s nose. This set her off into a crying hysteric. I shook with anger, as it had happened because they had jumped on the couch. I had told them each of the past couple of days not to do this. Between warning them against this action and getting my typical instant sense of protective rage when someone hurts Maddie, I sternly told them WHY DO YOU DO THIS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN TOLD NOT TO! I continued to rant and rave at them, as they look very sorrowful at me.

At this point, Susan tells me that I’m overreacting as they (twins) were still excited from the game and it was an accident. She also added that Maddie was fine. She was more tired than hurt, which makes her more edgy and likely to have a meltdown over the smallest thing.  Well, I can’t tell you how good it feels to have your wife tell you in front of your kids that you are overreacting and that you need to calm down. Top of the fucking world!

I cool down after a few minutes and then as the night goes by, I start to realize the worst possible result. My wife was right. I then thought about how much harder in many ways my twins life is. How their sister’s special needs often create a stress around the house. They are held to a higher standard than their sister, even though she’s twice their age. I felt like a total dick as I went to bed last night. These five year-olds had just had a moment with their parents that others have happen all the time and right after this rare moment they got an unwelcome bonus–an angry father lecturing them on what they did to hurt their sister.

I know I seem very calm in the face of the storm when I post a (Not S0) Happy Monday with Maddie video. Surprise! That isn’t always the case. I do a pretty fair job overall of keeping my cool, but I have my own meltdowns. It’s interesting how Susan and I were pretty calm people before the twins were born. I mean both of us grew up in a White Bread Protestant existence, so showing our emotions on our sleeve was not something that seemed part of our makeup. Well circumstances changed that. As calm as we try to stay, since the twins were born, we yell at almost the same rate as a High School Line Coach.

I apologized to my twins this morning, but I feel like I need to make a public version of this. Sam and Mallory, I love you guys, and Daddy tries to do his best. As you guys and your sister get older, things seem to be calming down around our house. Hang in there. I think Daddy will start to control his emotions better, too.

  • Deborah Gadzikowski

    It is hard. And the kids close to special needs kids learn all kinds of things. I was at the Zoo today with my two kids and our good friends. or the mom and two kids of our good friends (it was a give the daddies a break day). Pioneer is 9 days older than Mikaela, but on one of the small to midsized kid rides he was turned away as too tall. (he is over 2 inches taller than Mike). so he was in a bad way. i took my two and Cheryl’s youngest and went off to the snack bar. After Pioneer calmed down they came and joined us. Pioneer i should mention is a bit on the skinny end of the bell curve, I mean WAY off on the smart end. So as he drank his Icee and ate his pretzel he was coming up with many creative outlets for his hurt and angry feelings. Cheryl launched into the “if you can’t say anything nice…” lesson. and all was going well until she pointed out how Mikaela was a master at the not saying anything at all (mike can be a girl of VERY few words). At this point 6 year old Siimon pipes up. “Until you touch her things. THEN you’ll find out what’s what!” I laughed so hard but I was sad too that this sweet little boy who already has it rough cause he’s got such a precocious older brother has also had to develop a crazy set of additional rules he trots out every time he’s around my kids, (minimum one night a week)
    Then we come home. Man has been in man cave all afternoon, I assume (key word there) he’s good to come out and socialize. He emerges on the third call for dinner, sits to table then Autism son number one comes from the shower and needs his feet eaten by his father (routines, ya know!) But daddy wont leave the table to dine on toe because he’s in the middle of eating dinner. Where in it comes to light that Mark had eaten all the popcorn shrimp and Gabe couldn’t eat dinner until his shower was done. (Guess what Gabe wanted for dinner?) (and the order of a sunday evening the shower first eat second is Gabe’s rules) So daddy chastisement # 1 as i go put more shrimp in the toaster oven. Then I find he’s put ketchup in the basket of course numero dos, the dino buddies. Daddy chastisement # 2 and only because I’m worried that when Gabe finds it he’ll freak. (which he did not.) Sigh. I go into the living room and pass the time putting the self-inflating camp pad in it’s stuff sack because the weekend “camp-outs- in -the-livingroom” are over (routine!) And husband says “I never have to do that.” To which I say.”You may anytime you want.” and he looks at me like I’m looney. “You want me to put it away on Saturday so you can get it out again saturday night for the girl campout?” and I say “No, but you may put it away any given Sunday.” and he gets an even more perplexed look on his face and says, “In what universe should I put away things that someone else is using?” And I think I must have mis-heard him. But I didn’t check that out because I’ve still just gotten back from taking two autistic kids to the zoo (90 minutes ago). I’m super-mom! I cannot BE wrong! So I say, “In the WE’RE a FAMILY universe. Where everyone pitches in to help everyone else out.” BOOM! Three strikes. I’m out! and he goes back into the man cave.
    I guess what I’ve taken too long to say is… It’s okay, Scott. Autism parenting makes us all crazy.

    • scottcomedy

      Thanks so much for sharing this. It is a warzone sometimes for a married couple when they spend so much of their day trying to prevent their kid on the spectrum from having a meltdown. You are the only people you can let off steam on, which is needed, but not always healthiest for a marriage.