Why yes, that is my husband in that picture above, sitting on a statue of a lion.
The lion that is sitting on a stadium roof.
The stadium roof of his alma mater.
In the dark of night.
For security purposes, I won't say what university, and if that picture should fall into the hands of police/campus security, I will plead 'photo shop'.
While that picture does represent breaking & entering, (and, er, riding) it also represents our life with autism.
This life with autism that makes us do crazy things.
Things like making voo-doo dolls of politicians who vote against reducing waiting lists for services.
Things like packing up your child and driving 2.5 hours or more to another city, or state, while giving them mirilax for an endoscopy the next day, not realizing what exactly you would do during that 2.5 hour drive if that laxative starts to take effect before you get to the hotel.
Things like traveling across the country with not a spare dime to your name, to Washington, D.C., to attend a rally because it's just that important for the cause to do so.
Things like taking a stand and challenging a decades-old flawed medical policy of vaccinations, and not backing down when the entire establishment, and a few of your friends, call you crazy.
Things like taking your severely affected child with autism to the grocery store with you, without calling the national guard for standby back-up should said child have a sensory meltdown in the middle of the main aisle; having flopped to the floor with you not being able to get him up...
Things like having the last name of 'Guppy' and having your house flooded five times due to the little guppy's autistic-affinity for turning on sink faucets and not turning them off.
Yes, if you're the mom of a child with autism who didn't start out crazy; have no fear, life with autism will ensure that you finish the journey crazy.
And that's not such a bad thing.
Actually it's been quite a blessing for our fishy family of four. Er, five if you count the dog.
The craziness of our life with autism has made us realize what is truly sane in this world.
God.
It's given our typical teenage son a maturity to handle things most of his peers will never experience.
Like the few times that Matt has had to call 911 during one of his brothers seizures where he stopped breathing for a bit.
It's also made him see life as anything but typical.
Like realizing he can win a bet when he's in line with his friends to get their class schedule, and the school nurse tells him that he's behind on vaccinations so he can't get his schedule until his mom brings proof of vaccination.
To which he replies to her politely, "Let's just call my mom about that"....
After which he has his class schedule and $5 to boot.
As I've said before, our typical son is one of the few people who was actually not lying when he told his teacher that his brother ate his homework.
The times we've gone out in public to escape the craziness of the confines of our four walls, we were a family so finely tuned to Brandon's high-pitched shrieks and humm's, that we've never had to worry about losing Matt (or each other) in the mall when he was young.
Like a fish to sonar, all we have to do is follow the humming of Brandon to find the home base. Home base being whichever of us is with Brandon.
I've been to church with my shirt on inside out, to Wal-Mart with peanut butter hand prints on my butt, looked the other way at the grocery store when he launched a glass jar of grape jelly from the cart, and have chased a butt-naked boy down the street. All in the name of living on the crazy side of autism.
When someone mentions a ski trip to Colorado, what we picture in our head is the time Todd came home from work and slipped on a pile of poop on the entryway tile.
(Poop that didn't come from the dog I might add.)
That's the only ski trip we have time to take around here....
As a beating-the-odds crazy, chaotic married couple raising two boys, one of which has autism, - my husband and I have survived the monotonous, lonely, suffocating entrapment that life with autism sometimes is when you have no respite opportunities.
So it's no wonder that when we're finally set free now and then, we well, -- go crazy.
Like my husband on vacation who climbed over a fence, onto a stadium roof, to sit on a statue of a lion in the middle of the night while his accomplice son took the picture.
Yes officer, that is my husband, - and son.
Yes officer, they do plead insanity.
Yes officer, they do want to stay in jail, and if you don't mind, could I spend the night here too?
We don't get many opportunities to do things together, it'll be like a family vacation.
You see, we live life on the crazy side of autism...
And we wouldn't have it any other way.
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