Today is bitter sweet.

There is no denying that I have a bit of a Facebook addiction. I adore seeing photos of friends and tracking their lives through this modern medium. I feel less far away from my east coast pals and childhood friends when I can get a picture fix and see their children grow from year to year through FB. Today these pictures are leaving me feeling down (and guilty for feeling this way) which luckily does not happen very often so please forgive a little wallowing or just stop reading now.

Over the last week, I have seen picture after picture of Molly's peers heading off to college and their new lives. I think the picture of our friends (who we met in Lamaze class) daughters' first day was the tipping point to my reality that Molly is not leaving like the others. I see their dorm rooms, I see their new roommates, I see their beautiful campuses. I recall the excitement from my own first day off to college and know that these kids have so much to look forward to. In fact, I met my best friend Jenny on the first day of college as we were put together as roommates at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Before I met her face to face, I recall perusing her unpacked piles in our tiny dorm room trying to make out if she was someone that I would get along with. She had a sheepskin rug. So did I! When she walked into the room with her parents, upon returning from lunch, she was wearing a cartouche necklace with her name in hieroglyphics (and I was too)! She had an older boyfriend; so did I. We stayed up late into the night talking and discovering so many similarities and have remained close ever since, even though she lives in North Carolina and I live in Colorado.

19 years ago she and her husband took a long road trip out west and stopped over with us for a week. We broke the exciting news to them that I was newly pregnant with Molly! Jenny found out shortly there after that that she was pregnant with Eliza. Our girls are 2 months apart in age but are vastly different in life experiences. Eliza is heading off to college today too. It's how it supposed to be. It was our early plan for Molly as well. And it hurts that it's not happening.

What would our daughter be like if she didn't have autism? What would her talking voice be like? What kind of friends would she bring home? Would she still like to clean up or would she be more like her brother and leave everything strewn behind her? Would she be funny? Or would she be on the quieter side? Would she share with me or keep me at arms length? Would she be an engineer or more of a party girl? Would she know what all the fashions are and fill me in or would she still be content with hand-me-downs and tshirts that have no tags? Would she be fickle with boys the way I was or would she commit to one and date him all the way through high school and college? Maybe she'd like girls? What would he/she look like? What would he/she act like? Would Molly be an athlete playing a sport in college? Would she get good grades like her dad or average to bad grades like her "social-ology" major mother? Would she join a sorority?

The "what if's" are killers and not worth contemplating. They make me cry. They appear infrequently thank goodness and yet they are a reality. I never know what is going to trigger the tears and hopefully all the colleges will have started soon so I don't need the gentle reminder that Molly is home to stay.....for a long while.

And yet.....I LOVE hearing about your kids new experiences. I never want you to not share with me because it might be painful. It is what it is and you will have your challenges too. I will do something along this journey called life that will trigger you to cry. So please don't shy away from sharing. We will weather the highs and lows together as that is what friendship and love is. And since you are already missing your college bound kids, I'll just say "Ha! I still have mine at home" :)

We love the pool!

Summer is winding down and the pool is packed with families enjoying our last few days of freedom. Today I am on the top most grassed tier of our pool in a location where I have never sat before. This is obvious as I can see Molly searching for me from her mid pool location bobbing on her typical three noodles. She dips one side of her head in the water, then other other side, and then flings her head backwards and sprays water on whomever is near her. She is oblivious. Then she looks up on the hillside searching for me. This is endearing to me. She's like a little child who still adores her mother and wants to know where she is at all times. My 16 year old typical son hides opposite of wherever I am and keeps his friends away from me too as I might learn too much if they came around. On the other hand, her neediness is suffocating. My stomach cliches knowing that she will be this innocent and dependent until the day she dies. (And now that my kids are older, how can I embark on that fulfilling career? That shall be another post.)

I give her a big wave as I see her scanning the hill and when she finally sees me she gives a tiny fast wave, turns away, and dips her hair again. She seems relieved. She migrates near other teenagers. She probably doesn't know them yet she bobs awkwardly too close to them. She makes her odd verbal stim but often the sound is muted by the loud music playing and all the other kids frolicking in the water. In years past, I would sit near the pool and explain who she was to kids who would give her an odd look. Now I just let them all figure it out :) I'm finally that old mom up on the hill reading my book and I want to savor that hard earned honor. Molly's benign in her ways as she isn't touching anyone or trying to talk to them...she just hangs out near them. Of course I'd intervene if I saw someone being malicious, and I bet the lifeguards would too as they are sensitive to Molly.

Sometimes I have a sadness as I watch her all by herself. The other kids are all playing games together. The "color game" which still baffles me why kids like to play it and play it year after year? You can't possibly hear what color that kid just said with their back to you?! They should learn Red Rover or Alligator which are much cooler games that we played in my childhood. Kids are frolicking on their tubes, squirting guns at each other, creating fond lifetime memories. Molly is the only one all by herself bobbing around. And yet....she is happy. At least she appears to be. She is in water. She is around people. There is music playing. She understands the environment. She is smiling.

We could be there for 15 minutes or 5 hours and Molly would NEVER tell me that she's ready to go. She stays in the water until I sign to her from my perch "all done". The beauty of sign language is that I don't have to walk all the way down to the pool to get her to leave. And I don't have to shout. Sign language was the first way we taught her to communicate so we all have a few signs that continue to this day: "all done", "drink" and "potty" are mainstays. And she never fights me!  I know, I know...that's pretty nice. No back talking, no negotiating, no whining.  But you KNOW I'd give anything for her to do that, right? I wish that she would one day get out of the pool all on her own and come get her towel and tell me "all done". But she's 18 years old and hasn't done it yet, so I'm not holding my breath. Because she is so fair skinned and easily burns, we can't stay all day (though I'd love to). She isn't one to go play volleyball for a little while, or come read a book, or play cards in the shade, and then go swim again. So we come, she swims (bobs), I read, she buys ice cream, we leave.

All things considered; it's a good life. Unless someone poops in the pool like today. No, it wasn't Molly.

I'm back!!

Good grief, it has been 5 months since I last posted!!?? And I had vowed to be more consistent.  To briefly catch you up I worked 4 part time jobs: personal assistant to both a neuro surgeon and a 92 year old lady as well as a DNA cheek swabber in a couple medical offices to help out Brooke in his new job), Jack's Cheyenne Mountain lacrosse team went all the way to the state semi finals for the first time ever, Molly was nominated as Prom Queen and graduated from high school so we had a big party to celebrate, Jack played on a summer select lacrosse team, our inaugural Colorado Springs Children's Hospital event was a huge success (I helped coordinate the Family Festival part and this was my 4th job), we went on a really fun two week road trip through Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon and now we are getting ready for the new school year to begin and Molly's "job" through her transition program starts. There are MANY stories to pull from during that time and I hope to do that as I launch back into life with my sweet Molly and get myself writing again. Here are a few pictures from that time.

Spencer and Molly at the Broadmoor hotel for photos

The tired Queen after a fun night

Jack was able to walk Molly in for graduation

Was very touching to us all

Climb for Courage at Air Force Academy Falcon Stadium

We love watching you play!

Stay tuned for all the exciting highlights of hours at the Social Security office to get Molly SSI, where you think you will catch some deadly illness from the throngs of coughing people waiting for hours with you, as well as all the guardianship paperwork filled out for the courts and the paperwork complete for the Resource Exchange so that they can help with services for Molly since she has turned 18. Of course they are all asking the same things too. Yes, it's quite the process once your kid becomes an adult. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Don't worry, I'll throw in touching stories too, as well as a few ideas I have about community living, a children's book that she and I could do together, and how freaked out that we no longer have the teacher/para support that we have relied on for so long.