Toilet Talk

There's no fluffy smooth intro here.  Let's just get down to it. My Kiddo has to pee and sometimes when I am out and about with him, I have to pee too.

Now when he was little, no one batted an eye lash at me bringing him into the ladies room with me.  In fact in most cases he was one of many little boys who were in there with their moms.  I didn't and still don't care when I am in ladies room when I see a little boy in there. I'm thinking of my bladder, not some other kid's wiener.

The thing that has happened is Kiddo has started to grow up. I know!  How rude of him to get taller, bigger, and more adult looking by the minute.  I don't remember telling him he could do that at all. I still want him to be the little tot in a one piece romper stomping around like a Godzilla in those chunky white toddler shoes who would run away yelling like some pint size Braveheart going off into battle.  Usually after someone would turn on one of those loud as feck hand dryers of doom.

Alas, it is not to be.  Instead I have a 5'4 lanky teenager with hair legs and a rapidly deepening man voice following behind me in many a bathroom because why?

AIN'T NO WAY I AM SENDING HIM TO MOST BATHROOMS ALONE! In fact, I have started to map out my errands based on places I know that have single stall restrooms because I can send him into those easily and I know he'll be fine.  Plus, for me, it's not just sending him into a men's room by himself that I have to worry about. I have to go too. So you want me to run into one restroom while he's in another and hope like Hell I can get in and out fast enough so he's not alone by himself because he finished first because despite it being 2017, women's restrooms will always have the longer ass wait! (Seriously ladies. Why is that?  What are we doing in there that's taking so long?  Oh! I know! It's because we're having to bring in our kids with us.)

In certain public locations, he's coming in with me and if you are the general public, you have two choices.  You can either deal with it OR you can help us out by telling businesses to make more "family/gender neutral bathrooms".  Because your bladder is not more important than my Kiddo's. Or mine.  So until we have some more family bathrooms, he coming in with me.  My Kiddo has autism, is intellectual disabled and has limited communication.  There is a reason why I have to be a Smother Mother. It's to keep him safe. If you are concerned he may see you NOT wash your hands, that's on you.

And you know what? I kind of hate that I have to do that too. He's 13.  He doesn't want to go in with me. I know it and yes, I can see women in there doing double takes when he's walking in with me.  Trust me, I will make sure he puts the seat back down though.  I'm trying to raise that boy right.

After all these years, I don't give a flying crap anymore if you give me and my Kiddo a look in the bathroom. I will be the first one to tell you "Take a picture. It'll last longer."  Seriously though, what would you rather me do?  Never leave the house? Never go to pee? Sorry, you're not worth a UTI.

More of these, less of judgement. 

I hope it's a better year.

My social media newsfeed is a slew of "Back to school" shots.  Kids posing in their brand new outfits and lunch boxes that they will soon lose. Some smiling.  Some sulking.  It's cute. It's adorable. It's nice to see a bunch of good looking kids ready to take on a brand new year.

And I can tell you just by looking at the photo if they are autistic or not.  It's not by how they part their hair or how they hold a book bag.  It's how their parents caption their picture.

"I hope it's a better year."

Seriously, there must have been ten in a row that said this.  Each time I saw one, I'd checked.  Yep, a fellow #TeamQuirky member.  Over and over again.  Parents of the typical kids would just caption it as the first day of whatever grade and move on. Some of them even go super fancy and have the kids hold up a sign they made which I cannot do as I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler. Parents of autistic/special needs, just try to get their kids to sort of look at the camera and take whatever shot that they can get. I can bet you dollars to donuts that there was a photo shoot and there were about 20 other shots on their smartphone that they scrolled through before deciding on that one as "good enough". They have other things to worry about, which is pretty much everything else related to school.

And good Lord, do I get this. I get this so hard. Last year at this time things were so bad in this house and at his former school.  Just getting him out the door on the bus was a freaking production that left me drained by the time he went off to school.  Plus, I couldn't even catch my breath because I was waiting for the dreaded phone call to come.  Which it did, nearly every single day.  The personal best being from the principal on the second day of school telling me how "out of control" he was and I needed to come get him.  She treated us like we had somehow pulled a fast one and scammed him into her school.  No one there seemed to understand him or our shock at how bad things were.  They didn't know him or us.  They thought that this was the status quo. This went on for months till we found him a new school.

I can't even believe that an entire year has gone by since then.  He is happy. He is thriving. He is still loud as feck and a ten gallons of hyper in a five gallon bucket. He is The Kiddo. The one we know and love and is actually eager to go back to school.

Despite knowing he is in a much better educational placement, I still can't help but feel anxious.  I'm trying to hide it from Kiddo. I'm putting on a show of "Yay! School!!" but inside I am still freaking out. He went happily on the bus and according to the teacher it was a great first day.  I'm just hoping it stays that way.

I'm just hoping it's a better year too.

Sorry, I have no picture of me dancing in the street singing "Brand New Day" from The Wiz.