You Ever Look Around

and realize that what your child has accomplished is HUGE even though other children his/her age accomplished that YEARS ago? Yeah? Then you have a special needs child and you know exactly where I'm coming from. No? Then you have no clue as to what the hell I'm talking about.

Being that I am raising SN and NT (neurotypical) kids, I see the differences every day. The twins are doing things that Izzy never did (and honestly STILL doesn't do).

Today was one of those accomplishment kind of days. Well, for one thing at least. Izzy let me cut his hair. Yep, that's it. Cut his hair. Well, more accurately, trimmed it. He didn't scream. He didn't shove me away. Admittedly, it didn't take very long, all of 2 minutes. I made sure of that. And I talked to him, asked him if I could do it. He had his iPad to help distract himself. He brushed at the fallen hair, probably because it itched.

This is HUGE. Now I will be able to trim his hair as it gets longer and keep him from getting a mullet as the top grows out. And for all of you that think "What's so big about a hair cut?" You have NT kids and have NO idea. That's what's so big about it.

I belong to this board, it's one of those message boards. It's private. We share, a lot. All of us have kids that were born around the same time as Izzy. There are many days where I don't share a thing. Most of them just don't get it. They have children who are going into a regular kindergarten class next year. Their kids can talk. Their kids are toilet trained. Their kids don't need special services or receive disability payments. None of them are learning sign language just they can hope to be able to talk and understand their child. Honestly, there are many days where I feel like I should leave the board. I feel like the outsider, looking in on all of these "perfect" children and it reminds me daily of where Izzy "should" be, where he "could" be.

I joke about how he'll end up with a really talkative wife because he won't try to get a word in. Or what kind of job he'll get as an adult. The true reality of it is that those things may not happen, in fact it is far more likely that they won't instead of thinking they'll be part of his life process.

I see this bright good looking kid who is burried in his own head. Where his 2 year old siblings can speak more than he can, where they can make themselves understood better than he can. Where they'll be toilet trained and on to learning "typical" stuff long before he seems to.

Izzy loves his puzzles. He's learning to count with them. He has one that requires him to put the pieces in by numerical order and he can do it through 10. He has another that requires him to do it alphabetically, and it doesn't always start with A, and he can do that too. He knows quite a few more signs than any of us do. I find I have to look up what he's doing just so I know what he's talking about.

All of this to simply say, today is a haircut. Tomorrow is...well I don't know, I'll have to wait and see. However I'm sure it's going to be HUGE, even if someone else's kid did it years ago.