Not In This Lifetime

I wish I had time to blog every day. But, life. Kids. Work. It always seems like I have something I need to get done first. Today, I am making time. It’s like therapy for me.

I wanted to tell you all about day 2 of our trip to Wisconsin Dells. Day 1 couldn’t have gone better. The kids were wore out and went to sleep early. At 11:45 PM, the fire alarm went off! That isn’t really even important to the story because the kids didn’t even budge. It was so loud and lasted about 5 minutes and they didn’t even budge! And, we got a $50 gift card in the mail after we got home as an apology for it.

They didn’t wake up to the fire alarm, but they were up at 8 and ready to go to the water park. Unfortunately, the water park didn’t open until 10. We don’t like to wait. It builds anxiety.

Grandma and Papa went down and got some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We ate in the room and played a bit. Besides the nonstop asking of when we could go to the park and what time it was, both kids were calm. They accepted it every time we told them we had to wait a little longer.

I tried to pretend I was calm. I tried so hard. My heart was racing. I was sweating and pacing and putting things in a bag we probably didn’t need. Water is terrifying for me. One of the leading causes of death in autistic kiddos is drowning. I feel like a lot kiddos on the spectrum LOVE the water but don’t recognize the danger of it. It freaks me out. I used to have this dream…scratch that…nightmare where I would see a body floating in our pool but I couldn’t get out the door to get to it because every time I unlocked the door, another lock would appear. I would unlock it and then another would appear and another and another and another until I woke up drenched in sweat.

By the time 10 came around, I actually felt like I could explode. Our room was about a 7-8 minute walk from the water park. The kids did great. Brenly wore her headphones until we got into the park. It was pretty busy even though were got there just after it opened. We found a place to sit and went over rules and then off we went!

We had the BEST time. We swam in the wave pool for a bit, went to the huge kids jungle gym and played there and then Brenly asked to go down a waterslide. Grandma and I stayed with Cayson and played while Brenly went with Daddy and Grandpa to go stand in line for the slide. I was a nervous wreck. I kept looking toward the slide and listening for a scream. I was sure I would hear it because the lines were long. It seemed like they were gone forever! The scream never came.

I was at the top of the jungle gym with Cayson and I got to watch them go down the slide. Pure joy. That’s what was on her face. I felt myself relax a little. When they found us, Brenly was still all smiles. Phil said she waited in line like a champ. We played on the jungle gym for awhile longer, the kids went down all the smaller slides and then we all went to the big slide again. We had to wait in line again. Brenly was a little wriggly but did great.

After the slide, we found the lazy river. The lazy river was not so lazy but it was by far Brenly’s favorite part. We didn’t use a float though to just relax. We ran through the lazy river as fast as you can go in water. The depth went from 1 foot to 3 feet. We must have gone around that thing 50 times. The kids were loving it and the smiles made it all worth it for us.

When lunchtime came around, both kids got out of the water with no problems. We walked back to the room and ate. We decided to go to the arcade again. It was a lot busier this time. And, this time Brenly knew where the ferris wheel and carousel were. She did take off once but we talked about safety again and staying with us and that was that. She followed the rules the rest of the time. We had one small problem on this virtual reality game where you jump on a trampoline to play. She wanted to keep doing it and there were other people in line waiting. One scream. A lot of stares.

We have become so good at ignoring people who stare and focus solely on what we need to do for Brenly. It hasn’t always been that way for me or for my husband. We used to care too much about what people thought. For me, it was the worry and hurt that people would think less of my girl because she was having a hard time. It was the looks of pity. It was the looks of “you need to discipline that child.” And, if I’m being honest, some of it was jealousy. I was jealous that no one else had a kid struggling, not that I wanted to see kids struggling, I just wanted someone to understand. No one else had a kiddo who has anxiety in loud, crowded places and who could meltdown at any second. I needed someone to understand.

But that’s all gone now. Yes, sometimes it is difficult to see all the kiddos doing all the things that my girl may never do. Yes, I wish my girl didn’t have to struggle to simply exist in the world. Yes, I wish everyone I knew understood and made efforts to understand. Yes, I will do everything in my power to help her navigate our not-so-understanding world. Yes, she will succeed in this life.

She will succeed because she is learning and growing every day. Every. Single. Day.

She will succeed because she has so many people who have her back.

She will succeed because we will love her through the hard.

She will succeed because we believe in her.

She will succeed because she believes it too.

We went back to the waterpark before dinner. We told the kids we have 45 minutes and then Grandma and Papa would be back with the food they were going to pick up. We spent 45 minutes running through the lazy river. I was more relaxed this time. It felt good. Brenly’s anxiety was nearly non-existent.

After 45 minutes, we went back to the room WITH NO PROBLEMS! We had dinner. We played in the room. The kiddos went to bed early. The next morning, we went back to the arcade to get our prizes from all the tickets we had. The kids picked their prizes and off we went to go back home. If any of you remember, last year when we went to Mt. Olympus, we went to the park before we went home and told the kids they could ride 5 rides before we were going home. That did NOT go well. This time, ZERO PROBLEMS. Huge progress!

Vacations are hard for us. The preparation alone is enough to make some people cancel. Not us. We will never cancel.

That would be like giving up on our girl.

That would be like saying she can’t do it.

That would be like saying it’s too hard.

That would be like saying we care what other people think.

And that is not something we will ever, ever do.

Not in this lifetime.

#beautifullifeofbrenly #autismawareness #autismacceptance #nevergiveup