“Please don’t go!”

Monday night. It is a random Monday night in the middle of November in 2009. He is 5 and a half years old now, as of only a few weeks ago. The halves count for me with him.  The years that go by with not as much progress as I would like to have seen by this point, are benchmarked by the half year like somehow it buys him more time. Like because if I can convince myself that he’s only 3 and a half. 4 and a half. 5 and a half. He’s not yet that next year and it’s a reminder that a lot can still happen in six months. A lot of catching up can happen……I convince myself.  And then tonight, as I lay there with him for about a half an hour and realize there is so much yet to be done for NYC in three days, I decide to tell him that I will leave the room because he won’t go to sleep and that I need to get some work done. Most of the time I either fall asleep with them if it takes a while or I get to get up within minutes because they are both so exhausted and it only takes about 10 minutes and they are both snoring toothpicks.  But tonight it was one of those……”haven’t burned off enough energy because of the nasty weather outside” DAY. I told him that he could go to sleep and rest with Lily and that I would see him in the morning.  And, as if for some reason he just wasn’t autistic anymore and that 5.5 years happen to be that “IT” half year……he says to me (or pleads, rather!) with such conviction that almost quit breathing……”No mom…..PLEASE DON’T GO! Stay right here with ME.”  And when we have moments like that, where the whole world literally S.T.O.P.S, I try not to stop with it and just roll with the moment.  I quickly move past the miraculous scene playing out before me and act and respond as if he’s always done that.  Always been that way. Always NOT autistic. I want him to recognize the FLOW of our interaction and hope every single day that he begins to generalize everything that he’s been taught and just BE and DO what 5 year olds do. And tonight he did.  Interestingly enough, in my morning haze after having stayed up yet again until almost 2am I almost forgot to mention that when he came to love on me this morning, again as if things had always been typical, he says without missing a beat…….”I love you”……..in a sleepy little cuddly voice that every mother surely wants to bottle up and keep until she is no more. It’s the morning smell, the tassled hair, the half hanging pacifier in his mouth, the big smile that takes up half his face even while he’s still half asleep……….that absolutely makes waking up with my babies one of the most precious times of my life. Grant it………there are plenty of those mornings where there isn’t a rose garden growing all around us and the dog is whining and barking and I’m exhausted and grumpy and rushing to wake and get everything done where those moments are missed. But when they come, I do not forget. And on this tropical storm filled day in November…..I will not forget the moment that I had lying in that bed with him at 9:30pm with the rain coming down outside and his big sister sleeping soundly right next to him. If I could have only snapped a photograph of those words. If words and sounds could be photographed, I would have had my one in a miilion image.”I love you.”    “Please don’t go.”