Spectrummy Mummy

I’d been waiting for Saturday to come for what seemed like forever.  Finally the day had arrived to trade in my huge rucksack for my rarely used handbag.  It was my day off.   Spectrummy Mummy goes to Boston!

I was ready, prepared, excited, and nervous.  I busied myself with the mechanics of getting there.  Pudding was not happy that I was going to fly without her, something that has never happened before.  I tried to reassure her that I was returning that evening, and that she would do a day of fun stuff with her daddy and brother.  I left her crying as I went through security.  Later Spectrummy Daddy texted me that she was so upset because she didn’t know what I was going to eat for breakfast.  It makes sense, apart from one overnight trip to a friend’s wedding, I’ve never left Pudding or Cubby.  They always know what I eat for breakfast.  That small detail I’d omitted rocked her world.

So I pressed on through airport security.  Something that is so, so, so much easier to navigate without children in tow.  Ever the autism mother even on my day off, I snapped some pictures of the process to help with social stories.  It crossed my mind that it could be suspicious behavior, but I don’t exactly meet the profile for a terrorist, so nobody commented.  I chatted with the TSA agents about the best way to navigate the screening process with special needs children.  My day’s work over, I got to enjoy a coffee and croissant, without feeling guilty about eating allergic foods, and without half the coffee being spilled on me, or deliberately poured out.  Simple pleasures.

The very brief flight was over quickly.  Remarkable for how uneventful it was.  No crying because of the loud noises.  No kicking the seat in front.  No invading of personal space.  No loud humming, or singing, or shrieking.  No jumping up and down, or moving the window shutter up and down, or turning the fan and light on and off repeatedly.  Honestly, I was on my very best behaviour!

The flight to Boston was so quick that I got to the airport 20 minutes before Alysia arrived to meet me, so I had plenty more time to be nervous.  What if I come across differently in my blog, and she is disappointed?  I express myself better through writing than I do in person, so I might not be what she expected.  What if she is different to how I’d imagined?  What if we don’t get on?  It was a lot like a blind date.  Only I’ve never flown to another city for a blind date, so the stakes were higher.

But then she appeared, carrying a sign for “Spectrummy Mummy” (as I’d demanded in my rider) and it wasn’t like meeting a new friend, it was like greeting an old one.

We hugged, and my nerves evaporated.  I knew everything was going to be great as I spent the day with my new old friend.