Don’t Touch The Walls, Bubby

We took the kids to the drive in last night to get one more movie in before winter. The drive in has sort of become our fun thing to do this summer. Larry has been working a crazy amount of hours and Riley’s tics and stims are fairly loud at times, so the drive in has been a perfect fit for us. My arm is still killing me and in general I’ve just not been feeling that great so we probably should have stayed home but we really wanted to get them out for a bit. As usual whenever we go anywhere Piper has to use the bathroom at least twice and on trip number two Riley decided to come along. In a perfect world I could send him into the bathroom alone and wait for him outside. But when you have a kid who has never met a stranger and has no sense of personal space, the last thing you’re going to do is send them into a public bathroom alone. We all piled into the fairly empty women’s room and after they both were done I decided to chance going myself. I told them both to stand in the corner right in front of the stall door and wait for me. That’s when I hear Piper say “Don’t touch the walls, Bubby. They have yucky germs on them.” I come out and see that she’s holding his hand to keep him in one place. We did the whole hand washing routine and notice again she’s holding his hand before I can even try to get it. It was really dark as we are walking back and I can hear her reassuring him that we were almost back to the truck and there was nothing to be afraid of. The whole exchange made me start thinking about how she automatically “handles” him in certain situations. Before we left for the movie they both were super excited and bouncing off the walls. When we were packing up the truck and waiting for Larry to come out I saw she was holding his hand because the gate was open. When they crawled in the back to get comfy I heard her tell him to put his shoes in his seat so he could find them.

Now I don’t expect her to do any of these things. She’s only six years old and it’s not her responsibility to look out for her big brother. But I’ve also accepted the fact that she’s 100% my kid when it comes to this sort of thing and she is just being herself. It’s hard to find a good balance with it really. I don’t want her to mother him but at the same time I don’t want to stop her from looking out for him. In his own way he looks out for her too. If she’s in a mood and getting mouthy and he thinks she’s going to get in trouble he will do his best to try to distract us. If she doesn’t feel well he will get her favorite pillow or a glass of water for her. So it is truly a two-way street in the way they look out for each other. There are those times though like last night when I see so many small instances of how much she takes in and just naturally cares for him that my heart swells a little with pride.

Being the sibling of a kid with special needs isn’t easy. You don’t always get the attention you need and deserve. You don’t always get to do the fun thing that you want to because it’s too much for your sibling. You don’t always get to do things because medical bills mean there just isn’t the extra money. But you also learn things that the average person doesn’t. You learn from an early age that it’s ok to be different. You learn to celebrate small accomplishments as well as the big ones. You learn that you can make a difference in someone’s life just by being there for them.