Just back from holiday with Ethan and the kids and need
another holiday to recover!
Eleven days in a (very small) self-catering caravan on a Spanish
tourist site with an Aspergic husband and son (along with our neuro-typical
kids) was rather like an endurance test - with a few idyllic moments and amazing
views thrown in to keep us all going!
The stress started the moment our sandalled feet hit the
tarmac of the airport. Airports seem to hold a special terror for Ethan. Even
with two hours to go until boarding, Ethan got jittery with anxiety – eyes wide
and intense, voice raised, fingers twitching. He marched us through check-in
and security, leading from the front at a rate of knots, dragged children and
bags banging in to other passengers on the way. No time for Ava and I to indulge
in airport perks such as trying on perfume samples at duty free…except that we
did, because I refuse to (and refuse to let my kids be) ruled by Aspergers, and
we were on holiday for goodness sake.
Our frivolous waste of precious minutes was met with silent building
pressure in Ethan leading to an angry look and an even faster pace to the
boarding gate, where we sat and waited for fifteen minutes for the shuttle bus
to take us to our plane. I couldn’t help pointing out that ‘I’d told him so.’
His reconciliatory comment on the plane that my perfume ‘smelt
nice’ did little to appease my resentment. I was already bracing myself for the
journey home….
That said, Ethan’s intensive focus, his planning and
ordering of documents into carefully-labelled envelopes, his pre-booking of the
taxi to take us home from the airport, does get us all efficiently and easily
from A to B. It just somehow also saps all the joy out of the adventure.