These Days

These are the days that make me want to build a cocoon around our house and just stay inside...maybe forever...at least until my kids are adults.

I look at Owen and he is fine...more than fine, happy, sweet, smart, playful...good. Great. He is great. We are lucky because he is so great.

And yet, whenever we have to let him out into the world without us (say, to fish camp this this week), he's not so great. He gets mad and he gets frustrated and people don't understand why he is so loud. And I hate other people then. I hate that he is a problem for them. I hate that they aren't able to help him. I hate that he feels scared and overwhelmed and that I can't always be there.

I hate that I can't always be there.

But maybe what I hate more is what it does to Aidan. Because Owen feels bad for a bit, but when the fit is over, he's pretty much over it. He'll tell you he had a great day. He can be happy as quickly as he can be mad. And he doesn't really care what people think about that.

But Aidan...Aidan cares what people think. He is acutely aware of the eyes that are on him when his brother is screaming about not being able to tie a knot or whatever the the meltdown is about that day. He wants to crawl into a hole and it's not fair.

It's been a bad week at fish camp. I can't tell if Owen has actually been having a harder time at this camp, or if these instructors have a lower threshold, because if it had been this bad at other camps (if it had been reported to me as being this bad), I probably wouldn't have sent him to camp this week...or possibly ever.

What kills me is that he likes camp. The fits don't bother him nearly as much as they bother everyone else. When I tell him maybe he should just stay home tomorrow (should he? I have no idea),  he gets upset about what he'll miss. And then I've got Aidan agreeing with me because all he wants is to do is go to camp and not be the brother of that weird kid. And then I cry and Aidan cries and even Owen, with his supposedly limited ability to empathize, comes and sits next to me and says he'll try really hard. And you see, I'm back to hating everyone outside of my house.

Is he getting worse? That's what I keep wondering. Am I being unfair or unrealistic by thinking he can cope in these "typical" camps for "typical" kids? I check all the boxes and answer all the questions and hope for the best and this time it's just especially bad. Maybe this is the exception and not the rule...but I can't help feeling like maybe I've just been in denial about the way it's been going at all of these other camps. Maybe they just didn't have the heart to tell me...or the energy.

Next year I'll send them to separate camps. It won't solve the issues with Owen, but at least it will allow Aidan to be carefree.

Or maybe camp is overrated. Maybe we'll just drop off the grid entirely until they emerge as adults whose eccentricities are valued because they're so brilliant...I have to tell you that I like that scenario a lot better than this one. Today, I do, anyway. But this is one of those days...and these days are fucking hard.