50 years ago my Aunt Joan was born. Hers has not been an average life. She arrived prematurely, possibly having an unfortunate run-in with the umbilical cord on the way out. Regardless of the cause, she has had a special place in our family because she did not develop in a typical manner.

From all accounts, it was not easy in those early years. The doctors made grim predictions about Joan’s future based on what they thought her IQ was. Grandma once threw a social worker out of her house for suggesting that Joan should be removed from the family and raised elsewhere.

She was the seventh born in a big Irish family and everyone rallied around their baby Joan, sharing feeding responsibilities and surrounding her with love and support. Joan was a part of that family and although it was a family forever changed, from their enlightened perspective, they were better for it. To this very day she lives with my grandparents who are in their mid-nineties.

Joan is a remarkable person. Embraced by a supportive school and staff, she has spent the last 25 years working as a classroom helper in a centre for children with special needs and who are medically fragile. Joan has a special place at Mabel’s Labels as well. She helps out when brochures need to be stickered, she decorates posters and cards for special events and contributes her famous brownies for staff functions. Most of all, she is our biggest fan. If you’ve ever been on a city bus and had the woman next to you ask if you have Mabel’s Labels, chances are it was Aunt Joan. She hands out her Mabel’s Labels business card to anyone and everyone – a business card which appropriately lists her job title as “Superstar”.

To get the full picture of the positive impact Joan has on those around her, let me tell you how her 50th birthday was celebrated:

- The school board threw a surprise party for her. 50 staff members and retired staff were in attendance to celebrate;
- Our family had a surprise dance party/open house. More people than I could count were in attendance;
- Of those people at the dance party, a ridiculous number of us were wearing t-shirts featuring Joan’s picture and the words ‘Joan is a Superstar’;
- Even the babies in the family got involved. They all wore custom-made shirts that said “Great-Aunt Joan is a Superstar”.

I know when we all have babies we want them to be perfect in every way. However, Joan has taught me that sometimes it’s only when they are not “perfect” that they are able to become Superstars.

So this baby of mine has been a chronic bronchiolitis guy. I’ve never had a bad breather so it’s all new and exciting. In fact, I’m just home from a few days in the hospital with him. Throw some pneumonia into the bronchiolitis mix and you’ve got yourself a weekend pass to paediatric paradise. Baby and I have had the pleasure of spending quality time together wrestling ventolin masks and guzzling pediapred.

Being such a chesty baby, both his sleep and mine have been pretty dodgy over the last few months. Baby’s breathing antics paired with the shenanigans of some of his finer siblings has seen my usual 5-6 hours of sleep a night dwindle to the 3-4 hour mark. It’s not much, but we all know that mama steps up to the plate when she has to, and we can’t underestimate the power of a bit of adrenaline.

Last Saturday night Daddy-o announced that I was to go to bed, shut the door and have a night of uninterrupted sleep. He was volunteering for night duty – sleeping elsewhere and ready to respond to each and every night-time disturbance.

Imagine my shock (OK, pretend shock) when at 4:00am Daddy-o comes bursting through the bedroom door. He was all disheveled with red eyes and crazy hair. He looked as though he’d been sleeping in the wilderness for days. Out of his mouth came the words we mamas have often felt but rarely said: “I can’t do it anymore! Help me!”

Uh dude, you know I do this every day, right?

Since I had already had more sleep than I’m used to and was feeling as fresh as a spring morning, I let him off the hook. He settled into bed feeling all defeated and in awe of me.

I’ve got some mama friends who are exceptional at making milk. I’ve got other mama friends who are incredibly skilled at tricking their kids into eating veggies. It would seem my specialty is getting by on very little sleep. It is a talent that serves me better than any musical or artistic genius would. So what are you good at? Can you predict and intercept a toddler fall before it happens? Perhaps you breastfeed, dress a toddler and get ready for work all at the same time? Do you have some ridiculous mama talent that in any other circles would not exactly count as “talent”?

Picture of SIL and business partner, Julie Ellis, teaching me the ropes. She has survived parenting two chesty babies.

Since most parents are not particularly fond of whining, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset” is a common mantra in many households. It is most often heard immediately following annoying requests such as “but I wanted to sit in THAT chair” or “no, not the blue plate, the RED one!”

The adult version of “you get what you get” is when you have a baby. Not a lot of social engineering is involved so you can’t exactly order a baby of a particular gender or personality type. You can’t even count on baby being healthy so parents everywhere have to take what we get.

When my son was diagnosed with autism, I was pretty darn sad. I quickly realized that it was time to look myself in the mirror and scream the mantra. Being upset was not going to help me and it certainly was not going to contribute to my son’s development.

My SIL had to say the mantra to herself a few years ago upon discovering she was pregnant for the third time. She had two little boys already but being pregnant again was not the issue. Indeed, she had decided to quickly squeak in one more baby, preferably a girl, before changing her mind on going for a third child altogether. You can likely predict the ending – instead of that little girl, she got identical twin boys landing her in the glamorous position of being a mama to four boys under four.

Despite our reproductive plans going a bit pear-shaped, both my SIL and I have survived our adventures with laughs and a lot of love. Strangely, we’ve experienced some disapproval from those on the outside. While pregnant with the twins, my SIL had to listen to comments such as “oh, how awful!” when announcing she was having two more boys. People have expressed that I must be crazy to have more kids considering my risk of having another child with autism. I get that raising a kid with autism or having babies two at a time may not be on everyone’s “bucket list” of things to do before dying, but I can think of worse things.

So we grown-ups get what we get, and as you have probably figured out for yourself – getting upset is pretty much pointless. I can’t imagine a world without my boy and I can assure you that my SIL wouldn’t trade in “Thing One” and “Thing Two” for the most adorable girlie pink princess up for offer.

As some of you know, my oldest kid has autism. We take this autism stuff pretty seriously and as a result he has made remarkable gains. Indeed, to the untrained eye he is indistinguishable from his neuro-typical peers.

Last weekend four of the kiddos did a triathlon. When “Number One Son” finished the running component too early, it was obvious he got confused somewhere along the way. Turns out he went around the wrong pylon cutting the run short.

That evening my 8-year-old daughter came into my office to have a chat about her brother:

Kid: “Why did he get confused in the run today?”
Me: “Well, there were no marshalls directing the kids so he went around the first pylon and came back.”
Kid: “What is his ‘diagnostics’? I heard talking about it at a meeting once.”
Me: “Was it the Autism Ontario meeting?”
Kid: “Yes”
Me: “Well, uh, autism. But he has worked pretty hard and kind of outgrown it.”
Kid: “Like I outgrew my milk allergy?”
Me: “Yes, kind of.”
Kid: “Does he still have autism?”
Me: “Do you think he does?”
Kid: “I think he still has it a little bit.”
Me: “Yeah, I think you’re right. Listen, I have not talked to him about it yet so you need to keep this private until I speak to him about autism.”
Kid: “no problem.”
Me: “Thanks for being such a cool kid.”
Kid: “you’re welcome. Can I have a cheese stick?”

Although I was shocked that the conversation happened, it’s actually kind of weird that it took so long to come up. I mean, we have an autism logo on our car, we do Cycle for Autism, hang out with people whose kids have autism, and participate in all kinds of activities within the autism community. Didn’t they ever wonder?

I got to wondering about their lack of wondering – do all the siblings and cousins know about his autism on some level but just not question it? Maybe it’s a kiddo case of “it is what it is”.

My mother often reminds us of the time she sat us down as children to discuss her sister, who has a mental disability. Mom first asked us if we knew anyone with a mental disability. We rhymed off the names of kids at school, a neighbour and other random people who did not actually have a mentally disability. The one name we didn’t say was that of our aunt, and this was an aunt we were close to and saw regularly. My mom always says that to us, our aunt was just herself – no title, label or explanation necessary.

I’ve been dreading the day when I have to “out” my son to himself. I’ve played the conversation in my head a thousand times. This incident got me thinking that maybe all this worry is for nothing – maybe he is just like his siblings and cousins and already knows and accepts his autism.