Knock that shit off

I came across something today from blogger Bacon and Juice Boxes: Our Life With Autism that was posted on their Facebook and it really hit me as something that I have been really struggling with lately.

'Caught you comparing again.
Knock that shit off.'

A few of my friends have younger children that are at the age that they are learning to talk and understand, they point at Jamie and say "baby" and as I find myself replying "yes a baby" or something along those lines somewhere deep down my heart breaks a little each time because Riley hasn't said anything, let alone acknowledged that jamie actually exists apart from the odd gesture to put him down to drag us to help him get something from the fridge, he does the same if I'm on my phone so I'm not sure it counts as acknowledgement as such. That's getting off topic.
Don't get me wrong I'm super stoked for my friends and their little chatter boxes, it's so nice to hear and see them getting older and learning and seeing my friends faces when they hear them say things is such a beautiful thing.
So I just push this feeling that I can't describe and smile about it.
There's a 2 year age gap and these 1 year olds have a better vocabulary than Riley and in 6 months time chances are they will have overtaken him completely. They are starting to tell their parents things that feel we will never have with him.
Older children try with him but there's nothing and it's so hard to watch, play dates with children his age is impossible and feels pointless because there is no interaction so we end up left out.
Another parent told me about their 3 year old waking up early and getting into bed with them for cuddles but mr 3 doesn't stop talking, actual talking, I get the cuddles which, I am so grateful for of course, but aside from that I get screams and weird noises in my face.

Seeing this today was what I needed to make me realise I've been doing this a lot lately and I do need to cut that shit out because it's only been 8 months since we've been diagnosed and we are still getting our heads round a whole new ballgame.

So thank you. Thank you Bacon and Juice Boxes for reminding me not to compare our journey to everyone else's and pushing me away from what could have been a dark path to start going down.


It's been a while since I posted, so a quick update:
I'm sure I had a post ready to publish and then my waters broke and things have been more hectic than usual.
In case it wasn't clear we named b2Jamie, who was born on the 16th January, another perfect healthy boy and we couldn't be happier, of course.
My parents & sister came to visit for 2 weeks, that was a real eye opener on how difficult it is to be away but I was glad to show them why it had to be done.
There's been appointment after meeting after appointment for both boys and some real determination to get Riley to wear his glasses permanently and now that's sorted it's knuckle down time with our new speech therapist!
And
In a few weeks time we're getting a puppy, because there's never going to be a non chaotic busy time in our lives which is pretty clear to us with every passing day.