My Amazing Daughter

A lot of time, I only identify myself as the mother of a child with autism. True, he takes up a lot of time. True, my plans for the future tend to revolve around him, since I'm not sure if he'll ever be on his own. True, our entire family seems to work around his needs and issues. I have two other children, yet Bucket seems to be the cause for the way the entire family operates.

I think it is because of this that my daughter is so strong.

Yesterday, I had to take Tiger to get his ingrown toenail cut out. Ugh. Adolescent boy feet are...puke inducing? I'm not anti-feet, but my word. Ingrown toenails are almost as bad as eyeballs.

While I was gone, Missy took care of Bucket. Missy is 13 1/2, Bucket is 10 1/2. I was only gone for a bit more than an hour. In that hour, Bucket had a nosebleed and wet his pants. The nosebleeds happen a lot, but the loss of bladder control is not normal for him. More on that later.

Missy totally took control. As Bucket was screaming about his nose and his pants (he just got new cargo shorts and he was upset that both blood and pee got all over them), Missy managed to strip him down, get him in the shower, pre-treat his shorts so they wouldn't stain, start a load of laundry, and start dinner. She's THIRTEEN, peeps! I wonder if I would have been able to pull that off at thirteen? I walked into the house with a limping Tiger, to the smell of a house ripe with laundry detergent and chicken (sounds weird, but smells good, I assure you), Bucket in his pjs already, and Missy finishing up dinner. I was SO PROUD of her! She even made dessert!

So regarding the pee incident. I bought the kids water bottles in different colors. They are each 32 ounces. Mine is turquoise, Bucket's is red, Missy's is clear, and Tiger's is green. I told them that I wanted them to fill it up twice a day with water in order to avoid dehydration. I'm really trying to avoid sodas, and sugary juices, plus I want them to stop going through 15 cups a day over the summer. You get one water bottle and that's it! Anyway, Bucket really liked his bottle. It's a bright red with a straw attachment. I didn't realize this, but he filled his water bottle 3 1/2 times! That is over 100 ounces of water. Guess who had a tummyache? Poor kiddo. At least he's hydrated!