Son #3, the Precious
This is a birthday heavy week here in the Barlow abode. Our youngest 2 have birthdays 2 days apart. I think that this will become more interesting in the next few years since the youngest now knows what a birthday is. Why did we have children so close together, birthday-wise? Oh yes. We didn’t *plan*. There you have it. So, a week of birthday cakes and little birthday parties. Tomorrow, I’m making a new recipe of cupcakes for the three year old. I’m hoping that they turn out better than the recipe that I tried for the 7 year old yesterday. That was a total bomb. I actually scraped the frosting off today and ate it separately because the cake was so awful. Yet another reason that I’ll never bake for a living.

I can’t believe that my 3rd son is now 7. I mean, whoa. He has been, and continues to be, such a blessing in my life. We found out about our first son’s problems when I was 20 weeks pregnant with our surprise 3rd baby. What a crazy time in our lives. It is pointless for me to try to describe it to you. Most of the time, regardless of the fact that I was very pregnant, I didn’t remember the life growing inside me. I had lots of other things on my mind. And, when I did think about my baby-to-be, all I could do was wonder (and hope) that he would be “normal”. (By the way, I kind of hate that word, normal.) Anyway, in the midst of craziness, this precious little baby was born. He was such a wonderful baby. He was so pleasant and smiley. He almost never cried. He was so placid and serene. And, it helped me so much to have him. To have something and someone else to think about. Someone to swap smiles with. I called him my Precious Treasure. Even then, I knew that having him was helping me stay sane.

As he grew, I won’t pretend that we didn’t have concerns about him in the “normality arena”. After all, siblings of autism-spectrum children have a much higher probability of being on that spectrum somewhere. But, he has always been late and surprising — since the day he was born. On that day, I was induced to have him all day long and almost released from the hospital only to go quickly into labor and have a baby less than 3 hours later. A couple of years later, when our concerns about his language and pretend play were sort of mounting, we were outside one day, and he picked up a stick from the ground. He put it in his mouth and barked for us. We looked at him. Was he doing what we thought he was doing? I think that he saw our quizzical expressions and thought that he would help us along because then he explained, “Look, I a doggie, this stick a bone, I eat.” He put the pretend bone in mouth. “Ruf, ruf!!” Jon and I looked at each other and had a moment of laughing relief. Let’s see, pretending – check, talking – check, theory of mind – check.

He continues to surprise me, nearly every single day. Yes, he is a little odd. He is also a lot precious. He is aloof but thinking all the time. He is the one who asks us very thought-provoking questions about religion and just about everything else. Like, “Why do people have to get married?” “Why is there gravity on earth?” Yes, we still have to reel him in from Pluto to ask him a question, but he really cares about people. What a hard to describe little boy. One time, we went out for Chinese food with my mom and sister. His fortune cookie read, “You have a curious smile and a mysterious natrue.” I read it aloud and we all just started laughing — it totally nailed him.

So, that is my very poor description of my precious #3. I hope and pray that he will continue to surprise and question and grow and be his precious self for many, many more years.