Then I Went Off To Fight Some Battle That I'd Invented Inside My Head

I have a very idyllic idea of what life is supposed to be like. This is because I don't live in anything like a normal reality. I think the more crazy Autism makes our lives, the more my brain retreats into the notion that "things should be PERFECT". I ignore huge sections of crazy and insist other things be like a story book.

Take fighting for instance.

My oldest and my youngest child fight and fuss with one another ALL THE TIME. I'm constantly yelling at my son because he's the oldest and therefore IT IS ALL HIS FAULT. It isn't though. The girl, she baits him, she aggravates him until he responds. They are seven years apart and I'm pretty sure that all those parenting books say if your kids are 3 or more years apart this will decrease your fighting. How the hell much will they fight if they are closer together.

My brother and I are ten years apart. I can remember once, being home from college, and my brother and I are locked in wrestling across our living room floor - probably trying to lick one another's faces which was de rigeur at the time, and as we rolled and shrieked my mother came in with a dishtowel in her hand and muttered "You'd think having you two ten years apart I wouldn't have to put up with this nonsense."

We didn't ever FIGHT per se (that shit would not have been allowed) but we did fuss at each other. He tore up some of my stuff when he was little, the way little kids do. I terrorized him with a stuffed animal that I then set in front of my door to keep him away.

I fully remember doing that to him, yet loving him fiercely.  I loved him even after he helped me feed the fishies and dumped a whole bottle of fish food in the tank - killing everything. I loved him even though he took my COLLECTORS CLASSIC STAR TREK DOLLS and cut them up and put them inside the REPAIRED AND REFILLED fish tank in funny positions. They were in mint condition. And then, they were not.

I loved him when he put rubber snakes in my bed at night. That's how I knew he loved ME.

So I try to keep this in mind, as my oldest and youngest fight for territory, for attention, for who is funnier, who is louder, or whose farts are smelliest. She loves him FIERCELY, and he loves her.

They seem to find it funny, however, when their bickering and fighting tips me over the edge. My son has informed me that I "Go all Palpatine" on them.

I am just sad I can't shoot lightning out of my hands. I feel like that would get their attention more than my yelling.
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