Do you hear that?

Me neither.  There’s nothing to hear.  My house is completely quiet.

Two kids at school.  One toddler napping.  Not even the TV is on.  Just the quiet hums of the refrigerator and the baby monitor.

There have been no morning meltdowns.  No tantrums about getting dressed or putting shoes on.  Howie even managed to eat something before we left every morning (granted, one morning it was goldfish, another oatmeal cookies, but at least he had something in his stomach before we left the house).

No phone calls from Howie’s school telling me they made a mistake with the full day inclusion class.  In fact, no phone calls at all from either kid’s school (except the one the first night from Howie’s lead teacher, telling me he had a GREAT day!  I’ve already nominated her for teacher of the year).  I know we’re lucky.  We live in a great school district with teachers who really seem to put kids – all kids – first.

So today, total quiet.

We have almost survived the first week of school unscathed.

But I’m waiting for the shoe to drop.  I jump whenever the phone rings and glance at the caller ID before I answer, bracing myself for what it could be.   So far, just friends calling to say hi.  They have the same silence in their house.

But I don’t think they feel it the same way I do.   My silence is filled with worry and fear.

The worry that something will happen when I’m not watching.  The fear that something could happen to my kids and I wouldn’t know.

I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately about the first week of school, and the consensus is that we all hate the fact that we expect the worst and are relieved and surprised when things go just fine.  We wonder why we have to feel that way, and if all parents feel this  or is it specific to us parents with special needs kids.

I worry about all my kids, but I think it’s the nature of the spectrum disorder to expect the unexpected.  That’s what we live with each day – never knowing what the trigger will be for that moment and all the preparation and all the social stories can just get throw out the window if one thing doesn’t go as planned.

I want to enjoy the silence.  I want to sit on my porch and have a cup of coffee and watch the squirrels climb all over the empty swingset.

I know I’ll get there someday.

For now, I’ll just sit in the silence and hope for more quiet days.

“Silence is golden, but my eyes still see
Silence is golden, golden
But my eyes still see” – Silence is Golden by The Tremeloes

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