Being a parent can be many things… Heart-wrenching, painful, terrifying, exhausting. It can be beautiful and awe-inspiring too.
Sometimes it’s just downright confusing.
My daughter is currently in love with a pair of fuzzy, full length footie jammies from Carter’s. Her infant sister has similar pajamas, and she loves the idea of matching and being babied. Who can blame her? I held onto my footie pajamas as long as I could – I’d buy more if I could get them in my size!
The lovableness of fuzzy footie pj’s don’t confuse me… It’s the warmth that did me in.
I did the usual bedtime routine. Kid bathed, pajamas on, stuffed dog close at hand and lullabies playing nearby (she’s had the same cd playing since she was a baby, apparently it doesn’t get old).
And then I tuck her in, only to have her blanket get immediately kicked off.
“Mom.. do I not look warm?”
Being the decent human being that I am, I’m happy that my daughter isn’t cold, and I tell her so. Question answered, I proceed to re-apply the blanket (a heavy sleeping bag) – which promptly gets tossed to the floor.
“MOM! Look at my pajamas! I don’t need a blanket!” She gestures the length of her prone, six year old body, footies and all. I stare at her blankly.
What do pajamas have to do with.. Oooh.
Like many people on the autistic spectrum, I enjoy – need even – a certain degree of weight on top of me to be comfortable. I regularly sleep with a minimum of one feather duvet and one ancient comforter (pilled enough to create a texture I enjoy). I have been known to go up as far as five comforters/duvets at a time, creating a nest or swaddling myself up like a baby (there’s a trick to doing it yourself, I mastered it as a kid). Warmth is really not an issue. Apparently, for her, that’s the only issue. Blankets are for warmth, not comfort.
I gritted my teeth, and let my kid go to off to dreamland sans blanket.
It’s natural for us to assume that our perspective is the only one that matters. It’s hard to place importance on values and ideals that are alien to us, and yet in order to get along with other people we have to do our best to appreciate that what is right for us, isn’t necessarily right for them. It’s okay to be different – my daughter is not wrong in using blankets for warmth, but my using them for comfort is equally valid. As long as we respect our differences and try to understand that OUR way is not the ONLY way, we’ll be okay.
There is no way I can sleep without a blanket though, so naturally I tiptoed back into her room sometime after midnight to put the blanket back on. She kicked it off without waking sometime after I left, and we were both happy.
Suburban Changeling 