I know this exact thing has been mentioned many time on the SN threads, and I kind of even thought I was beyond this already, but yesterday we (DH and me) had a hard few moments regarding that harsh realisation of the "difference" between our DS/our life and other people's children/lives. I can't really moan, our DS is ASD and non-verbal but has no other apparent problems and I know there are many others on here with much much more difficult lives...
However...
We went yesterday to a lovely little cafe in a nearby park, where I have in fact been with DS before for a nice weekend brunch. It is enclosed so you can sit down and he can't run away very far etc. It is the kind of place where there are many happy families and yummy mummies with their babies and toddlers, all drinking babyccinos and lattes, or chardonnay, and eating organic food etc. Lots of kids running around and parents all looking relaxed. Well our DS started, as he sometimes does for no discernable reason, screaming and bashing his head hard on the concrete path. Gasps all around from the yummy mummies and "Oh my God" from one, lots of disapproving looks. Our food and coffee, which had just arrived and was untouched, was abandoned and we just picked him up and left, me in tears.
Don't get me wrong, I don't care about not being able to have the food and the coffee (obviously), or even really what anyone thinks of us per se. We did not leave because people disapproved, we left because it was unfair to the other customers: people were trying to have a nice brunch and having to see a child braining themselves on a slab of concrete and hearing unending high-pitched screaming is not conducive to a pleasant atmosphere. I was just upset by the difference of it all; the other toddlers all running around laughing in the sunshine, the parents sitting relaxed and chatting, and us bundling a screaming child with a bruised forehead out of the place with people staring at us. It is not what you imagine when you have a child, is it? I always imagined myself as one of the loving happy mummies sitting with my latte and indulgently watching my child playing happily in the sunshine and running up to me saying "mummy mummy".
I am being rather selfish and self-indugent aren't I? And sorry about the long post. But it is very hard sometimes (only recently diagnosed, still really coming to terms with it).