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Jul. 7th, 2002 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI had a difficult conversation with my step-father last Monday. I'd called him because I was supposed to have my neurology appointment that evening. My mother had said that she'd been writing up something about my childhood that might help when I asked to see if I might have Asperger's, and she hadn't ever sent it to me. I wasn't sure if she was back in Baton Rouge or not, but I was pretty sure the document was there anyway, so I called.
Mom was still in Knoxville, but Tim said he'd find out where she'd saved the thing and e-mail it to me. Then he informed me that he thinks Scott and I are making a very, very big mistake by trying to have a child. He stated, flat out, that he thinks I'm not physically or psychologically capable of being even an adequate parent. He went on and on. And it hurt. A lot.
He seemed to think that the points he was bringing up were not things that we'd considered. He ignored the fact that he doesn't really know Scott and me very well (I haven't lived with him and Mom in 17 years, and for most of that time they've lived in other states). He made no effort to couch what he said in friendly or even polite terms, and he said some very nasty things about Scott's family.
I may not always be happy to spend time with Scott's family, but they're good people. They genuinely care about the two of us, and, if we needed them, nothing would stop any of them from giving all the help they could. I don't always agree with their politics or their social standards (my mother-in-law is very upset to hear that my 34 year old sister is living with a man without marrying him first), but they love us in spite of not understanding us.
There are some battles that I expect if ever we do have a child. They would want to raise the child Christian while I would consider Christianity only one of the possibilities the child should have available (not to mention that there's no way I'm hauling myself to church every week. They know we don't go, but they can ignore it because we're adults). I'm opposed to infant baptism generally and very specifically opposed to making a promise to do something that I have no intention of doing. I could see a stealth baptism occurring without too much trouble.
But that's not something that really bothers me.
At any rate, the conversation with Tim brought up a lot of the worries I've had about the whole undertaking. Every point he raised is one that Scott and I considered, but… He's right that a child doesn't have options when its parents fail.
The neurology appointment went about the way I expected. The resident I saw really had no idea what to say about either my visual problems or my mother's suspicions that I have Asperger's. He said it was something he ought to know about and that he'd look into it. I'll be seeing him again at the end of August. I did try to make it clear that I wasn't expecting him to solve my problems, that I just wanted to know what was going on. He did offer the opinion that my visual difficulties might just be related to the fibromyalgia. He believes (as do I) that the problem involves poor gating in the central nervous system, an inability to process what's coming in properly. Since that's what the visual stuff amounts to, he may well be right.
We spent the 4th with Scott's family. He had to work 3am to 7am that morning, so we got a very late start. We got up there about 4pm. Our nephew was asleep on one of the couches and stayed that way for the next hour or so. My sister-in-law was feeding the baby. The baby's now able to sit on her own and can turn herself almost in a complete circle while sitting on a blanket (There's always something just over there that she wants…). She can feed herself cheerios.
During the course of the evening, the baby alternated between cheerful and fussy. From what my sister-in-law said, the kid's suffering through a bout of constipation, so I suspect that the fussiness was due to that discomfort. (My mother-in-law offered lots of advice on ways to try to remedy the problem.) Our nephew seemed to think Scott was a great toy and kept climbing on him and dragging him off to play. Everybody seemed to think Scott and I should spend a lot of time with the kids so that we'd know what we might be getting in to.
I've started doing my LARP writing in the basement. It's much cooler down there, and there are fewer distractions. Also, when I stay up after Scott's in bed (which seems to be when I do my best writing), I can play music down there without giving him problems. We've moved a desk up against one of the walls and moved a padded chair down there so that I've got something to sit on (in years past when I worked in the basement it was the floor and a cushion, so this is an incredible improvement). It just seems easier to write when I'm down there (Not to mention that I can't connect to the internet from there. No, that couldn't be a factor…).
This is making me more determined to try to make the basement into a work area. I told Mom that I'd really like whatever rugs from the Knoxville house she and Tim don't have a place for. I even told her where I'd put them. She looked dubious and asked about dampness, but I think I'll get at least one rug out of her.
Scott apparently doesn't have to work this weekend, and none of our games are running, so we (at least theoretically) ought to have plenty of time to accomplish a few things. Writing, certainly. Powerwashing the garage in preparation for painting it, certainly. Some cleaning, possibly. Anything else, well… We'll see.
Mom was still in Knoxville, but Tim said he'd find out where she'd saved the thing and e-mail it to me. Then he informed me that he thinks Scott and I are making a very, very big mistake by trying to have a child. He stated, flat out, that he thinks I'm not physically or psychologically capable of being even an adequate parent. He went on and on. And it hurt. A lot.
He seemed to think that the points he was bringing up were not things that we'd considered. He ignored the fact that he doesn't really know Scott and me very well (I haven't lived with him and Mom in 17 years, and for most of that time they've lived in other states). He made no effort to couch what he said in friendly or even polite terms, and he said some very nasty things about Scott's family.
I may not always be happy to spend time with Scott's family, but they're good people. They genuinely care about the two of us, and, if we needed them, nothing would stop any of them from giving all the help they could. I don't always agree with their politics or their social standards (my mother-in-law is very upset to hear that my 34 year old sister is living with a man without marrying him first), but they love us in spite of not understanding us.
There are some battles that I expect if ever we do have a child. They would want to raise the child Christian while I would consider Christianity only one of the possibilities the child should have available (not to mention that there's no way I'm hauling myself to church every week. They know we don't go, but they can ignore it because we're adults). I'm opposed to infant baptism generally and very specifically opposed to making a promise to do something that I have no intention of doing. I could see a stealth baptism occurring without too much trouble.
But that's not something that really bothers me.
At any rate, the conversation with Tim brought up a lot of the worries I've had about the whole undertaking. Every point he raised is one that Scott and I considered, but… He's right that a child doesn't have options when its parents fail.
The neurology appointment went about the way I expected. The resident I saw really had no idea what to say about either my visual problems or my mother's suspicions that I have Asperger's. He said it was something he ought to know about and that he'd look into it. I'll be seeing him again at the end of August. I did try to make it clear that I wasn't expecting him to solve my problems, that I just wanted to know what was going on. He did offer the opinion that my visual difficulties might just be related to the fibromyalgia. He believes (as do I) that the problem involves poor gating in the central nervous system, an inability to process what's coming in properly. Since that's what the visual stuff amounts to, he may well be right.
We spent the 4th with Scott's family. He had to work 3am to 7am that morning, so we got a very late start. We got up there about 4pm. Our nephew was asleep on one of the couches and stayed that way for the next hour or so. My sister-in-law was feeding the baby. The baby's now able to sit on her own and can turn herself almost in a complete circle while sitting on a blanket (There's always something just over there that she wants…). She can feed herself cheerios.
During the course of the evening, the baby alternated between cheerful and fussy. From what my sister-in-law said, the kid's suffering through a bout of constipation, so I suspect that the fussiness was due to that discomfort. (My mother-in-law offered lots of advice on ways to try to remedy the problem.) Our nephew seemed to think Scott was a great toy and kept climbing on him and dragging him off to play. Everybody seemed to think Scott and I should spend a lot of time with the kids so that we'd know what we might be getting in to.
I've started doing my LARP writing in the basement. It's much cooler down there, and there are fewer distractions. Also, when I stay up after Scott's in bed (which seems to be when I do my best writing), I can play music down there without giving him problems. We've moved a desk up against one of the walls and moved a padded chair down there so that I've got something to sit on (in years past when I worked in the basement it was the floor and a cushion, so this is an incredible improvement). It just seems easier to write when I'm down there (Not to mention that I can't connect to the internet from there. No, that couldn't be a factor…).
This is making me more determined to try to make the basement into a work area. I told Mom that I'd really like whatever rugs from the Knoxville house she and Tim don't have a place for. I even told her where I'd put them. She looked dubious and asked about dampness, but I think I'll get at least one rug out of her.
Scott apparently doesn't have to work this weekend, and none of our games are running, so we (at least theoretically) ought to have plenty of time to accomplish a few things. Writing, certainly. Powerwashing the garage in preparation for painting it, certainly. Some cleaning, possibly. Anything else, well… We'll see.
