Epilogue #3
We had Diego and Code—yes, he named the dog (a cute little lab and basset hound mix) to take care of already. On top of work. And the house.
One would be more than enough for our little family.
I'd been an only child.
I thought I turned out alright.
Besides, it wasn't like our kid would ever be lonely. Not with all of Sawyer and Riya's kids, Tig and Kenzi's kids, and, yes, Brock's kids.
He would have playmates around anytime he should want them.
Yes, a he.
This is where I put my foot down about names, too. It was fine to have a dog with a quirky name. But I was not going to have a kid named Gif or Jpeg. It would be like asking for an ass-kicking on the playground.
Not that our kid would have any issues handling that situation.
I had put him in martial arts classes when he was still toddling.
He looked a lot like Barrett—tall, skinny, hazel-eyed. He had my blond hair, though. And my sturdy legs.
Personality-wise, he had his father's intelligence mixed with my impulsiveness, Barrett's seriousness with my personal skills.
It was quite a combination, to be sure. He was an intimidating little creature, our Connor.
Connor Murphy Collings Anderson.
After my Dad, then the man who had helped shoot my life in a direction that led me to Barrett and eventually became something of a family friend of ours.
I had to throw my maiden name in there—though I had none-too-ceremoniously tossed it away myself on a lark one day when Barrett and I decided to stop screwing around, and went to the courthouse for a quick no-nonsense ceremony.
I figured that even though the name ended on that day, my father would appreciate us letting it live on in our son, even if it was the third of his names.
At five, he found himself in the ever-frustrating state of being too smart, too curious, too determined for his too-small body, something that led to these epic tantrums the likes of which I had never seen before.
The kind that came with throwing himself on the floor, kicking and punching, throwing his body around, and screaming so loud it made your shoulders hunch up toward your ears if you were anywhere in the same building where it was happening.
I was at a loss.
I hadn't been around any kids who threw epic shitfits like Connor did, so I felt so wholly out of my depth, like I was drowning under the weight of his frustration along with him.
I tried soothing, singing, reasoning, bargaining, and even scolding when I was at a loss for what else to do and he was starting to lose his voice from screaming.
I had never been so frazzled as I was the first week the tantrums started.
I had never doubted myself as a mother quite as much as I had then, not even when Connor refused to latch on, and I ended up having to pump and bottle feed while everyone I came in contact with - save for our family and friends—lectured me about how important breastfeeding was to bonding.
It was easy to say eff-you to people who criticized what you had to do to make everyday life work.
It was harder to shut up that own voice in your head that said only terrible mothers had kids that had inconsolable tantrums that could not be stopped.
It wasn't until the sixth day - a Friday when Barrett didn't happen to have any cases—when the screaming abruptly stopped just a couple minutes after it started, making me rush down the stairs, sure he had held his breath until he had passed out or something.
Only to come around the kitchen island to find not only Connor on the floor, but Barrett as well, calmly sprawled out, hands folded on his stomach, body close enough to Connor so that he could feel his father there even if he had his eyes shut.
He said nothing.
He did nothing.
He was just... there.
And that, apparently, was the only thing that Connor needed.
Because it was met with his silence, save for some sniffling as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
I always tried to make him move, get up.
Like there was something wrong with what was happening.
When, maybe, the right thing to do was let him have his feelings, get on his level with him so he knew that he wasn't alone, wasn't being judged.
I had made the conscious decision not to read parenting books, magazines, articles, deciding that there was no one single person who could tell you how to handle every single child.
Saying one method was superior and the way all parents should react to situations was saying every child was the same.
But what would have happened if Barrett's mom had followed that advice, had tried to change him rather than accept him, help him deal with his reactions to situations and stimuli?
I didn't figure that our child would also have the same situation as Barrett.
Sure, there was some evidence that suggested that genetics played a part in it.
But so did other things. The older age of parents having the children, complications during birth, low-interval pregnancies.
None of that said, however, that because Barrett was on-spectrum that our son would be.
Yet nothing said that he wouldn't either.
So I decided to take things as they came, meet my kid where he was, learn to handle situations as they came up.
This was the only situation where I had doubted myself.
I should have known that where I was lacking, Barrett could pick up the slack.
Taking a page out of his book, I moved to the other side of Connor, getting down next to him like Barrett.
"You alright, bud?" I asked, patting his leg, something I noticed I did much like Barrett did to me when he was trying to be reassuring.
"It's... missing!" he whimpered through sad sniffle.
"What's missing?"
"The pieces."
I shared a look at Barrett, trying to see if he knew what Connor was talking about. I got a head shake.
"The pieces to what?"
"The puzzle!"
Ah, that made sense.
Much like his father - and even me to a lesser degree—Connor loved figuring things out.
He'd been obsessed with puzzles since the first clunky wooden ones Riya had given him as a Christmas present.
Ever since then, we literally couldn't keep enough of them in the house for him.
The day he got a new one, he finished it, and was ready for a new one.
He had moved on from the age-appropriate fifty-piece ones to the ones with one-hundred-twenty pieces.
Sometimes it took him most of the day—and in these long winter days, I didn't nag him about getting fresh air to play—but he always finished one before bed.
Getting to the very end of such a big puzzle only to find pieces missing, yeah, I could see that being overwhelmingly frustrating to his little mind. Hell, I would probably flip the puzzle board myself.
"Hm, maybe the pieces got lost," I reminded him.
"I looked."
"Well, maybe all three of us should look just in case. It's a big room. Sometimes when there's a big problem, you need help to solve it. That's why you have us," I told him, hoping to plant seeds to come to us before he fell to the floor. "Sound like a plan?"
"What if they're not there?" he asked, head turning to look at me with little versions of his father's eyes, the lashes the kind any adult woman would be envious of. Including me.
"If they're not there, I'm going to call the puzzle people and give them a talking to."
"She'll even use her scary voice," Barrett added, giving Connor a grave look. "We better find the pieces, so we can save those puzzle people," he added, folding up, his son following suit.
I was the last to follow, sitting there for a moment to watch the two of them walk away, Connor leaning into Barrett's leg.
It had taken Barrett a long while to feel comfortable with the way small children had a constant need for touch.
As a newborn, it was because he was nervous that he would hurt Connor because he was so small.
But as he got bigger, wanting snuggles, wanting to climb all over us in bed or on the couch, there had been stiffening, anxiety about the assault to the senses.
Hell, there were times where it bothered me the way Connor was all over me.
So I understood why it bothered Barrett, why it took longer for him to adjust to it.
Judging by the way that Barrett didn't even seem to notice the touch just spoke of how far he had come.
"Mom!" Connor grumbled, running back in the room. "Come on," he demanded, reaching down for my arm, trying to pull me back onto my feet. "It's a big job," he added, making my lips curve up.
"It's a good thing you have us then, huh?"
"Dad said when we find it, we can have dessert."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, not bothering to mention we hadn't had lunch, let alone dinner yet. Because, well, I had always been someone who was okay with dessert before a meal.
"Cheesecake!" he added, eyes lighting up.
In case there was any question about it, the way this kid's face lit up at the mention of any kind of food immediately proved that there was a heaping dollop of me in there somewhere.
Though the mess of his bedroom did sort of say that his father was stronger in him than I was at times.
"This looks like a tornado blew through, bud," I told him as we got in there, shaking out clothes and tossing them in the bin, stepping on little army men and rocks that he had this odd fascination with—always collecting them when we went somewhere, even just a store that had them as weed blockers in the beds between parking rows.
"Dad likes it like this when we play army. It's good for tac... tac..."
"Tactical warfare," Barrett supplied, shaking off a blanket before tossing it none-too-ceremoniously on the bed.
"Your father would like this mess," I agreed, getting a smirk from the man in question.