Almost every year, we get a bird's nest either in our hanging ferns on our back porch or on a small bush right next to the porch. As much as I get annoyed at the mother bird always squawking at me for sitting on MY freaking porch, it is fun to peak in at the baby birds and watch how quickly they change. Yeah, I know, my peaking is precisely why mama bird is squawking at my nosy a**.

Those tiny little helpless birds peck through their eggs into a world that is new to them. A world where they are completely dependent on their mama to keep them alive. And those baby birds get louder and louder when they need something to help them survive or thrive like food, water or a swift quick out of the nest when they have stayed too long. 

For such a short while, those little birds count on mama bird for EVERYTHING. The babies are too weak, too little and not quite savvy enough to leave the nest and make it on their own. Over a very short period of time, those birds start to stretch their wings, testing them to see if they are ready to fly and just how far they can make it alone. Then one day, there is silence and as I peak in the nest (keeping an eye out for angry mama) the birds are gone. They have figured it out, so they go it alone and leave mama bird sitting alone on my pool fence. I actually feel kind of sorry for her, until her next nest of birds arrive along with her angry squawk.

As I watched my "baby bird" take the stage last week at his last middle school chorale performance, I couldn't help but think back to those early days, when like all babies, he needed me to survive. To feed him, love him, protect him and nurture him. Just like those baby birds, Ryan's cries were necessary to let me know he needed something, but, I couldn't always decipher what that something was and I felt as helpless as mama bird on my fence not knowing what to do next.

The difference between my baby bird and all the other birds his age, was that my baby held onto mama much longer than all the other birds flying around the neighborhood. For Ryan, the world outside the nest was scary and confusing, so it was much safer to stay than it was to go. So, I had no problem holding him tight and keeping his wings clipped.

Just like that annoying mama bird squawking, hovering and being a wee bit overprotective of her almost ready to take flight youngins, I may be guilty of trying to keep Ryan in the nest longer than necessary. I justify my hovering by wanting to protect him from all the predators and inherent dangers in the world. A world that is somewhat harder for him to navigate and land safely. I'd be lying though if I didn't confess that part of my reason for such protective hovering and squawking is I fear the day I too am alone on the pool fence with an empty nest mocking me. 

As I watched Ryan cross the stage last week and find his place, he quickly scanned the audience for his mama bird. When our eyes met, he beamed. Ryan no longer needs me like he once did, the nest continues to get quieter and quieter (unless of course he is singing his head off to some Coldplay song in his bedroom), but, it's nice to know I am still sitting on the fence not far away if the world gets too big or scary. Ryan knows that no matter how far he flies, if his wings get tired and he needs to rest, he knows where he can safely land.

Watching Ryan approach the microphone for his brief solo, he no longer resembled that scared baby bird who was afraid to fly without me. He was confident, strong and his song was beautiful, and in that moment I knew that no matter where he goes, I will always hear him, even when perched alone on the pool fence.

High school will bring new adventures, new rewards, and new struggles, but, I have been watching Ryan stretch his wings for years and I know that when he is ready to fly, this little bird will soar beyond his mama bird's wildest dreams. I just hope he throws me a worm from time to time as I happily sit on the pool fence watching and protecting from afar.

Well, I did it. I blinked. Yep, I had been warned not to, multiple times, but, I did it anyway and in the nanoseconds it took me to blink, my boy grew up. Not all the way up. Not so grown that he can vote, order a beer with his grilled cheese sandwich at Red Robin, or fill out a W-2 form, but, grown up enough that there are times I wish I had listened to those doomsdayers and propped my eyelids open so I would not in fact, blink.

"It goes by so fast", people decades older than me would say when they looked longingly at my beautiful little Ryan as a tiny baby.  "He will be grown in the blink of an eye", chimed the old folks who wistfully saw their own, now grown baby in the face of my son. "Enjoy them while they are young", they would shout as their own happy memories went careening through their mind in a "blink of an eye".
 
At the time I thought, "What a bunch of negative naysayers!". However, now, I realize that these folks had already blinked and they saw moments that were still ahead for me, but, were gone for them. So, why not ruin my joy for 10 seconds, right?! Back then, I thought these naysayers were ridiculous. I thought they were exaggerating. I certainly thought that an eye took much longer to blink, than 300-400 milliseconds, but, alas, as usual, this young'in was wrong, and my curmudgeonly, naysaying elders were right. The knew because they had blinked.

Funny thing is, although my heart breaks at the thought of my "babies" growing up and leaving me, through some of Ryan's childhood moments I swear I intentionally blinked rapidly, almost a self defense mechanism that put me and my friend Denial in the dark. I would repeatedly blink...open, shut, open, shut...wanting "this" moment, "this" phase", "this" difficult period to end and move on quickly to the next one. I would blink because I worried about how long "this" phase would last, what others thought when they witnessed "this" phase, and how long good old mom could handle "this" phase before I went through my own phase at a quiet, secluded, heavily medicated, location.

Now, as I look back, and can see for myself how quickly it's all going, I want to super glue my eyelids open. I blink (because my brain tells my eyes to do so) and then I think, WTF?! "WTF", an equally quick, abbreviated acronym that I say quietly inside my head almost as frequently as I blink, but, not nearly as frequently as my sweet little boy, turned teenager says....out loud.

It's true how quickly life passes by and sadly, you can't super glue your eyelids open, you really do have to blink (for a whole host of medical reasons that I can't get into here because I'm too dumb). I swear in this day of modern technology, the blinking has become faster, the pace quicker and the time on hyper-speed, all things my wise elders also warned me about. In this tech savvy day of texting, we are so hurried that in the blink of an eye, we can abbreviate a sentence and eliminate the swear word (WTF, WTH, GTFO, HS). We can shorten a hearty laugh to (LOL, LMFAO) and we can hurriedly abbreviate an expression of love (ILYSM, XOXO). In our attempt to blink quickly and move on, we often don't take the time to really swear when we need to, laugh when we can, and love when we feel it.

If I'm AWEnest, there were many times as we traversed the new, uncharted territory of autism that I did not want to feel so much, and would have loved an abbreviated shortened version of my emotions, but, since texting chat wasn't even known to me, I just tried to blink quickly instead. 

Even though Ryan took his good old time when it came to potty training, I couldn't blink fast enough to get through it. The shirt chewing and the remove every tag that could possibly be felt anywhere phase, destroyed many a shirt, so I tried to blink away that phase in order to have a little money left for retirement. The echoing like a parrot phase was so frustrating for both of us because Ryan couldn't communicate what he wanted and so I couldn't determine his needs and this frustration caused warp speed blinking. And although I would not want to relive those phases, I'm now smack down in the middle of the "WTF" stage. Blink, blink, blink, blink.

Back when Ryan refused to go number 2 on the potty, or stop chewing his shirts or only answered my question with my question, all I could think was, "When will this pass?" and "Why can't he be like everyone else?". Maybe not the best Mom of the Year thoughts, but, they were AWEnest thoughts none the less. Now, today, with Ryan's abbreviated, text like teenage language, I got my wish...sort of.

This WTF'ing has been happening as frequently, and as quickly, as a blink of the eye. And if I must say, in a shameful somewhat braggish sort of way, for a boy who sometime struggles with communication and finding the right words, Ryan uses WTF quite appropriately. A dropped Jello Vanilla Pudding on the floor, "WTF?!". A missing homework assignment that is due tomorrow. "WTF? It was right here!" as he scavenges his bedroom in search of the missing paper. A photo of our friends' adorable tiny white dog leaving the groomer with purple chalk colored ears, "WTF happened to Ruby?!" (after a disclaimer that he knows he shouldn't say WTF, but, well, the situation called for it). I guess I should be grateful there is an abbreviated form of swearing that enables my son to follow the rules of not swearing yet still makes him take pride in the fact that he looks and sounds like all the other teenagers. 

I've tried to explain to my literal language interpreter that even though he is not actually saying f***, the (F)*** in WTF is implied, therefore, it kind of is like swearing. "No, it's not! I didn't say a swear word!" and technically, literally he didn't....he hasn't.....and chances are....he won't. So, WTF do I do?

I guess instead of going back to my old ways of trying to blink this somewhat uncomfortable (albeit appropriately used and kind of funny) phase away, I need to heed the advice of those older, fun sucking elders of mine and remember that in a "blink of an eye", this stage too will be gone. This moment will pass and one day, I will miss it. I cannot blink slow enough to keep him here, in my home, where he can safely, "WTF?!" all over the place. Rather than blinking, I should prop my eyelids open and watch, mesmerizing in the moment when he is behaving like a "typical" (foul-mouthed) teenager.

With all the blinking I have done over the years, through the good moments and the hard moments, I have never once wanted to blink and open my eyes and find someone who is not Ryan in front of me. Yes, there have been times I wished for more neurotypical behavior and less autism like behavior. And yes, there were times I would blink so slowly in an attempt to shut out the tougher moments altogether. Then, inevitably, I would try and blink away that moment of guilt that engulfed me. Had I only listened, had I only realized how fast a blink was, I would have tried harder to take it all in slowly and never take my eyes off this AWEsome boy.

Now today, I am the decades older, grumpy doomsdayer, elder who snuggles my beautiful great-nephew and warns my big hearted, proud nephew that, "it goes by so fast" and that "in the blink of an eye" this beautiful baby will be crawling...walking...and WTF'ing all over the house, so "enjoy him while he's young". What I didn't say, but, what I thought and wished that someone would have said to me was, no matter where he goes, no matter what path lies ahead for him, on the good days and the bad, don't abbreviate the moment or the emotions, feel it all because "it does go by so fast". 

As I handed this sweet baby over, I sniffed his head one last time before releasing him, hugged my proud nephew and his equally proud girlfriend and thought, do not blink it away, because one day, you will wake up and he will be grown and you will be the one thinking, "WTF?!".