Happily Ever After

The toy market really knows what they are doing . As a mother of a 4 year old little girl, we are surrounded by Disney Princess'. Toy isles are as pink as can be, filled with all things girl and my daughter eats it up ! A trip to target is not complete without a trip the the toy isle . What is the one theme in all princess movies ? Getting your Happy Ever After! It was no different for me as a child. I had very few ambitions growing up . I wanted to meet the man of my dreams get married and thought that was the whole battle and once that happened life was smooth sailing !

Soon after high school my prince charming a.k.a Tommy showed up in my life and my fairy tale began. We fell in love and a few years later became man and wife. So in my mind , battle was won and here came happy every after. I still didn't realize what that meant . Life was great for a few years , We moved up in careers , bought our first home, and had our first baby. Happily ever after was pretty good so far! The problem is we don't see the second half of these princess' life . They ride off into the sunset and live in what we can only imagine as a life of eternal bliss. We don't see them struggling to pay bills, loss of jobs, and unexpected diagnosis'. We aren't prepared for "real life" or at least I wasn't . I have come to learn that my biggest fear of finding the right husband would be the least of all life's challenges. That part came quite easy its the rest of life that has been hard. I just want to see the future , to know it all ends up alright. I want the good seasons of life to stay until my day on this earth is done. Are you picking up that I don't like change ! We need to prepare ourselves and our children for the different seasons of life, that there will be ups and downs , good times and bad , sickness and health, richer and poorer. This is why these are marriage vows because life is messy and hard and God will be with us through all of these times and if we are lucky so will our Prince charming! We didn't see autism coming and in hind sight I am glad we didn't , we weren't ready for it. We needed it in small doses. Had I known I would have a child on the spectrum , would I have wanted a baby at all ? Maybe that is why it took us a while to get pregnant so that I would appreciate that I was lucky to have a baby at all, and had I known immediately the struggles he would go through at his birth I would have missed out on so much bonding time with my newborn because I would have been worrying about what all this would mean for him. God's plans are better than mine and I am lucky my prince reminds me of this when I forget or don't want to see it . I love you Tommy! I am so glad we are going this road together!