parenting in my sleep

About a month ago, I read an article describing some of the early signs of autism. Lack of eye contact or smiles in response to a parent's smile at one year was the first sign in the list.

Nathaniel was approximately one month old, and though cute as could be, was not smiling in response to our smiles. This is, of course, very normal behavior for one-month-old babies, information I knew and was quite comfortable with at the time.

A few nights later, I nursed Nathaniel and lay back down to sleep. He was sleeping soundly, but my subconscious had other plans for me. I started to drift off.

"Oh, ho ho! Your baby is not smiling at you! Your baby doesn't smile when you smile! Your baby has autism! Autism! Autism! Autism! Ho! Ho!" My subconscious is nothing if not aggressively worry-prone, and if there aren't legitimate worries on the menu for the night, will manufacture some doozies.

The rational part of my psyche is completely and utterly cowed by my subconscious when I am in that not-quite-awake state. Rather than providing the appropriate response ("You Freud-fetishizing idiot! It's one year, not one month!") to these worries, my task-focused rational brain takes the presumption provided by my subsconscious as fact and works from there.

"Okay. Autism. Check. Early intervention works best, so join the autism mailing lists to get some tips on where to start. And consider selling this place because the school district in the next town over has a better special needs program. Call D., because he practiced special education law and might have some good references." And so on.

Nathaniel finally jolted me fully awake a few hours later with a request for more milk, at which point I realized that despite my elaborate plans, it was a little early to consider switching my career path to autism law.