Completely Oblivious

Hi. I'm Laila.

I'm 17 years old and starting my senior year of high school. I'm kinda excited to be a senior, but on the other hand I'm kinda scared! I don't want to grow up, but Mom says there isn't a pause button on life, and I will have to grow up at some point. I don't know what she's talking about.

Me and my older sister don't share the same last name as the rest of the fam because my mom divorced my dad and promised him she wouldn't change our last name... Mom says I can't sue him for all my trauma. I don't believe her.

It sucks because I don't want anything to do with my real dad... Mom says I have 'daddy issues' or 'abandonment issues' and I will grow up to be a cat lady... and she might be right!

Once upon a time, Mom took me to Wal-Mart and there were these cute little girls giving away free kittens and I asked mom if I could have one.

Mom said Daisy (our family dog) might not be so happy with a kitty... But I said the kitten would be mine and stay in my room and I would take care of her.

So, Mom pulled over and I ran over to see all the cute little kitties, and I found the perfect one! She's a mostly white calico with pretty brown, black and tan markings on her tail and her ears are brown and tan along with her paws.

My kitty did not like the car ride! She freaked out the whole time, but I kept her safe. I decided to call her Mochi! She is the first in a long line of cats I will accumulate to add to my cat lady collection!

So Mom had to stop at Pet Smart to get me a bunch of kitty things, like food, kitty litter, a bed (even though she claimed mine anyway) and cat toys... stuff like that... And she tried to escape the car! But I wouldn't let her. I love her too much to lose her now.

I brought her home and everyone was jealous, including Daisy! Ash (my older sister) said it wasn't fair to Daisy to have the kitty in the house.

Speaking of Ashlyn, she is my only full sibling. We are both half Korean. She gets along better with our actual dad than I do, not that I have to see him. (He left the USA to go to the Philippines.) In total, I have 3 sisters and 1 baby brother. My mom got remarried to a nice guy and gave me a bunch of baby siblings.

3 out of my 4 siblings have been diagnosed with Autism. There is a chance I have it too, but I was never tested. I kinda want to be tested so I can have some help in school. I'd like to use my noise canceling headphones without getting in trouble during tests. Some of my teachers let me sit out in the hall for tests so I can focus. I really hate loud noises!

Ash and Rory have high functioning Autism and they are actually really smart. Rory tested out of her IEP because she was just too smart and an IEP would no longer be able to help her. Mostly she's just socially awkward and she walks on her toes and is more than a little bit clumsy.

Timmy has it really bad. He was 'non-verbal' at 3 years old when he was tested and Mom put him in a special preschool class to help him with speech therapy, occupational therapy, special PE where they teach him to jump with two feet and kick balls, and he is in a small autism group.

I'm so proud of him! He is 7 years old now. In the last few years he has learned so much! He is even talking in full sentences. He can ask questions and give answers. And he is even doing math! Mom almost cried because she didn't know if he would ever be able to do things like this.

Once upon a time Timmy could say less than 50 words. And most of the ones he knew were 'mama', 'dada' and our names. He could say 'Ash', but he called me 'Shu'... I have no idea why, but it was cute. He called Rory 'Rora' and Emma 'Ba', and he called himself 'T' because he couldn't make the other sounds very well, so now everyone just calls him T. I call him TJ just to tease him, but he doesn't like it.

Speaking of my younger siblings, they are all cute little blonds! I'm jealous because I'm half Korean and I have almost black hair and it's stick straight and I can't do anything with it. Yes it goes all the way down to my butt, but I still can't dye it! And they have cute little freckles. How fair is that?!

Mom said I'm beautiful, but I have a lot of stuff from my dad, like my squinty brown eyes and my body shape. I'm basically a stick and my friend Jake who lives down the street says I'm tiny. (So, Jake is my Trek Bro. Our church had a youth group thing where we all dressed up and pushed handcarts like the pioneers, just so we could see a little bit about what they went through. He was in my 'family' so now he's my bro.) Why does he like to bully me so much? I know I'm small but still! I would beat him up, but... well... he's bigger than me. (The dude is huge! He's into weight lifting and stuff and he can bench press me!) Even though I'm two weeks older than him!

Anyway... where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah. Autism. Well, even if I don't have autism... Mom strongly suspects I do, because I have lots of sensory issues and stuff... I do have ADHD and too many anxieties to count. And I have a few phobias.

Like arachnophobia! I hate spiders! They are all out to get me! If I see a spider, I scream my head off and run to my Mommy and say "Mommy! There's a spider! You need to kill it!" And Mom just sighs and asks how big is it? Then I show her how horribly big it is with my fingers and she normally rolls her eyes at me. Mom was a tomboy when she was little so sometimes she'll just kill them with her bare hands, but sometimes she'll use tissues or something handy.

Mom has been taking me to see a councilor to help me with my 'issues' and it helps. She's taught me lots of ways to cope with stress and my depression and anxiety. Being a teenager is hard!

Mom says that with my ADHD I'm sometimes oblivious to stuff. Like once upon a time, we were in the airport going to visit our family. Mom said to meet me at the big barrel. And I looked everywhere and I swear I couldn't see the barrel! So Mom walked me right up to it and said "Look Laila! Here is a barrel! It was 50 feet in front of you... And it is bigger than you are! How could you miss it?" And then I cracked up, because she was right! It was right there and I totally couldn't see it! So now we joke about me not being able to see barrels... Or really anything. Mom has to come find stuff for me all the time because I just can't see them!

See, I have a very short attention span and my brain jumps from one thing to the next so fast that sometimes I forget what I'm even looking for and then I turn around and leave only to have to go back again when I realize what it was I was supposed to be looking for in the first place.

Um... What was I talking about again?

Oh, yeah! So I have a family. I love them very much... sometimes. I still get into fights with them. Mom says that when I grow up and move away I will miss them... I'm not sure I believe her.

I like it when we all get along together, but sometimes we end up doing things that just tick each other off. When that happens, Rory ends up crying because she is super sensitive; Ash ends up yelling because she gets mad easily and has a hard time controlling her emotions; Ems storms off in a huff because she has really bad mood swings; and Timmy runs to his room, covering his ears because it's all too loud.

And me? I go to my room and cuddle my cat. See? I need my cat! She's my emotional support animal... even when she is trying to escape and go visit Mom. She only does that cause Mom gives her treats! My kitty isn't supposed to love Mom more than me!

Anyway, I guess there really isn't anything exciting about my family. We are kinda boring. We go visit our family in Seattle every summer. We go to church together. Have family dinner and stuff like that. All in all, there is nothing really different about my family than anyone else's.

I was helping Mom clean out the basement so we could get me a new room down there (we still haven't gotten around to it) and I found a special Mother's Day card I wrote when I was in Kindergarten. I laughed when I read it. It mostly said "I love my Mommy because she's nice, gives me hugs and gives me yummy food." Actually, the Yummy food was repeated like 6 different ways. I guess I really just love food!

My Mom makes my favorite food called Bulema's. It is a traditional Sephardic Jewish food. This comes from my mom's side of the family. It's basically spinach and cheeses wrapped up in dough, kinda like a burrito, but you bake it. If I was given a choice of only having one meal for the rest of my life, this would be it. Mom doesn't make it very often because it takes like 3 hours to make. But when she does make it, I'm in heaven! So, see, Mom does make good food! And that's why I love her!

You would think that because I'm half Korean I would like spice. But I don't. Anything spicy I hate! I even hated pizza for a long time because the marinara sauce is too spicy for me! Mom says that anything more than rice it too spicy for me, and again, she might be right.

Why are moms always right? It's frustrating she can see what I can't. I guess she has more years of experience than I do.

Well, anyway, that's enough about my family. We are kinda weird and sometimes chaotic, and we definitely are not perfect. But we are us and it's kinda nice to be with them... Even if they eat the last of the chocolate cake.