A Breakthrough with my Pancakes

You know that feeling, where you are doing a happy dance inside, while desperately trying to keep a poker face?

Speedy was cooking pancakes yesterday, for my Mothers Day  breakfast. I was starving, it was 11am, and so I was 'helping' by clearing and washing abandoned cooking utensils, and suggesting changes to frypan temperatures.

Everyone else was elsewhere - it was just Speedy and me.

"Dreamer really does have problems, doesn't he?" came out of the blue, quietly, thoughtfully, with a sense of new-found belief.
"Yes. They're real. He's not just faking it".
"When we were at the movies yesterday, I was trying to organise eight people, and every time we wanted to leave somewhere - the game shop, Maccas -  it was always Dreamer who wasn't finished. He took forever to eat his burger and almost made us miss the movie."
"It's a real disability."
"Yeah."

We left it at that.

Speedy knows as well as anyone what Dreamer's problems are - he's lived with him for 15 years.

He resents that Dreamer isn't asked to do as much around the house as him. He resents that Dreamer always makes him late for school in the mornings by not being ready in time. He resents that he gets yelled at and threatened when Dreamer gets so frustrated he loses any higher language skills.

Just because Speedy can shower, dress, and peel vegetables for dinner in the time it takes Dreamer to find his towel... Just because Dreamer goes downstairs to put on his school shoes, and gets distracted before getting to the bottom of the stairs and is found at 8:30 reading a book, still shoeless...

It's not FAIR. It just IS.

Which is a difficult concept for a kid. Up until now, I could never quite convince Speedy that Dreamer's behaviours weren't deliberately designed for the sole purpose of annoying Speedy and getting out of his 'fair share' of work.

I hope it's a milestone. I hope Speedy can let go of some of that resentment.