I thought I was turning 40 this week. That's how stressed out I've been; I lost a year.

I'm actually going to be 39 on Friday. I still get excited about my birthday. Dave calls it "Mandi Awareness Month," because I start reminding him well in advance of the big day and make it very clear what my expectations are: a birthday card made by the kids, a cake with candles that Billy can blow out, a second DVR for our bedroom, and a trip to some place with daily maid service and a heated pool.

But this year has been a little different. Or at least, this month has been a little different. It's been tougher, more stressful.

I want to be honest about the stress and the hard times, because I always write about our breakthroughs, our happy moments and our family's abundant joy. Those moments are worth writing about. But so are the hard times.

I recently read a post on one of the autism support group message boards in which a parents said something like, "What am I doing wrong? I read about all this great progress that other parents have made with their autistic kids and I actually resent them. I have a terrible attitude. I feel depressed. Most of the time I don't know how I'm going to get through the day. I think I have the worst attitude of any parent on here. Sometimes I resent my own child."

Sometimes we all do. And I want to apologize right now if I've ever given anyone the impression that I don't have those days. I do.

I have days when I don't know how I'm going to get through it. I have days when I feel a LOT older than 40. I have days when I am so angry at all these parents who have it so easy ... even though I know in my head and my heart that nobody has it easy. We all have those days.

The past couple of weeks have been hard because Billy seems so angry at me more of the time. He's angry about being asked to go to the bathroom. He's angry about getting dressed. He's angry about getting into the car. One night --or morning, I should say, because it was 3 a.m. -- he was angry about it being dark outside. He pulled the curtain back, looked out the window at the darkness and screamed, "No more night! Good morning! Good morning!"

I'm flattered that he thinks I have control over that, but I was really friggin' tired and not seeing the funny side.

An OT and a couple of parents of autistic kids have all told me that frequently a period of bad behavior precedes a big leap in cognitive ability: the one step back, two steps forward theory. All I can say is Billy must be getting ready to do calculus, if there's any truth to this theory.

We spend so much time trying to understand our kids' emotions, validating their feelings, teaching them how to handle stress and fear and anger. And meanwhile, we beat ourselves up and invalidate any negative emotions we might have as parents.

It's okay to feel like you don't have a handle on things. Frankly, I don't trust anyone who claims to have it all together. But even in the midst of this stress and anger and even depression, we have to keep going. We're parents and we don't get paid vacations. That being said, when I'm having a really hard day, here are a few things that help me center myself again:

1. Asking for help: It sounds so simple it's stupid, but you MUST have someone to help you sometimes. If you aren't lucky enough to have close family around, reach out to the autism community, to your church, to your closest friends, and create a network of moms on which you can lean. Be honest with them, and take the step of actually calling on them, even if it's just to take one hour to yourself.

2. Support groups: Part of the problem with having kids, is that you often don't have time to join the groups who can support you. Luckily, there are a lot of great online support groups now. The members may not be in your back yard, but they can certainly commiserate and very often, they have very good ideas for tackling problems. I am a regular contributor on Circle of Moms Autism/Asperger's Support Group, Autism/PDD Message Board, and the Floortimers Yahoo Users group. There's also a Special Needs Kids section of MomsLikeMe.com.

3. Exercise: Nothing relieves my stress like a long walk. I put the kids in the stroller, where they're safe and sound and strapped in, give them each a cup of juice, pop in my earbuds and actually listen to a book while we walk for an hour. A side effect is that I'm in better shape than I've been in a long time. I truly hate every other form of exercise, but I like to walk. And I like to read.

4. Clear the schedule: When all else fails, when you're overwhelmed and your kids are melting down and you're behind on 45 different projects and you don't know how you're going to get it all done, cancel some stuff. This was one of the hardest things for me to learn to do. But sometimes an afternoon free of appointments and car rides and transitions is just what you and your kids need. People will understand.

5. Clean something. I organize areas of the house when I get stressed: closets, drawers, shelves. I've known people who tackled their ovens, bathrooms or ironing whenever they got overwhelmed. Parenting an autistic child is so full of complicated problems and questions with no easy answers; those questions, and the answers, change from day to day. Sometimes it feels really good to have a problem as simple as a messy drawer to deal with: easy to solve, you know when you're done, and it's easy to see that you've made progress. Parenting is never that simple.