Happy Mother's Day! ~ 2014

I am the mom of a very special child.  I am sure when you see him, you think he is no more special than any other child.  Yet to me he is. 

He is spoiled and smart.  He is funny and ridiculously clever.  He is incredibly strong and terribly courageous.  He is wildly imaginative and is never quiet or still.  He can ride a bike or scooter, swim a pool lap, dive to the deepest depths, climb tall trees.  He is often seen wearing a helmet, a costume, shin pads and just as often covered in water, mud or paint.  He has unruly curly hair and the brightest smile.  He is loud and fast.  He never wears shoes. 

My child smells things I don't smell, hears things I don't hear and imagines things I can't explain.  He disappears more often than not.  He can destroy things in a meltdown yet is kind and gentle when he is calm.  He is amazingly entertaining.  He can tie his shoes.  He can remember places and quotes that I never think to recall.  He rarely cries.  He is always active and loves the outside.  He can write his letters and numbers.  He does pushups and pull ups just like a solider.  He crashes and dashes and smashes!  He hugs, kisses and loves as passionately as he plays. 

All of this and none of this make him special.

What makes him special is that he is adopted and that every day I get to love him. 

Mother's Day is a special day.  It is the day I get to rejoice in being a mom to this incredible little boy.  It is also the day we met his birth mom.  She is a super hero in my book.  She loved him.  She is courageous and strong.  She gave me this special little boy.  This boy that drives me insanely crazy and then smothers me with squeezy hugs and wet kisses.  This little boy that calls me mom, snuggles in the bed in the mornings with me, climbs on my lap, holds my had.  This gift of my life.  She is the reason I know so much about being MOM, all things boy, sensory needs and rolling with it ~ because she gave me the gift of a little life. 

And how special is that!  He is special because he is mine.  He is special because he came from a woman who was brave and strong and fearless.  He is special because he is all of these things.  He is the reason I get to celebrate mother's day.... for me that is what makes all the hard days, the hard knocks, the hard education special.  It makes the dirty floors, the sticky tables, the piles of laundry feel right.  He makes me get up early and stay up late.  He makes me smile and cry.  He makes me want to be the best person I can be so that I can teach him to be the best he can be.  This is what mother's day is... a day to celebrate the gift of life and how special this one little boy is.... to me and to another.

Happy Mother's Day....

At this hard place

The last couple weeks have challenged me.  I was full of complaints.  I was gently and lovingly reminded that what we experience also happens in "normal" families.  While it is true, the need for friends, bad behaviors, school troubles all happen in "normal" families we experience extremes and I rarely hear of these things happening. 

So with that being said.... we are having a wildly weird and unsettling week.  From strange events and stories being told to us to even stranger activities happening on play dates we don't know what to do next. 

Let me start with how angry I am.  Angry that we constantly battle challenges and strange things only to figure it out and hit the next one.  We do not get a period of calm when we can relax and enjoy family life.  We jump from strange, weird, odd, mischievous, bewildering and back to strange.  I  am so used to unusual that it has become the 'norm' in our family.  I am so accustomed to bizarre things that I seldom flinch at it.  I am hardened against the judgments and stares when we have meltdowns and timeouts. 

I am also angry that whenever something goes bad or wrong and my child is involved I automatically assume it is because of something he has done or said.  I am quick to step in.  It is a HORRIBLE place to be in as a mom.  Constantly feeling like your child is "that bad kid"... the one that makes play or learning or seeing hard for every other child around him.  I am angry that I feel this way.  I do not want to assume my child is always at fault. 

So now we are at this place.  This place where I am faced with the most bizarre behavior yet.  The place where it is frightening and embarrassing to talk about.  The place where his behavior impacts other children.  It is humiliating and terrifying.  It makes me honestly want to pack up my house and move to a smaller, remote location and homeschool this child so that he can just get it together and be OK. 

But I tearfully face a new day.  With little sleep and more worry than one mom needs.  I think about what my reaction would be if it happened the other way.  I would not want to be my friend.  I would not want this child around.  And that makes me so very sad for him. 

I reached out to school and therapy for help.  I gently and as honestly as I can, talk about the issue with my child.  I sternly require him to comply with some rules of conduct.  Doug is involved and we face it together.  Today we face a new day.  But it is a new day with anger and frustration and fear attached to it.  A new day that we are faced with weird and wild things.  A day when I think "GIVE ME ONE DAY OF CALM....". 

The issue is that my curious, interested, smart, bright little boy exposed himself during a play date.  Age appropriate to be curious about the body and the workings of the body but not appropriate behavior.  Not appropriate to lie about it.  It is one of the hardest things I have yet had to handle.  It is an issue few will want to talk about.  I think we have to also talk about the hard things.

So while we are just like every other family, we are not.  We not only live life large and colorfully but we go hard and extreme.

I write a blog of hard truth.  It is not always the easy fun comfortable topics that I tell.  Today it is the hard and horrible.  Judge us if you must but trust that we are doing the best we can today.  I assure you, we will face this head on and we will move on.  One day at a time.... that is how we roll.