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.