Squirrel!

This is a Rocky Mountain Sheep I saw while hiking with my friend Celeste today. Squirrel!

Sometimes I wonder how I get anything done. Ever. I take the most circuitous routes when I begin a task. I guess I’m too easily distractible. I’m kind of like Dug, the dog in Up. I start out doing one thing and then somehow…SQUIRREL! So, that is what happened to me again tonight and that is why it is late in the evening and I am once again staring at my self-imposed deadline, which is less than an hour from right now, and shaking my head. The Squirrel effect seems to worsen at night and when I’m hungry and when I’m procrastinating and when I’m sleep-deprived and occasionally when I’m over caffeinated. Now that I think about it, it’s truly miraculous that I ever complete a task successfully. But, I digress.

Tonight I began researching airfare for our now decided upon Spring Break trip. We bid on and won a vacation rental last Saturday at the boys’ school auction. Now I have to figure out how to get us to our destination with the least expensive airfare. It’s all very exciting. And, while I should be focused on filling out paperwork so we can schedule all the testing we need to have done to get IEPs and/or 504s set up for the boys for next school year, researching vacation travel is a far less odious task so that has taken priority.

I began on Expedia, but as I was looking at the ludicrous cost of airfare for this trip the wind kicked up outside. We get a lot of high winds here in November and December so I immediately began wondering if tonight would be really windy. So, I buzzed on over to the site for the NBC news affiliate here in Denver to check our weather conditions. I was pleased to note that although we’re in for a cool down tomorrow, no high winds are predicted tonight. Dodged that bullet. But, while I was on the NBC site, I started wondering what the heck has been going on in the world since I’ve been checked out this week. Off to Fox News I went to figure out what is being reported on currently. I perused the headlines as I had planned but then, at the bottom of the front page in the Latest News section, a story caught my eye about some folks in the Florida panhandle who poached their neighbor’s pet turkey for their own Thanksgiving dinner. From that story, I noticed a link to the best and worst swimsuit photos from Hollywood. That seemed like an adequate distraction, so I went off to check those out. After deciding that most people over the age of 50 look sad and droopy at the beach (yes…I mean you David Hasselhoff and Ivana Trump), I was feeling discouraged about being just 5.5 years from that dreaded physical cliff (I can’t bring myself to care about the fiscal cliff because there’s nothing I can do about that cluster). In a desperate attempt to elevate my spirits, I texted with my friend Heather for a while. At which point, Heather reminded me that it won’t matter what I look like in a swimsuit at the beach in March because I’ll be at the beach in a swimsuit in MARCH. Well played, Heather. And, so I put my phone down and decided to get back to Expedia because I still have not booked any travel yet.

At some point in the next few weeks I will break down and actually commit to a flight itinerary…probably not without a massive mental meltdown as my shaking fingers attempt to input the credit card number I have memorized. But, I will do it because I have paperwork to fill out and I can’t get to that task until I have something really incredible to look forward to as a reward for all my hard work. And now, as I sit in bed and finish this blog, I’m wondering how I will be able to get the house cleaned, the table set, and the meal cooked for dinner at 4 p.m. because I am sure there will be myriad distractions tomorrow. Distractions are the thing that….wait…do we actually own enough napkin rings for 12 place settings?

Posted on by Me 3

Note To Self: Cows Don’t Care About Glory

The cows…they just don’t care.

I am a stay-at-home mom, which means that I don’t get paid and that I’m never home. I live in my car. Consequently, my car (a midsize, luxury SUV in name only) consistently looks as if it’s been plundered and pillaged by rogue Norsemen (which it has because my sons have a full quarter Norwegian ancestry). This morning after the boys had removed themselves from the back seat, I noticed that I could no longer see the black, leather seats back there at all. They were covered with Legos, food wrappers, various school papers, and sticky substances I have been ignoring for weeks. The floor was not much better. I knew there were floor mats down there somewhere. But where? As far as I could tell, the carpet had been replaced by shredded tissue, chewed on straws, and Star Wars action figures missing their heads. It was at that point that I seriously began to wonder if the mess back there was partially due to a rodent infestation.

I headed to the local, automatic car wash to vacuum out my filthy car and find the silver paint again. I immediately realized I had not enough quarters for the vacuum, so I sent the car through the wash and drove home to rescue the inside. I dragged out the wet/dry vacuum, a trash bag, a damp rag, a roll of paper towels, and about a gallon of Windex to begin my quest. I was mildly concerned that during my cleaning I might shove my hand under the backseat and pull out a rodent (something similar happened in our family before when hubby pulled up a seat cushion and uncovered Voldemouse in his FJ Cruiser). I tried not to think about it as I opened the back door and started digging through the rat’s nest where my children usually sit. In the first three minutes, I rescued five mangled Lego magazines, four pieces of foreign currency (not sure when my kids had time to vacation in England, France, Italy, and Denmark without me), about a gazillion Lego bricks and assorted Lego pieces, a super-high bouncing ball, an empty water bottle, some crude drawings of battles and dragons, and a spelling list. (I’d wondered where that had gotten to.) When I at last found the back seat and started working on the floor, I uncovered an interesting piece of paper. It was in Luke’s handwriting…neatly penned but with the kind of obvious errors only a child with dyslexia could make. It said: “Note to self. Cows don’t care about glory. Cows don’t care about you.” I stood there staring at that paper with my head cocked to one side. What the hell does that mean? I had no idea where to go with that information. It was funny, but what made it even funnier was that my darling son had flawlessly executed his b and d letter reversals in the most stereotypical dyslexic way. I love the way his mind works.

I finished cleaning the car to the best of my ability without uncovering any evidence of the Lost City of Mouselantis. But, I walked around for the entire rest of the day thinking about Luke’s note to self. Instead of mice occupying my thoughts, it was cows. And, not just any cows. Cows that don’t care about glory. I later was able to ask Luke about his cryptic message. He disclosed that he heard that quote on some Lego video on You Tube. Ah. It suddenly all made sense. Chalk the whole thing up to You Tube. And to think I’d been blaming the obscure cow mention to our trip to Chick-Fil-A last week. Silly me.

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Me 4

Ten Things Yoga Teaches Me About Life

Life, like yoga, is all about the here and now.

Another night and the clock is rapidly approaching 10:30. Nearly a year ago when I started this blog, I promised myself one entry per day, sometime between midnight and 11:59 p.m. The minutes on the clock are dwindling down to my self-imposed deadline, and I sit here with an empty brain. An empty brain is good when you’re trying to fall asleep, which is what I should be doing. An empty brain is a bad thing, however, when you’re 1.5 hours from your writing deadline and no inspiration has arrived all day. Some days, it’s simply a struggle to get through. On those days, when I should be writing, I want nothing more than sleep. Today is one of those days.

To ensure that I get some sleep tonight, I’m going to go back to my mindset 1.5 hours when I was in yoga class. At the end of this coming January, I will have completed my fourth year as a practicing yogi. Hard to believe that four years ago I was so afraid to attempt yoga that I made my sister come with me to my first class. True story. Now, I can’t imagine going through the rest of my days without it. It’s not just exercise. It’s a metaphor for my life. I’m flexible and can bend over backwards, but I’m still not open. I’m strong and can stand on my head if I set my mind to it, but some days I am incredibly off balance. Yoga helps me find the peace I lack.

As I was cleaning up after class tonight, my mind was racing through the valuable life lessons yoga has taught me. So, I think I will share those tidbits here because…well, I need something to write about.

Ten Things Yoga Continues To Teach Me About Life (and trust me…I need the frequent reminders)

  1. The most important thing is to show up.
  2. When something doesn’t feel quite right, don’t force it. You’ll only end up hurt.
  3. Everyone is wrapped up in their own world. No one is paying attention to you, so let go and be free of ego.
  4. When things get tough, just breathe.
  5. We all have our struggles and our gifts. Mind your own.
  6. Try something new. It might not be your thing or it could be your new favorite thing. You’ll never know until you try.
  7. If something doesn’t serve you, let it go. No sense in lugging around worthless baggage.
  8. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Instead of criticizing yourself for what you can’t do, be grateful for all that you can.
  9. Discomfort is okay. Acknowledge it and let it go. It’s in discomfort that you find opportunity for growth.
  10. Wherever you are, be there.

Namasté.

Posted on by Me 8

The End Of The Tunnel

No one was harmed in the making of this lunch. How incredibly awesome is that?

Since my sons were born, I’ve spent more of my waking hours caring for them than I’ve spent caring for myself. I don’t mention this as a complaint. It’s just what is. It is the nature of the beast of parenting. When you decide to bring another life into this world, you change the course of your own irrevocably. With our recent revelations about our sons and their learning difficulties, I’ve spent more time doing things for them than I have in a while. My life has been a blur of paperwork, interviews, conversations, and applications. Because my husband is already a full-time, paid, paper-pusher elsewhere, these tasks fall to me. While all the filling in blanks and checking off boxes is tedious work, it’s infinitely preferable to all the nose and butt wiping I’ve managed to leave behind as the boys have gotten older. I’m still doing things for my boys, but at least the things I’m doing are becoming less odious. I’ve always felt it was a parent’s duty to do all they can for their children to give them a leg up in this world. Tonight I realize I was at least partially wrong.

As the hours inched on toward bedtime, I realized I needed to make Luke’s lunch. I didn’t want to. I just did not feel like it. As a rule, not feeling like it is not ample enough excuse to avoid the task, so I suck it up. Tonight, I was happily lazing on the sofa researching spring break options and watching Sunday Night Football. Making lunches sounded like a dismal reason to get off my expanding hindquarters. So, at 9:15, when my son should have been headed up to bed, I made a lazy parent decision.

“Luke,” I bossed, “go make your lunch.” There. No longer my problem.

“You want me to do it?” he asked, surprised.

“Yep. You know how you like your sandwich. You will make it better than Dad or I could, anyway. Get busy.”

At this point, I was certain I would encounter verbal backlash or, at the very least, a small whimper or whine. But, none came. Luke simply marched into the kitchen and started gathering his materials. In five minutes he had assembled his lunch: a PB&J (crusts jettisoned, of course), a plastic sleeve filled with organic yogurt, a small container of Goldfish crackers, a “healthy” (read: no food coloring or high fructose corn syrup) fruit roll-up, and an organic vanilla milk. He shoved it carefully into his Star Wars: The Clone Wars lunch box and was about to flee the scene when I called him back and made him clean up the mess, which he also did without fuss. Then he headed upstairs to play a round of Draw Something with me on his brother’s iPad while I stood there, jaw hanging open and hand scratching my head.

Years back, I had allowed our sons to make their own lunches one time. It was only one time because they had assembled lunches filled with Halloween candy, cans of soda, and a measly sandwich. In the process, they had turned our kitchen into a replica of the food fight scene from Animal House, and I’d had to shoo them out and start over but with twice the amount of work. I chalked it up to immaturity and boyhood. I figured they weren’t ready. In fact, I wondered if they might never be ready. Tonight, though, our 9 year old son made his own lunch and it was no big deal. There was no whining. There was no colossal mess. I was tempted to look around for the hidden camera. He’d completed the entire task without drawing blood or destroying the kitchen. And….and…the best part was that I hadn’t even had to get off the sofa for it all to happen. Perhaps it wasn’t the best lunch in the history of lunches and yet it was because I hadn’t had to make it.

It got me to thinking. My boys might be a lot more capable than I’ve previously thought. I started to wonder if I’m doing too much for them. Perhaps they’re at the ages now when they are ready to take on greater responsibility. Not only would it save me some work, but it would also give them an opportunity to experience all they are capable of. It will build their esteem. It will increase their skill set. Holy cow! I’ve been robbing my children of the gift of self-sufficiency. Well, no more, I say. There are so many things I should not be doing for my boys. The possibilities are endless. Wait. Just ahead. Do you see it? That light? It must be the end of the tunnel.

 

Posted on by Me 3

Fishing For Shooting Stars

Meteor showers are like fishing. You go, you enjoy nature. Sometimes you catch something.

Oh how I love my Sky View app.

I love outer space. I marvel at the vastness of the universe and how I am but a speck on a pebble in the reaches of it all. It’s very humbling. While in college at the University of Colorado, I took a few courses in astronomy, not because I thought I would do well (I’m an English major and was told there would be no math) but because I wanted to learn more about space. So, I studied comets, black holes, and galaxies. I was aided by a friend who knew the constellations and would point them out to me on random occasions when we were out of the reaches of the light pollution of the city. I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t this the gal who used to have nightmares about UFOs in grade school? And yes, that is true. Although the possibility exists that there is life elsewhere in the universe, I’m no longer concerned that said life is in any hurry to come here, colonize our planet, and turn me into their house pet. (As I told my husband the other day, any life form that is intelligent enough to get here and still desire this rock will have no trouble taking it and annihilating us all. They’ve got higher intelligence and space travel. We have Honey Boo Boo. We’d be weaker than kittens.)

In November of 2001, when Joe was six months old and we were just two months beyond the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I read there would be a Leonid meteor shower. The earth would be passing through a dust cloud shed by a comet hundreds of years ago and viewers with a clear, dark sky would see thousands of meteors falling per hour. Shunning all better parental judgement, we woke our sleeping child, belted him into his car seat, and drove an hour east of Denver to a country road in the middle of farm country to catch the show. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Meteor after meteor flashed across the sky as my exhausted husband and I stared up through the open sunroof of our Toyota 4Runner, infant son strapped safely in the middle of the backseat.

Yesterday morning as I was perusing some news sites, I noted that our planet is in the midst of another encounter with the Leonids. This one would not be as spectacular, but I didn’t see how I could pass up the opportunity to share the experience with our sons. So, before bed, I announced to the family that I would be waking up at 2:30 a.m. to check for clear skies. If I found some, then we would be driving a small distance from city lights to look up at the stars. I figured that at worst we would see nothing but constellations and have exhausted boys today. Maybe I’d have a tired headache too, but with a gingerbread latte I could live with that.

At 2:30, the alarm on my iPhone began barking (literally…I like the barking dog alarm) and I begrudgingly awoke. I stayed in bed for a few minutes, debating the merits of my great, big idea. I nearly scrapped it on the basis that I had only slept two hours so far, but ultimately decided that I could sleep when I am dead. Steve was still out cold, so I went in to wake Luke as he was the most excited about my plan to begin with. He awoke fairly easily, hopped out of bed, put some socks on with his long-underwear pajamas, and went downstairs to grab some milk for the road. Steve was the next conquest. When I told him I was going to drive off into the night alone with Luke, he decided he should man up and crawled from the bed. Joe at last acquiesced to join us when we told him he’d be alone in the house when we left. We drove 10 minutes west, parked the car on the other side of the hogback from our home, opened the sunroof, and waited. We pulled out the Sky View app on my phone and searched for constellations. We found Orion’s belt, Cancer, Gemini, and Taurus. We remarked at how bright Jupiter was, and Joe reminded us that the Big Dipper is located within Ursa Major, the large bear. The meteor shower was not fantastic, but we each saw at least one or two cross the sky. Luke remarked that he’d never seen a shooting star before, and that made it all worthwhile. At least we were all together as a family in the adventure of stargazing. That sort of memory is priceless, even if the meteors don’t show up.

Sometimes I shake my head at the things I force my kids to do just so I can share with them things that are important to me. I want them to view the planet and the universe with wonder and appreciation as I do. Something about the unfathomable expanse of space puts everything into perspective when life gets overwhelming. Although the meteor shower last night was less of a shower and more of an occasional raindrop, no worries. I read that the Geminid meteor shower will occur on a new moon on Thursday, December 13th, and it’s predicted to have more than 100 shooting stars per hour. If our boys aren’t at school on December 14th, you’ll know why.

Posted on by Me 36

When Life Lobs A Dodgeball

Luke has invented a new comic book character named Lord Zen. I find this encouraging.

I am not, by nature, the most positive of people. I try not to be cynical, but I am never surprised when someone disappoints me. This tendency towards negativism is one of the reasons I started this blog. I was trying to find myself a better attitude. Aided by the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle (among others), I’m working towards becoming a more complete version of my best self, even though it’s not an easy journey. Just about the time I feel I am coming closer to reaching a better place, some new challenge presents itself and I’m back in Eeyore mode again. Luke’s recent diagnosis of dyslexia is the latest in a recent string of course corrections my life has taken. I’ve been trying my hardest at every turn to put a positive spin on the things I never asked for but got anyway.

Today, I went to a Lunch and Learn lecture with Luke’s new tutor. A local pediatrician was speaking about diet, exercise, and health, especially with regard to raising children, and Marcy invited me to join her. Given our boys’ difficulties, I figured that at the very least I would have an opportunity to learn something new by attending. And I had to eat anyway, right? Sitting there with other parents and individuals concerned about their health and eating habits, it hit me that two weeks ago I hadn’t even met the woman who was my host at this luncheon. It’s incredible how quickly changes come at you sometimes and how fast a new discovery will broaden your horizons if you let it. The experience I had today was just a small part of what will be a new adventure in my life. If we have to change schools or move, the adventure will alter the landscape of my life even further.

Today I determined that life is simply a giant game of dodgeball. I have two options: 1) go on the defensive and duck, weave, dive, and avoid or 2) go on the offensive and catch the ball. Attempting to avoid what’s being thrown at me seems a bit defeatist. So, I’m going to catch the ball and get in the game. Who knows what I might learn about myself along the way?

“You can never win or lose if you don’t run the race.” ~Psychedelic Furs

Posted on by Me 4

How To Find Your Zen

One of my happy places

For the past two nights, I’ve barely won a battle with myself regarding my attendance at yoga class. Both nights, I wanted to stay home and curl up in bed and just forget it. Both nights, my husband and kids told me I should go. I’m not sure if their wanting me to go relates directly to the apparently witchy behavior Facebook keeps accusing me of or if they’re simply acknowledging my stress level and hoping I will find some peace. If I had to guess, though, I’d say it’s probably 90/10 in favor of the first option. When I’m overwhelmed, I’m not the easiest person to be around.

I love yoga. I don’t love it enough to want to become an instructor or anything, but I do love that for an entire hour I can turn off the incessant monkey chatter that goes on inside my skull and focus on just one thing…tying myself into a pretzel. I try to practice during the day when my boys are at school because I like to spend the evenings with them, but this week has been crazy busy and I haven’t been able to get there. Getting to class at night is difficult for me, but I’ve made it and I’m grateful to myself for doing the hard work to get there.

Yoga is not simply about exercise for me. It’s a transformational event. It’s about giving myself the space to be exactly who I am in this moment rather than who I want to be or, worse, who I think I should be. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. While I try to schedule numerous appointments for my boys with psychologists for testing and evaluation and while I continue to receive and fill out packet after packet of information, I’ve been feeling myself slip away. Sometimes it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day to carve out time to be the person I am rather than the person I need to be for someone else. Yoga offers me that space.

Last night, our beautiful instructor, Sybil, asked us to reflect on how often we think too much about the future or reflect too long on the past. Indeed, I am guilty of such sins. Then, she gently reminded us that the only thing that matters is now. What can I fix about this moment became the mantra for class. I’ve been turning that thought over and over in my head since last night. Yes. I have a lot to do to figure out how to help out our boys. I have stacks of paperwork to fill out, bunches of phone calls to make, and a 400-page book on dyslexia that I need to read judging me from its spot on my nightstand. I may get through it all. I may not. I don’t know. But, if I take my head out of what might happen for us in the future (how will the testing go, will we need to put the boys in a special school, will we need to move, what is the best place for them), the present seems a lot less complicated.

I do it to myself, I know. I think too much about things I cannot control, things I might not even be given the chance to live through. All I have is this moment and all I can do is my best right now. So, I’m going to relax a bit, set a list of priorities, and knock them down one at a time in the moment until the decision about what is right for our boys and our family becomes apparent.

Tonight I’m grateful for the reminder that the only thing I need to concern myself with is this moment. I can take care of all the other stuff when the next moment arrives. No need to rush from the now. The future will be the present soon enough.

 

Posted on by Me 4

Facebook Knows Me Too Well

Yep. There’s witchy old me again.

A while back I wrote a blog about fate, coincidence, and signs. My premise was that life presents you with signs that attempt to nudge you in the direction you’re supposed to be heading in this life. If you’re paying attention and are self-aware, you will notice the signs the first time they present themselves to you. If you’re not, the signs will keep appearing over and over until you take notice and then hopefully hop aboard the clue bus and go forward. I still believe this to be true. In light of this belief, however, I’ve been struggling with something that keeps happening in my life.

Just before Halloween and in honor of that spooky holiday, I changed my Facebook profile photo to a shot of me in a witch costume I wore to pick up my boys from school last year on October 31st. It seemed appropriate to deck myself out on Facebook for one of my favorite holidays. I thought it was kind of a cute idea. On November 1st, I promptly removed the photo of witchy me and replaced it with a photo of me from our trip to Moab last spring. For the past two weeks, though, that photo of witchy me keeps reappearing randomly as my Facebook profile photo without my changing it. It’s happened both on my iPhone Facebook app and on my Facebook page on my MacBook. Now, I’m sure this is nothing sinister, but it’s starting to get a little weird.

When I see that witchy photo, I go in and change it back. Simple enough, right? No need to freak out about it. It’s probably just some sort of mix-up with the cookies from the Facebook app, right? It’s definitely not some type of sign. If it were, what would it be a sign of? I should do some serious research into Wicca because perhaps that is my calling? I should wear black more often? Hats really work for me? Tonight, I told my hubby about it.

“You know that photo of me that I put up for Halloween?” I asked.

“The one of you in the witch costume?” he replied.

“Yep. That one. Remember how I told you a week or so ago that it was back?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I changed it then and today it’s back again,” I said. “Do you suppose someone is trying to tell me something?”

This is when he began laughing.

“What are you laughing at? This is not funny,” I said, right before I started laughing too.

“I don’t think the universe is trying to tell you that you’re a witch,” he said and gave me a hug. “But, it is a pretty big coincidence,” he added in that quiet sort of way that’s meant to be an underhanded remark. Then he started laughing again.

“Fine. Side with the universe. And Facebook,” I said as I changed the photo back to the one of me in Moab on one of my happiest days ever.

Now, I don’t really believe the universe is trying to send me a message with the repeated appearance of that witchy photo, but it does kind of bother me a bit that Facebook seems to know me a bit better than I think it should. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Me 9

My Boys: Like The X-Men Only Not

I asked them to create their own X-Men/superhero character. This is what I got. Monkey-cat man and a pants-less king/robber dude. I’m at a loss. 

After school today, I had to stop to talk to Luke’s teacher about some accommodations we need to get in place for him for his schoolwork while we begin his tutoring for dyslexia. On the way home after my conversation, the boys and I were talking about how much they dislike having people know that they’re struggling. They don’t want to feel different than their classmates and they don’t want their classmates looking at them differently. Luke hadn’t even wanted me to talk to his teacher, but I convinced him that she needed to understand his difficulties so she could help him. Even at that, he was insistent that we find a way to help him in which no one in his class need ever find out about his dyslexia. Since I just last night wrote about the boys and how grateful I am that their struggles are occurring earlier in their lives rather than later, I thought I would take the opportunity to reinforce my thoughts on the subject by talking to them about it.

“You need to step back and look at the bigger picture on this, Luke. You’re having some difficulties on the front end, but these things you’re going through will just make you stronger in the long run.”

“I just don’t want any of my classmates to know I’m different,” he replied.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m afraid they’ll think I’m weird,” he said.

“They already think you’re weird,” I added.

“I don’t want this to make me unpopular,” Luke continued, unabated in his concern for his reputation as class clown.

Unpopular? Seriously? The kid is 9 years old. Is he already planning on being Homecoming King?

“Seriously, Luke?” Joe asked. “Everyone loves you because you’re so cute and funny. I don’t think they’ll stop liking you because you can’t read. I told my classmates about my ADHD and they don’t even get what it is. I don’t think your classmates will care.”

“I don’t want them to know,” Luke insisted.

“Luke, sweetie, you’re looking at this all wrong,” I tried again. “All these struggles you’re having now are going to help you later in life. You’re going to be able to face anything because you’ve had to be so brave and dedicated through all this. Dyslexia is not a problem. It’s a gift.”

“It’s not a gift,” he whined. “It’s a curse.”

It got quiet while I tried to figure out how to convince Luke that his embarrassment now at not being able to read as well as the other kids is actually a good thing for him. Then, out of nowhere, Joe piped up.

“Luke…it’s like the X-Men. They have powers and abilities that other people don’t have. They want to keep them a secret because they feel like freaks. Some of them think their powers are a curse. But, they’re not. Their powers make them special. They’re different and it’s not bad. They can use their special abilities to do all kinds of things.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “What Joe said.”

Okay. Okay. So, my boys aren’t exactly the X-Men. I mean, they’re not telepathic, they can’t shoot people with a high-powered optic lasers, and they’re not exactly conjuring up storms to smash their enemies. On the flip side, though, they are special in their own right. They may wish now that they were just “normal” like other people. But, I hold out hope that someday they’ll see that the challenges of being different have been a gift and not a curse. Maybe someday they’ll be proud of their own accomplishments and maybe they’ll even think they’re cool, even if they don’t have retractable, razor-sharp claws like Wolverine.

 

 

Posted on by Me 4

What To Expect Is The Unexpected

My most unexpected expected things

A week ago tonight, my husband and I were not in a good place. We were grappling with the knowledge that our youngest son (our easy one) might be severely dyslexic and in need of a lot of help. We couldn’t decide which news was worse…the fact that he was dyslexic and would struggle with language, writing, spelling, and reading his entire life or that perhaps the best thing we could do to help him in the long run was to move him to a “special” school that caters to children with learning disabilities. The whole thing stunk worse than a dead mouse in a car’s heating duct.

When you find out you’re pregnant, you run out and get a copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting because you want to know what you’re in for. You’re excited about what the future has in store. Last Monday night, after we’d received the less than positive news from the dyslexia specialist, we took the boys out to fulfill a promise we’d made a couple days earlier. We went to Target to buy more Skylanders because, well, why not? While browsing around in Target, I saw a copy of that ubiquitous pregnancy bible. I suddenly hated that book. I stared at it with contempt.

“That book is worthless,” I told Steve.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it doesn’t matter what happens when you’re pregnant. When you’re pregnant, you believe everything is going to be perfect. You’re going to have the delivery of your dreams where everything will go exactly as planned. Your child is going to be born healthy. He’s going to be strong and flawless enough that he can do all the things you hope he will do. He will speak two languages by age 5. He will make the winning catch in the baseball game. He’ll take calculus in 10th grade because he’s just that smart. He’ll get accepted to five, Ivy League colleges and give the commencement address to his high school class as valedictorian. When you’re pregnant, you can see no other outcome. What they need is a book called What To Expect Is The Unexpected,” I said quite bitterly. I was in a very bad place.

The past week of my life was far longer than I wanted it to be. Last Wednesday night I remember looking at Steve and asking him how it could ONLY be Wednesday. Hadn’t we lived a lifetime since Monday? I wasn’t sure how I would make it to the weekend. But, I did. And with each passing day and with each little bit of additional information about dyslexia, we began to feel better. What had looked so bleak was beginning to look palatable. On Saturday after we saw the James Redford film, The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia, we understood that dyslexia is no longer the brick wall that it once was. There are programs that can help a dyslexics greatly. And, we’re in the position to help our son. No matter what he needs, we’ll be able to make it work. They say knowledge is power and they are right. The more we learn, the more we recognize that this diagnosis does not equal doom. Luke’s already on the road to getting the help he needs. With some hard work and a little perseverance, Luke will still be able to do a keg stand at college someday. And, unlike most parents, we’ll be proud because he worked hard and made it there on his own.

When my boys struggle, and they do it a lot, I remind them that every single hardship they are enduring while they’re young will only make them stronger and more resilient as they get older. I tell them that the kids that have it easy now one day won’t have it so easy and, for those kids who’ve never had to fight to overcome an obstacle, life will seem suddenly, incredibly, and insurmountably difficult. For my boys, though, and for all kids who have to put in longer hours, life’s hardships will just be another day at work. My boys may have it rough on the front end but once they get through these challenges, they will know they can tackle anything. And, although it does not seem like it to them now, that experience is a gift.

Twelve years ago I was expecting my first child. I had the book. I thought I was ready to go. What I realize now is that even with the book, I had no clue. What I thought I wanted for my sons was the wrong thing. The universe corrected me and, as hard as I took it sometimes, it was absolutely the right thing. Life is not for sissies. And if there’s one thing I know now about my boys for certain it’s that they’re not sissies.

Posted on by Me