Anything

On Monday night, Gutsy shrieked, begged and protested for a full 75 minutes over having his hair washed. After a long weekend of chocolates, day trips, rich meals and late bedtimes, he was completely out of sorts. He absolutely lost it at the thought of his hair being wet. 

This came on the heels of a 20 minute freakout in the van on the way home from the in-laws' on Saturday night because he spilled apple juice on his pyjamas. We had to pull over, take his brothers out of the van, and get him calm enough to change his clothes and switch seats. 

Yesterday, the power was knocked out at Gutsy's school during a wind storm. The stress of the hallways being dark was so heavy that he came home and burst into tears because our power was out as well and he couldn't watch t.v. Schedule off, things not as they should: panic.

Welcome to life with a child who likely has a full-blown sensory processing disorder. 

You may recall that a few months ago, Gutsy, my mom and I braved one hell of a storm to go see a Montreal psychologist who specializes in hearing impaired kids. Not too long ago, we received her final report. It was simultaneously a huge relief and a rusty knife to the heart. 

The Reader's Digest version of her findings:

1. Gutsy is quite bright, with many academic testing scores in the above-average range.

2. He is very typical - or average - in many respects, which is fantastic.

3. When processing new information, the middle gremlin scored "borderline clinical" at 7% of the average, which likely indicates a learning disability. Coupled with an extreme sense of perfectionism, this is a perfect storm for anxiety surrounding school (which, if you've been following my blog like a good little sheep, you'll know is a recurrent theme.)

4. Gutsy's more difficult behaviours are almost exclusively reserved for home, which is great for the teacher and bad for us. It either means he has more triggers at home, or that he feels more comfortable "sharing" them here.

5. Gutsy's rigidity, defiance, emotional explosions and panic attacks at home scored in the "clinical" range, meaning they are quite serious and atypical for his age.

6. As it stands, he could be mildly on the autism spectrum, he could have generalized anxiety, or he could have sensory issues - or a combination of any of these. We all feel that a sensory processing disorder is most likely, so we will have him seen by an occupational therapist as a first measure. Sensory problems are more common in children who deaf or hard-of-hearing, so this would fit.

7. The psychologist felt that there are far more questions than answers right now. She recommends further testing in a multitude of areas.

8. I'm whiny and emotional. so I felt I should add in an extra number on the list to complain about it.

The big brown envelope with all these details sat on my desk untouched for far too long. We had already spoken at length to the psychologist over the phone and had asked a great many questions, but for some reason I couldn't open the report when it came in the mail. It was a crafty little game I played with myself; I felt that if I opened the report, it would become real all of a sudden, And that nice little bubble of "if we don't name it, it doesn't exist, so let's all skip through the field and pick some fucking flowers" could stay intact. I would pick up the stupid envelope every so often. Then, losing my resolve, I'd place it back on my desk, unopened. It took me about three days to finally get up enough nerve to read it.

Then, the past few days happened, with so much sensory stuff going on that it just tore up his dad and I. This is affecting our entire family. Not only is Gutsy having a challenging time as of late, but his brothers are having to deal with less attention, more chaos and a life of walking on egg shells around their brother. It takes an emotional toll on all of us. Geekster and I get so stressed out that we can't even say a word to each other for a good while after one of Gutsy's meltdowns for risk of snapping at each other. At other times, we glance at each other just long enough to see the sadness in each others' eyes, then look away. What is there to say? Nothing we tell each other seems to make it any better. 

Needless to say, it hasn't been a great week.

And yet we all love each other so much. We all love Gutsy so much. We're trying hard to make this a peaceful, happy and safe place for our boys to grow up. Some days are better than others. I hope to see far more better days in the future.

Watching Gutsy in that kind of overwhelmed, panicked state is one of the most helpless, gut-wrenching things I have ever had to do - and if you know me and you know my life story, then you also know that this statement speaks volumes. It's tortuous to see him locked in his own head, unable to escape the place where things are too bright, too loud, too wet, too dry, too itchy, too tight. What happened to that sweet little boy that got us to this heartbreaking place? Why can't I help him? What am I doing wrong? It tugs on a mother's heartstrings like little else can.

I'm sad. Sad and worried and angry. I'm having one of those "this isn't what I signed up for" kind of weeks. And I know that's ridiculous, because as parents we sign up for whatever gets thrown at us. Nobody is guaranteed a smooth ride. Parenting is always bumpy - there are just some bumps that are bigger than others, that's all. It's my job to deal with that. I'm trying, believe me. It's just been more of a challenge to keep my emotions in check lately.

If one good thing has come out of the last few days, it's the reminder that my husband can be absolutely incredible. When Gutsy was in his bad place for those 75 minutes on Monday, Geekster took the helm and worked him through it. He sat in that loud, echo-filled bathroom, being repeatedly screamed at not two feet away by a distraught and overwhelmed child with quite possibly the loudest, most ear-piercing yell ever - and miraculously got him through that hair wash. He is an amazing father. I don't know many human beings who could have done that, and it made me fall in love with him more deeply than I already was. He is a hero to me, and Gutsy and his brothers are so lucky to have him. I am extremely fortunate to have had a family with someone who is so dedicated to his kids. I was reminded of that this week.

What will parents do in the name of their children? Absolutely anything. Anything and everything, and all the rest in between. We will never stop trying, helping, supporting, learning, empathizing, loving. We will never stop, Gutsy, because you mean the world to us. And you are perfectly you, just as you are.  

I guess I'm done for now. This isn't one of my usual cheery posts, and I apologize for that. But sometimes I need this space to vent, to cry, to just be. It helps me to write, being a writer and all. I hope that it helps somebody else who stumbles upon it, too. If that happens, then that will be another good thing to come out of this otherwise sad week. 

Penis Envy. It's a woman issue.

I sometimes struggle with inadequacy as a stay-at-home-mom, as if I'm somehow not doing enough. Never enough.

I watch my working mom friends cook, clean, do homework and all the other things I do in a day, all while balancing a career precariously on a gorgeous pair of stilettos. On top of that, they often have the financial means to do things we only dream of, like take vacations, save a reasonable amount for retirement, and not want to puke from the stress of Christmas shopping on a tight budget. I don't know how you do it, ladies, but hats off to you. You could see how, if we were comparing penises, I might feel a wee bit embarrassed by mine. From here, it looks like yours is bigger and can do more things.

But this morning, as I read a brand new blog a friend of mine started called Sprung Onto the Spectrum, I was taken back to a time when what I do today sounded not only overwhelming, but next to impossible. Her most recent post talks about how she felt when her son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS a few months ago, and how far she's come since that initial feeling of complete devastation. Reading that post gave me a quick kick in the ass. It's exactly what I needed to get out of Eeyore mode.

(You know, Eeyore mode? Where a little back raincloud follows you around as you eat thistles and talk in an emo voice about how bad things are? If you need a demonstration, come by right after one of the vehicles breaks down and we need to figure out how to pay for it. I put on a good show.)

The truth is, I'm my biggest enemy. I undervalue myself far more than I should by insisting I could always be doing more: more one-on-one parenting, more educating, more housework, more baking and cooking, more family outings, more budgeting, more writing contracts, and more coffee drinking so I can maybe jump high enough to reach the impossibly high bar I've set for myself. Then, hopefully, I'll hit my head on said bar and pass out so I can stop acting like such a douche.

The Maven can act surprisingly douchey. I suppose it helps balance out my awesome.

I have two kids with hearing loss. That involves a heck of a lot more than just slapping some hearing aids on and sending them off to school. Over the years, we've had a team of support that involves the likes of teachers, in-class aides, ENTs, audiologists, audioprostheticists (try saying that three times fast), psychologists, speech therapists and integration specialists. I end up running around the national capital region more than a call girl on government pay day.

I have one child who not only has hearing loss, but anxiety. He has massive panic attacks that manifest as meltdowns. He has additional appointments to learn the skills to deal with it, and we spend a lot of time calming him down and reassuring him that he's safe. Then, we spend more time helping the other kids understand and deal with his outbursts. It's a jolly good time.

Sometimes, I forget that we have all these extra appointments and situations and that so much of the time I think I'm supposed to have is eaten up by them. I blame human adaptability. Life since these diagnoses has become our new normal; so much so that I forget how much I do in a day to keep this family going. Like my friend, I morphed from the devastated, heartbroken, sick with worry parent into a mom who accepts and loves her kids for who they are (most of the time).

Unfortunately, I seem to have gone the extra mile and am now beating myself up for not doing more with my life. See? I'm so douchey that if they named a Disney Princess after me, they would call her Doucherella.

And I'm not the only one with this self-destructive problem. This seems to be pervasive in the mothering community as a whole. It's a rare woman who is completely confident that what she does is more than enough. The rest of us seem to wade through this mess of inadequacy and self-doubt.  Then we wonder why we eat our feelings.

Oh, wait. That's just me.

I think taking personal inventory of our lives every so often can be healthy. When we take the time to look at where we are, how far we've come, and all we've done to accomplish these things, it's rejuvenating. This morning, I was reminded that I do my fair share in this society of ours. I don't need to do more, and in fact I probably could stand to do a little less. This is true of a lot of women I know, whether they work at home or in an office, whether they have one child or five, special needs kids or not. Single, married, broke or comfortable. We all need to give ourselves a pat on the back.

In short, I think we should all pull the balled up socks out of our crotches and stop comparing.

Today, just repeat this motto: My proverbial penis is bountiful, my proverbial penis is bountiful, my proverbial penis is bountiful.

You're welcome.

My blog is a small amount better than average

I'm very slowly getting used to this juggling three kids thing. Some people just pick up the ball (or new baby) and run with it, but I'm more of a stumble-and-fall-and-nearly-drop-the-baby kind of person before I start my dash to the other side of the field. It takes me a while to catch on to new ideas and sports have never been my thing.

Around noon I showered, dressed, put on some make-up on and threw some de-frizzer in my locks before heading out the door to Intrepid's parent-teacher interview. Spawnling came with, of course, and slept the entire time because he loves being all snuggly warm in his snowsuit. When Spawnling and I were waiting outside the classroom we were bombarded with teachers who came by to say hello. I was told I look 'too beautiful to be a new mother.'

... Um, how, exactly? What makes me look great? Is it the grey hair protruding from my months-old highlight job? Or perhaps my double chin matches Spawnlings just perfectly? Teachers are loco, man. Apparently all you have to do is slap some lipstick on to look 'beautiful' or 'radiant' after a child. I'm going to write a book about it and make millions. I might even get to go on Oprah, which is every stay-at-home-mom's dream, right? I hear she has free bon-bons in the green room.

Anyway, back to the parent-teacher lovefest. The very best way to tell if your child is doing well in school prior to the meeting is to check the time slot. If it's a 15 minute time slot, you're fine. If it's 30 minutes, you have problems. Intrepid's kindergarten and grade 1 conferences were 30 minutes in length. By grade 1 I was sweating more than a middle-aged man at an Eagles concert.

Then the magic happened: Grade 2, the hearing loss diagnosis and the first full year with hearing aids. I was beyond thrilled to receive our time slot of 2:30-2:45pm. Fifteen minutes! All good news, no bad news and happy Maven walked out with a huge grin on her face. Grade 3 was more of the same.

The lovefest this time went well, too. He has the same teacher as last year and she happens to adore him. However, she used the awful g-word on three separate occasions. I don't know if my wincing was apparent, but she did talk to me about IQ tests ('I'd love to see how high he would score') and when I said I try to teach Intrepid that everyone is smart in their own way and he's no different than anyone else in that respect, she said 'But he *is* different. You do realize that, right?'

*sigh*

Yes. Yes I get that. But I also hate labels and don't want to stick any on my child. Why do that anyway? He does really well in school, is kept plenty busy by some enrichment she throws at him when he's bored (and it's in his IEP along with the hearing loss, so every teacher from here on out is legally required to provide said enrichment anyway), he has no social issues, loves school and is truly thriving in every respect. How is calling him 'gifted' going to do anything for him? I think it could hurt him at this point more than anything.

Maybe I'm overreacting a bit. Ok, I know I am. Is this at all surprising to anyone who knows me or reads my frenzied blog posts? Proabably not.

Yesterday, Jobthingy posted about cheerleaders, or more specifically, social status in school (sorry boys - not that kind of post). I was a tremendous loser all throughout school. I was smart, friendly, cute in my own right (until the mess that was puberty. Ick.), certainly wouldn't hurt a fly and had a large 'DOORMAT - PLACE FOOT HERE' tatooed across my forehead. School was a terrible place, for while I scored A's in virtually all subjects, I was teased more than the bangs of an 80's metal singer. There was no icky g-word floating through our school system at the time, but if there was I probably would have had it stamped just above my other forehead tatoo. I have no doubt social homicide would have soon followed.

I realize things have changed between then and now. Geeks are in and nobody's sharing a pair of boots with their brother so they can walk uphill both ways through ten feet of snow to get to their one room schoolhouse. Those were the days.

Still, I guess I'm of the philosphy that if something isn't broken then there's no need to fix it. Thus, there is no need to place labels on a child who's happy and doing well. I think the term itself is unecessary. Let's use 'quirky' or something. Heck, I didn't mind her and the french teacher saying 'He's a very neat kid'. I agree! Let's stick with 'neat', shall we? Nobody gets beat up or made to feel different because they're 'neat'.

Intrepid had to write out his own report card as if he were a teacher evaluating him. Here's what he put down under 'This describes me as a student':

I am Intrepid, a good student and who's work is pretty well done for a grade 4. I do all my work when I need to but sometimes I slack off or day-dream But I always learn something new at school.

I have a natural talent for writing, reading and math; my I.Q. is a small amount higher than average and I know almost any equation.

Example: (gives multiplication and answer, which is incidentally wrong).

Can you see why a label would be bad for this child? He already thinks quite highly of himself. His teacher calls it 'confidence'. That's a nice way of putting it. I like people who can turn anything into a quality.

No idea where he gets that ego from. No idea at all.