I'm a serious planner. I used to lay in bed on sleep over nights with my best friend and plan our weddings. We'd giggle and squeak and discuss our wedding dresses, what our husbands would be like, and who would be in the wedding party. She lived alone with her mother in a house that was filled with hardwood floors, antiques, and cat hair. I loved it there.
One time we had real tea out of a tiny little porcelain tea pot set complete with tiny tea cups and saucers with little baby flowers on them. Her mom gave us cinnamon sticks to stir our tea with and let us take the tea in her bedroom. We talked and talked over our tea party with her stuffed animals, and we decided that we'd be the only ones on our sides of our wedding parties. This would be a beautiful memory if it weren't smeared by the fact that I got drunk and didn't make it to her wedding. Ouch. Nice huh?
You know? Some things will never be "okay." The word forgiveness doesn't even paint the whole picture in describing what happened to our friendship after this. The relationship was severely injured. It required CPR, critical care, and eventually graduated to 'chances of good recovery with lifetime maintenance'. Yes, she forgave me. But the friendship became something different. Something new. And something deeper. I had to become a new kind of friend. Not that I'm recommending you get drunk and miss your best friend's wedding. I'm not. Not every friendship is capable of surviving such things. But, by some miracle, ours did and I'll never again be okay judging someone else for messing up. God uses what we give him I guess.
A couple of years after her wedding, she was the maid of honor at my wedding. She was, of course, the only one on my side of the wedding party. There were no bridesmaids. She was pregnant that day and didn't know it yet. We couldn't figure out why we couldn't squish her boobs into the peach colored dress (that was decided on at ten years old) that had fit her so perfectly just weeks before! Life is glorious isn't it? It is if I get my little plans out of the way and let it be.
I always knew what kind of a mother I wanted to be (another popular tea party topic) and, before I had kids, I really did have that all figured out. I'm a huge advocate of the book I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids and I highly recommend it to all struggling mothers (which is ALL mothers).
I wanted to demonstrate all the usual good mother traits. I would be present and patient and strict, but loving. I would be responsive and consistent. An example. I would teach them how to differentiate right from wrong for themselves and be true to their own hearts. I would feed them vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables. I might steam them occasionally, but mostly they'd be raw and fresh and organic. I'd bake fresh bread weekly, kiss them thousands of times each day, and shelter them as much as possible from the pain of things not going their way. I'd keep a tidy house with fresh flowers on the table and no germs biting their little knees as they crawled by. I would thrill my children, empower them, teach them how to savor each moment with every cell in their little bodies. And I would do so while staying thin, beautiful, showered, and happy at ALL times. After all, I get to stay home with them. I SHOULD be happy, right?
Alden always made me look good. "Yes, please," and "No, thank you." Even as a baby, he could be fussy as hell at home, but take him to Target and he would attract bright smiles (even from tear filled eyes). He was delightful in public and had a big, fat, happy, glowing baby presence to show the whole world. I would think, "What a good mother I must be to have such a pleasant and well behaved baby." How I looked, as a mother, used to be very important to me. If he misbehaved or treated someone badly, only the tiniest bit of discipline would be required for him the change his little ways. Even when Alden was inappropriate, it was usually innocent and never malicious in any way.
There used to be a dwarf family that lived up the street from us. They'd be out in their yard on Saturday mornings, the dad struggling to mow the grass with his giant lawn mower. One time, when Alden was about three years old, he and Shane saw the dad in line at the grocery store. Alden saw the man and looked at Shane and said, "Look Dad! It's a little guy!" The fact that the man was an adult and not a child sunk in very quickly and he tried to recover with "It's a little daddy! LOOK DAD! IT'S A LITTLE DADDY! A LITTLE DADDY! LOOOK!!! HI LITTLE DADDY!! HI!!" Shane, trying to contain himself, finished paying for the groceries and then bolted, cracking up, out the door with Alden.
It was always easy to teach Alden the basics of life. He learned easily and quickly that people are all different and he knows how incredibly important it is that we treat others well, no matter how they treat us. These concepts came so easily to him, partly because he already knew these things intuitively. To this day, he cries if he hurts some one's feelings. The hurting is more painful than the being hurt.
With Isabel, well, she made me look bad. Very, very bad. When she started banging her head on the floor, all my ideas about motherhood began drastic re-arrangement. As it progressed, every idea I had about being a good mom was slowly replaced, one by one, with thoughts of whether or not I should be a mother at all. I couldn't even keep my child safe, let alone thrill and empower her.
Isabel had seen a developmental pediatrician who had pronounced her normal so I couldn't get the slightest reaction out of the regular pediatrician regarding the status of her "normalcy." They kept telling me it was a stage and that it would be over some day. She continued to scream as loud as her tiny little lungs would let her and bang her head into things for about a year and a half. She did it everywhere. The grocery store, other peoples' houses, our house if other people came over, EVERYWHERE. We did our best to avoid public places with her altogether.
We finally moved into a house that had wall to wall carpeting (the first house we lived in here had lots and lots of very hard ceramic tile that I honestly thought she might break her skull on). At least I could keep her somewhat safe while we were at home. If I had to take her into public, however, OH MY GOD. I did not understand for the longest time that it was eye contact that sent her into the tailspin. I knew she wasn't tantruming because she wanted a toy or candy like Alden did sometimes. I simply could not understand WHY she would get so upset. It was more than humiliating. It was down right excruciating.
While Shane was still in school, we qualified for Alden to go to Head Start. He could go, but they wouldn't bus him. I had to drive him there every day and get him to his classroom and then pick him back up four hours later. The school was a ways from our house. It took me a full hour to get him to the school and back home. Then, it took me another full hour to pick him up and get us back home. It almost wasn't worth it.
The process went something like this: I'd get everyone up early and out the door, drive for twenty minutes to get to the school, hope to find a parking spot, park, get out the stroller and load Isabel and Cale into it, walk around the school from the side parking lot and in to the front doors (the school was locked up like a prison and the only way in or out was through the front door), sign in, and walk through the school to the very back right hand corner of the building to his classroom (This was the equivalent of about a block. The schools here are huge.). We did this when it was 110 degrees out (Phoenix has outside classrooms, by the way, which means that you enter the classrooms from a giant court yard in the center of the building).
Isabel would usually make it until we got into the school. Then, someone would look her in the eyes. I wouldn't know what the hell had happened but all of a sudden she'd start screaming as loud as she could, violently thrashing her body around, and slamming her head into the back of the stroller. She did this all the way back to the classroom, all the way back out of the school, through the parking lot, and half way home. Once she got upset, it took a very long time to calm her down. Then, we'd go back four hours later to pick him up and repeat the process.
Occasionally, she'd be really good for a few days and act normal. Then, she'd want to walk instead of riding in the stroller. I'd think, "Finally it's over!!" and I'd let her walk. All would be well for a few days and then something would set her off and she'd throw herself, suddenly, onto the ground and start slamming her head onto the concrete. I learned fast to ALWAYS take the stroller so that, when this happened, I could wrestle her back into it (trying to carry the baby and drag her to the car at the same time only happened once).
One time, she made it all the way into the classroom with no problems. She started playing and didn't want to leave. When I called, "let's go," she went over to the tile in the classroom and hit her head on it really hard. She underestimated just how hard it actually was and she didn't get up right away. I ran over to her and knelt down next to her. Alden's teacher ran over and knelt down next to her too. Then, the teacher slowly looked from Isabel to me with these giant, scared, brown eyes. I'll never, ever forget the look on her face. She said, "Oh my God. She hit her head so hard." I, frankly, had become desensitized to it and had forgotten how much it must shock and horrify other people.
I felt like the most horrible mother in the world. I almost started to welcome the idea of CPS showing up and taking her away. Maybe I shouldn't have her. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to have any kids. I can't even keep her safe. The sorrow and shame of this sunk so deep into my being that it hit the bottom of my toes. I just did not know what to do. Alden needed to go to school. We couldn't go anywhere or do anything fun because of his sister, so he needed to be able to go to school. But, actually getting him there was life threatening for Isabel since I only had two hands.
Sometimes (after she'd screamed all the way through the school for no reason, turning every head from here to Timbuktu), I'd lose my temper and spank her when we got to the car. Sometimes I'd scream at her all the way home. Sometimes I'd scream just for the sake of screaming. I thought I was losing my mind. I had no family here. No help. And this little demon was bringing out things in me that I really did not want to know about myself. We went through this, to take Alden to school, for the next year and a half.
Isabel was about three and a half when she stopped the head banging. I think the wall to wall carpeting just took the drama out of it. I, however, still have the trauma surface in me sometimes. Just last week, Cale's pre-school teacher called me to come pick him up from school because of a runny nose (no fever, just a runny nose). I told her I'd come get him but that she'd need to have the nurse run him out to the car because I had my daughter with me. She said she would. I knew better though. I cried all the way to the school because I knew that as soon as I got there, they'd ask me to go to his classroom and sign him out.
I called when I pulled up and sure enough, "Sorry, Ma am, you'll have to park and go to the classroom to sign him out." Something took me over completely and I said, "Listen. My daughter is autistic and out of her daily routine so her behavior is likely to be very unpredictable if I get her out of the car. You have two choices here. You can bring Cale out to the car OR you can keep him and send him home on the bus at his usual time." Wow. What a polite, yet assertive, grown up response. I've become very good at setting limits. Seeing as how I was parked in the fire lane right in front of the school, they brought him right out!
Isabel doesn't bang her head very often any more, but she does still stop in the middle of parking lots and throw herself on the ground. It doesn't matter to her if there are cars coming. It doesn't matter to her if my hands are full of grocery sacks, if I have a toddler to wrestle with, or if my thirty five year old mom bag feels like a chunk of concrete hanging from my shoulder. All she knows is that I'll find a way to pick her up again and take her home.
When I see other mothers at the store with screaming kids I want to say, "Do you need a babysitter?" I don't, of course, because I don't want to freak them out. But, I understand what it's like to need help. I also understand what it's like to have high expectations of myself as this ideal mother, only to have all that shattered by the horrified looks of others. I don't care what people think of me or my kids any more. If I have to put a leash on my five year old and get pissy with a few school nurses to keep her safe, I'll do it. I've had to become a new kind of mother. A real mother. I know more about myself today then I ever have before.
Traditional discipline doesn't work for Isabel or for our family. I've had to learn how to get creative, grow some serious patience, and learn how to say NO. When I get asked by the neighbors to take my kids to the park for a play date at a time I know my kids are exhausted, I say, "Umm. No." And I don't care if they think I'm a bad mom. And when friends say, "Do you want to come over and go swimming? You can bring your kids!" I say, "HELL NO!" I know my limits and my weaknesses. I also know my strengths. I know what will be fun for us and what won't be. I'm a good mom. It's a work in progress. I don't always teach my kids well, feed them vegetables, or keep a clean house. But, I do give them thousands of kisses every day.
