I haven’t posted anything about Maddie’s death because….well, what the hell is anyone to say? There are no words to adequately express the sorrow we all feel for Heather and her family. I could stretch and grope and hope to find a way to say what needs to said, but honestly, something about doing that on my blog just doesn’t sit right with me.
And you know what? That’s okay. You don’t have to have words to hold the family in your heart.
Silent acts of love and kindness are no less powerful.
Today, at 2:30 PST, Heather and Mike will hold the funeral for their daughter. They’ve asked in lieu of flowers to donate to the March of Dimes in Maddie’s honor instead. And that today, the day of her funeral, that people wear Maddie’s favorite color, purple.
No words are needed to hold them in your heart today.
Have you heard about our new President? His name is Obama and apparently this is some kind of a historic moment for our country; one that will change history and supposedly unite our country once again.
I have just one question, though.
How in the hell do we expect one man to unite an entire nation when we can’t even unite with our own families?
Because, really? If you read the comments, there’s some serious non-united family crap going on.
There were many opinions (which I did ask for and you were kind, so thank you!) that I stay out of the in-law business and let Wally handle it. I have just one thing to say to that.
Boo!
People, it’s obvious I am all up Wally’s ass with this reunited-and-it-feels-so-good family mantra for the GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY! I’m making Obama’s job easier for him.
Right here? Right at this point in the story I started writing two weeks ago but didn’t finish? This is where my moral high horse bucks me off and I come *this close* to a landing face first in pile of bullshit.
I thought I was wrong, oh so wrong, to believe things could be different. I thought I would have to revert to using the word “ass-laws” again. But that’s putting it politely. I really thought things that included words like ‘motherfucking assholes’ and other curse words that start with a ‘c,’ which I won’t utter here.
What? As few as they are, I actually have some writing standards on my blog.
To make a long story as short as I can, I’ll forgo creative writing and tell it like it is:
Parker’s birthday is the week following Thanksgiving. Since our entire family, Wally’s sister included, would be gathered in the same town during Thanksgiving, we plan to have his birthday party while there. It would be the first opportunity my sister-in-law has ever had to attend one of her nephew’s birthdays.
My sister-in-law announced she would be too tired to attend. I love how these people predict the future, don’t you? They know an entire two weeks ahead how they are going to feel on a certain day. It’s amazing!
My father-in-law announced he didn’t want to attend. I don’t remember the reason except that it was total bullshit and I’m pretty sure it involved not wanting to be around my family. Because all my family has ever done to them is accept and love their son.
My mother-in-law actually wanted to come.
Wally and I are ever resourceful, so we worked around FIL’s excuses and asked to have Parker’s party out on their land, which has a stocked pond. We made the party a wienie roast/bonfire party. The boys love to spend time out on the pond and Parker was excited to have his party there.
Father-in-law says yes, we can do that, so we proceed with plans.
But then, a week later? He tells Wally we can’t have the party there. Again, there were bullshit reasons such as they didn’t do parties like this for Wally and his sister and being too tired from cleaning house. Again with the future predictions. It’s amazing! Clearly my in-laws are not familiar with the current over-the-top birthday parties of my generation and can’t appreciate how very toned down and simple this party is.
When Wally says, “Fine, we’ll move it to Heather’s sister’s house,” there is immediate balking on FIL’s part. Something about a road they won’t go down. I’m not really sure BECAUSE ALL I HEARD IN MY HEAD WERE MORE COLORFUL CURSE WORD COLLECTIONS!
I wanted to shoot my moral high horse in the head I was that angry. How dare these *insert colorful curse word collection here* treat not just Wally, but our son this way. HOW DARE THEY! WHAT KIND OF *more colorful curse word* GRANDPARENT DOESN’T WANT TO GO TO THEIR GRANDCHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY?
And worse? I thought I’d been a naive fool to believe it could be different. I thought this is the end of the relationship. Mostly, I thought that because that’s what Wally said over and over after that phone call.
Dear reader, this is where I was sorely tempted to follow the advice some of you gave. This is where I was ready to relinquish the idea that we could somehow mend this rift, and the spend the rest of my days resenting these people.
If I stacked up the reasons, I’d be well justified to do just that.
The only problem is that I actually do have a conscience and it’s name is Susan.
Susan frequently brings up the Paradoxical Commandments to me. (see her comment) Something about those commandments ring true, as least as true as things can get when you study quantum physics as part of your religion.
I reread those commandments, and then I did the exact opposite of what so many people tell me to do.
I stuck my nose right into the big pile of bullshit.
I called my mother-in-law.
It was the saddest yet most enlightening conversation I’ve had with her.
A relationship to me was supposed to be about adventure, having fun, sharing. He saw his primary role as breadwinner and occasional participant in the periphery of our family life. I would fill the weekends with people and parties, hoping to ignite his spirit, but often such occasions made him retreat all the more. When I would try to pry him out of his shell, his retort would be “When will you ever be satisfied with what is? If it’s excitement you want, then go get it!”
So I did, promptly developing a crush on a married man — running away from the intensity of those feelings to a writer’s conference in Maine, returning with new contacts to energize my career, signing up book projects, thus burying my personal needs in the glamour of the writing profession. Although each escapade offered momentary titillation, all of them failed to bring me what I craved — intimacy and relatedness. A Year by the Sea, pg 5
I wonder if this is the draw of blogging; a sense of intimacy and relatedness. Is this the drug-like fix I can’t seem to do without? I can’t go two weeks without reading one blog or another talking of or defending what is called the community of blogging. Should “community” be replaced with intimacy?
What am I finding here in a computer screen of all places that I can’t find in real life? Good grief, I say things on here that I wouldn’t tell my own mother, yet I tell it to strangers.
Is that crazy?
For me, blogging started out as something just for fun, somewhere to tell funny stories and make myself laugh, along with whoever else stumbled across it. Then I realized the therapeutic outlet blogging can be.
I can say almost anything and pretty much be validated and supported. People who read this blog know more about my triumphs and fears for Payton than my parents or sister. Stranger still, I want to keep it that way. I don’t want my family to know about this blog, which makes me question how often I feel judged by them instead of supported.
What does it mean to be related to them when it seems as the years go by, there is less and less relatedness? Yet, here in the computer, I can find relatedness. In a place that doesn’t really exist.
It does seem as if developing this kind of intimacy through a computer screen is insane, doesn’t it? Especially when real-life relationships are stale or floundering. (For the record, I don’t mean just my married relationship either.)
Insane it or not, there it is.
Why is it like this?
Do I turn to this type of writing because, like the author of A Year by the Sea, real life has failed to bring me what I craved and this writing is a way to discover those cravings so I can be fulfilled?
Or has this mode of writing become a crutch? A way to examine life without really examining it. After all, real life is nothing more than what I make it. It can be easy to hide behind words, to write and read about things yet not really live them.
Suddenly, my mind recalls a recent but forgotten conversation with Payton who, though only seven, continues to show wisdom beyond his years and is more my teacher than I am his.
He has completely rejected books and all reading this summer. Even though I’ve tried to gently encourage him to read, he’s turned me down every time. This includes books on Payton’s favorite subject.
As we were driving by the library one day, I asked if he’d like to stop and get some books on fishes so he could learn something new.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I want to learn with my hands, not with books,” he answered.
In my own wisdom, I know there is a balance between both. Reading, books or blogs or whatever, does open up entirely new and unlimited worlds. Yet there is a point where you have to learn with your hands too.
Somehow I’m struggling to find and keep that balance.
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans blogging. John Lennon
In the not so distant past, I wrote about the ambivalence I felt towards blogging. Nothing has changed since, though here I still am. I still feel ambivalent and I’m not sure why I keep doing this or why I don’t stop. Somehow something draws me back and I don’t understand why.
We mommy bloggers repeatedly speak of the community we build in the blogosphere. Is that what it is for me? It’s here. It’s wonderful. Who doesn’t appreciate support and validation as we’re bumbling along in life?
Yet….
Yesterday on a school field trip, I did a bit of mommy watching. It wasn’t a conscious act, but I did find myself observing the other moms who went on the trip. While watching, I saw one mom calling another on her cell because she wasn’t on the bus and got lost. She called this mom on the bus and she made arrangements for her child until she got there.
I was struck by the simple fact that they had each other’s cell numbers. Over the course of this school year, they’d developed a relationship to the point of swapping phone numbers and they didn’t know each other before this year. I’ve known this mom for two years now and haven’t developed that.
These moms, and there were others, knew each other’s first names. Our kids have all been classmates for an entire school year now and I only knew that one mom’s first name. And I only knew it because our kids had the same teacher last year and she was the room mom then.
Where have I been while these people are making connections? Real life connections.
I’m sure that there is about to be a buzz in the mommy blogosphere of the recent Today Show interviews. I read about it, along with how to be a popular blogger, how to maximize readers, the networking, the twitter, the business of mommyblogging, how to make corporations respect me, and all those type posts that seem to be circulating in recent weeks.
On the one hand I get caught up in the power of my voice, little as it is in blogging. I take a toke off of this mommy blogging pipe. I love the power of women and wow! we moms are giving voice to things on a level never before seen. Woohoo!
But then I think, exactly what am I using my voice for? And why?
When all is said and done, will it matter if I can say….Look! I had 3000 readers a day on my blog!
Hey Wally! My marriage post may break 50 comments. That’ll be a first for me! Make sure they put that in my eulogy!
Ohhh, Johnson & Johnson sent me on a Camp Baby trip! OR! So-and-So PR contacts me via personalized email instead of a form letter and are wanting me to use their product because I am the power of consumerism! They took me seriously and read my blog, getting to know the real me before asking me to review their product or go on their all-expense paid trip. Raaahhhhh!
Or more to the point for my own blog, does it matter that none of this has happened for me?
Is this the measure I want for myself? The going-ons in a 17 inch screen?
Not to say blogging shouldn’t or can’t have a place in life. Good lord, I’m not saying that because I have one and I enjoy it. To an extent.
But I still wonder about it.
Let’s just pretend for a moment that I did become famous overnight.
Guffaw
Now, I know it’s a stretch to even pretend it, but let’s say Somebody Important from Important Business Company discovered my blog and thought I was the best thing since the iPhone. Let’s say I instantly became an author with a book deal because of my blog and I wrote some book based on the Queen of Shake Shake, which is nothing more than me blathering about my life and I still can’t figure out why anyone reads it. Because I write about meaningless crap.
The only thing I might see purposeful in it would be my story of raising an atypical child while skirting the world of autism when it’s all the buzz. I started a second blog to write specifically about the ups and downs of that journey because it is important to me. But I rarely post there because I’m writing crap over here and there are only so many hours in a day.
Wha? What is this? Am I too full of crap to do things that have a deeper meaning for me?
Or forget a book. Just say my blog took off, crap stories and all, and I did get enough readers a day to pay my mortgage, not sweat gas or grocery prices, and I could reestablish my shoe fetish.
And then what????
What would that mean for my life beyond finances and ego?
Well, there would be the free trips. I’m not so self-actualized that I’d turn that down. That’s a definite perk.
But beyond that? How am I measuring success for myself?
Though the meaningless crap I write may not portray it, I want to do something to make a difference in other peoples’ lives. I’m like the shallow person who talks about farts but with a deep end you didn’t see coming. Watch your step!
Now that I am coming out of the fog of early motherhood, babies, and years of interrupted sleep, I have the wherewithal to consider myself as something more than a milk cow and snot wiper. I’m beginning to remember I’m a person with dreams of my own. Though my career goals changed as I grew, I always gravitated towards fields that would serve others.
In which I got 16 comments. But when I talk about allowances, I get 47 comments?
I actually did follow through with my intentions to conduct interviews, three of them to be exact. What I didn’t expect is the turn it would take.
This turned into such a healing experience from me. As I met with teachers and the principal, I began to interact with them in real life; face-to-face, smile-to-smile, even tear-to-tear. (a story for another time) The principal shared with me part of his life story as a parent raising a special needs child, something I never knew about him.
As we shared our stories, our ideas, and our hopes for the future of children, something new was born out of it. The principal, this person I once viewed as an enemy I had to overcome for my son, he and I are putting together something for our school that will touch the lives of children on a daily basis.
And I feel a purpose larger than just myself again.
(At least deeper than flatulence, though depending on the time of month, that’s has a vastness in itself.)
I realize had it not been for this blog, who knows if I would have went down this pretend Katie Couric path, which turned into a whole new path of possibilities. That may be the power this blog has for me.
But I still wonder at the numbers, trips, traffic, products, networking, promoting, building, branding, etc…all of those things happening in this 17″ screen that are getting so much emphasis of late. I feel the weight of it all, something close to peer pressure, and it’s difficult to not get caught up in it.
There have been times when I feel like I’ve had to literally suck myself out of this screen, and when I turn around and look out my french doors, the world out there seems unreal.
It’s as if I forgot there is even another world out there full of people and connections and purpose.
Yesterday afternoon I learned a friend of ours died in a hiking accident during spring break last week. His 5 year old son fell off of a 40′ waterfall and he jumped in after him, as any parent would. The son survived, but he didn’t.
He was just 37.
The wife and I met during preschool, both of our oldest sons being in the same class. Our youngest sons were the same age too. We got to know one another and hung out together, having dinner at each other’s house and getting the boys together to play.
Like many friendships though, once the boys finished preschool, we went to separate schools and lost that daily interaction with each other and drifted apart.
Last night Wally and I went to the visitation. While standing in the long line waiting to see my friend, I noticed an advertisement poster for some mausoleum company. It showed pictures of grand and marvelous tombs.
“The Ultimate Celebration of a Well-Lived Life” is what the slogan said.
Are they kidding? Really? Is that company for real?
It isn’t the overflowing parking lot of people. It isn’t the 45 minute line of people there to console his wife and family. Or his three children. Or his life’s work that touched many lives.
It’s the type of tomb you are interred in that states a well-lived life.
I see.
I felt the urge to take that poster and find the nearest appropriate place for it…a dumpster.
Sometimes it does take a larger perspective to realize your own small world…your little life….is all that does matter.
With the diagnosis of childhood developmental disorders rising every year and the focus the media has put on certain disorders, it sometimes seems as if we want to evaluate every kid who has a strong quirky personality. I myself have experienced this pressure to evaluate my quirky son.
While I agree that testing and diagnosing children has its place, I am concerned over the rise in numbers and how the net continues to be cast wider and wider. To diagnose these “quirky” kids unnecessarily is not only a disservice to those children, but also to the children who truly are in need of special services by depleting resources in a program that is already underfunded.
But what can we do for these different drumming kids? How do we help them not only survive through school, but also thrive? How do we work with the system?
Somehow we’ve been able to do that with our son, but if someone were to ask me how we’re making it work now, I don’t know that I’d be able to answer the question. I know what I’ve done on my end as a mom to make it work, but what about out in the “real” world?
I’ve been asking myself…what had to come together to help Payton be functional and successful at school without a diagnosis, IEP, and special services?
Well, I don’t know exactly, but I’m going to find out.
Now that Swearyn is gone, I’m embarking on a writing project I’ve wanted to start for a couple of months now.
Instead of embodying Erin Brockovitch, I’m going to try to channel Katie Couric.
We hear enough of what is wrong with the kids and what is wrong with the schools. Understanding all sides of an issue, even the negative side, is necessary. Yet railing against what is wrong will only take us so far.
It’s time for the pendulum to swing in a new direction.
I’d like to know more about what is right between the two. What can we do right to successfully bring together quirky kids and schools without having one be right or wrong over the other?
I’ve started the process of setting up interviews at Payton’s school. I want to put together more pieces of the puzzle of how we are making this work. I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to go, but hopefully I’ll get a good bit of cooperation, gain some insight and will be able to share it with others.
What I need from you is your questions. If you could pick the school’s brain on quirky kids, what would you want to find out from them?
I’ll share a couple of questions out of the ones I’ve written down so far…
What type of teacher does it take? I know beyond a doubt that if Payton were to have certain other teachers at his school, he would not stay on this side of the functional line. How do we achieve a good student-teacher match?
What type of principal does it take? Some are better than others. What qualities should we look for in the administrators? What tone should he/she set for the school?
What makes a good parent-school relationship? I’ve experienced the hell of communication breakdown. But how do we let the school do its job without being over-bearing, yet still offering insight into our child?
Should a child come in to K5 with a diagnosis, or is it better (in milder cases) to wait until the child has started kindergarten? (touching on self-fulfilling labels vs. a teacher with a more open mind)
My first interview is this week. I’d love to hear your stories, opinions, and questions. Your challenges, struggles, and experiences with schools. Whatever you think would be relevant to the topic. If it is something you don’t feel comfortable putting in the comments, feel free to email me at mama2mypps@gmail.com
Today we’re going to talk more about the Theory of Relativity.
Ready?
Here we go…
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Are you moved by the deepness of your understanding?
Yeah, me either.
I admit I don’t *quite* understand the Theory of Relativity, but neither do most physicists, so I’m not alone. After reading all 551 pages of the latest Einstein biography, the only understanding of the theory I gained was this:
Newton believed time was absolute and independent of any observations of it. Time was real.
Einstein believed there is no absolute time and time is relative to observation. Two events may appear to be simultaneous, but there is no way to prove they actually occur at the same time.
And that’s as deep as I get.
There are people smarter than me out there (No really. It’s true) who are attempting, even as I type, to determine if time is relative or not. Is it Newton or Einstein? Personally, I’m siding with Einstein. I myself have had direct experience of time being relative to observation.
I’m going to take you back to early spring of 2004.
(See, the relativity of time is already beginning…)
At the time, Payton was 3 and Parker was just a couple of months over 1. Parker was barely walking and Payton, well, Payton was three, which meant we were smack in his uncontrollable years.
This particular day of our story was one of those beautiful, warm spring days we have here in the South. It was time for short sleeve shirts, cloudless blue skies, and picnics. I decided that day to take the boys to the local park to play.
This one park had just completed a new area of playground and it was all the buzz with the moms. It was bigger and better than the old playground and we had yet to check it out, so off we go to check out the new digs.
We arrived at the park and, of course, it’s crowded with all of the other moms and kids taking advantage of the new warm weather. Not only was it crowded, but this section of playground was very, um, spread out, which meant no easy trip to the park for me! No sitting on my duff while keeping an eye on the little ones.
Oh no, I had a wild child. This new park arrangement meant I had to be right there, following to each and every section.
Oh well. That’s what moms have to do sometimes.
So I followed, no, more like chased Payton around the park while lugging Parker to and from each section of the playground. We played and had a good time, but eventually it was close to lunch and nap time and we needed to wrap it up.
Like the good follow-outside-advice mommy that I was at the time, I gave Payton the “five-minute warning” I read about in Raising Your Spirited Child. According to the author, it was a good idea to give your child time to adjust to the idea of transition that was about to occur. Doing so would head off tantrums.
Uh huh.
Of course Payton didn’t want to hear anything about leaving. He was three and he was having fun. Who cares if his little brother was hungry and needing a nap! Aaaaaarrrrrhhhhhh!
By now we were playing at the wooden fort/slide combo. It was a good-sized fort/slide combo with lots of little cubbyholes underneath to explore, rock walls to climb, poles to slide down. Payton was playing on the slide, running back to slide again and again. Meanwhile, I stood right by the slide keeping Parker by my feet beside the slide, making sure he didn’t eat the sand. Payton came up to slide again and I said…
“This is the last slide Payton. Then we’re going home for lunch.”
Not surprised in the least, Payton objected. He came down the slide anyway, but this time, he ran around the opposite side of the fort. I sighed. This was just like something he would do so he could slide one more time. I scooped up Parker and walked around the slide to get Payton.
Only I didn’t see him.
I looked around, thinking he ran to the back of the fort so he could climb up and go down the slide again. I thought he must have been smokin’ to run that fast and back up the fort before I could see him. I scanned the top of the fort, looking for his green shirt.
I still didn’t see him.
Well, he’s probably hiding in those cubbyholes under the fort, the little turd.
I looked under and around the fort, walking around both sides, and still can’t find him. I quickly scanned the top of the fort again, thinking maybe I missed him the first time.
I still couldn’t find him.
I started to feel the edge of panic creeping into my gut. I made myself slow down and I took a thorough look in and around the fort because he had to be in there somewhere. He couldn’t have gotten away that fast.
Still no Payton.
I turned and saw a kindly-looking grandmother sitting on the bench right where Payton would have gone by.
“Did you see a little boy in a green shirt run by?” I asked her.
She said no, then turned her back on me.
Okkkaaaaaay, lady. Thanks for your help.snort
I looked around again because, damn it, he couldn’t have gone far by the time I got around the slide. I started calling his name.
“Payton! Payton! You need to come out of the fort NOW!”
No answer.
I yell some more.
No answer.
So I called again, this time with the Mom Tone. You know the one…with the middle name included.
“Payton Middle Name! Come out RIGHT NOW!”
No answer and no Payton running out to me.
I started to feel panicked again. I can not find my son.
I stopped another mom around the fort and asked if she saw a little boy in a green shirt. I’m met again with a no and back-turning.
No one seemed to get that I CAN’T! FIND! MY! SON!
I looked around more, scanning the entire playground, looking for his green shirt. I began going to other sections of the playground, still calling for him.
“Payton!”
No Payton.
“Payton Middle Name!”
He usually answers my pissed off voice that I’m using now, but still he doesn’t come. I kept calling and searching.
I can’t find his green shirt any where and it began to hit me.
My child is lost.
I have no idea how many minutes I had been searching for him. It could have been 5, it could have been 10. It felt like an hour. I was to the point where time loses its meaning, where everything is in slow motion and fast-forward at the same time.
I don’t see him anywhere and I’m looking all over the playground.
The tone of my voice changed from exasperation to fear as I’m calling for Payton. My voice became shaky and frantic as I yelled his name. I noticed a group of 5 or 6 moms watching me. Finally, a mom from the group came to me and asked if she can help.
“Oh God, yes,” I answered, relieved someone was coming to my aid. “I can’t find my son. He was just on the slide and ran around the other side, By the time I got around the slide, he was gone! He’s only three and I can’t find him anywhere!”
This mom could tell I was at the edge of losing it. She placed her hand on my arm and calmly said, “We’re going to help you find him. Now what does he look like.”
So I described how he was dressed, hair color and that his name was Payton. Suddenly, there were several other moms from the group splitting up into different areas of the playground, all calling for my son.
I could do nothing at this point but walk in circles, holding Parker on my hip, whispering against his head, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” I was torn between being paralyzed with fear and the innate parental instinct to do something to keep my child safe.
I thought of calling Wally, but I could not bring myself to pull out my cell phone and tell him I have lost our son.
I keep pacing and looking, whispering to God over and over against my one year old son’s head, “Please God, Oh god, please, please, please.”
Finally, one of the moms yelled, “I think I found him!”
Oh thank you god! I started to cry with relief, only when I get over there, it isn’t Payton. It’s another little boy in a green shirt.
“That’s not him,” I said as my hope crashed with the full-body fear of my child being lost. I wanted to lose my shit and scream, but somehow I managed to hold onto myself.
The other moms have checked all of the sections of the playground and no one can find him. I stood there dumbfounded. I looked around the entire park, noticing the busy street just up the grass field. Anyone could have stopped and picked up a wandering child. The parking lot way away from the playground section; anyone could drive off with a kid.
The world suddenly seemed to be full of evil people.
For the first time, I fully appreciated just how large the world is. My child was out there in it and I didn’t know where.
Time came to a stop and I shrank into an insignificant dot in a universe. The vastness of the world and my tiny place in it almost overwhelmed me. What could I do against all those people out there, all of the places they could take my son? The world was beyond my control. Again, I had to fight down the urge to scream.
I stood there, surrounded by 4 or so other moms, and none of us can find Payton. Thoughts of calling the police entered my head. I saw all of the other people on the playground, carrying on as if nothing in the world was wrong, oblivious to the drama unfolding in mine. I couldn’t believe people could witness others searching for a lost child and sit there.
My world had stopped, so why hasn’t everyone in this busy park stopped too?
The other moms and I stood there, looking at each other, not knowing what to do next. The combination of my helplessness and their helplessness almost pulled me over the edge. I know they could tell I was struggling very hard to keep myself together.
“Maybe we should check the parking lot, just in case he got that far away,” one mom suggested.
“I’ll go with you,” said the mom who first came up to me.
So the two moms headed towards the parking lot. I started to follow them, but when I reached the edge of the playground, I stopped. I can’t leave the last place I know my son had been.
I stood there at the edge, still scanning the playground for that green shirt, still begging God to do something. The few other moms are still searching too, hoping they’ve missed him somewhere in the park. I had my back turned to the path that leads to the parking lot, and I waited and searched. The seconds were minutes, the minutes were hours.
Then I heard someone from behind me yell….
“We found him!”
I turned around and saw one of moms half-walking, half-running with Payton in her arms.
And I finally lost my shit.
I took off towards Payton, crying a torrent of tears as I ran. I grabbed Payton from her and held both of my boys as tight as I could, crying uncontrollably into their necks.
Time rushed back in, but I felt like I had aged 100 years.
After a few moments, I calmed down enough to remember to thank the other mom for finding Payton. I looked up to do just that and saw she was crying too.
“Thank you so much for finding my son,” I said, but knowing the words ‘thank you’ were completely inadequate to express the extent of my gratitude.
“I lost my son at the ballpark once,” she said. “I know what it is like.”
She was the mom who first came up to me on the playground.
Almost four years later, I still have no concept of how long Payton was missing. I guesstimate somewhere around 15 minutes, but I’m just making it up because I truly do not know.
Time is relative. If you don’t believe it, you could prove it to yourself by losing your child for 15 minutes, but I really don’t recommend it.
You always hear how it happens so fast, or the parents just turned around for a few seconds and then their child is gone. Now I know what those parents mean.
I’m grateful my story had a happy ending and I’m especially grateful for the kindness of strangers that day.
I’ll never forget the shock of seeing so many people doing nothing to help.
I’ll also never forget the mother who was first to stand up and help.
If I happen to hear a mom calling for her child, if I detect that subtle shift in the tone voice, I stop. I pause whatever it is I’m doing to watch and make sure the mom finds her child quickly. I feel that old prickle of fear again and I know what the mom is feeling. So I watch and I’m ready to be that that mom in the park.
I know the kindness of a stranger can make all of the difference.
When it comes to talking about skid mark underwear, stolen panties and hemorrhoids, I seem to know what to say.
But when it comes to expressing my heartfelt appreciation for awards, I’m stumped. I feel like I never know what to say.
Now, that’s just crazy….skid marks, easy. Appreciation, hard.
I start to think it’s further proof that I truly am only as deep as a marshmallow. You know, lots of fluff and air bubbles. I suppose that could be it but maybe, just maybe, I can be a bit deeper than that. When I read that Beth at Sense & Sensibilities finds my stories of raising Payton an encouragement for her as a parent…..I honestly am taken aback and don’t know what to say. So often I feel like I’m bumbling along, trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing raising a kid like Payton, then to realize my discoveries mean something to someone else? Well, a thank you from me seems very small when compared to how that makes me feel. But it will have to do, I suppose.
So Beth, thank you so very much for awarding me the September Perfect Post award for my post The Creative Mind Phenomenon.
While I’m at it, I also need to thank Andi from Poot & Cubby. A while back, she gave me the Nice Matters Award, and with my terrible manners, I didn’t get around to thanking her for that. It was something about putting the words ‘nice’ & ‘Heather’ together that threw me off. And it came at a time when Dr. Professor Monkey Britches was on the loose making fun of *ahem* certain people. While Dr. Professor Monkey Britches was all about the therapy of embracing Fool Power, I still felt very fake if I accepted a Nice Award at the time. (Psst…even now I feel fake accepting a nice award. ack!)
Thank you Andi! If I don’t think I’m nice, then at least I know you think I am!
And I know Jenny from Absolutely Bananas awarded me with a very special Banana’s award too and gave my blog her awesome stamp of approval. But yet again, bad manners! and I just now am thanking her for that.
Today was Payton’s first trip out into the ocean in a boat.
The ocean deep as he likes to say.
He was excited to go but in a very calm way, as if to say this is only the first of many trips I’ll be on Mom. As Mr. Brian pulls the boat up to the dock, Payton steps right into the rocking boat, as if he does this every day. We sit down behind the captain’s chair and slowly make our way out of the docks and crowded shallows, and into the ocean deep.
Then Mr. Brian opens the throttle and we lean back from the force of speeding through the water, and Payton shouts out, “Woooohoooo!”
“This is unbelievable!” he says.
It is, in so many ways.
As we spend the entire morning on the boat crabbing, fishing, netting, swimming to and from the island, I watch my son. I watch Payton walk around the boat with utter ease, see him flow with the up and down motion of the waves as if it is a part of him.
Ohhhh, to be a hermit crab. I think it would be a sweet life. You know, to stay in your own little shell where the only rules you have are the ones you make. Where you can be as different as you want to be and it isn’t different. It’s just normal because it’s your own world.
During summer vacation, I forget how different things are. How Payton breaks the mold in so many ways. When it’s just us and few select other people that we interact with, it’s easy to forget.
I’m not getting phone calls from a teacher every few days with another tale of differentness or situation she can’t manage with him. No fights over tucking in a shirttail, (not my rule, the school’s rule) or the Emmy award winning drama series of putting a curl on the loop of a damn ‘Y’.
It’s just us and golly, doesn’t everyone do things the way we do?
But then, we peek out of our shell for a while and I’m reminded no, they don’t.
I’m the one with the kid who is throwing a humongous tantrum because we are at an amusement park. A 7 year old having a hissy fit worthy of a two year old for all to hear because we took them to an amusement park. How dare we. Stopping to tell everyone as loud as he could, pointing his finger to our back as we keep walking, that we’re the worst parents in the world, that we’re stupid and mean. All because it’s an amusement park. And refusing to shut it. I try to get through his thick skull but he will not shut the fuck up, spewing every bad thought he is having about us. Until I drag his ass, kicking and screaming, into a bathroom and threaten to wash his mouth out with soap if he doesn’t stop talking ugly about me and his dad.
Then there’s Parker, quietly waiting on us as I fight down the urge to beat the tar out of his brother, and he wants to go ride some rides. His eyes light up at the sight of the swings and ferris wheel and tea cup rides. And I’m torn between one child who wants to go be an average kid and have some typical amusement park fun and another child who, for whatever reason, is overwhelmed with this place and is melting down.
What do I do? The hell if I know. I’m all fine and dandy with Payton not stuffing his emotions and expressing how he feels. I remember being little and thinking I had the worse parents ever at times. But there’s a line between venting and being downright disrespectful.
I feel like I’m constantly redrawing that line over and over while Payton laughs in my face as he erases it. Back and forth, back and forth we go.
Or how about the birthday party that we can’t stay at because, again, for whatever mysterious reason, Payton refuses, absolutely refuses to even come into the backyard. Forget that there are all of these cool carnival games that most kids would drool over and prizes galore. No, it’s in his head that he won’t and it’s stuck and there’s no going around it. He doesn’t just refuse, but screams, cries and runs when anyone but myself approaches him. Thinking back, we’ve not been able to stay for more than an hour at a party before having to leave.
God forbid I put on the crown the hostess gave me, just to be silly. You would have thought I went door-to-door delivering mail in my own birthday suit while singing The Sound of Music from his reaction. The screaming, the running into the street away from me, more screaming and tantrum throwing all because I have on a pipe cleaner crown. Have I mentioned he’s just 6 weeks shy of 7? He will not stop this second Emmy award winning display until I take the fucking crown off.
What do I do? I take the fucker off. I bend over and take it in the ass yet again because it’s obvious my child rules the roost. Oh, I could put on my stubborn britches and have a battle of wills with him. I could, in fact, be the catalyst of World War III by showing I’m the one in charge and not take it off. It’s tempting because sometimes, every now and then, I want to feel like I win one.
But I don’t. Again, I bite down and swallow my natural state of silliness because, and feel free to guess at the mysterious reason, it sends my kid over the edge. I take the fucker off.
I get tired of it, this thinking outside of the parenting box. Fuck silver linings.
I admit it. I’m stumbling as the mom who embraces the different, accepts the abnormal as the new normal and snubs her nose at labels. She’s all smoke and mirrors and lots of hot air.
I am tired of the constant challenges he throws at me, the mental masturbation of thinking of a way that will work with him, or get through to him, make some mother fucking impression on him!! And I’ve had it feeling like the world revolves around Payton and his moods and sensitivities. The countless times we’ve had to give up doing something that we want to do because Payton doesn’t want to do it, and if we do it anyway, he does his damnedest to make it hell for everyone.
I'm Heather, and I'm both politically and grammatically incorrect. This blog kicks ass because I write only the truth. And the truth is always funnier than fiction.
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