Evaluation Day

Parenting. What an adventure. Like Jeff Goldblum said of kids in Jurassic Park, anything can and does happen.  It’s D day. Doctor Day. It’s bound to be the beginning of a gauntlet of hoops both fiery and razor-wire wrapped that I’m going to have to jump through to figure out how to get the boy through school successfully.

Since second grade I’ve had the inkling that my kid lives in his head. Hell, so do I. We have great big imaginations, he and I. The real world can’t compete most days. The problem though, is that most teachers find that to be a problem. While most of them so far have agreed that he’s a brilliant and creative kid, he just has problems getting through the structured environment that is the classroom to get his work done.

A while ago, I discovered that wheat was a problem. It made him spin out. It also made me a bloated walrus of a craving carb fiend. Bad all around, so we eliminated it. That move made a huge difference for that school year. He calmed down, things were better for us both. His teacher loved him, he adored her and worked hard. There was no sign of a “meeting” about his student success. Last year, things were a little iffy. His teachers weren’t the most communicative but they assured me he was doing fine, so I took their word.

This year, however, almost from the outset, I’ve heard terms like “severe ADHD” and that he can’t focus for more than a few minutes. They’re concerned for his lack of “success as a student” and we already have a meeting planned. Back to that. It sounds like these teachers also like the boy. They find him to be sensitive and brilliant in that creative way that eludes most people, but just try to get him to sit down to finish a math worksheet when he wants to listen to the music the birds are making and the kid’s pencil next to him is obscuring the sound. He can’t sit still. He’s big on sound effects. He’s in his head. I know all of this and I both feel for him and fear for him.

While I want him to get the best out his school experience, because I loved school and learning everything I could, I don’t want him to lose himself. He’s a wonderful creative kid. I’m basically afraid that they’ll try to drug the awesome right out of my kid and that’s where my Mama Bear fight is coming up in spades. Yes, he needs to succeed. Yes, he needs to be able to balance, but yes, he also needs to be safe and be able to be himself. Somewhere there is going to be an argument I feel. I’ve already got a suit picked out for my meeting. It’s style is somewhere between Mrs. Malfoy and Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time. There will be no doubt that I’m going in there with my battle gear on to face the committee. We’re all supposed to be on the same side but it somehow feels like facing a firing squad; me against the school’s death committee.

I know that they will advise me to drug him to make their lives easier and to “help him be successful”. I don’t know if that’s the best course of action or not. It’s a lot of forward thinking I know. I’m only at stop one along the long road but I need to be ready for what’s waiting for us. The boy needs to know that I’m in his corner, wand and shield in hand, ready to fight for his well being and his right to be himself. I want him to be the best him he can be, as long as he doesn’t lose himself along the way, that’s all I can ask. We aren’t the first to be here and we won’t be the last. Time to see what step one brings us…

People. Pssshhhhht!

February’s theme in the Creative Every Day Challenge is “Hearts” and this month mine has certainly been cleaved in twain over and over again. I tried to be ok on Valentine’s Day. I wanted it to go by uneventfully, but some jackhole from my past hurt me and hurt me bad. I had a reason to be foul. Yes I did.

I had this fleeting idea that I might get back together with someone from my distant past. We discussed it, we toyed with it, and on Valentine’s Day he showed me just how much I need to not be considering that as an option. He apologized for hurting me but I was foolish to let him near my heart again and should have learned my lesson long ago. It was a glitch in the smooth passing holiday I was trying to ignore. Then, after him, slightly scuffed and shaken, DG threw me a little further down the lane of the scorned with an email that was 100% a “Piss-off” letter.

The thing is, I’d gotten over that. I made sure of it (with magical spells and all to get over the dumping he swore wasn’t a dumping…). I just missed our friendship, our conversations like I wrote the other day. I made a comment out of the blue because I have been truly upset at the zero time I’ve been allotted and all the brush offs, so he decided to write me a break up letter and it was pure and to form. You’re a lovely person but…(Dumping!). At this point in my life I need to focus. All I can offer you is friendship (which is all I wanted in the first place!). It just upset me like nothing else and I can’t tell you exactly why. Maybe it’s because he keeps repeating the rejection, as if I was too stupid to understand it the first time. As if I wasn’t aware that the brush off is a rejection every single time I say hello. It hurts every single time. He also sort of insulted me in other ways but I believe that’s because he doesn’t understand the scope of what I suffer with, but I didn’t need it nonetheless.

All I wanted was a reasonable amount of time and attention. We used to be actual close friends, check in on each other, speak regularly, joke, laugh, care, and so forth. He turned it off overnight. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what happened.  My instant gut reaction was that he never meant anything he’s ever said to me; that now, without a payoff, I’m not worth the time and trouble.

Is that what I deserve for caring about people? Well, Psssshhhht.

At any rate, despite his belief that I’m after something more, there is nothing now or ever that will induce me to let him near my heart again. Friends I hope we may remain since I’ve shared so much with him, but if this continues, I’m not sure that we will. It’s been a hurtful few days. What I’ve tried to do, instead of going back down my usual track of believing that all men are bad and uncaring, is to tell myself that this has just cleared the decks for my future. Now I’m open to meet someone who will truly value me should that opportunity present itself, though for right now, I’m just fine on my own. Two people let near the proverbial heart, two that stabbed it. Brilliant moves by me, again.

My son hits the double digits tomorrow and I’m going to use my energy to celebrate him and show him a good time. I so hope I can help mold him into a good man. These years are crucial and without a role model here, and I feel right guilty about this, I wonder how he will be. I can’t teach him to be a man, but I can show him what a woman shouldn’t put up with and what behavior makes mommy feel like an old sack of discarded tangerines so he knows what not to do to his girlfriend. A mother can hope.

Speaking of hope, I’m not ready to give up on me yet. I’m not back to bitter, just a little flustered by recent events but unlike my normal routine, I’m spinning a silver lining and seeing the open door instead of the closed window. Anyone who knows me will tell you that’s a bit of a miracle in itself.  This is a personal one and from a raw place, but some things you just need to get out. I’m hoping this will put it to bed. The deck’s cleared. I wonder what’s coming my way now? God, I hope it’s better.

Day 22: Realization

Pick a random story from your childhood.

The reason I’m picking something not so nice is because a) I tend not to remember the nice things, which is sad, and b) I managed in one fail swoop to accidentally traumatize my son yesterday. I’m not terribly good at sneaking around and he saw a truth that I wish he hadn’t. On the bright side, through his tears he managed to tell me he wouldn’t be needing therapy. I felt bad but it was only a matter of time.

As for me, I have many a traumatic story from my childhood but I’m going for the one that isn’t really that bad. It’s a similar kind of thing.

I don’t remember how old I was, but I imagine I was close to my son’s age. It was Christmas eve and my parents made me go to bed ridiculously early. It was a long time to lay there in the dark thinking.

At some point I remembered that we didn’t leave cookies out for Santa. I heard everyone downstairs playing music and whatnot so I knew Santa hadn’t come yet. I wanted to remind them all before it was too late.

I remembered running down the stairs  past my grandmother in the den who yelled at me not to go into the living room. Adjacent to the living room was the dining room and as I ran to see my grandfather sitting in his chair next to the fireplace, out of the corner of my eye I saw that my parents were hard at work putting together a tall, pink, Barbie dream house.

Instinctively I put my hands over my eyes while frantically trying to tell my grandpa that we needed to put out the cookies.  He assured me that it would be done and to go back to bed. It’s funny but I knew. I knew before I saw it but I pretended that I didn’t and let my mom walk me back up to my bedroom while they finished their stuff.

She tried to grill me on what I’d seen, but I just replied that I saw nothing and kept asking about the cookies and the fireplace. I remember feeling like it was my fault everyone was so unhappy, like my son did last night. He kept asking if it was his fault, like somehow seeing the truth was a bad thing. Did I ruin it? Is it my fault?

I know somehow that no amount of explaining will make a difference except to make sure he knows that it isn’t his fault. He didn’t ruin anything. He’s a little upset today but I’m going to make sure to be as open a possible so he knows it is always ok to seek out the truth and to not feel responsible for ruining anything by doing what he needs to do.

Nothing really changed for me on that night other than I remember it. I’d known, I just hadn’t seen. I think my son is the same. I just hope he feels ok about it eventually.