All yell’s breaking loose

photo credit: showmeone

Three weeks left.  Three weeks left and I feel like I am going to spontaneously combust.  Our two story house has collapsed in on itself like a black hole, sucking all the light out of my world.  Dramatic?  Maybe.  True?  Yeppers.

I’ve spent the last two months trying to entertain a 12 year old, and a 4 year old 12 year old wanna be.  Troubles abound…daily.  Maybe even minute-ly.  Is that a word?

If I wake up to hear what do you have planned today one more time, I will implode.  I’m not sure when my name became Little Miss Day Planner, apparently that memo got colored on, or made into a paper airplane because it sure as heck didn’t find it’s way next to my morning cup of coffee or my evening glass of sanity.

There’s the pool, but when it’s 105 degrees outside and the pool feels more like a bath without bubbles, it looses it’s appeal.  I enjoy solitary, not communal bath times.  Pretty much everything else costs money – and if it’s truly “fun” it costs lots of money.

When I was a kid – oh God, did I really just say that?  When I was a kid no one entertained me.  That’s not to say my parents didn’t do things with me, but they weren’t responsible for my daily agenda.  Mostly I rode my bike and did a bit of hairbrush singing in between.

Today I reached the end of my rope – it was a jump rope so it wasn’t very long to begin with but it was a rope nonetheless.  (Okay, it’s been frayed for a long time, but that’s another post.)  Anyway, Jacob and Nick both had my remote and kept pushing all the buttons.  Nick is easier to deal with – he’s only four.  Jacob, on the other hand, won’t let up.

As a result I found myself raising my voice – something I swore I would never do.  And now I feel horrible.

I think summer has had it’s last hurrah in our house.  I think we are too together – it’s time for a break and not the summer kind.  I never thought I’d be one of “those” parents who looked forward to school.  After all, I used to homeschool Jacob.  But this summer, I’m ready for it to be over.

Today kids seem to need more.  At least mine do.  Maybe that’s my own fault.  I’m not sure.  But I do know that right now I’m thinking “the most wonderful time of the year” comes way before Christmas.

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He’s Not Broken

Me and my inspiration

Hello everyone. My name is Michelle and I’m addicted to trying to fix my son.

It’s been nearly 6 years since my son’s diagnosis with Tourette’s Syndrome. Five of those years I spent moving through a series of emotions that I now realize are very much like the 12 step program that groups like AA rely on. I realize now that I had an addiction that took me years to overcome.

Even before Jacob was diagnosed with TS, thanks to the powerful and sometimes destructive voice of the internet, I knew. I knew that Jacob was behaving in a way that fit the criteria for Tourette’s. I knew but I wouldn’t let myself believe it. I figured if I believed it then I was sealing his fate and condemning him to a life of never fitting in and being bullied, a life plagued with low self-esteem. I spent hours online searching and searching for something that would justify my denial. I was exhausted emotionally and mentally from spending so much energy on fixing Jacob.

When Jacob was diagnosed I went into immediate panic mode. Did I give this to him? Was it my fault?  What did I do wrong?  I hated myself for the future I had given him. With this thoughts reeling through my mind, I began to slowly disappear into my son’s TS, and it consumed my every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moment.  I searched for answers, cures, solutions – anything to take this away from him.  Anything to fix him.

We tried vitamin therapy and behavior management.  But nothing changed. Jacob still made funny noises. He still moved his body in odd ways. He still fit the criteria for Tourettes.

I became furious.  Furious at myself.  Furious at God.  Furious at parents who had kids who didn’t have Tourette’s. My anxiety fed Jacob’s anxiety and many days were spent in a very dark place within myself.  My anger and resentment were stealing my life with my son.  I was mad at the world and yet, still my son ticced.

I spent many nights bargaining with God.  If you take this away I will take whatever you give me.  Make me tic.  Make me suffer, but not my son.  I’d wake up hopeful, until I heard the snorting and I would crumble inside.  Another bargain denied. I begged for a miracle, and yet still my son ticced.

I began to withdraw from life.  I was so sad for my son.  But I was also sad for me, for what I had lost.  I had the child I always dreamed of, but he wasn’t the child I had expected.  And now, I lamented the son I would never have.  This made me even more depressed because certainly I was an awful mother for feeling like this.  I didn’t love my son any less at all, I just wasn’t prepared for this particular child.  I cried all the time.  And yet still my son ticced.

Then something started to happen.  I began to meet other people with similar kids.  I also met adults, successful adults with Tourette’s.  I began to accept things as they were and trust that this was the life I was meant to have.  I could continue to live in misery and defeat, or I could embrace this and make a difference.  I started really looking at Jacob and I noticed the darnedest thing.  His Tourette’s didn’t bother him.  It didn’t stop him from being a “normal” kid.  So why did it bother me?  Once I started paying attention to how life really was for Jacob and not how I perceived it to be, once I started accepting things the way they really were, my life changed and so did I.

I finally realized something that took me 5 years to learn – my son is not broken.

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Don’t Break the Ice

One of Nick’s favorite games these days is Don’t Break the Ice. I find this funny, because it’s a game I find myself playing – at least metaphorically – all day with Nicholas.

As with many toddlers facing the excitement and frustration of their ever-growing independence, Nicholas is knee-deep in this pool. And me, well, I spend a great deal of my day like the little red man from the game, skating right in the middle with hammers coming down shattering the ice all around me. I try to stay strong and hang on to that last sliver of ice praying I stay afloat until bedtime.

Today, for example, Nicholas wanted to build something with old moving boxes. Great idea, I thought. At least it will take up a nice chunk of time which is always a blessing when you are dealing with a person whose attention span is comparable to that of a goldfish. What on earth was I thinking?! In Nick’s world if he wants to do something, he expects it to be instantaneous. There was nothing instant about creating a stove from a box using an Exacto and duct tape.

Down dropped the first hammer and the ice shattered around me. I tried to convince him he was helping me, so as to involve him in the tedious process. “Hey Nick, can you hand me that (insert pretty much any object here, after all he doesn’t know I don’t really need it)?” Off he goes to get said item. He returns with a grin and a “Hee Mommy!” Here Mommy. Unfortunately he found the object too quickly and the stove isn’t ready yet. I send him on a few more useless missions and then he begins to get irritated with the game saying instead, “Mommy get.” Hammer two.

Finally, he got bored with me and the stove and went into his room. I could hear things being thrown but he didn’t seem to be angry so I left well enough alone. I did get the stove finished finally. I called Nick in to see it and asked him if he wanted to make some cookies in it. Bad idea. “Cookie, Nick, me?” I started to explain that I meant pretend cookies; I had no real cookies. Third and final hammer.

Forget the whole walking on eggshells cliche, around this house we skate on thin ice and pray constantly that Nicholas has misplaced his hammer.

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