misfitmotherhood

buried in the earth.

in our back yard.

fingernails full of dirt.

pulling weeds.

digging up worms.

no time to worry.

just plant and water.

plant and grow.

*I’ll be back to the regular sporadic crazy soonish. For now, nature calls.

found today while lurking around the web. re-posting here so i don’t forget how beautiful it is.

The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

There’s a mask worn. It hugs tightly to this face.

Nothing gets in, nothing gets out.

It started as a game. It’s become survival. Each hinge tightly secure.

There are cracks beneath the surface.

Tiny, difficult to see. Yet always creaking slightly wider it might split open with a quick twist it could come easily.

The situation remains the same. It’s been for as long as the face can remember. A kind of stasis, an in between.

The cracks hold moments. They threaten every thread of the mask that holds the face until it can be something more.

It’s inevitable. He’s getting to the age when difficult questions start popping up all over the damn place. Perhaps we should be happy that the particularly uncomfortable ones have not come up yet. Although, I feel prepared for them. They were the ones I expected. I have mocked up answers for the sex questions, the where did I come from questions etc. What is lacking is answers for the ones he’s decided to start asking. The political questions… He’s like a tiny political machine this one.

What’s the military?

What’s a government?

Who rules us mommy?

What is war?

Holy crap!!! These questions just smack me upside the head and I’m left speechless. The usual sarcastic adult styled witticism begins to churn inside. However, he’s five so that’s not really appropriate to start spewing. I don’t want to shovel my political leanings onto a mind that’s just developing his own beliefs. So instead the search begins for answers that have a middle ground, answers that appear to contain just facts. The hunt continues for answers that aren’t weighted down by years of adult learning and experience.

I’m a raging liberal. Well maybe that’s not entirely true. I do believe we should be able to own guns. I have some sketchy views on prostitution, and feel that there is not a lot of moral ground to tread on when it comes to issues of drug use, but overall I lean fairly strongly to the left. I’m the leaning tower of LeftPisa propped up by a few strong pillars of right.

So answering these questions isn’t that easy. I tip toe about the issues. Attempting to answer with short sentences that are “age appropriate” whatever the hell that really means. I watch him closely to see his reaction and ask him what he thinks these things are before providing answers, most times. I’ve learned to answer questions with more questions. The goal is to not scare him or make him hate politics and government as much as I loathe it. Who knows maybe someday he might desire to change the world. I did long long ago and far far away.

My internal dialog is filled with snark though. A government is corrupt, the military is the government’s muscle, war is essentially a huge argument between people who cannot agree on things and we are ruled by people who have no idea what we really need or want. That’s what I’d like to tell him. 

Maybe someday when he’s older we can sit down over coffee, or tea, and discuss our beliefs. When he’s developed his own. Hopefully I’ll have the guts to shut up and listen to his point of view. My parents never did.

Flipping through photos on Flickr because I suddenly remembered I had an account there. So many memories all swept up together in one big digital portfolio.

It was all going along warm and squishy. Then I decided to look at my contacts for some stupid reason and there she was. Mom, still there. Her account, following me as if some ghost of her were out there in the Ethernet watching.

We are left with these sudden reminders in our digital world of the people who have died. In the past we had photos, home movies, perhaps audio recordings. We could pack them away and take them out when wanted or needed. We could leave them in the dark. Now occasionally I’m faced with a remnant of her life without warning, as if she’s still here. It’s a raw moment where I’m left emotionally torn open again. Angry, lonely and wishing that these ghosts in the machine wouldn’t persist.

More bytes more problems.

Happy New Year…

Since we last met so very much has happened. Instead of attempting to bring y’all up to date we shall just move forward as if… nothing happened. M’kay?

The kiddo is doing very very well. His inclusion program at public school is finally stepping up and with the program. We notice a difference as the new year turned over. Our little man is maturing and with that comes a greater ability to manage all of the sensory input that makes him so unique. He is learning what we adults would most likely call coping strategies for all the daily stimulus that intrude on his little mind.

What an amazing mind it is turning out to be! The questions he asks me are rapidly becoming difficult to answer. It’s clear he is going to out smart me before too long if he hasn’t already. He’s already asked me repeatedly for my parental control passwords. If he ends up being as interested in computers as I am we are in for it. hehe…

One question he’s been asking has proven particularly interesting and challenging. He has suddenly realized that there are cameras everywhere we are. We live in NYC so this is unavoidable in the terror obsessed world we live in today. He looks for them everywhere now and points them out loudly. “Look mom, there’s another one!” he will exclaim as if he is playing a real life game of where’s wally. Inevitably the questions come along with it. Why are there so many cameras. What are they taking pictures of and why.

Caution would be a good way to describe how I’m answering these queries. It’s important for me that he understands the basic ideas of a surveillance society but without having too much of my own spin on it. He needs to create his own ideas about why all those cameras are there and why it’s being done. Sometimes I can’t even properly answer that to myself.

When we were thinking about having a kid. When I thought about all the possible scenarios and questions mine might ask. Why are so many cameras looking at us wasn’t in the mix.

Kids… they keep you on your toes, and then some.

It’s been too long since there was an update about the boy.  Probably because we have been so busily involved with the boy that finding time to put what is happening has progressively becoming more difficult.  Yet it seems important. If I don’t write it down, how will I ever look back and be able to say: “Whoa, look how far we’ve come!”

So here goes, some half ass attempt at a recap of the past few months since he’s been in school.

We started out rather rough.  There were a lot of adjustments needed.  Mostly from his teachers, the school staff and others who come into contact with him on school property.  When he came home with the third self inflicted injury I completely lost my shit and demanded a meeting of his IEP team.  Up to that point it was my opinion that they were not taking his IEP seriously.  The teachers were looking at his wrapping, the pretty packaging and not paying any attention to the stuff that matters, the junk inside. Their attitude felt a lot like: ‘What’s wrong with this kid, he “looks” fine to us, he probably just has a discipline problem and we should deal with it like that.‘  So they did. When he engaged in self stimulating activities, to try to deal with all of the sensory issues he has trouble processing, they would punish him but making him take time outs, sit alone on the rug or in a corner etc.

Big deep breaths…

This is EXACTLY what you are not supposed to do with a kid who is having difficulty with sensory input!  So they learned and quickly.  Our poor kiddo began dealing with these punishments by rubbing his face into things, like the rug, so hard that he started leaving scrape marks and bruises on himself.  I wanted to cry, scream, beat the crap out of his teachers, rub their faces in the carpet until they went home with rug burns on their faces.

Instead we called a meeting of his team and calmly explained that we were very VERY disturbed by the manifestation of this new behavior.  We explained that his special need is one that won’t work with the traditional sit still and shut up kinds of measures generally used in the classroom.  We suggested that they will continue to exacerbate the problems if they choose these methods.  We requested that they work out new strategies for him to help with integration of the sensory input instead of just marginalizing him.  We were calm, firm and professional.  We got what we wanted. 

Things have started to improve.  The dialogue between his teachers, occupational therapist, counselor and us is more open.  They finally understand that our son is not acting out due to discipline issues but rather attempting to self stimulate or in most cases to desensitize himself from the barrage of sensory input that is coming at him daily in the classroom.  There are less days where we pick him up and he is sad, won’t talk and is injured.  There are more days where he is full of words, joyful and appears to have gotten more out of his school day than constantly trying to protect himself from well… himself.

I’m still angry, he was placed in a CTT class because they were supposed to be trained in dealing with special needs children.  It makes me furious that our child’s issues were not taken seriously because they weren’t initially obvious.  I feel that they should have done a better job at reading his records, learning about SPD and trying to figure out classroom modifications for him before he hurt himself.  Yet, I can’t look back and for his sake have to be positive about the fact that now they are trying.

It was a painful reminder that no one will be our kiddo’s advocate but us.  Other adults can’t be initially trusted to understand or even want to understand what he is going through.  We are his champions and even if it hurts we have to be his strength.

We are seeing a lot of improvement now that his school is on board.  It is making the work we do at home even more effective.  Changes come in fits and starts.  We have good days and bad ones.  Overall, we are learning how the boy perceives this crazy world we live in and how to help him make sense of it all.

So there you go… Updated.  Having a child with special needs isn’t easy.  It is worth every moment however and I wouldn’t trade my special guy for any kid in the world. Ever.

Dad is in the ICU. He could die. A little over two years after Mom died. Seeing the phone messages today made breath come short, heart pound. Not again, oh please gods no not now. These were the first thoughts the really selfish ones, unfiltered.

Just as the haze has begun to clear. Life has started to settle back to just plain old depression not that deep black pit with no light at the end. Just as the light starts to peak out at the end of it… the messages came.

So I’m numb now. Waiting in limbo to see what happens. Will he make it or will we be making more arrangements?

Will this be just a few scary days or another complicated parcel to place on the growing pile of emotional baggage.

With all the new fees for checking bags I’m going to be broke by the time this is all over. Just my luck half will get lost somewhere along the trip only to pop up unexpectedly months later with the contents pawed through and dirty.

At least I’ll always have my carry-on.