i think the dog might have it easier afterall

dear kids-

2 days ago our pregnant teenage dog lucy gave birth to 8 puppies. it was a combination of amazing and disgusting to see her instinctively navigate their entrance into the world. i watched as she gnawed off the amniotic sac, gulped down the placenta and licked the new pup and the mess left behind while nursing whomever had come before. i sat there thinking about how relatively easy your births were and that glad i am i'm not a dog. well, until 24 hours later when i was dealing with you four kids and your teen and preteen and tween issues. so i have only half the number as lucy- but i think i might rather eat my own afterbirth than take on the tremendous challenge of raising people! yes, in conclusion, lucy has it easier.

i mean can we talk? this business of helping you people grow into healthy, mature, hard working, kind, empathetic, generous people is hard work! this business of letting go of our ideas and ideals and looking and listening for your best and truest selves and then gently guiding you towards that, requires a lot of intentionality and time and energy.

don't get me wrong, i love you more than anything. and i love watching you become yourselves. all differently gifted and challenged. teaching me as much as i teach you. laughing with you. crying with you (or because of you). being annoyed and awed by you. it's all good stuff. but easy it is not.

easier, it is not.

no.

give me your crying infant self any day. give me you as a whinny 2 year old. diapers, wet bed, hours of breastfeeding, sleepless nights, i'll take it over your book reports left until 9pm, failing to hand in your science homework, your eye rolls, teaching you to read with a handful of learning differences, reminding everyone to wear deodorant, asking if you've brushed your teeth......with toothpaste (seriously???) explaining how to write a proper descriptive sentence for your vocab words....again, trying to remember long division and fermentation and how to spell everything, and answering "mom?" 1000 times a day from all 4 voices at once, usually followed by "what am i supposed to eat?"

and please, don't tell me about how tired you are because you played soccer for an hour and 45 minutes after school. don't tell me how you don't have time to set the table and do your homework. don't tell me because i'll give you tired and short on time!

did you people see me tonight practicing made up reading words with one of you while researching sloth habitats with another, and listening to the directions for another one's english assignment and while texting another doctor and a patient about a referral, while knowing that i still haven't gotten zoe dinner?

so guys, when 9:30 rolls around, i'm done.

so no, you better not have any sleep issues in middle school because my best self will be asleep and you don't want who will be waking up to help you back to bed. and you'd better learn to plan that report on sloths to be a daytime activity. at 9:30 i'm done. period. 9:30 is my time.  so don't whine about my quick bedtime tuck in, did i mention that i'm done? something else is calling me now- it might be my husband, it might be my bed, it might be work or it might be the latest binge watch pirated TV show, but it sho' isn't going to be you.

yes kids, good night. i love you  four little pups fiercely and that afterbirth looked pretty bad so i'll see you at 6:30 am, so we can do it again.
xo
mom

is the marble jar is empty?

i listened to a talk today from a successful former life-long foster kid. he talked about the link between success and having an adult that never gives up on you. he talked about the impact adults have on kids. he showed some glass jars filled with marbles that represented the number of weeks in a life between birth and 18. then half that number of marbles between 9 years and 18, and then a very small group of marble from 16 to 18.  then he talked about his last foster dad who changed his life when he was 17 and a half. when he only had 26 marbles left in his jar. he did something bad, again, and his foster dad sat him down and said, "son, i don't see you as a problem, despite what you did and what you think. i see you as an opportunity." the power of words. the power of invested time that give the words foundation. the power of belief and support and never giving up. his point was, you always have time to impact the life of a child even if only one marble left.  of course i cried. and then i gulped because i don't have any more marbles in zoe's jar. in 2 days, she turns 18.

it kind of feels like a big deal. i think she thinks so too. she's acting mean and more stressed out than usual and instead of the excited pre-birthday gift chatter, she's ignoring it or using it as a reason for her stress. "you know i just need to be left alone! i'm about to turn 18!" as if the very act will take everything she's got. she's also using it as a way to not do things. "you know when i'm 18 i get to make my own decisions about my life!" she says when i ask her to take a bath. (tomorrow maybe her last bath ever!) i'm left with her stress, her anger, her fears, her overwhelm, her sadness. and i'm left with mine.

classically, 18 is a major turning point. it's becoming a real adult. it's independence in a new way. it's voter registration and draft registration. it's whatever movie you want to see. it's making your own medical decisions. it's not needing parental approval. it's usually move out of the house, go to college or get a job. it's thanks for raising me, but i've got this now. it's the loss of childhood and it's the brave entry into your own.

but. not. always. (and i think she knows it.)

let's be honest, adulthood is complicated. is it an age? or something you achieve? do you have to pass into it? in some ways it seems so. she's no where near independence. a part of her wants it desperately and a part of her is terrified of it. she wants to be able to do it, but she knows she's not ready and she's so afraid of failure, that she's not willing to try.

i read an article earlier today about how fast the time of raising our kids goes. how their years slip through our fingers like sand, so quickly on to the next stage so quickly it seems the separation begins, the individuation that as parents we desperately want for them and look forward to, while we simultaneously grieve the end of the needed seasons, the time when our connection was bodily and constant. it peels away slowly but when it's gone, it feels like an instant. i tearily read the article (because everything is moving me these days) and thought of jude, not zoe. he has lapped her in the independence department.

with zoe time has felt less like slipping sand and more like sticky batter that i'm trying to shape onto a cookie sheet but it won't leave my hands. none of her growing up has been easy or quick. her individuation is complex, she's clearly her own person, but dependent for so many things and so resistant to the next stage. my boys weaned themselves before i was ready and became progressively mobile until i was running to catch up with them. i had to force zoe to crawl, coerce her on hikes, even now she wants me to say "go zoe go!" just to get out of bed!

here's the thing, i'm not ready for her to go. i'm not sitting around wishing she would, but i do long for her to be where she wants to be in life instead of caught in the conflict of it. and i increasingly see the conflict. she carried Simba (the giant lion king plush toy) to the school market where she sells her cookies, and then starred enchantingly at the boys her age. she wants to make her own decisions about everything but can't responsibly brush her teeth. she notices that her childhood friend and cousin are applying to colleges and responds with expressions of happiness and jealousy. i can feel her conflict all. the. time. i try to hold compassion but not ever let it be pity. i try to feel with out feeling sorry for. i try to encourage her with out shaming her. i try to support her while being honest with her. pity, unfounded praise and false hope don't help anyone, but listening with compassion, believing in her without doling out expectations, and helping her accept a compliment given in truth, those things do help.

life with zoe has never been typical. she has grown me and stretched me in ways i never dreamed of and she will continue to. we've never hit milestones on time, some we haven't yet reached and some we may not.

maybe zoe's jar has marbles for the milestones not for weeks and we still have a lot left. or maybe we get another giant jar full when we turn 18- the adult marble jar.

but i think it's all reversed. i think we start out as empty jars and we become filled. over the years we collect things, not just marbles,  not just time, but life. beauty and pain. images and words. memories and relationships. rich flavors and broken bones. the smell of the goodness of life and tears. moments.  and all these things become parts of who we are. there is no ticking clock. there is no marble snatcher. only the slow additions. the collection. the pieces. making the incredible, one of a kind, that each of us are.

no the jar is not empty. it's 18 years full, almost.

all i want

"that's it. that's all i want."  i cried as i finished re-reading the article out loud to mike called "looking into the future for a child with autism" written by the mother of a 21 year old man with autism aging out of school and into adulthood.

i could have written it, well, up until the end. it speaks of the yearly changes in expectations and dreams but how they move in the opposite direction of what you had hoped the year before. lower. smaller. farther from 'normal'. life with a child with autism is a long road of accepting that changes in the brain mean changes in a life. changes in a family. ongoing changes. it's years on a balance beam holding a pole with belief and hope on one end and fear and evidence on the other.

in the beginning of the beam crossing, the pole you hold is about whether this diagnosis is even correct. is this autism? or is she just a late bloomer? does she need assistance or will she catch up? it teeters back and forth and then stabilizes and you accept the diagnosis and the assistance. but it's just for now. the jury's out on the future.

you're holding the balance because your job as a parent is believe in your child, to not give up on them even when the world does. to not give up on them even when a part of you does. and to love them unconditionally no matter what. to accept them for who they are, not who you may have thought they would be. our job as parents is to guide them to be their best selves- but their own selves. hoping and accepting. that can be a challenge to resolve internally.

the days, like all our days, are filled up with good parts and hard parts and what defines good is often the lack of hard and that becomes enough.

there are stories. everywhere. the temple grandins. the over-comers who find their own way, their own path to independence and the ability to fit into the world not just sit beside it. and every story like that brings hope and frustration. it can be easier to see all that she hasn't overcome - than to see what she has. 

then there are the other stories. self-harm and suicide. self loathing and depression. and i thank my lucky stars that she laughs and engages- that she's safe at least for now and i push the worry out.

as you keep crossing the beam, you find yourself letting go. you let go of college. you let go of high school graduation. you let go of independent living. your hope becomes getting up and dressed and finding something, anything that she likes enough to get up and dressed for. your belief is that she can. your fear is that she won't.

you let go of some of the dreams you had for your own life- being an empty-nester. significant travel. even increased work outside of the home. you long for the days when your special child will have her own dreams - her own hopes- something you can support her in and help her strive for. you long to pass the pole over to her- to walk beside her as she steps forward balancing her own hopes and fears.

this is the beauty and truth of the article. in his last IEP (individual educational plan) her son writes his own vision statement. he writes what she is unable to see - he writes when she no longer knows what to wish for and what this woman finds is that her son wants what she has already provided for him. he wants the best parts of the life he knows. the small joys. the moments. she learns what we all should strive for,  that "your future should look like the best parts of your present." and that is true for us all.

as i sit and look at my present, in the thick of it, the still hair-washing, pill remembering, food making, computer taking, laughing, LPS playing, joking, beginner facebooking, trying, explaining, crying, and trying again, can i see the future as the best of these with no more?

yes. i can. if that's what she wants.  i want her joy. i want her to know love, feel love, feel safe, feel good about herself. my hope now is that maybe in a few years, she too will be able to say what she wants. that the truth of who she is and always has been will come into to focus and our life will be enough- even if it looks just like today.