Mommin' It Up!

January 3, 2014January 2, 2014

I am flipping out.

You guys, my baby, and he IS a baby, because he just turned three like 2.2 seconds ago, is starting preschool in THREE DAYS and I am FLIPPING OUT.

I’m worried about, oh, I don’t know…EVERYTHING. I am worried his first, second, and third day will be an two hour and forty-five-minute long fit. I am worried he is going to pee his pants, because he STILL will not use a big potty. He uses his little potty like a boss, but I am pretty sure we’re not supposed to take it to preschool. I’m worried he’s going to spend the whole time crying, scared, upset, freaked out. I’m worried he is going to be scared of the other kids. I’m just…worried. I know he’ll adjust but I wish he didn’t have to adjust. I wish he could just bound in on his first day and love it, and do great, and be happy, and magically overcome his speech delay.

Adjustment is going to be hard…and I’m getting tired of hard.

To get Jonah ready for school, I made a photo book of pictures of his classroom and his teachers that I took when we visited the classroom. I wrote a little story about him going to school to go along with the pictures. He L-O-V-E-S it! Score! But will he love it when it turns into real life? I don’t know…I can only hope.

We’ve also been doing a countdown (which is what the picture above is all about), and he’s really into that too.

But here’s the thing.

He starts school Monday, and Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be BELOW ZERO next week. Which means it is very likely that school will be cancelled. So…the countdown may countdown to…nothing. Anti-climactic anyone? I hope the weather cooperates, because I REALLY need this ball to be rolling. Wherever this train is going, I want it to pull out of the station, so we can get moving on progress. Progress, progress, progress…

And maybe my worry can at least become less generalized. Stay tuned!

July 1, 2013June 29, 2013

Things I should be doing right now instead of writing this blog post

The house is unusually quiet…unusually isn’t even the right word. The house is NEVER this quiet when there are people in it, but right now, my sick Sophie is snoozing on the couch, Jonah is napping in his crib, and Joshua and Bobby are out doing work at his dad’s. So I’m curled up in my big recliner with my laptop because I can’t take breaking the peacefulness by doing…stuff.

But I have a lot of stuff to do. And in my motherhood-induced-ADD-addled brain, there are tasks and lists swimming around and fighting to get to the forefront of my gray matter. Tasks that keep me hopping and stressing such as:

Getting on Pinterest to get ideas on how to work with Jonah on speech
cleaning the dining room
Switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer
Writing a review of my amazing new garbage disposal
Doing my makeup
Clipping coupons for tomorrow’s planned drugstore run
Calling Emily to tell her the 1,000 things I didn’t get to talk to her about this week
Putting dinner in the crock pot
Reading my new WWII book about women in the French Resistance
Working on my resume in the pursuit of some more freelance writing work

All these things need to be done. Some of them yesterday, or at least five minutes ago. But I can’t bring myself to break the stillness, to violate the quiet, or to make any noise that might wake my sick snoozing girl.

So I think I will close this note, curl up in my chair, and close my eyes for a minute. Take a deep breath, and then another one, and breathe out thanks for the stillness, for the quiet place. Maybe I’ll shush the sound of my own voice in my head and just listen for a still, small Voice instead.

June 19, 2013

All the King’s Horses

sad day — This is my “I had a bad day” face.

Yesterday I had a bad day.

Here is what happened:

About 35 minutes into his hour-long therapy session at PACE (the free program through the county), Jonah got mad about having to be all done with a fun activity and having to move on to the next activity, and he threw a giant fit, rendering the next 25 minutes of the session completely useless.

Day ruined.

Jonah’s therapy sessions (he just started last week with Sophie’s former speech language pathologist, the Amazing Miss Kristen!!! so now he goes twice a week) are the most important part of my week. This is because, like I was when Sophie was delayed, I am super, super, super, super, super, SUPER-FOCUSED on Jonah getting past his speech delay. I think about it all the time. I plan times for us to work together at home. In every little thing we do together, I try to figure out how I can apply it to teaching him speech.

But 90 minutes a week, when he is at therapy, I can relax a little bit. Just a little, because obviously I am watching him like a hawk during that time and tucking away notes about how I can apply this or that at home. But for those 90 minutes it’s not my job to teach him. Pressure’s off a little. And usually, he does well and has fun and is adorable and I leave feeling encouraged.

But when he doesn’t, I just cannot recover. I lost something more than 25 minutes yesterday. I lost my ability to function for the next 12 hours. I didn’t get my encouragement, my high, my feeling of progress. I didn’t get any relief, just pressure and doubt heaped on more heavily.

I wish I could shake it off, but I can’t. The rest of my day was a wash. I feel nothing but despair. I hate to be dramatic, but that’s how it is. It’s how it was with Sophie too, but she was so much older when we started therapy that her days of non-cooperation were extremely rare and her progress was always evident.

We’ve only been at this a few months and I’m already tired of it. I would give anything to have Jonah wake up tomorrow and be caught up; to feel like conversing with me instead of only communicating his basic needs and wants. Other people’s kids seem to learn this stuff with no problems; why can’t mine?

I know he’s only two. But I’m 35, and I feel much, much older. And I’m tired of having to be all the things I’m supposed to be instead of just…being.