I’ve been waiting on myself to begin. I knew it was time to get back to this and I knew it was time for a shift. I shut down the old blog, bought a new name, and created a new site. A new chapter. But how to begin, Becca, how to start. The pressure. Y’all are like,...
My mom died on April 1, just a little over two weeks ago. I don’t know which cliché to use – does it feel like yesterday or years? Both, I guess. My mom was a young 74 and did all the healthy things – the exercising, the kale, the vitamins, the check-ups. I look like...
Well, it had to come. Some of you readers have been with me for a while now. You’ve read these random blogs and followed along on Facebook as Jax came home from China, was diagnosed with all the things, and proceeded to grow up into a teenage boy. He’s gone from...
So we’re homeschooling over here. It’s going really well, I’d say. We have great people, Jax’s anxiety is at an all-time low, he’s happy, he’s inquisitive, and importantly, he’s learning things that are relevant to his 14 year-old-life and skills he’ll use for his...
I have sucked as a parent lately. Truth. 'Tis the season for holiday lights and wrapping paper and for mom to be a stressed out asshole. That should be a Christmas carol. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaayyyyy. My mom’s annoyed at everyone, please bring...
Dear Jax,It's Gotcha Day, little dude. We adopted you eleven years ago today. I love this day, but this year's celebration is bittersweet. Your grandmother died on Friday night. Your dad's mom, Grandma Mary. This year's Gotcha Day will be a little less inflatable...
Johnny made it to his Army base on Monday. Other moms are messaging me tips to survive boot camp, linking me to Facebook groups, introducing me to people who can show me the ropes. It's lovely, but I’m in a different sort of situation. “Hi Martha with your...
A day or two ago, Jax had an appointment with a psychiatrist. Jax has never met this man before, but I have, and I like him a lot. He regurgitates mountains of stuff from memory, has a Harvard degree, and is smart, smart, smart. All good stuff when you’re a mom...
Johnny, I've been down at the Capitol this past week fighting for a bill that would expedite the adoption of older kids. I'm pretty invested in it because you and I went through this. We had nine months to make your adoption happen, and had I not already had a giant...
And I quote: "And after fourteen years of foster care, Johnny was getting all As and Bs in school, happily helping around the house, had checking and savings accounts, and looking for his first job - all within just a few months of being adopted into a family. "...
I've spent the last few days outlining an open letter to the person who hurt Jax. A real doozy of a piece, cleverly called "Dear Person Who Hurt My Child." I was going to write and publish it this morning, throw it all out there and let the internet lovelies react to...
The adult who hurt my son will not be charged. I'm a lawyer. I get it. There are no witnesses, no physical evidence, and Jax ...well, Jax isn't the best witness. At 13, Jax still believes that Noelle the Naughty Elf stole my car keys and tried to take my...
I am a Helicopter Mom. No shame here, no self-deprecating humor, there is really no other option for this child tornado of mine. Maybe helicopter isn't the right word, I think I'm more like the car with the flashing lights that travels behind the Wide Load truck on...
I was coming out of an Ace Hardware the other day - feeling super handy, I might add - and on the way to my car, I saw a woman standing by a table raising money. It was a legit 100-gazillion degrees in Phoenix and I was entirely prepared to do the polite smile...
I was sick this week. Throwing up throughout the night, curled up in fetal position at the base of the toilet, not sure how clean the bath mat is, I do not even care, I will never eat blue cheese in a salad again, SICK. Being sick as an adult is lousy. Being sick as a...
Dear Johnny, I know this isn't where you thought you would be at age 17. Still in the foster system, a day pass on your birthday, preparing to be shuffled around again, and then again and again. I know. As a child, you must have thought ahead to 17 and pictured your...
Last week, a family asked about adopting my foster son, Johnny. A family. Adoption. This was a big deal for a sixteen year old foster kid who moved in with me last month because he had nowhere else to go and had every intention of aging out of the system as an orphan....
I had a moment recently. My son, Jax, and I had been in the car running errands for a few hours. I was singing along to the Beatles channel when Jax said, "Mom, I'm hungry." Well, yeah, breakfast was a hurried cup of yogurt three hours ago so that's reasonable....
A teenage boy is coming to live with me. Today. In eight hours, I will be an official foster parent. It's been only a few months, but I have notes upon notes about my short experience so far with this child welfare system of ours. I can't wrap my head around how we...
Last week, I was in my favorite place in the world with my 15-person family. Every few years, we head to a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. We've been going here since I was a little girl, and there is truly no place I would rather be. I told my clients I was out,...
I volunteered to go to an education meeting last week with a foster kid. This kid was in high school and not too interested in me at first. I didn't blame him, I'd never met him before and this was a child who lives in a constantly-changing world with...
It was late-September of 2008 when we brought my son home from China, just two months before December and our sparkly, over-the-top, American-style Christmas season. My little boy had no idea what Christmas was. He had no idea who Santa was. Hell,...
This time of year, man. It’s stressful and chaotic and my annual intention of providing a Pinterest-perfect Christmas lasts about a day and a half until I decide that F-bombs will definitely help me assemble the gingerbread house. Ahhh, December. This year, the...
Jax’s eighth Gotcha Day is coming up. “Gotcha Day” is the anniversary of Jax’s adoption from China. It’s the day Jax became our son, and like good adoptive parents, we celebrate. Jax gets a few presents, we decorate, we eat pizza and cake, we participate in general...
I was at a Ross the other day. I love Ross. There is one by my son's school, and on the days I don't feel like laptopping at Starbucks, I walk around in their exceptional summer air conditioning while having riveting conversations with myself about my need for their...
A few months back, I got an email asking a few of us special needs moms to share the “gifts” of special needs parenting. The responses would be published and the world would probably be a better place. I like to see my name in lights as much as anybody else, but I looked over at my autistic son who was talking to a crayon, I looked down at the stack of bills due this month, and said, yeah, maybe not today.
But the question stayed with me.
Don’t misunderstand me here. My son is amazing, and I love parenting this kid. But the question, as I decided to interpret it anyway, was what is great about parenting a child with special needs, not what is great about your kid with special needs. The latter is a much easier answer, but that’s not the answer I set out to find.
I thought about it. If you get past the therapies and the bills and the education issues and the worrying about the future, keep going beyond all the doctors and the teetering patience and the stress, if you really, really look, is there something back there, hiding, that is uniquely awesome about all this?
I had come up empty-handed for a few months now. But then…
We were cruising through the Ace Hardware, and my son found some PVC piping. He plopped himself down on the floor, grabbed a few pieces, and started configuring them together. A sales woman approached us, asked if we were finding what we needed, and in response, my son asked, “Oh hi, can you make a B-29 from this?” The sales woman said to me what everyone says to me, “I think you have an engineer on your hands here.” I smiled, and said what I always say. “Maybe.”
My son’s measurable mechanical talents live right next door to the fact that, at 8, he thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to sit in the middle of the PVC aisle at Ace Hardware and assemble WWII aircraft. An engineer? Maybe. The truth is I don’t really care.
Wait. Say that again. The truth is I don’t really care. At all. I have no attachment to any plan that my son become an engineer, a pilot, or the CEO of the next Google.
I have great attachment, however, to the hope that he is happy.
Well, wow.
In the middle of a hardware store, I stumbled upon the special needs parenting pot of gold. If my son were typical, if we didn’t work so, so hard on what comes naturally to other kids, I can assure you that I would have his happiness tied to long-term education and career goals, all bundled together with socially-praised measures of success.
I have absolutely none of that.
I want my son to find his place in this world, wherever that is, and I want him to be happy. That’s it. I think this is about as pure and lovely as it gets. For the first time ever, I can honestly thank autism for something.
Sincerely,
Becca
I think in the heart of all parents, that is the goal. We often try to define their material success as ours, but it is not really ours. We want them to succeed, but people will fail at various tasks and relationships along the way and so will they. So, we just want them to be happy. I want them to try various things on and do more of what they love to do. I heard a great storyteller speak of a pearl of wisdom a veteran waitress gave his daughter. She told her, life is a lot like carnival. You go and see the various tents and the ones you end up hanging around are what you should spend time doing.
I find your self awareness refreshing. Thanks for sharing your story. Best wishes for happiness for you and your son. BTG
That’s it. That is truly all I am aiming for. Happiness for my son. You have perfectly said what I have perfectly felt for a very long time. And it ties into a sappy song that I have felt perfectly matched my love for A since I was pregnant with him. And that song and it’s meaning has not changed with who he is now. Thank you.
WOW. You are 100% right. I never really put all of my emotions together to add up to this, but it is spot on. We work so so so hard on things that come naturally to typically developing kids (walking, talking), and yet all I want is for Jack to be happy. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and your journey with the interwebs! xo
When my guy with autism was really little and showed a fleeting interest in tinker toys, his dad (thinking we had hit on something) ran to the hardware store and bought a HUGE amount of PVC pipe and hundreds of fittings. There were Ts and elbows galore. He cut all the pipe into lengths that could be used to build all kinds of huge fortresses…. It was a blast. For Dad. And occasionally we were able to engage our son and build a fort for him to sit and stim in. I was reminded of all that when you mentioned the pipe and engineer thing. We have so much in common. -Quirks and Chaos
Wow. You have totally put my thoughts into words, amazing post.
By the way, I hope you don’t mind, but I linked to one of your recent posts in my blog- I found it very inspirational.
Thanks for writing such great stuff! Holly x