If…. You are a Better Mom Than Me

If you proudly wear your child’s painted macaroni necklace for longer than five minutes… you’re a better mom than me.


If you happily wipe your four year old’s bum when he poos to make sure he doesn’t leave any “track”s… you’re a better mom than me.


If you cherish and store each and every art work created by your little darlings, never tossing even the barest and strangest of scribbles… you’re a better mom than me.


If your child has a bath/shower more frequently than once a week every other day… you’re a better mom than me.


If you enjoy chauffeuring kids to after school activities… you’re a better mom than me.


If one of your children wants to add in another after school activity and you say no problem… you’re a better mom than me.


If you remember a head of time to pack the appropriate snacks for those after school drives… you’re definitely a better mom than me.


If your child has their own small pet like a hamster or a mouse, snack or lizard or anything in the reptile family…. you are a better mom than me.


If your house is tidy, homework’s done and dinner is on the table by the time your husband walks through the door… you are a better mom than me.


If you laugh at all 100 and 99 of your child’s original knock knock jokes.. “Knock, knock, who’s there?  Banana, Banana Who?  Cause it’s an orange.”.. you’re a better mom than me.


Want to play along?  Just leave your “you’re a better mom than me” quote in the comments.


Zeemaid

I feel Angry

This is a hard post to write and yet I need to get it out because I know there are many of you out there who have been in the same place as me and can perhaps emphasize with our situation.

You see, my beautiful daughter, of whom I had just been boasting about last week, may be brain damaged.  At least that's what the psychologist has told us.  In fact, there isn't really any "may" about it. She will be referring us to the Child Development Centre where we'll get a "team" to work with her.  In fact, she won't be surprised to find that E falls on the Autism spectrum.

Are you kidding me?  We go from a few learning difficulties to brain damage and possibly autism.  I am told to prepare myself for the fact that E might not leave the home until later in life and that she may never learn to do those things that she can't currently do now.  Again, are you freaking kidding me? At worst, I thought she had Central Auditory Processing Disorder.  I've always thought she didn't hear things quite right but right from the get go all initial assessments dismissed autism.  No, she's just quirky they said.  Now I'm told that as she's my first born I've just gotten used to her and consider this to be normal.  Now I'm told to watch Temple Grandin because thanks to her we know so much more about animal behaviour.  That's supposed to make me feel better?  How about a little time to adjust first before you start throwing out successful autistic people at me to make me feel better.

Right now I'm either racking my brain trying to figure out if I had done something to cause this to happen or grieving because I know how hard it's going to be for my child to walk this path.  Add to the fact that I know she is getting tired of all the extra tutoring and just know how hard it's going to be to have to take her to a whole bunch more appointments.

Her last tutoring lesson didn't go well.  Apparently she told her teacher she wanted to die.  Now I am pretty certain she didn't mean it and was just trying to express her frustration at not being able to have play time. She doesn't see all the time she does get to play just when she doesn't get to play.  This was on the same day when we got the news from the psychologist so as you can imagine I was pretty much an emotional basket case.

The worst is that I continue to run over all the times I've been impatient or angry with E when it was most likely not that she won't do something but that she can't do it and here I've been berating her.  Can you imagine how bad we feel?

Sure it could be worse and there are dozen of situations or conditions that would be much more difficult to live with.  It doesn't take away from the fact that we need to have time to come to acceptance of the situation and when we do, we will be able to put off the tears and take up the cause that is our child.

When I read about how people say it was a relief to get a diagnosis, I can't relate to that.  I can honestly say I don't feel relieved.

I feel angry

*Please, if anything I've said in this post offends you do not flame me.  I'm being real here and am expressing my feelings.  Good or bad it's how I feel at the moment as I work through this new curve that life has thrown us. Through it all she's my child and I love her dearly no matter what.*

I’m Proud of My Girl

I’m really proud of my girl. 


She has had a tough go of it ever since we had her assessed last summer and learned just how far behind she was in school.  A fact which was only made more glaringly aware once she started at her new school.  To say that our girl had thrown her teachers for a complete loop is a mild understatement.  From venting her extreme frustrating with change by getting in their face and yelling to downright tears and shut downs. 


Once we had a firm diagnosis of ADD and began a low dose of medication we saw big changes in her.  While she still gets frustrated and teary when she’s tired, she has become much more easier to manage.  Even the school has noticed a big improvement.  Finally Emma can focus on learning.  While I don’t necessarily agree that Emma completely falls into the ADD category, I do think she may be on the low end of the scale. 


Still, life hasn’t been easy.  What with starting at a new school, taking extra classes 3 times a week after school, attending learning support in school she’s been made to realize rather forcibly just how far she is behind her peers.  Add to that the fact everyone is throwing around the term “learning disability” and she pretty much feels like a freak no matter how much we tell her it’s normal and everyone learns different.


While I hurt for my baby and ache for the tough time she is going through, I can appreciate that she is learning some really good life lessons here.  After all, I don’t ever remember being in a situation where my mom has had to say to me “sweetie, this is just the way it’s going to be and there is no point in whining about it”.  Thank goodness she got it because really the last four months would have been hell if I had to have listened to her whine about going to tutoring after school 3 days a week.


With a lot of effort and hard work my girl has managed to go from reading at practically a kindergarden level to almost reading at her grade three level.  In fact, I think she’s reading even better than her own teachers realize.  By the time Christmas break had arrived my poor girl had had about enough schooling.  Give her two weeks Christmas break though and she’s back to her normal cheerful self and reading up a storm.


I’m so proud of her.  She has accomplished so much this year.  She still has a tough road because let’s face it, learning disabilities don’t disappear overnight and while the reading is coming along beautifully the writing isn’t. 


She will get it though because even though there are days that she feels like giving up, that it’s all just too much and that she can’t do it… underneath it all she is determined that she will get it, that she will do it. 


Enough to make a mama’s heart swell with pride. 

That’s my girl!

Is it Really My Job?

So you know you are tired when you're ready to lose it over a couple of missing school library books.  I end up lecturing and nagging and going on and on to the point that I frustrate myself even more because they don't care.

So I question, is it really my job to keep track of their stuff?  I wouldn't have thought so after all I'm supposed to be teaching them how to become self-reliant and independent little beings.  Teach them?  HAH that's a laugh.  I can organize, show them and "take time for training" till I'm blue in the face and they'll smile at me and the next thing I know they've left the washroom without flushing or washing their hands, they promptly drop their clothes beside their laundry baskets, ignore the napkins I've placed in front of them and wipe their faces across the back of their school uniform sleeves.  Ohhhhhh the list goes on.

So no wonder I begin to feel just a bit like a failure of a mother.  Especially when well meaning people (scream in-laws) make me feel like it's me cause I don't clean or organize.  Because, of course, they don't see it when it's all neat and tidy (after I've had to stand over them and finally pitch in myself) oh no, they just see it after the bomb has gone off and let's face it with three rambunctious kids the bomb goes off often at my house.

It's no great wonder that I'm ready to lose it today since I've been only asking J to find her library books since the last school library day last week.  But you know she's too busy to do anything like that and unless I stand over her and push her into looking, it doesn't get done.  So who ends up looking, I do. Then I go to the next child, where are your library books... "I don't know" to well the "computer says I have books out but I know I returned it".  Sure you did, the books you took out over Christmas vacation magically got returned to the school when?

The problem is we can designate a library book spot but no one seems to follow it, not even their dad.  Books get dropped wherever  they happened to be read and rarely even make it back to the bookshelf until we do a big clean up or I get tired of the sloppy mess of a bookshelf and clean it up myself.  The kids like to play with the books and drag them all over no matter how many times I ask them not to because you know nothing holds a fort together so well as a couple of good heavy books and playing library or bookstore without books is just plain old silly and why would we use a bookshelf to store the books when they look so much nicer on the floor.

Of course, I'm just griping about their library books.  I haven't even mentioned their homework, backpacks, lunch kits, school supplies, mittens, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, shoes, boots, hair do dads, water bottles, crafts, etc. Never mind the drama that occurs if I don't know where something is.  I will literally be greeted with tears and frustration if I can't tell them where they happened to sit their toy down on coming into the house.   WTH!  I know that I'm supposed to have eyes in the back of my head but really I draw the line at psychic abilities.

So what say you?  Do you feel like you have to be their personal assistant or are you trying to train your little beings to be self-reliant?  Are you making any headway or like me are you just one step away from banging your head on the wall?

Zeemaid