Proof of The Plan 5/29/2011

“I think about the years I spent, just passing through.  I’d like to have the time I’ve lost, and give it back to you.  But you just smile and take my hand, you’ve been there, you understand.  It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true.” ~ Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts

So why did I name my blog “Proof of The Plan”?  Well I’ve been living my life for the past probably 10 years believing that God has a plan for me, and that even though I might not understand why things are happening the way they are, why I have to make the choices I have to make, there is a reason for it all.  And I keep having it proven to me over and over again.  I can now look back over my past and see exactly why things happened, to prepare me for the life I live today.

Why did I make the mistake of marrying the wrong man when I was 23?  Why did I have to go through an unhappy few years and then a painful, draining divorce?  Well, now I know it was to #1 put me in the mindset to make huge changes in the way I was living my life so that I could go down another (and better) path.  I never would have considered leaving the Chicago area (and my parents) and moving away if I didn’t feel the need to escape the situation.  And #2 it was to give me the perspective to appreciate what I would eventually find with my husband Big A.  While I’m sorry that my ex also had to go through the pain of unhappy marriage and divorce, I don’t regret the experience.  Because I became a better person on the other side.

So because of wrong marriage and subsequent divorce, I ended up escaping to St. Louis, where I by complete chance interviewed at a school for autistic children (and was hired).  What followed were 3 of the hardest, most grueling, most rewarding years of my life.  Working at that school with the most severe of autistic children satisfied some deep need in me that I didn’t know I had.  It was brutal.  It was heartbreaking.  It was tremendously rewarding.  It fostered a sense of sisterhood among the staff that I have never experienced before or since.  I loved more passionately that I ever had before, and that love was for my students, and for my dear teaching assistant.  But this wasn’t a life I was able to live for long.  It took too much out of me, because I gave it my all and then some.  I wasn’t in a good state of mind.  The stress was a little too much for me, especially because I had been emotionally weakened by the divorce.  I self-medicated with alcohol.  Often.  I spent a lot of money on frivilous things.  I dated the wrong men.  Many of them.

So I came to realized I again had to make a change.  Actually, my mind made the decision for me.  I kind of had a mini-breakdown, amplified by being in a bad relationship with one of those wrong men.  Why did all of this happen to me?  Well, again I needed to be put in the mindset to make a change.  I needed to come home to the embrace of family.  I needed to recharge.  I needed some time to pull the covers over my head and get back to what I really wanted out of life.  So that’s what I did.

And then, when I had licked my wounds, had recharged my emotional batteries, I was finally ready… I met Big A.  The right man.  We were living together within a month, and then we got engaged… married… and were blessed with our 2 beautiful boys.

I had the Rascal Flatts song played at our wedding reception, and I sang every word to my husband.  Because although my road had not been a straight one, it was still the right one.  Well, my broken road did not end with my marriage to the right man.  The plan was still going…

Now I know.  God was preparing me for where I was meant to be in this world.  I was meant to be Bubba’s mom.  That’s why I married the wrong man and then divorced him, to give me the motivation to move to St. Louis where I would gain the experience and understanding of the condition, world and community of autism.  That’s why I had the breakdown, to give me the motivation to move back home so I could meet Big A and have Bubba.  With all of Bub’s delays and “issues” coming more and more to light, I see more and more of the plan being revealed.

And I put my faith in the idea that this, too, is happening for a reason.  I just don’t know what the rest of the plan is.  That’s ok, because God’s plan for me has turned out pretty great so far.

The Face In The Mirror 5/23/2011

As we all get older, have you ever looked in the mirror and been surprised at the face looking back at you?  That person, there.  She doesn’t look like me!  At least, not the me I think I look like.  I think I too often look in the mirror with my mind’s eye rather than my real eyes, so I see myself as I think I am, not as others see me.  But once in a while I clearly see that face in the mirror (sheesh, and most of the time I don’t like what I see, but that’s another blog about losing baby weight, coloring grey hairs, etc.).

I have, in the past few days, gotten a clearer view of the person looking back at me from the mirror and who she really is.  Boy is she not who I thought she was.  I thought a lot of myself and ended up taking myself down a peg.  Or twenty.  Or two hundred.

The person I thought I was:  I thought I was pretty dang smart.  I have a degree in Early Childhood Education.  I’ve worked at various teaching jobs in my 13 years of post-college work, everything from daycare to preschool to subbing in elementary schools.  I also spent 4 years at 2 different schools teaching autistic kids.  I actually considered myself border line expert about young children’s development, and about autism.  I’m super independent and thought I could do everything myself.  I faced parenting as no big deal, because I already knew it all.

Wow was I wrong. WOW

I’ve figured out I don’t know shit.  What I do know was pretty situation specific.  A lot of what I learned has been since outdated by newer research.  The experience I have from the 2 different autism schools I worked at was simply classroom experience.  I paid pretty much no attention to how the rest of it works.  I was very judgmental of the parents of my students (I so wish I could contact each and every one of them and appologize).  I probably wasn’t that easy to work with because I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and what everyone else should be doing.

I’m seeing myself for who I really am: the mom of a (probably) autistic child.  I’m lucky.  He’s really super high functioning.  He has language and works to use it, works harder to learn it.  But back to me… I don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t know where to start.  I have a million questions.  I need to reach out to others to help me and teach me.  I can’t do this alone.  I’m not even sure anymore what a typical child should be doing at his age.  I’ve forgotten a lot of what I knew.  I’m realizing (and regretting) how much I ignored, chances where I could have learned about therapies and coping strategies, what family life is like, what path to take, things to try.

So now I look in the mirror.  I see older.  I see somewhat helpless and needy.  I see naked, stripped of who was supposed to be there.  And then I see: a boy standing next to me.

Bubba was always next to me in what I thought I saw in the mirror.  Who he was supposed to be is who I always saw.  Way too much in the past 2 1/2 year I looked with my mind’s eye instead of my real eyes.  You see, I was so smart, so educated and experienced with little kids.  My child was going to be advanced.  He was supposed to do everything early, and be everything a parent could wish their child could be.  Happy, loving, compasionate, smart, a good sleeper, a good eater, the list goes on and on.  I honestly BELIEVED that that’s what kind of child I was going to have.

But look there, at my Bubs in the mirror.  How bitter and sweet to see him for who he really is.  He is happy.  He is smart.  He is a wonderful sleeper.  He loves us, although we’re having to show him how to be affectionate.  But he is also speech delayed.  He doesn’t have a lot of appropriate play with toys, although he’s getting better with that.  He self-stims a lot.

He is not who he was supposed to be.

But what a wonderful bundle of ups and downs he is!

I cried a lot yesterday.  I cried because I’m not the me I honestly thought I was.  Bubba has helped me learn this.  So I start over, not from scratch but from here forward, becoming another me, definitely a better me, a more compassionate me, a less judgmental me.  I also cried for Bubs.  Not the Bubs that is, but the Bubs that was supposed to be.  I had to let him die.  Because no matter how much he advances, works, improves, my Bubs is never going to be that Bubs.  It was really hard to let go of that Bubs, kind of like at the end of Titanic when Rose lets Jack slip under the water and disappear.  Her promise to him was to never let go of the promise that she would live her life fully.  She kissed him and pushed him away, saying “I’ll never let go, Jack”.

So I kiss you, the supposed-to-be Bubba.  I promise to you that I will never let go of this:  I will accept my Bubs for who he really is.  I will celebrate every milestone he hits, every advancement he makes, WITHOUT REGRET.  Any time he comes close to being the Bubs I thought he would be, I will smile in memory but I will not mourn the difference.  I kiss you, supposed-to-be Bubs, and I push you away, to let you slip out of sight.  Because the Bubs I do have is going to help me be the me I was supposed to be.

It’s A Beautiful Morning 5/20/2011

What a wonderful morning we had!  Finally some nice weather, so I decided to take both boys for a walk in the double stroller to get myself some exercise.  Monkey (the baby) fell asleep (sort of) on the way back, so I parked the stroller in the driveway and decided to try to do a little more cleaning up in our landscaping out front.  Of course getting anything accomplished while keeping one eye on Bubba is usually self-contradictory.  But he seemed to want to be near me instead of trying to wander off.  He usually cannot seem to tear himself away from watching the traffic on the main road (we live on a small 6 house culdesac off the main road of our subdivision, so we can see quite a few vehicles depending on the time of day).  Today he did name a lot of the vehicles that went past, but he also was noticing what I was doing: picking dead leaves out of the pebble bed lining the front walk.  He came over and tried picking up pebbles to put in my bucket, but I told him no rocks, just leaves and showed him what I was picking up.  Well my darling boy sat for 1/2 hour and picked leaves out with me, saying “bye leaf” every time he put one in the bucket!  HE ACTUALLY HELPED!!!  We also had what counts as a conversation about a truck that went by pulling a boat:

Me: I see a boat

Bub: I see a truck

Me: You’re right, there was a truck.  What color was it?

Bub: Yellow truck. Yellow boat!

Me: That’s right, the yellow truck was pulling the yellow boat!

I’m so glad I’m letting myself enjoy these moments.  I actually did not give one single thought to what age this type of conversation should have happened at (for once).

A Clear View (for once) 5/19/2011

Just had a wonderful moment that I had to share: Bub’s favorite “stim” book was in need of repair, so I put it up on the high counter in my kitchen over a week ago. When I picked him up out of his chair after dinner tonight, he spied it without my realizing it. He went running around the house saying “red truck, okay!” so I asked him (somewhat absentmindedly) if he saw a red truck (thinking he had looked through the window). Then he started saying “book, okay!” Then he actually came out with “red truck book, okay!” while trying to go up on his tippy toes to see the book on the counter. Wow it took him a lot of thought and work to get the point across! I normally kind of hate him having this book, because all he does is stim off of it. But the boy practically put together a whole independent sentence to ask for it, and he was so genuinely happy when I figured out what he wanted! I plopped my butt right down on the floor with packing tape and taped the whole thing together while he watched, then gave it to him and thoroughly enjoyed the beaming smile on his face. I realized that sometimes it’s ok to let him stim, because it makes him happy. What mommy doesn’t want to make her little boy happy?

My rough day, not the kid’s 5/19/2011

Boy, I was emotionally struggling yesterday (I’m better today). I printed out the Autism Speaks 100 day kit (even though we don’t have an official diagnosis yet, I wanted to have it as a resource) and read a lot of the great information in it. But then I got really anxious and upset, kind of wallowing in the absolute irony of the fact that I used to teach autistic kiddos and now I have one. I poured my heart and soul into that job, and in fact once I met my husband and we decided our relationship was goin somewhere serious, I chose to stop teaching because I felt I didn’t have it in me to give my all to my job and to my marriage, espeically once kids came into the picture. Now I have it all rolled into one, and that kinda hit me yesterday. I am very very blessed that Bubba doesn’t exhibit any aggressive behaviors, we don’t have “episodes” or “meltdowns” at all, so it’s not like I’m going through what so many other parents are. Sheesh, my biggest problem right now is that I flat out think too much… worry worry worry is all I seem to do.

Hello world! 5/18/2011

Hi all! About to begin the journey with my 2 1/2 year old son “Bubba”… he’s been in speech therapy for a year and now will be aging out of Early Intervention into our school district’s Early Ed program. I’m having a really, really hard time accepting what’s happening with Bubba because I’m a former Severe Autism teacher. I used to teach kids age 3-8, and would do evaluations and intake kids right at Bub’s current age, so I have the knowledge to tell me what’s going on with him. Without the whole medical degree thing I know Bub probably is PDD-NOS. But my mothers heart doesn’t want to admit it.

I think I’m mostly scared because all I know of autism is the kids I used to teach, and they were severe: very aggressive behaviors (had a 3 year old send me to the ER 3 times over a year), extreme academic delays, no language, etc. I’m not sure what to expect out of life for my son, and can’t seem to get past the delays he’s exhibiting. For example, when he hit the milestone of understanding that I am “Mommy” and my husband is “Daddy” and we are 2 seperate people with different names and identities, my husband was super excited. I was unable to celebrate the milestone, because it happened at age 2 years 6 months, and it should have happened somewhere around 1 year. All I can think of is how many months of delay. Bub is super smart and is pretty typical in academic skills: knows his shapes, colors, numbers 1-10, uppercase letters, can read his first and last name. He’s pretty delayed in his social skills, but how much of it is because we don’t get out much? His only experiences with other kids is Gymboree before he started speech and the few play dates with one or two other kids we do maybe once a month.

I am sure once we start the school process with evaluations and IEP writing I will feel better about things. I understand the process (having been on the teacher end of it for years) and I think it will give me direction on things to work on with him. I’m hoping to meet other parents too, so I have someone else for support besides my parents and one or two friends. Whew, I just typed a lot, guess I just needed to get our story off my chest!