Since Mr. Pants was born we have been in a constant state of change. As his parents, we fluctuate. We bend. We make plans and then change them. We leave parties early and I often abandon my shopping cart. Because sometimes life is really hard for kids and when you add sensory integration frenzy, a little OCD (mom diagnosed) and his absolute need to predict the routine, that can make the holidays a stressful time.
A few weeks ago I showed up at pre-school excited to be a room mom for his Halloween party. What I hadn’t thought of was that when I show up at school, to him that means it’s time to go home. I tried to explain that I wanted to stay and have a party with his friends. But you know it didn’t go well, right? Yeah, mama doesn’t get to be room mom anymore. It made me sad but it also reminded me that while Mr. Pants is making great strides in being out in the world, he still needs us to consider his need for routine. I appreciated the reminder because here we are heading into the big holidays. The ones that are enough to stress out typical kids let alone our sensational ones. …continue reading
I have no pictures to post of us at the library. Because I was too busy wrangling and making sure my kid didn’t murder the other kids in the five and under room. Ok, murder is a strong word. More accurate would be that I was ensuring he didn’t strip his clothes off, bash a nine month old baby with a bucket, rip the skirt off a little girl, and log roll other people’s kids. I was busy. And yes, I was sweating bullets. But I’m glad we went.
I’ve written before about taking these two tiny humans out into public alone. I always have a plan. And I have a line that when it is crossed, we cut and run. Heading to the safe haven that is home. If that means a TCA (total cart abandon), well, then that’s what it means.
Basically the line is, “Does Mommy want to lose her marbles?”. If I answer yes, then it is time to go. I’m not into proving anything. I know I’m “mom enough”. If they lose control over themselves, we go home. If I want to lose control of me, we go home. But we will try again another day. And then again another day, until we have a good day out and that experience will fuel my courage, like a good whiskey, for the next time when things fall into the shizzer. We keep trying. Because I am no longer afraid of them, err I mean, it. For a long time I would carefully determine whether or not the chances were high enough for success before I ventured out into the world alone with these two. A point system of how things were going that day based on eating and napping and general moodiness. If the stars aligned, I might try and take them out. But the stars rarely aligned. And my fear of a spectacle kept the car keys hanging on the wall. I started to feel trapped under our roof. I’m sure they did too. I mean, we have a lot of fun here and I am kind of the best singing and dancing monkey impersonator in the continental U.S. But things got stale and I realized recently that, in words from my childhood, spoken in the ever loving voices of my big brothers, I was being a total wuss. …continue reading
