it's all good (or it will be tomorrow)
Dammit you people are nice. You are killing me with the niceness. Also? You make me think, which is so important to me I can't even begin to tell you. Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on the previous post.
I've been thinking all day about what I wanted to say here, and I have a couple of things. The first is this: all of the things we have learned about Henry in the past few months have radically changed the way I imagine myself as a parent, and that is hard. I am constantly fighting an underlying sense that his struggles in the world--and Charlie's, too--are the result of my terrible parenting. I know that this is not true, but on many days it feels like it is. And every decision--what to feed him, how to discipline him, where to send him to school--takes on a kind of monolithic importance, when really, these are all just pieces of the puzzle. And he is a happy, healthy child, who knows that he is loved and has no idea at all that he is different. But it is still hard.
I was overwhelmed today not because anyone hurt my feelings or made me angry but because sometimes I get worn out with the work of being the mommy. Last night, for no particular reason, I snapped out of a sound sleep and my first thought was, dammit I need to spend more TIME with the boys, one on one, and then I laid there trying to think about what the hell I could do with each of them, craft projects or phonics worksheets or planting a tree or . . . I don't know. And I don't know why I do that to myself, but there it is. And the half of my brain that isn't planning an elaborate lesson on the various sounds made by the letter U is thinking, jesus all I want to do is BE ALONE for a day or an hour or my god for the length of one hot cup of tea. And so I started my day feeling like I was underwater and sinking fast.
And you all offered such thoughtful advice and kind words of support and it just made me feel more overwhelmed. But that's not about you all, really, it's about me. And I do thank all of you for taking the time to respond and respond again.
I feel fortunate to have found such nice people on the Interweb. Please keep coming back. I plan to wade back into the shallow water soon and write about really entertaining stuff like How I Stumped the Victoria's Secret Bra Size Calculator! and My Free Haircut! and Funny Things Charlie Has Said Recently! I promise.
I've been thinking all day about what I wanted to say here, and I have a couple of things. The first is this: all of the things we have learned about Henry in the past few months have radically changed the way I imagine myself as a parent, and that is hard. I am constantly fighting an underlying sense that his struggles in the world--and Charlie's, too--are the result of my terrible parenting. I know that this is not true, but on many days it feels like it is. And every decision--what to feed him, how to discipline him, where to send him to school--takes on a kind of monolithic importance, when really, these are all just pieces of the puzzle. And he is a happy, healthy child, who knows that he is loved and has no idea at all that he is different. But it is still hard.
I was overwhelmed today not because anyone hurt my feelings or made me angry but because sometimes I get worn out with the work of being the mommy. Last night, for no particular reason, I snapped out of a sound sleep and my first thought was, dammit I need to spend more TIME with the boys, one on one, and then I laid there trying to think about what the hell I could do with each of them, craft projects or phonics worksheets or planting a tree or . . . I don't know. And I don't know why I do that to myself, but there it is. And the half of my brain that isn't planning an elaborate lesson on the various sounds made by the letter U is thinking, jesus all I want to do is BE ALONE for a day or an hour or my god for the length of one hot cup of tea. And so I started my day feeling like I was underwater and sinking fast.
And you all offered such thoughtful advice and kind words of support and it just made me feel more overwhelmed. But that's not about you all, really, it's about me. And I do thank all of you for taking the time to respond and respond again.
I feel fortunate to have found such nice people on the Interweb. Please keep coming back. I plan to wade back into the shallow water soon and write about really entertaining stuff like How I Stumped the Victoria's Secret Bra Size Calculator! and My Free Haircut! and Funny Things Charlie Has Said Recently! I promise.
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