Celebrating the boy

If I do anything exceptionally well, it's second-guess and doubt myself.  About 4:30 a.m. this morning I woke up and this blog was instantly on my mind.  I was suddenly terrified that the blog was the wrong thing to do.  Was I wrong to put our experiences and life lessons out there for all the world to see?  Was it fair to hang us all out there in the wind, especially Eli, for scrutiny?  What exactly was my motivation?

I laid there feeling much like I did the morning I described in the previous post when I was panicking about allowing them to "label" our child PDD-NOS.  What had I done by starting this blog?  Was I being unfair to Eli? Had I exposed him in ways that were wrong?

I prayed to God for guidance, handed the anxiety up to Him and then got up to think it through.  My motivation is not intended to expose my child, I realized, but to celebrate him and - more importantly - to vindicate him!  I want to explain him so people will understand him, and other children like him, and ACCEPT him!  Secondly, I want to maybe bring hope to other parents who have an child who is uniquely gifted and challenged all in the same mind.

How many times over the years has our older son, Ash, come home and told us stories about the kids in his classes who are constantly in trouble?  Story-of-the-day about kids who are consistent behavior problems and give the teacher's fits?  I've never seen those kids, but know them by name and hear the stories my son tells me about their latest antics. And I know how my own thoughts about these kids have historically been...they are dark thoughts, judgmental thoughts....unfair and uninformed thoughts.  I don't know these kids, the lives they lead, the challenges they face.  How can I possibly form an opinion, based solely on the child's behavior that day?

How many other children have gone home and sat around their dinner tables over the years and told Eli stories, I wonder?  Before the "new" diagnosis was determined and before the medications were adjusted to better work for him (just this school year), how many children would share with their families the Eli story-of-the-day; of how he meowed all through science class one day and kept everyone soooo distracted until he was removed from the classroom to the hallway.  How many parents have thought dark, judgmental thoughts about my precious son who brings so much joy into my life, who makes me laugh effortlessly, and who is such a brilliant reader and so smart he can play chess and most other "strategy" games so well that he is a force to be reckoned with?!

How many teachers went home at the end of the day exhausted beyond reason because our child gave them such a difficult day?  Their jobs are difficult enough without having to deal with "that kid" in their classrooms.  Don't get me wrong, we've been so blessed with teachers who have been compassionate and willing to work with E... but the energy drain they must have experienced ... I would not blame them for their dark thoughts at times.

How many people watched his ill behavior as a toddler and looked at Ben and I as pathetic excuses for parents?  I actually was postured once by a woman who tried to explain to me the "levels of behavioral expectations in public", as if I might not be aware how disruptive my three year old was actually being.  This child, who would not be held, and screamed wildly if I would try to remove him from a location he was not ready to leave, would have shattered glass and eardrums alike had I not allowed him to wriggle, squirm and move about within the small space we were confined to at the time.  She had no idea the scene I'd spared her as I spent the entire time keeping him in check as best as I could.  At that point I was exhausted.... I believe I pretty much blew her off, but her posturing hurt deeply.

These people are not bad or even wrong!  I totally understand their lines of thinking....they just don't understand!  They see this boy on and off, here an there....one time he seems like any typical kid, and the next time he's talking in baby-talk even though he's nearly 10 years old.  One time he'll be able to sit and listen, and the next he's distracted and disrupting others.  This child who does so well for his current teachers (once he get's past testing their limits), but can bring a substitute teacher to her knees in the span of a few hours.  Our son who gets fixated on a word and repeats it for days...

Lately the word is "bubbles".  No idea.  He just keeps saying it intermittently the last few days in baby talk, over and over and over.  Soon it will disappear a new word will take its place. It's what he does.

See we know these things about Eli.  We know the attachment he has to his stuffed monkey and the drama that can ensue if monkey is MIA or unavailable when he has a longing for him.  We know when he starts the rub-rub-rubbing on the legs of his jeans, over and over, that he's not doing anything inappropriate...he's just currently enthralled with the textures he feeling in the denim and he's hyper-focusing on the sensations at the moment because that's what has his attention.

We, his family, know this.  We're safe.  We love him despite the eccentricities he presents and displays.  They're all apart of Eli.  But what about the rest of the world?  What does the rest of the world see when they observe our son in the midst of "a behavior"?  I share them here in order for others to learn, to begin to understand and recognize, in Eli and hopefully in all people in other areas of their lives.... those people who they once thought of as "weird" may have a lot more to them than just the current behavior they are displaying.  Maybe this blog will serve to vindicate all of them, and we'll all dig deep to find tolerance and compassion and understanding we never knew we had.