Fortune Teller. Chapter 2.

You know how my left foot is covered with a giant tattoo of the ocean, all done in black and grey, and then there's that pink floating lotus flower on my outer ankle and a snow flake on my inner ankle??? Of course when I got it, it had plenty of meaning, but I never knew I was getting a tattoo of the future.

I had absolutely no clue my snow flake was the tip of an iceberg. I had not an inkling my dark waves were going to be the waves of constant struggles and emotions my future son would endure. I had no idea what my lotus flower was going to withstand, holding it's form and color no matter what. 

If everyone knew the future and what their personal journey of parenthood embodied for them, they might never take the plunge. ALL I can remember worrying about in reference to parenthood was losing precious sleep. That's it. I never considered a single other struggle that could come my way. It makes me chuckle just to think about that.

I am brave. I am strong. I am a mama bear. 

Dillon has a really good grasp on language now (yay). It's been a year since the last time I counted how many words were in his sentence, or sighed because the only brief sentences he muttered were scripted or a repeat of what I had just said. He still scripts some and repeats himself a lot, but he also has plenty of original thought language, great functional language, can process and express his emotional state with language, and even cracks a joke every now and then.

Patrick and I laughed so hard at the beach when I was stretching on the sand, and Dillon came up to me, squirting me in the head with his water gun while giggling and saying, "Oh! Sorry about your hat, Mommy!!" It was such a totally normal 5 year old boy thing to do, I couldn't even be mad. 

He doesn't always want to, though; it takes so much more effort for him to think in words. Often he just wants to completely zone out and watch his favorite show, Oscar's Oasis (that has zero words.....it's kinda like a modern day Roadrunner and Coyote). He can reenact every scene down to the tiniest detail from any show he watches (as he does all the time), and do a puzzle in record speed (especially those really hard slide puzzles), but it takes bribery to get a detail out of him about his day, and the detail is usually such a strange or small piece of information that I don't know what do with it.

As a word oriented person in a word oriented world, this is difficult for me. 

It's not countable the amount of times I've heard, "I'm frustrated" and "I can't do it" lately. It breaks my heart to hear him say this so many times a day. How terrible is it to have so many negative emotions all day long? I know his brain is working overtime, that all these "typical" moments take extra effort, and he gets tired, but what is he going to remember about these days?

As an internal optimist and someone who always has the feeling of "I can totally do that", I don't understand. 

He worries. Oh, he worries and frets. His latest worry is about his teeth. He saw Llama Llama lose a tooth on t.v. and now he's been holding onto his teeth for the last 3 weeks, to make sure they aren't falling out.....not in a funny way. Even when he's having fun, he may stop for a few seconds to hold onto his teeth and go deep in thought about it.

I've never been a worrier. I don't worry about much. But now this kid has me mulling over things all the time.

Every single month I ask myself, "Am I doing the right things? Am I doing everything I can to help my children grow up to be happy, thriving adults? Are they happy today? What school should Dillon go to? Do I further complicate our lives for quiet childcare that he loves or send him to a place everyone else goes to that he might hate? Do I keep him in all his therapies? Am I scaring him for life with this whole feeding therapy thing? Should I change the times of everything so he doesn't miss any school? How the heck am I going to get him everywhere? Am I being selfish or unfair for not wanting to send Mabel to school yet, even though I had already sent Dillon somewhere at her same age?"

The hard days hit really hard, crashing on everyone. No one goes emotionally untouched by them. And then the good moments come and they're joyful- even the most mundane of things- and I think, "Ah ha. Is this what it's like to be normal??" We get to feel almost normal so much more than we used to, and I'm utterly grateful for each savory minute. But that doesn't stop me from wanting more. Wanting more is what's gotten us this far.

I hope I saw the future when I got my latest tattoo. You know, that one with the vibrant geometric Mama bear and her happy buzzing busy bees working hard to pollinate and do their part in the world? Ya. That one. Like Dillon says with great confidence and excitement in reference to a chocolate glazed donut behind the glass counter, "I want THAT one, please!!!!"