Friday, September 24, 2010

By the time friday rolls around...

I will admit I am done. Unsure if it is my age, the week, the over thinking, but seriously I am done. If I could find a way to turn off my brain, soak, and have a drink of wine I think I might be ok. that is not motherhood though, it is continuous.

Tonight DH and I are hitting the town, perhaps dinner, drinks, and a movie...we have had date night 2 times since April. He too is exhausted by the time Friday gets here.

SR had 3 good days this week, 1 day of recovery, and 1 bad day. It is what it is at this point. Right now it is school, it is exhausting to him. Once he knows what to expect, normally it is good, but he is slow to adjust, and for some reason it is not being realized. The bad thing about being sooo high functioning 90% of the time, is that when you are having one of your 10% days, people think you are being a spoiled brat, and can control yourself...how we wish. How he wishes. He expresses to me almost every 48 hours how he WISHES he was normal, and how he wished God created him differently. Right now he is in the middle of some sort of existential crises. Which is sad, seeing that he is only 8.

I have had to become queen of the pep talk, the queen of silver linings. The pep talks, and encouragement lasting hours.

The one thing he is proud of is his intelligence and grasp of concepts, but in our society this is not really allowed to be celebrated. No I do not want an arrogant child. But while everyone is celebrating soccer, baseball trophies, there are visible belts that are earned in karate as you master skills, and he sits on the outside.....unable to celebrate that he is brilliant, well it is sorta sad, and as his Mother it is frustrating. WE cannot tell anyone about his academic accomplishments, because it looks like we are bragging, and creating a monster.

He still cannot compete in any sort of team events, he does not understand social dynamics all of the time, he is also prone to perfection, even though we have not pushed him in that direction. It is typical for what we believe is ailing him. He is not only a perfectionist, but a people pleaser. A dangerous combination.

the other day I went to the GP, he went ahead and ran the tests I requested, and he looked at me sad, our GP and our family have grown attached to one another. He looked at me, like a Father with sadness. Like he wanted to say.."I wish I could fix this". "I will test for whatever you want, you have done your research, he is your child, Mothers know things"....

whatever it is, it is. It is not new. WE have been working and doing for 8 years. We have made progress in this time too. All of us. I have learned patience, and empathy for other parents with children that struggle. So the "welcome to the club" crap is getting old. It is not a new club, they are just giving us our secret t-shirts now. We have been in the club....

Tonight I escape my reality

6 comments:

vw bug said...

Have you thought of scouts? There are academic belt loops, pins and badges. Family and faith activities. I'm just learning about it but Bou could tell you more. My boys just achieved their chess belt loop this last week. From there they can go on to get the pin. I am extremely lucky in that we ended up in two very good dens. Just a though.

Rachelle Jones said...

Henry has been in Boy Scouts for 1 1/2 years, and dick is Executive Chair. It does help.

Teresa/ride4fun said...

Hope you had a good date night.

I cant claim to have any understanding of the challenges for you and SNR but your post provoked a few thoughts.

karate or tae kwon do are not really team sports. Might not be for SNR with the commotion but the lower levels are memorizing the forms and sparring (teaching how to block specific punches or kicks.) My brother is into tae kwon do, so I have 2nd had knowledge of it.

I was thinking 'too bad only adults and not kids get encouraged to do solo sports like jogging' and remembered that various co-workers have mentioned their elementary kids recording miles run/biked to work towards fitness medals.

Would a chess club be an option for SNR? I don't know if they have kids clubs outside of like NYC but chess seems like an activity where he would not have to deal with too much sensory stimulus and his intellect would be cheered.

Karen Bunyk said...

Hi! I haven't been reading you for long, so don't know exactly all the challenges SR is facing. My eldest son was diagnosed with Aspberer Syndrome 7 years ago, when he was 9. I didn't care about the label, but it allowed me some insight into how his mind worked.

Along the way, his teacher started putting the day's plan up on the whiteboard at the front of the room. She commented that my son was much more settled once she started doing this, as he knew roughly what to expect during the day.

Could this be something that might help SR?

Peter said...

I know very little of the problems and potential triumphs your boy faces. I do know that of all the Mamas in the world, he has the very best. No boy could ever have a greater champion.

Bou said...

I want my tshirt. Can I have it in black? I'll live on the edge and take Green, in honor of Kermit's song, 'It isn't easy being green...' our household theme song.

Funny story you may appreciate... my tech lead has a very very smart child. He's in 3rd grade and is all engineer all the time at age... 8. He can't abide by the stupidity that surrounds him. It seems he had a meltdown in class yesterday. His teacher makes them all SING their homework before they leave. He refuses. As he puts it, "I am EIGHT! I'm not FIVE." They definitely put him with a teacher of which there is absolutely NO connection. They're working with her... Can you imagine? Sing your homework?