Monday 9/19 Week 7; fresh start

If you know me, and I mean know me, you will know that I'm not filling these posts with the nitty gritty hard stuff that has been happening daily.  If you know me, you probably have listened to me whine and vent about the nitty gritty; about how hard things are and about the exhausting battle every day of trying to figure out what is going on and what I'm supposed to do about it and how I'm supposed to go about doing it with the resources I have.  I don't fill these posts with all of that because it doesn't always reflect well on G and he has had enough people noticing his less than wonderful qualities and doesn't need more of that.  My intention was to write about his successes, about how this year healed his hurts, about our journey through it.  I didn't realize how much of this journey was going to be about me as much as it is about him, or that it was going to be important to talk about the ugly stuff as well as the pretty stuff (ah, balance, there is that word again!)...because the truth is that any journey is not just the destination, but the path you take to get there.

I have been in a funk and sort of spiraling downwards lately.  Parenting is hard, parenting alone is an extra challenge, parenting alone and as a stay at home mom, with a limited circle of support has been a foreign country to me and I am not a very good traveler!  It's exhausting to be with G all the time. When I was at home with him in the beginning, it was easy.  He was a teensy helpless infant at at first.  And then he was an aware and curious and engaged baby.  He became a smart, quick thinking, active and funny toddler with a great sense of fun and enthusiasm.  Then I went to work.  He was 15 months at first, and maintained his adorable inquisitive and happy nature...until he didn't.  When he was about 22 months, I began working full time, and have continued at full time up until my last day on August 4th of this year:  two years and two months of being away from my son (who is now 4 years and 3 months old) for almost 10 hours a day, every weekday. Just about half his life.
Therefore, I was deliberate in my attention/time with him at every opportunity because my time was limited, a few hours each evening was all we had together aside from the weekend.  Every moment counted and I measured it out in increments and made each one matter.

Now that I'm with him 24/7 I keep feeling like I need a break, I need some "me time" and time for some "self care" but I don't know how to get it or when it is going to happen, so - without deliberate intention - I have been emotionally disengaging from him (and from everything) as a way to get a break of some kind.  I'm burying myself into scrolling Facebook, checking emails, making lists on Amazon, planning elaborate projects that I will realistically never be able to complete, chatting with friends in a different time zone...and not truly engaging with my son the way I intended, the way I should be, the way he needs me to.

It's a brave choice, what I did, to quit my job and stay home with my hurting son.  And wise - a smart choice - to heal my small boy now, instead of trying to heal him later over scars and thick protective walls.  But it wasn't necessarily thought out very well.  I focused on finances mostly - trying to decide if I actually COULD stay home and still pay my rent and utilities and feed my kids.  Perhaps I should have spent an equal amount of time planning out everything else: how much attention he needs, how much 'me-time' I need, and how to balance those; along with his need for mental stimulation and challenge, and for social interaction, and how I was going to meet all those needs all by myself...or IF I could meet all those needs all by myself.  Today I am wallowing, smack dab, in a pit of self doubt, of worry, of fear...while my beloved boy asks me "why?" and "how come?" and "how?" and "what does that mean?"on a regular basis.  I need time to think about an answer.  But there is no time available.  I need a re-do, a do-over, a fresh start.  There isn't one though.  And that is the whole point of this.  I can't re-do it, not any of it.  I can't just have a "fresh start" or a re-do, I have to just keep going in spite of it all.

So while there is no fresh start, there is this: the ugly messy nitty-gritty dirt of helping a small boy regain trust in adults, relearn boundaries and safety and security, and re-establish hierarchy and rules and the black and white truths that sometimes rules US instead of us ruling them...  and so maybe it is a fresh start after all... 

Friday August 19; Day 10

Things that are getting better by me staying home:

• G no longer wets his pants (something he hadn't done at all until suddenly he started having "accidents" in early summer and only at daycare)
• G is cuddling more, actively reaching out to me for hugs, to hold my hand, to wrap an arm around my leg and lean into me when we are standing somewhere... (these are things he did before he turned 2 and went to daycare full time but he hasn't done much of since then).
• While I don't yet have a full grasp of his natural sleep/eat cycles, I know I will figure it out.  I am letting him drive that process and am learning his natural rhythms - before he went to daycare I used to know he was tired almost before he was tired.  Now I understand that he goes from "OK" to "completely unglued" at warp speed, but I still believe that we can work out the key signals and get back into a groove so we can prevent or at least prepare for the majority of his melt downs.  
• G and I are having FUN together on a regular basis - something that was really missing in our regular day to day lives.  Fun was something I forced us to have on the weekends in between chores and errands and commitments.  (you WILL have fun and you WILL like it, dammit!) Now it's spontaneous, unplanned, and taking each moment as it comes, much like the way that a Mindful Awareness class taught me to pay attention to.  Perhaps I can teach him this concept as we experience this time together?     

Things that are not getting better/staying the same/getting worse by me staying home:

• G still likes to argue with every. single. thing. I. say.  This may be a "4" thing, or it may be part of the distrust that had built up (you know, cuz I'm the one that put him in a place where grown ups hurt him and I'm the one that told him HE needed to do better...I'm the one that didn't protect him) but it's pretty much on-going.  There are moments when it's better, and moments when I am so very DONE with him arguing that the sky is NOT blue or that the ground is NOT wet... note to self: you cannot win an argument with a four year old.  Not without physical force anyway, and I'm just not "that" person.  Side Note: I'm getting really good at losing arguments.
• G still likes to test every. single. boundary.  This is definitely a "4" thing.  I'm pretty sure, at my age and with 3 other children under my belt, I understand that he NEEDS to test boundaries so he feels safe and secure but Mary Mother Of God!!! I'm tired... I'm so so tired of enforcing every boundary, every time, all day, every day.  But that is what I do because that is my responsibility, and mine alone.  And if anyone is going to discipline my fragile, broken hearted boy, I want it to be me.
• G still likes to call all the shots.  Oh yes, this kid has control issues but not all of them can be traced to a lack of power in a crucial moment.. some of them can be traced to me.  I'm sorry, world, but it's true.  I have control issues and so does my four year old.  We make quite the team, let me tell you!

Today I had a final trial run before taking on two extra kids for a nanny position while their single mom is out of town on a business trip.  It was ok.  I think G may have some issues with sharing my attention as well as some issues with sharing things in general.  Over all he is still adjusting to a lot of changes over the past month, which for some kids is an easy string of seamless events but for G is like a huge staircase with steps that are a little too high, a little to narrow, and a few too many.  So at the end of this day, I take yet another deep breath and maybe clench my teeth just a little bit harder one more time, and I hold my son close as I tuck him in bed and I ask God and the universe to watch over us both, again, still, so that we can get through this time intact and with love.  I trust that angels are around us and that all our friends are thinking hopeful positive thoughts for us.