Taking a little break …

Eleven years ago Tom and I were anxiously waiting to hear about a brother and sister that needed a new home.  We were hoping ours would be the best fit for them.  In July we got the happy news that our family of three was about to become a family of five.  We knew there would be challenges, but we were excited about having two more children to love and teach and enjoy.  In August our kiddos, Andrew and Haley, came home for good.

The first year was a roller coaster.  There were so many appointments – social worker visits, speech & occupational therapy appointments, play therapy appointments, evaluation appointments … the list seemed endless!  And this was on top of adjusting to having two toddlers in the house.  Every time I turned around it seemed there was another “crisis” – finding Andrew sitting on the washer pouring soap down between the washer and dryer, chasing the two of them down the street when they decided to “have an adventure”, discovering all the holes in Spencer’s p.j.s because Andrew was exploring the joys of scissors …  It was what I imagined having twins might be like – what one didn’t think of the other one would.

I thought if I could just get through the first year, things would get better.  The adoption would be final and there wouldn’t be any more social worker visits.  Andrew would be in school and some of his therapy appointments would be ending.  We could start to establish a more normal family life.  It was a pipe dream, though I would take a couple more years to accept that.

You know that bumper sticker that reads, “Insanity is hereditary – you get it from your kids?”  The reason it is funny is because there is a little bit of truth in it.  In my case there was a lot of truth.   We didn’t know it at the time (and wouldn’t for another four years or so) but Andrew was struggling with mental illness and development delays – and I was fighting serious depression as I kept running into dead ends in my attempts to manage the chaos in our home.

Eleven years later Andrew has had his fair share of evaluations, interventions, medications, and behavior modification plans.  He wends his way through his life, merrily pursuing whatever comes into his head with little thought for the consequences of his actions to himself or others.  He relies heavily on others around him to create and maintain boundaries that keep him and others safe.  His ability to regulate his own impulses is limited.  Think of a toddler – but put him in a teenage body.  Exhausting!

After a very long school year on my own, I gratefully accepted my parents’ offer to have Andrew come spend the summer with them.  He’s been with them about two weeks now.  I’m not sure I can adequately express the relief that I have felt to have a break.  I don’t have to be constantly aware of where Andrew is and what he is doing.  I don’t have to lock all the doors to keep him from taking things.  I don’t have to protect Haley constantly from his hassling.  I feel like a normal mom for the first time in forever.  I can go shopping with Haley and it is actually a pleasant experience.  We have normal conversations where we just enjoy talking and no one is trying to convince me that black is white (metaphorically speaking – at least most of the time!)  It is wonderfully freeing.  I feel so very appreciative that I have parents who are willing and able to do this for me.  It is an amazing gift.

But in the midst of this rest stop – this laying aside the burden for a moment – I have to acknowledge the positives of this journey.  I have gained such a reserve of empathy for all those who are shouldering heavy loads.  I hope that I’m slower to judge and quicker to assume there is more to the story than the mother who is just impatient with her tantruming child.  I hope I’m a better listener instead of trying to “fix” other people’s problems.  I also believe I am learning about unconditional love.  It’s hard to love those who hurt us.  I’ve had to learn to forgive my child over and over and over.  I’m learning to find positives in the midst of all the negatives.  I’ve also learned how important it is to love babies and  care for them consistently so that they learn to trust.  When children don’t learn this basic life skill, it impacts their whole life.  Parents raising children who trust them have a completely different experience than parents struggling to help a child learn this skill later in life.  I’ve done both and realize that most parenting advice assumes this basic ability by children.  Without it, parenting is a whole different ballgame.  Above all, I have come to realize how patient God is with us – and how demanding it is to be patient!!  Like just about everything hard in my life, I wouldn’t have chosen to be the mom of a challenging child.  But how lucky I am that I’m not in charge.  Because I wouldn’t be the person I am without the life I have lived, and while I would be content to be a small cottage, I’m pretty sure the mansion God is building will be a beautiful thing (see CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity where he talks about a “living house”).

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