Just when you think you have them figured out. . . yeah.
I was doing pretty ok as a mom, rolling along when God threw me this fabulous curve ball 7 1/2 years ago, named Daniel Harry. I had all my theories and methods, and they worked super well with the first two, but that all flew out the window when I met Daniel. Don’t get me wrong, he was a healthy, happy, chubby baby, but I knew something was up the day when at six months I strollered him into Old Navy and he freaked out. Literally. Screamed bloody murder then entire time we were in the store only to quit abruptly the moment we crossed the threshold into the rest of the mall. Oooo-k, that was weird. Being the masochist that I am and trying to figure this bizarre kid out, I pushed the stroller back into Old Navy. Ear-splitting shrieks. Out the door; peace and quiet. Strange. I figured it must have been the combination of bright lights and loud music and chalked it up to a cranky day.
Until.
The YEAR.
The year Daniel turned three and all hell broke loose. What the heck was going on? I went from looking smugly at “those” moms in Wal-Mart with the out of control children, to BEING one of “those” moms. Daniel turned into an absolute, scary, freaky monster who could throw a massive, you-wouldn’t-believe-it temper tantrum because I had cut his toast in triangles instead of squares, and it could go on for an hour or more. Nothing worked. Nothing I had done with Laura and Nate, nothing any of the experts suggested. Nothing. Ignorning it or isolating him only made him scream more and louder, and he would start to slam his head into the floor. It was frightening, even to a “seasoned” mom like me.
Enter my “savior.” Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and her book, The Spirited Child. Just reading the intro made me look around my house to see if she had video cameras hidden. Really!? I wasn’t the only one with a child like this? I learned to invent new, positive words for Daniel. He wasn’t strong-willed, he was spirited. He wasn’t stubborn, he was determined. I began to understand why he was reacting to the over-stimulations in his world. What merely was the world at large, an annoyance, or even fun to me (i.e. loud music) was terrifying and absolutely too much for Daniel. I began to recognize his triggers and help him recognize them so he could calm himself before the meltdowns. We took ALOT of warm baths in those days. We cried a lot together. We learned to use the buzz words “crazy” and “bugs.” When Daniel felt like he had “bugs inside him” or felt like he was “getting crazy” he could take a bath, do a puzzle, take a nap, any number of things to calm down. My little boy started to become calmer and more sociable.
As he’s grown, there’s still his little quirks, but that’s just Daniel. He doesn’t like “lines” in his socks. My mom always takes me shopping when she wants to buy him a shirt, because his clothes have to be just a certain texture. But, by and large, I figured we had outgrown and managed the worst of it.
I was wrong.
A new challenge presented itself today. I never imagined that reading could be overwhelming to a spirited child. I sit here typing this with tears in my eyes. My poor baby. It’s so hard to see him struggle with the world in all it’s excesses sometimes.
As I’ve been teaching him to read, he’s done great with individual sounds and individual words and even simple books, but lately the books have gotten harder. More words, more lines, more complex. Today he had an absolute meltdown while trying to read. Crumpled in a little ball, sobbing on the bathroom floor. As a mom it was heartbreaking to see. I was frustrated, he was frustrated. Why couldn’t he do it!? I knew he knew all the words and sounds, why couldn’t he read the book?
Then then like a bolt of lightening it hit me. He was having an “Old Navy” moment! There was “too much” stimulation on the page! I quit badgering him to “THINK Daniel!” and simply sat down on the rug with him, and he curled up in my arms and we both cried together. It hurt to see my baby hurting. After awhile I started to ask questions like I would when he was three. Wouldn’t you know it?
“Mom,” he said. “My head is all stuffed up!”
OK. Regroup. Don’t beat yourself up, Molly, you may not win mother of the year today, but we can figure this one out. So, I got a piece of construction paper and cut a rectangle-shaped hole just big enough to show one sentence at a time. The rest of the page was covered. I asked Daniel if he thought he could read just three or four words at a time, and he nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes! It’s like the rest of the words aren’t there confusing me!”
So, we sat on the couch and darn it, if that smart, little bugger didn’t read the whole book in record time, and understand it too!
I’m so proud of my spirited child.
And hey, is it ok if I say I’m kinda proud of myself too? Mommy didn’t melt down like she might have 10 years ago. I think I realized that this journey of learning about my wonderful, complex baby is never going to end. I wonder who and what he is going to be someday!? Especially when his poor head isn’t all stuffed up! ☺
No comments:
Post a Comment