Life Happens

I throw up in the mornings, just about every morning. This is the only time I do, once a day, thank goodness.
It's a side effect of therapy. The unfortunate result of cells dying and regenerating.
I’m not concerned about the vomiting. I’m concerned because I’m caring for my son at the time.
I hide it like I’m a bulimic from him. He still sees or hears.
When I was pregnant, I listened to classical music and read to him. I ate a great diet and exercised. I was excited, since it’s theorized 10% of what is learned is taught inutero, and he would come to pharmacology, health assessment, and pathophysiology with me after his ears had formed and began working.
I said he would not play video games until he was 6 and no more than 1.5 hours of tv a day. He would never see Sponge Bob or violent television. We would have family dinners and healthy snacks.
Then life happened.
My son plays video games. I rationalize this through the benefits of fine motor skills and tracking. Just read “Everything Bad for You is Good.” There are benefits.
Sponge Bob basically raised him since it’s on every minute of every day. I now think it’s funny.
Officially, take me off the list for “mother of the year.”
He does still pull moves on the soccer field I taught him. He has been able to switch hit since he was 18 months, because I thought it was a fun idea to teach him.
I’m worried his childhood memories of me will consist of my incoherent babbling at hospital visits, me sleeping next to the toilet, and playing board games, animals, cards, etc. in my bed.
At three, he would do an impression of me and pretend to throw up.
At five, he learned other moms are not bald, and do not live at the hospital.
He doesn’t remember me as a nurse or caretaker. He used to tell everybody I was a doctor, since I knew so much about health care and spent so much time at the hospital.
He is becoming withdrawn and anxious. I’m finally getting him a therapist.
I’ve gotten him one before. And another before that. And another before that.
We’ve seen, and I’ve rejected, five total.
I happily read recently, in my Brain Manual, that, “two factors are associated the most with the tendency of some children in unfavorable, adverse environments to emerge with competence ...... from language development and self-control, to the ability to form close friendships and succeed in both academic and extracurricular activities. The first is the child’s relationship with prosocial adults. . . . (YES! X has LOTS of those). The second factor is the possession of good intellectual functioning, including problem solving ability, language comprehension and vocabulary and vocabulary, and logical mathematical ability.”
Sweet. I think we’re good.
Except, he throws tantrums. He doesn’t want to leave my sight. He wants to protect me by being present. Bad things happen to me when he is away, and he tries to back talk despite the strict law I have against this.
He told me I’d take his sassitude yesterday.
“What?! Your sassy attitude!” escaped from my mouth in disbelief.
I can’t believe he talks like me all ready. At least, in his defiance, he’s funny.
At three, when he discovered “bad words,” and that he wouldn’t be able to say them, he started calling people “fudder nappers.”
So we would talk and he’d say, under his breath, “You fudder napper” at three.
Apparently, it means you are “full of shit.”
I swear, I didn’t teach him that. I have some prime suspects (thanks Dad).
He calls a wheel chair a “mommy stroller” and hollers at me saying, “you can’t hog that and stay in it forever!”
I’m getting him another therapist. I’m not going to fire them this time. I’ll get one that is recommended by someone I trust.
It’s time to admit, again, that I cannot provide everything my child needs. I’ll find it for him. It’s humiliating to realize that I don’t control the world. I can’t even control my son. It’s a stark realization that the world is not about me, not even a little bit.
Whatever. I guess Life happens.