Our Wayward Ducks

Our ducks are rarely in a row. 

I thought we were all ready to go this morning, the girls' hair was almost done and I was packing their lunches into their lunch boxes. However, my son discovered he couldn't find his backpack, his bolsa, which he pronounced incorrectly as “boso.” Before I knew it, we were too late to walk to school, so the girls got in the van as I went back inside to hear my tiny son yelling “BOSO!!!” in a tone of intense anger. Thinking on my toes, I got him his older brother's backpack from elementary school, which had an army motif. 

Granny Liz, seeing that the girls were about to be late, transferred them to her car and sped off, leaving me with my hysterical little boy. We somehow managed to get him into the van, but once we were in the car line, he wouldn't get out of the van. Soon the door closed and we had to pull around to the front of the school and sign in there late. But he still wouldn't get out, so his sister and I played hopscotch. He then yelled about not having a water bottle, so I found one in the van, filled it with bottled water we had for emergencies, and placed it in his backpack. This had officially become an emergency. 

The next stage was getting him into the office, with tears streaming down his cheeks and a look of pure disdain on his face. Could his social worker or teacher get him into the classroom from the office? Nope. Yelling ensued as he convinced everyone he wasn't going anywhere. The social worker left. The teacher left. And he knew that if he didn't go to school the only option was to go home to his room.

As I started walking to the car, he slung his brother's backpack over his shoulder, and with tears still streaming, solemnly walked towards his class.

I never got upset, and I made sure he understood that he was not in trouble for being late. Everyone can have a bad morning… right?

What struck me however, was that when I got home, I found his backpack. Instead of placing his things in his locker the day before, like we've practiced over and over and over again, he had thrown his backpack haphazardly on top of the laundry machine in the corner of the basement.

Mamas, on the best of days, and with a tremendous amount of energy, we can (occasionally) have our ducks in a row. But the difficulty of parenting kids with special needs or trauma, is that we can't plan for the idiosyncrasies. I could never have predicted where this child would have thrown his backpack.

We can set up systems so that most days run smoothly. But kiddos with neurodiversities won't always use the system (or remember to). And that's why we have days where our ducks are so scattered, we can't find them at all.

It's not your fault, it's not my fault, and in my best mood I might even argue it's not their fault either. We're going to have days where it takes 13 steps to get our son into his classroom. Each step will include yelling, screaming, mispronounced words, rages over things outside of your control, and an inability to reason with them.

But on the bright side, he was “only” 27 minutes late to school this morning. It could have been 30 minutes! Or he might not even have made it at all. Our wins look different from those of other parents with neurotypical non-traumatized children. But they are wins nonetheless, and I celebrate them with you.