Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More
written by: Lori Borgman, Columnist and Speaker
My friend is expecting her first child.
People keep asking what she wants.
She smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answer mothers have
given throughout the pages of time.
She says it doesn’t matter whether it’s a boy or a girl.
She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes.
Of course, that’s what she says.
That’s what mothers have always said.
Mothers lie.
Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more.
Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin.
Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.
Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two).
Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions.
She wants a kid that can smack the ballout of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class.
Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want.
Some mothers get babies with something more.
Some mothers get babies with conditions they can’t pronounce, a spine that didn’t fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn’t close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away.
It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn’t see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you.
Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news.
It can’t be possible!
That doesn’t run in our family.
Can this really be happening in our lifetime?
I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies.
It’s not a lust thing; it’s a wondrous thing.
The athletes appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony.
Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.
As I’ve told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echo cardiogram, there’s no such thing as a perfect body.
Everybody will bear something at some time or another.
Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it.
Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me.
How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day.
How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.
I wonder how you endure the cliches and the platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you’ve occasionally questioned if God is on strike.
I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one — saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you’re ordinary.
You snap, you bark, you bite.
You didn’t volunteer for this.
You didn’t jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, “Choose me, God! Choose me! I’ve got what it takes.”
You’re a woman who doesn’t have time to stepback and put things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you.
From where I sit, you’re way ahead of the pack.
You’ve developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil.
You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July,carefully counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.
You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require intense and aggressive the next.
You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You’re a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall.
You’re the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You’re a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more.
You’re a wonder.
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Wow! It has been way too long since I updated. I'm glad to see that at least some have stopped by although for those who gave up...I really can't blame you. My lack of writing would certainly have something to do with that :) With the exception of Little K and reading, we have enjoyed a mostly "school free" summer. Sure, we kept learning, but we took a break from the more structured aspects of education. A is doing an online program this year. It provides the organization and structure that I lack, especially while I am finishing up my degree. This way, the curriculum is chosen and broken down...and he doesn't seem to question his grades as much as when I do the grading! Little K is still using the curriculum that I have chosen but I hope to get her reading fluently enough that she can move to the same program her brother is doing. That would free me up to do more freelance writing and to enjoy the many projects around here that we all love...such as training our baby horses! I never thought I would do homeschooling any other way than MY way but I was concerned about my weaknesses leaving holes for the kids. Now, I can be sure there are fewer holes and still have fun with them and do the projects and interests we have without feeling like they are taking away from the core things they need. Not to mention, finishing my degree was taking a toll on all of us when I had lesson plans to do and papers to grade. I still work with A on the lessons and check his papers, but the full responsibility does not solely fall on my shoulders. It is a wonderful balance that is working well for us...I am anxious to see how the school year plays out... So, what have we been doing?? Taking care of our menagerie that now includes 4 horses, 1 grumpy old man pony, 2 wiley goats, 4 hens, a dog and a cat. The kids spent the summer rodeoing and A was a 2x Junior Bareback Champion! We are now back in school and soccer has started. Little K is taking formal horseback riding lessons to improve her balance, coordination and trunk strength. It will also help with some bad habits she has picked up about being too heavy handed with the horses. Her instructor is of the philosophy that less is more when it comes to guidance and discipline. Unfortunately, Little K saw very little of that from the teenage rodeo competitors and has begun to mimic their behavior. Having some time away from that and exposure to a lighter hand will set up a new example that will be better. Little K is still in language therapy but we had to take a break from physical and occupational therapy or she would run out of authorized visits for the year and I just can not afford over $200/visit! We had to choose the area where she is making the most strides and sacrafice those in which she is not. Well, it's good to be back and I am excited about this school year...more updates coming soon! |
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It works! It works! It works! Little K has several learning challenges. Her very slow auditory processing makes giving even simple directions to K monumental tasks. Many times when we had somewhere to be in the morning, it took at least as long to help her get ready as it did to get myself and the boys ready to go out the door. Every single direction had to be short and simple and followed up completely. Giving verbal cues and redirection were constant as she would interpret less than 1/2 of what was said to her so she needed constant reminders. Her visual processing is right on target (or at least very close). Hmmm...the dilema was in finding a way to give her visual cues. We considered traditional chore charts but they were often small with small blocks to check off and K has a hard time following along (left to right-top to bottom). It had to be bigger. She has also lost a lot of strength and control in her fingers so it had to utilize those skills as well to strengthen and maintain the skill she has but not be too complicated. This is what we came up with... Big K took 2 foot long strips of finished oak and mounted 7 clothes pins per strip and then attached them to the wall. I drew first on orange 1" by 2 1/2" index cards the things she needed to get ready in the morning (getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing her hair, brushing her teeth, packing her lunch (everything is ready she just puts it in her lunch box), packing her backpack (again, everything is laid out) and getting her shoes on) then I put one word so she would understand that that meant the picture (for future). I put these on the top row in the order they are done in. Next I got green cards and put her 7 chores on them (feeding the cat, feeding the dog, sweeping the kitchen, starting the dishwasher, put away cups and silverware, gather her dirty laundry and pick up her toys. Again, with one word to mean that activity. After every single card was made, I asked her what it meant. If she got it, then I went with it and had it laminated...if not, I started over and always asked her what made her think of . The next line was blue and involved her school subjects (math, history, science, reading, ballet and music...I also had a writing one but Grammie accidently laminated it with math :) so I have to redo that one). Finally, I had yellow cards with her night time routine on it (bath, pajamas, brush hair, brush teeth, pick a movie, story time and bed). Now, before anyone gets too excited about the pick a movie thing...let me just say that it works for our family. We have overcome HUGE sleep anxiety issues with Little K related to her treatment, hospital stays and in the ICU. We are making steps and this works for us. So, back to our system. Little K knows what each color means and each line is for (morning routine, chores, school and night time routine). As she performs each task, she flips the card over to show it is done. This way, she still knows what is left. If she does not have to do that particular thing that day, I just leave it turned over when I set up her board before I go to bed. So far, so good!
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I am just so excited I can hardly stand it! Little K is sounding out words! The other night, while I was on the computer catching up, Little K came over and was trying to sound out the word "food." Now, she knows most of the letter sounds but not the combinations such as "oo," so she needed some help but just the fact that she made the connection that letters together are really sounds together is amazing! Let me give some brief background information. Little K has slain the cancer dragon. She was diagnosed at the tender age of 4 1/2 with a very aggressive form of leukemia and survived 27 months of chemotherapy and radiation. She is a fighter! However, it left her with some major challenges to overcome. One of which is brain damage (oh, I HATE that term!) that causes learning challenges and problems in many areas including auditory processing. As you can imagine, this particular struggle makes it very difficult to learn phonics. We have been working on letter and sound recognition for more than 18 months with slow progress at best. I was determined to prove to the "experts" that she could and would learn on time. They told us there was little hope of her learning to read before the age of 9. Well, she is starting on that path. I dug out my phonics starters (we had put them away after it became apparent that they were doing nothing but cause frustration) and she is ready. She isn't zipping through them but she is retaining the sounds and she sees that they are not just random letters on a page but symbols that mean something and can be decoded. I am so excited I can hardly stand it :) Now, I am not getting too far ahead here, some times we definitely get the 2 steps forward, 1 step back thing but I am not going to let the window of opportunity pass. It is encouraging to see connections being made again! I have lots to update on, this was just the best news all week :) |
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When I invisioned homeschooling, I thought it would be a day of fun, exploring and playing and my children would become virtual geniuses over night! Ha ha ha ha ha! Yes, it is fun and yes we explore and play and they are learning...in some areas way ahead of their public school peers (Austin is after all attending a History of Western Medicine class at college with me) but it is not going exactly that way I had planned...kind of like raising kids :) Our first year, just last year mind you, I saw many, many days of tears, temper tantrums and infinte frustration...not to mention the problems the kids were having. I began to wonder what on earth I had done. My son missed recess, and nothing else, and hated grammar! My child hate grammar??? What on earth? I am a rhetoric major for heaven's sake! Despite what you read here, I tend to be the grammar police! Heck, I even correct books and newspapers! I LOVE writing and reading and writing some more! How could he hate grammar? Grammar drills? Pure joy! Yet, every day when we touched the grammar workbook, it would induce in both of us an explosion that could rival Mt. St. Helens (we are from the NW after all)! A child that once loved reading, now loathed it. I HAD RUINED HIM! It was time for a change in plans... Now, I am a planner. I always have to know what the next step is. No, I am not organized in the conventional sense, but I am the person with goals and plans for the next 10 years. No deviating from the plan, please. This was deviating. The curriculum I just knew would be fun and would be loved dearly and fondly remembered, brought forth feelings of absolute hatred and revolsion. Oh, what was I going to do? Dear hubby wanted us to finish and get our money's worth. Of course, he did not have to teach it nor witness the meltdowns. So, I took the workbook and dissected it. I took what were tedious grammar lessons and turned them in to games. We diagrammed sentences and learned parts of speech by playing adlibs. We labeled all things in the house, including the dog, and learned capitalization. We planned paragraphs by making parfaits and guess what? He didn't hate grammar. He hated tedious lessons about things that were irrelevant. This year we are reading the books he wants to and using study guides that include activities such as milking cows at the neighbors and making pancakes and telling mom, as we are cleaning stalls, all about caring for horses. We are doing grammar by working for a newspaper...doing all jobs including being an editor and occassionally we diagram sentences...just for fun for mom. Now, I planned on proving the doctors and experts wrong about me daughter. Due to the treatment she endured for her leukemia, she has lots of holes (think swiss cheese) in her learning abilities. They vowed she would not read until age 9 and I vowed she would read on time with her peers...hmmm...see a problem here. I had to prove them WRONG! Well, God has His own time tables. She is still not reading. She is still mixing up letters and sounds. She is still at beginning kindergarten level. Oh, woe is me, I am a failure! Nope, it just means a change in plans. Perhaps a different approach. Now, she has no idea she is behind. She thinks she is moving right along because she IS learning. She has no peers to compare herself with so each overcome hurdle is cause for rejoicing! She could care less what the experts say. She is learning so much, she gets to go to Mrs. Darling's house to do more reading (because she is starting to wonder if she is surpassing my abilities :). We have changed plans. In addition to mom working with her, a tutor gets to come at it with another approach. A new set of eyes and a new set of skills and it is helping. Lucky us! God has a plan. In Jeremiah 29:11 He tells us that it is one that gives us a hope and a future. He also tells us numerous times not to light our own paths or lean on our own understanding. Guess I should read more on that one. And as the song says, "If you want to hear God laugh tell Him your plans." A change of plans is a good thing, especially when after much prayer, His plan is revealed and you align yours with His. |
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I am so excited to be part of such an awesome community. I have been checking out blogs here for sometime but wasn't sure about starting yet another blog I would have to find time to write in, but here I am! So...guess I will start by talking about how we came to be homeschoolers... It was never a completely foreign idea for my husband or me. While he attended public school, as did I, he had cousins who were homeschooled and/or who were homeschooling. We both feel as if the public school system failed us because we both fell through the cracks despite our intellengence and neither of us graduated but went on to pursue other interests and got our GEDs. Even as students, we could see that the public system was in trouble and that was before it got as bad as it is today. When we were talking about the possiblity of having our own children we both agreed that the public system was not an option. We were still on the fence about private schools but when our first child was born and we began looking, we were disappointed. Not just by the price (it was enough to put a child through college!) but also in the curriculum that was available and our lack of input or choices. We were at a loss. During this time, we had temporary custody of our nephew who was attending the local public school and really struggling. Daily trips and meetings with the school counselor, his teachers and the administrative staff did little to help. Due to his above average intellengence, there was no "academic need" despite the fact that he had ADHD and several other issues including Sensory Integration Disorder that made it nearly impossible for him to learn in a classroom environment. I had hoped that the services the district could provide would help him, not hurt him. I tried homeschooling him but felt overwhelmed with my son at home and no support and returned him back to the system feeling very defeated. I began supplementing at home and searching for outside programs to get him the help he needed and found a program called "Everybody Reads." In just 10 weeks he jumped dramatically in his abilty to read and in his comprehension levels. I was sold. When I found out the same group was opening a charter school, and my son was soon to enter kindergarten, I was hooked! Our nephew returned to his family and my son began attending his new school. It was wonderful. It was everything I imagined the public school system could and should be. He was learning, there was lots of one on one, it was a small community school and he loved it. The only draw back was it would only go through the 5th grade but I had plenty of time to make a decision so, I put homeschooling on the back burner and actually returned to college myself to work towards my degree. Everything seemed to be moving along. My daughter was fast approaching kindergarten, I was almost finished with my degree and my son was thriving in his school. What could possibly change our minds and cause us to change course? Our daughter was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia on May 9, 2005 at the age of 4 1/2. Suddenly our entire world stopped dead in its tracks. Without going in to a lot of detail here...feel free to read all about that journey at her blog at www.courage4kennedy.com as I am going to just skim regarding that story. During the very long year of intensive chemotherapy and radiation, it was necessary for me to be with my daughter at the hospital and for my son to be at home with his dad, grandma and papa. This proved to be way too much for his 8 year old emotions to bear and I began getting work from school and keeping him with me at the hospital most of the time. I was homeschooling, I just didn't know it yet. He became a sponge and soon I was searching everywhere for supplemental material to do with him. When I would send him to school, despite the fact that he was not getting sick, all kinds of germs were following him home and K (our daughter) having no immune system would inevitably end up in the hospital. That finally pushed us over the edge in to homeschooling. Sure we were convinced that the system was failing and that many things were being taught in school that were harmful but we had decided that we could be okay with it since our family was strong. Illness finally convinced us. The first year we homeschooled full-time, no one, including K, was sick. I could not believe it! But, the first year was a bumpy ride. I couldn't seem to find a curriculum we liked or that worked, I couldn't seem to stick to a schedule and I just knew that I was failing my children. Every week I would have to call my other homeschool friends for reassurance and I prayed...A LOT. I needed to be sure that this is what I was called to do. Instead of listening to all the experts on curriculum I just prayed...and prayed...and prayed...and prayed some more. Until the direction became clear. I was so focused on creating school at home that I wasn't listening to God and learning from my children what would be best for them. This year? The pieces have come together...or are at least coming together. I watched and prayed and discovered how they learn best. I have sought out helpful resources to help them and I along the way. I learned their love languages. And I continue to pray. So, that is how we came to be homeschoolers. Now, teaching the kids? That is another story for another entry. A (my son) have been wonderful and does a fantastic job reviewing curriculum with me and giving me input on it and his interests. K has many learning challenges (my next entry to come) and has proved to be my fire that molds me to be more like God. She teaches me patience, understanding and forces my creativity! :) One thing though, the more I homeschool and the more I read about homeschooling and learn from other homeschoolers and pray, the more convinced I am that this is the right choice for us. My son said the other day that he wants to be home learning forever. Nothing could make me happier...at least until he is a grown man! Then, I hope he embarks on the world and makes his way and raises up his own family. |
Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More |