The Friendship Medal

I hate Field Day at the kids' school because it's long, boring, outdoors (read: hot or cold, depending where you live, and I've had BOTH), and most of all, I have to endure witnessing my children's inability to win first place, second place or even third place.  Who cares? They do!  We are not a family of athletes and that's OK but for a child who is competitive, and I have three of those, Field Day is a nightmare.  I blame my husband's genes because I couldn't care less about competing, yet, guess who has to suffer through THREE days a year of torture, agony and pain? Yeah, that would be me.  After it's all over, the kids are crushed and I want to quit my day job.  

I must say Rebecca was the easiest one to handle and Victor, well, he is Victor so he gets over anything really fast.  Now, Frankie, he is a totally different story.  Historically, his developmental delays don't make it easy for him to participate in sports.  He has low muscle tone and balance issues and although he works hard at overcoming them, frustration gets the best of him most of the time. Yet, we don't give up and every year we work at it.  Unfortunately, his school ties field day with a "Medal Ceremony" that other schools don't have - you would think this is the Junior Olympics!  It's such a big event and the kids are so into winning that no matter what they say about the medals not mattering, they do matter and they matter a lot.  I get the whole purpose of inspiring future gold medalists but com'on, really?  this is elementary school and not all kids are athletes!  Field Day for Frankie starts out all fun and games but then the torture begins as the ceremony time approaches. In their defense, they do give the kids with special needs an honorary medal for trying their best and that made Frankie happy enough the first year.  The second year he was mad and he called it a "pity medal" because he said that he had not earned it.  This year I told him I would sign him out before the medal ceremony and he said no and I was terrified - what would he think of his "pity medal" this year?  To add insult to injury, there was NO medal!  I am not sure if the budget came short but instead of a medal, the kids were awarded a ribbon this year.  Hey, it was a lovely ribbon but not a medal - Frankie was beyond insulted, upset, hurt, crushed and all of the above.   I knew he had tried his best; he participated with all his heart and was faster and better at every single competition than he had ever been before.  Needless to say I gave him the whole speech of having achieved a personal best, that this was a competition against himself and not others and blah, blah, blah - at the end of the day, he didn't get a medal and that's all that mattered to him.  He cried and cried and I braised for an entire week of self-pity fest.

As we walked out of school, a boy from his class came up to us with his mom. The boy had gotten a silver medal and he took it off his neck and hung it around Frankie's neck as he asked him to please accept it, calling it a "friendship medal."  I froze.  If you know Frankie, you know it's a 50-50 with him - you really never know what he will do in an unexpected situation like this one.  I was ready to apologize to the child's mom and make a run for it in case Frankie gave the medal back with some nasty remark.  I couldn't believe it when he hugged the kid back and thanked him for his gesture. Wait, what?  He squeezed the medal against his chest and called the classmate a "true friend" - His face was glowing and so was the other child's.  I enjoyed the moment.  One kind gesture from a child made a difference in another child's life.  I was grateful for the child who gave his friend a friendship token but I was most grateful that MY child was able to accept it and appreciate it.

Later, as we walked to the car, I noticed that Frankie was silently crying. I asked him, why the tears this time?  He answered, "mom, have you ever heard of 'tears of joy'?"  Indeed, I have, Frankie, indeed, I have.

Keep calm and parent on......

When you are the parent of a child with special needs, guilt is a feeling you carry around as your daily cross.  You never feel you are doing enough.  Sometimes you feel you are doing too much.  You feel guilty of spending too much time dealing with your child's special needs and perhaps not enough with his/her siblings.  Other times you feel like you are NOT spending enough time and resources for your special kid.  You worry about using meds or not using meds; you feel guilty for his condition and you feel guilty for his future.  You feel that whatever you do or don't do now will be the one thing that will change his adult life for the better or for the worse.  Yes, there is a lot of worrying going on in the mind of a parent, of any parent, really, but when it comes to our kind, the ones with special kids, well, the wrinkles in the middle of your forehead get deeper and deeper no matter what miracle product you use.

Thank God for special moments like the one I had today.  I feel like this is the best mother's day gift I can ever get, although sometimes I really do want to get a MacBook Air.  Really, I do.  But I will take the words I heard from my Frankie any time over an awesome laptop like the MacAir.  He told me he liked me and then he told me he liked the way I was raising him.  Yeah, my seven year old told me that.  Autism has a way to impress me sometimes to the point of being speechless. If you know me, you know it takes a lot to leave me without words and yet, there are moments when I don't know what to answer to a child that is so wise beyond his age and yet melts down over simple, everyday tasks.  Does he even know what he is telling me?  I always doubt it and I question him only to find out that he does know what he is saying and that he really does mean it.  My parenting style is simple, I want my children, all of them, to be happy.  I want them to choose the happy road and not the sad one.  I want them to have hope.  I want them to get up when they fall and keep on going, no matter how many times.  For my little one, this is three times as hard because he falls a lot.  He has to have an extra dose of strength because his path is harder and he needs to keep up no matter what.  Today, he has to hold my hand to walk his path and sometimes I feel like I am dragging him.  I often slow down to match his pace but one day I know he will not need me to pull him or drag him.  He might not even need my hand at all.  I know that day will get here and I know I will be proud to have talked the talk  AND walked the walk no matter how inadequate or guilty I might have felt along the way. 

Yes, I AM raising my kids the best way I can but they are teaching me, every day to be patient, to see the world through their eyes and not mine.  Frankie allows me to understand that living with a condition like Autism doesn't have to be so hard.  There are these moments of brightness and warmth that I would never have experienced if he wasn't around.  I know my other two kids like me too.  I am not sure if they like the way they are being raised the same way that Frankie does but the fact that at least one of them is telling me I don't stink as a mom, gives me confidence that no matter what I do or I don't do, the fate of my kids is beyond my control and so is their love. 

To close this up, to all of you great parents out there who sometimes feel like you are not good enough, remember the latest meme and say to yourselves, Keep Calm and parent on....