My son has ADHD

"My son has ADHD."

I never know what kind of reaction I will get with those words.  Accusatory looks from people who assume I'm a bad parent.  Looks of sympathy from other ADHD moms.  Misplaced advice that starts with "Have you tried.....?"  Yes, we have and no, it didn't work.

I am actually giving them the shortened version because most people don't want to hear it.  But my son has ADHD, OCD, SPD, gross motor delays, and is possibly gifted.

My life is exhausting some days.

For years, my daughter told me that she didn’t like to read.  I tried threatening her.  I tried rewarding her.  I bought her tons of different books only to be told they were “boring.”

And then one day last year she came home with a book she liked.   It was Captain Underpants.

A lot of parents would have been horrified.  They say that Captain Underpants is “gross” and “toilet humor.”

I was beyond thrilled.  My reluctant reader was reading.

I am a voracious reader.  I have over 200 Star Trek paperbacks alone, and I have read them all.  The fact that my daughter had proclaimed for years that she didn’t like to read was a constant thorn in my side.  I simply do not understand people who don’t like to read.

Since that day, I’ve become well-versed in books written in comic book style.  And to try to help my daughter explore her interests in that area, I took her to Free Comic Book Day.  And lo and behold, we found other women who like comics!  Yay!

Seriously though, finding women who like comics, science fiction, or anything else "geeky" can be a serious endeavor in our very rural, conservative area.  But they are out there.

And...I was conned into buying my daughter two Doctor Who comics and a poster.  

But if she reads them.....I will be thrilled.  And I will buy more.  And one of these days, my daughter may read a "real" book and enjoy it.  But I will be forever grateful to Captain Underpants for showing her that not all books are boring.  

Girls can do karate too!!

We went to a karate tournament this weekend for my daughter.  She's taken karate for 3 years now.  I would say about half of the kids at the tournament were girls.  No one in the "karate world" thinks too much about it.  But apparently people who have never had children in karate think it's a big deal that a girl takes karate and, even more, does well at it. 

Some of the questions and comments that I get are very, let's say, interesting.

"Your daughter takes karate?"  Yeah, she also wears pants on occasion.

"She got first place in the girls' division?"  The look on their faces when I tell them that there is no girls' division is awesome.

"Aren't you afraid of her getting hurt?"  Because that wouldn't worry me if she was a boy?

There are more, but those are some of my favorites right now.  I'm sure they'll get even better as she gets older.  These questions always help to remind me of how far we still have to go until we stop stereotyping girls and boys.  And it makes me sad.

Things parents say

As I was cooking last night, my son was systematically removing my spatulas from the kitchen.  As I asking him, "Is there a reason you're taking all of my spatulas?" I realized that this phrase, along with at least thousands of others, are phrases that only a parent would say.  So I've decided to try to be conscious of the things I say that I would not say if I didn't have children.  For example, I later had to remind him that we do not touch our butt while we're pooping.  Seriously people - if I didn't have kids, I would (hopefully) never in my life have to say such a phrase.  So what weird phrases do you say to your kids that you would never say to another person?

Pee in the Potty

Katrina had her Barbies out tonight...which are one of the very few "toys" she still plays with.  Somewhere along the line she acquired a pink plastic Barbie toilet.  It looks like this.

So...Katrina is in practicing her piano, and I was watching to see how she's doing on a song she's supposed to memorize.  All of a sudden Emmett comes in carrying the Barbie potty...and it's dripping.  

Yep, he peed in it.  He was very proud of that fact too.

Of course, a Barbie toilet only holds so much water, so after he filled it up the pee went all over the floor.

Somebody tell me again why I wanted a little boy?

Showering

My life has become all about how long I can stay in the shower before someone needs me.  I don't dare shower while I'm home alone with the kids.  Any mother who is home alone nightly with small children will tell you that you cannot shower while they are running around the house.  In the time that it takes me to shower, my children would ransack the toy room, draw all over the computer monitor, feed the dogs 20 milkbones a piece, and eat every last chocolate chip cookie in the kitchen.  So I wait until they are asleep to shower.  But this plan still doesn't always work - invariable I will be all soapy and warm and hear a heart-wrenching "Mooooommmmmmm!!!!" only to hurry up and half rinse off, grab my robe, run upstairs...and find that they're already back to sleep.  And tonight, as I was finishing up my shower, I heard someone pushing on the bathroom door.  Of course, my mind immediately leaps to the serial killer that I just know is out there.  I calm down, reassuring myself that if someone came in the house the dogs would bark.  The dogs bark if someone walks down the sidewalk and looks at the house, so I'm pretty sure they'd bark if someone actually came inside.  So I finish my shower, get out, and open the door...only to discover that it's the dog that wants in the bathroom.  So even when the kids manage to sleep all of the way through my shower, the dog apparently can't.  That's when I realized that my life has been reduced to seeing how long I can actually take an uninterrupted shower.  And maybe, someday, I'll actually be able to take a nice, long, relaxing bath.  Hey, a mom can dream, right?

Messy house, happy kids

I used to take a lot of grief from my husband’s mother about the fact that they would come over and my house would be messy, there would be dishes in the sink, etc.  I don’t take grief about it anymore because they don’t come over much and if they do have anything to say about it I just say that it’s none of their business and won’t listen to it.  But I don’t understand why their house was never messy when the kids were growing up.  My house is messy because I like to spend time doing things with my kids.  For example, this summer we would eat supper outside a lot and then they would want me to push them on the swings or play on the trampoline with them.  According to my mother-on-law’s thinking I should clean up the patio, go inside and do the dishes, clean the stove, etc. first.  By the time I would finish with all of that there would be no time left to play with the kids.  So how can I say no to my kids?  When the kids want me to lay in their beds with them and read another book or three to them when I should be downstairs cleaning the house – how can I say no?  I truthfully believe that when the kids are older they won’t remember if the dishes were done or if the floor was swept, but they will remember that their mom took the time to play with them, to read to them, or to just spend time with them.  They will remember that they were important to me, and I believe that is the most important thing of all.

Bullying response

I recently posted a link to the video of news anchor Jennifer Livingston’s response to a bully on my Facebook page.  This is the response I received from a friend:

“This woman needs to get over it and realize people have opinions she won’t always agree with.  It’s up to her whether or not to share a personal email with the rest of the world.  She could of just deleted it along with the 5000 other spam emails we all get everyday.”

While I am a firm believer that everyone has a right to their own opinion, I wholeheartedly disagree with this one.  As a mother who’s third grader has already been subject to severe bullying at school, I applaud any effort to get the message out that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.  The fact that Ms. Livingston had the courage to publicly address the issue that she is overweight but that this kind of treatment of people is bullying and is not acceptable is to be commended.  I plan on showing this video to my daughter to drive home the point to her that bullying is not to be tolerated and that she can find the courage to stand up and call her tormenters out to the world.

I had some requests for a copy of Katrina's new "chore chart" so here it is.  It is working very well for us so far.

Overprotective

I am, apparently, an overprotective parent. I do not let my 8 year old ride her bike around the neighborhood alone. I also see no point in my 8 year old having a Facebook page. Am I in the minority? I ask these things because I see them happen on a daily basis. My daughter has friends who show up on our doorstep on their bikes wanting to know if they can play. If we are home, they come in and play and don’t have to call their parents to say where they are, or let them know that we are home. They have a curfew, but don’t wear watches and don’t have a cell phone. I wonder what they do when they stop and we’re not home. Do they ride their bikes around for the next hour and a half? Do they stop by other friends’ houses to play? If they don’t go back home, how do they know what time it is? My daughter is still learning how to ride her bike down the street without getting run over, so I cannot imagine just letting her run free. I also don’t understand what an 8 year old has to do on Facebook. Her friends don’t need to know what she’s doing. She doesn’t take a lot of pictures. She doesn’t have a phone with internet. So are her friends actually on Facebook? Or do their parents run their pages to share pictures and stories of their children? If so, why can’t they just share stuff on their page? I can’t imagine my daughter having a need for her own Facebook page yet, let alone having the time for one. I also don’t have the time to sit and police what she does on Facebook. And you know I’d have to police what she does on Facebook because I’m so overprotective. Am I?