The Road to Forgiveness is Paved With Keys To My Car

Ever since my daughter passed her learner's test and started driving in her grandmother's hay field, there has been a pit of dread sitting heavy inside my abdomen. Like a rusty old anchor, wrapped in my guts and weighing down my soul.

It's not that I fear her driving, although I suppose I do. And it's not that I don't want her to have more freedom, except I kind of don't. No, this dread and anxiety relates to one thing, and one thing only.

The driver's road test exam.

Yes. For the past two years I've basically been suffering test anxiety for a test I already passed 18 years ago.

Even as I write these words I realize these are the signs of being too heavily invested in my children's lives and holy apples, I need a life outside of motherhood and the internet.

It's not like I have horrible memories about taking my own road test all those years ago. I don't. And it's not like my daughter didn't pass her driver's training with flying colour because she did. (Thanks Rick!)

I think part of the reason I was so anxious about this particular moment in her timeline was because it means she's just one step closer to adulthood. A driver's license brings her one step closer to getting further away from me. I'm not all that ready to let go of any of my babies just yet.

The problem here is not her growing up, it's my refusal to do so.

Blogging. The place you can work out your issues when you're too poor to pay to sit on a therapist's couch.

But it didn't matter how anxious I was, the pages on the calendar keep turning and suddenly, it was time for her to take the test.

Except she didn't know that.

I may have neglected to tell her. You should read that sentence as "I chose not to tell her." Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. WHATEVER.

In my defense, I have no real excuse. I just couldn't bring myself to watch her worry sick over something I knew she was clearly ready to do, so I took a gamble that she wouldn't mind being surprised with a major life test at the very last possible second.

Or, as my friend TwoBusy pointed out, I was totally giving her the gift of a matching anxiety attack. The sweetest gift ever.

In hindsight, I can admit this may not have been the wisest course of action ever.

Whoopsies.

So when I showed up at her school, unannounced, in the middle of the day, she was a tad confused.

"Grab your stuff and let's go. We have places to be." Ten minutes before she was scheduled to take the exam and I STILL couldn't bring myself to tell her what was happening. This was my SHINIEST MOTHER MOMENT EVER.

She hopped in the car, so trusting, like an innocent puppy unaware it's about to be kicked. She chattered about her physics class and her friends and I sat there, sweating buckets and wishing the road between the school and the local registries office was longer.

As we pulled up in front of the office, she stopped her chattering and asked, "What's going on? Did you get another speeding ticket you need to pay for? Dad's going to kill you."

"Um no. You remember you always have to check your mirrors and adjust as necessary whenever you get behind the wheel after I drive, right?"

She nodded yes.

"And you remember to always put on and take off the parking break?"

"Yes. What's going on Mom?"

I ignored her and continued on, "And you remember to use your mirrors and your shoulder checks when parallel parking."

"I got it Mom. I did take driver's training." Like duh.

She still hadn't caught on. LIKE A LAMB BEING LEAD TO SLAUGHTER. My pits were dripping wet with nervous energy and I couldn't put it off any longer. Her exam was scheduled to start in six minutes.

"Okay, out you go," I said as I unbuckled my seat belt. I stared straight forward and slapped on my most innocent face, "let's go get this done."

"Get what done Mom?" She narrowed her eyes at me.

"Let's go get you a driver's license! It's TEST TIME BABY!" Oh ya, because that's the funnest THING EVER.

"What? I'm not ready! I thought you said it was scheduled for Thursday! I need to prepare!!" Her eyes reflected the panic I could hear in her voice.

I sighed and turned to her. "Okay, listen. I should have told you but I didn't want you to psyche yourself out. You are ready to take this test. If I didn't think so we wouldn't be here right now. You can do this. You are ready." Meanwhile, inside my head I was all, "Please don't hate me, please don't fail, please don't hate me, please don't fail..."

"Some warning would have been nice MOM."

"I said the same thing when I suddenly went into labour with you. Consider us even."

I felt like a heel, I swear it. But she looked me in the eyes and I nodded and I watched her push her shoulders back and take a deep breath and open up her car door.

"I kinda hate you right now."

"Fair enough. Hold that thought," I said as I whipped out my iPhone to capture the moment.

The Before Shot. Panic and Disdain. A teenager's eau de parfum

 The After Shot. The smiles of victory

And then I held open the door to her future and she walked right through it.

I figure her hatred will only last until she wants to borrow the car. I'm cool with that.

That's All She Wrote

I can exactly pinpoint the day I started to go a little crazy. April 27, 2012. It was the day my husband drove a large back hoe into our yard and started digging a hole to China.

A lot has happened since then.

We had a giant pit in my driveway. Nothing says wheelchair safe like a six foot drop where your sidewalk ends.

Then came the lego blocks and the concrete.

And then some floor joists.

And a few roof trusses.

Then the fun began.

My kids in harnesses, dangling in the air, helping get the roof on.

 There were a few bumps along the way. Like a wind storm that came and undid everything my husband and my kids had worked for four days to accomplish. I may have cried. I refused to photograph the carnage because it conflicted with my delusions that the zeppelin hangar would indeed one day be finished.

Common sense dictated it would eventually happen, even if Mother Nature did hate us.

But as the days passed, and progress stalled, Mother Nature mocked us and funds ran low, I began to doubt both my sanity and my husband's dream.

My anxiety was, is, at an all time high. I twitch at the sound of an air compressor or a saw. Post traumatic stress of the construction kind.

I learned a few things about humanity along the way with this build. The human mind (or at least mine) is a frail, fickle beast. People you assume will help never actually do and it is the kindness of people you barely know, new friends, that will lend a hand when you most need it.

And sisters? Both mine and his? We couldn't have done it without either the Mouse or D'Andy Long Legs. Girl power for the win. One helped physically, the other mentally and I'm grateful to them both.

In the end there was really only one giant problem with my husband's dream. Time. We didn't have enough of it.  After we started the build, my husband's job scope changed and suddenly all the time he had planned on having for building his little mancave with his own two hands evaporated in the wind. Summer storms chewed up the rest of the precious time he did have.

This meant instead of getting anything done, I sat at home and looked at a wet construction site, a half built garage and quickly lost my ever loving mind. I was often reduced to a mass of hysteria, sobbing, frustrated and mostly alone with a giant oversized stalled project.

Something had to be done, hard choices had to be made.

Oh, and did I mention my husband has done ALL of this work on a shattered ankle and postponed his surgical repair!! until October, just so he could get this damn garage done?

No?

How could I overlook that wee painful fact? Praise heavens for ankle braces, advil and cheap beer.

The zeppelin hangar won't be completed this year as planned. At least, not the interior of it. But we're hoping to get it functional with a floor, doors and power before the snow flies.

My husband did what he had to do to get the outside done. Thank heavens for it. My mental health depended on it.

As of 5 pm this last Friday, the zeppelin hangar not only has a finished roof, but is completely sided and trimmed out.

So she's a tad large. Boys and their, um, garages. I comfort myself in the fact the aliens in outerspace will be able to find us and have somewhere to land.

*Sob.*

At least she's pretty. And I do enjoy confusing my neighbours who currently think we are starting a farming operation in our driveway. I mean, why else did we build the world's biggest barn? IN OUR FRONT YARD.

I'm never. Ever. EVER. doing construction again. You know, at least until next spring when we have to finish the interior. And bright side: At least I have all winter to twirl around a pole to save money to pay for those construction costs AND my anxiety meds.

Something tells me I'm going to need a lot of loonies to cover the expenses.

*twitch.*

A big thanks to Daniel, Neil and Rory for all their hard work in helping my husband's dreams come true and saving my sanity along the way. Be sure to come back next spring when we're ready to do the drywall.

*twitch.*

Living with Cerebral Palsy Facts

His name was Reuben and his voice shook more than his hands did.

My best friend had called earlier that night and asked if she could bring her new friend over to meet me. He wasn't what I expected.

I had never met a person with Cerebral Palsy before. My interactions with disabled people were limited to so walking past the special needs class and staring at the kids like they were animals on display at the zoo. That girl who had spina bifida and a pimped out motorized wheelchair? I never even attempted to get to know her.

Disabled people made me very uncomfortable. I was a healthy, ignorant teenager who suddenly had a visibly disabled kid standing in her living room, cracking jokes.

Reuben wasn't at my house for very long but in that period of time I learned a very valuable lesson. One that had eluded me over the years. Disabled people are people too. It was a lesson I've carried with me ever since. Reuben's laugh and his shaky hands were branded into my memory.

As it turned out, Reuben was a portent to my future, even if I didn't know it.

When my husband and I decided to adopt a child we had to decide fairly early on in the process what type of child we wanted to adopt. We knew we wanted to adopt a child with disabilities but we had to examine what type of disabilities we thought we could handle.

We sat down at a table in an old government office building, the carpet brown and faintly smelling of mildew and we stared at the pink piece of paper listing what seemed like every known disability a human being could have.

We started checking off boxes. Yes to blindness, deafness and deformities. HIV, organ failure? No thanks. Developmental disabilities, yes please. The list went from a vague list of possibilities and narrowed to a specific set of diagnoses. ADHD? Downs? FAS? And then there was the box next to Cerebral Palsy.

Every time my husband and I moved down the list, we would stop and discuss the possibilities as we best understood them and what bringing home a child with that health issue would mean to us and to our family.

But when we got to the Cerebral Palsy box all I could think of was Reuben and his shaky laugh and red leather jacket. Cerebral Palsy, check. We checked so many boxes that when we handed in that form with our application the social worker looked at it and asked us if we we had made a mistake.

Nope. We're just a bit insane, my husband joked. It was easy to check off most of the boxes. The chances of actually bringing home a child with most of those issues? Well, let's just say I have a better chance of becoming rich and famous.

And then Jumby found us. Or rather, his social worker did. We were matched with his profile and all of his afflictions. Rather like online dating only less romantic and with more pharmaceuticals involved.

I've written about Jumby and his health issues. His Cerebral Palsy, his blindness, deafness, his developmental delays. I've written about his incredible spark and the joy he brings to us, each day with every smile.

But what I haven't written about a lot is what it means to parent a child like him. When he has more diagnoses than he does letters in his name. I've not gone on at any great length about how hard it can sometimes be, or how frustrating, because really, parenting any child regardless of health can be a head-banging frustrating job.

So I'll whisper here, or sigh there, instead of stating plainly that sometimes getting the services my son needs is overwhelming and makes me wonder if I bit off more than I could chew.

I don't write about how I have to go into the school at the start of the new year to meet the teacher assigned to my son and try to find the words to inspire them into wanting to include my son in their classroom. How this year I need to find out why the special needs coordinator for the entire elementary school happens to also be a grade three teacher and yet Jumbster was put into a grade three class with a new, inexperienced teacher.

I don't write about how my son hasn't gained a single entire pound in over a year. How at almost nine years old he vacillates between 36 and 37 pounds and how we play the piano off his boney little ribs.

I don't write about the fact his ligaments are so tight that every time I change his clothes I worry I am about to break his limbs and sometimes, it takes two people to pry his legs apart for a diaper change.

And I certainly don't write about my fears for his future, if he even has one. How long will he live for and how will I survive burying another child? Where will he go, who will take care of him if something happens to me? Who is going to see past his many burdens to the awesome that resides within him?

I don't write about those things even though each of them plays a large part in every single day I live with my son. I chose to use my voice to remind everyone that life is more than the hardships it's composed of. Jumby's life is bigger than his diagnoses.

The joy my son has and brings others erodes the immovable overwhelming realities his life often entails.

Living with Cerebral Palsy isn't a magical awesome thing. Its just life. A twisted, slower, tighter life than most, but then life's magic doesn't come from health.

That magic comes from love, acceptance and understanding. All of which my son has in spades. And thanks to him, and even Reuben, so do I.

Today is the very first World Cerebral Palsy day.  There are 17 million people around the world with cerebral palsy.  350 million more people are closely connected to a child or adult with CP.

I don't claim to speak for any of those people. I'm simply speaking for myself. For my son. There are many facts about Cerebral Palsy I want the world to know. But the most important one I want everyone to know is how grateful I am I wasn't too scared to check off the box that says CP.

Thank you Reuben.

*****

For more information about World Cerebral Palsy day and to get involved in making the world a better place for people with CP? Go here.

Want to challenge yourself and others to walk, run or roll your way to raising awareness for Cerebral Palsy? Go here.

Want to learn more about Cerebral Palsy itself? Go here.

Want to see funny pictures of dogs being shamed for their naughtiness? Go here.

Not a dog lover? I've got cat pictures too.

Happy World Cerebral Palsy Day people.