Today I did something. Today was really big. Today I was brave. Today I won.
Anyone who knows me knows, my kids come first. My kids drive me up the wall and there are days all I want to do is hide in the closet eating chocolate but my kids are the most important thing in my life. I will sit and watch the same episode of transformer 900 times if that is what it takes to comfort my oldest. I will buy all the poop toys if that is what it takes for my youngest to smile. My babies are my life and they always come first.
Today I had a big moment where I overcame severe anxiety and talked to a stranger. I do this pretty much every day in the medical world, but this was different. This had nothing to do with nurses, doctors, tests, results, appointments, or therapies. This was just to help my sweet little boy feel less lonely. His best friend moved to a different school last year. Making friends is hard for my baby, he has some developmental delays that make recognizing social cues really difficult for him. Anyway these two little boys had become inseparable at school, they held hands and told each other they loved each other and it was very sad when we learned they wouldn’t be going to the same school anymore and we actually lived quite far away from each other.
I ached for my baby as he the days and weeks went on and he continued to miss his friend. I thought it would be like most early childhood friendships and my son would miss his friend less and eventually forget about his first friend as he made new friends and besides he still had one very close friend at school.
Those days and weeks turned to months and my son was still desperately missing his friend. He would talk about his friend and tell everyone all about “my best friend, E.” despite having not seen him for three months. My mama heart just couldn’t take that sad little soul, crying out for its kindred spirit. I took an Ativan and called the other boys mom to arrange a play date.
That was a pretty big moment for me but what was even better was that I went to the play date! I wracked up all my courage and spent the next week planning what I would say to the other mom, what I would wear, what my kids would wear, and made sure I told my son we were going to see “E” so that I couldn’t back out.
The day of the play date came, I packed all the snacks (including extras for our friends that I would only offer if it was ok with the mom) and made sure to have sunscreen, bug spray, hats (all the normal kid stuff), plus all the extras that comes with a medical kiddo. The play date was so awkward! Like facepalm, awful, I said and did all the wrong things, and was thoroughly convinced this lady hated me. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come back out, but my son was so happy! He was having a real childhood moment, an actual just be a kid, play with my best friend, run through the woods, slide down on your belly, eat all the ice cream, normal kid fun! That smile made it so worth every painful moment of that day. I felt like a really good mom.
As the school year went on we noticed that my son was still not really making connections with other kids, he was five years old and parallel playing but not actually engaging with the other kids. We started working really hard at helping him learn to connect with other people, we had help from an amazing team of therapists, psychologists, and teachers from his school. That’s when the pandemic hit and suddenly our lifeline was gone.
With the pandemic happening my mental health (like a lot of other people’s) became a really big struggle for me. I was terrified of my son getting sick, he is already fragile and at a high risk of death, Covid is .... I don’t have words for my level of fear. My anxiety got way worse, to the point now where leaving the house is an actual really big struggle for me. I do everything I can to not leave the house but there are times I have no choice. With not leaving the house and locking down in a very tight quarantine to protect my high risk family members I found that I stopped talking to people. My anxiety got even worse. It got to the point that communicating with people outside of my immediate family was hard. I was hardcore struggling, more than I ever have in my life. As much as I was struggling I kept going, every day I pushed myself and did what I needed to keep my kids healthy and happy. We homeschooled, we crafted, we gardened, we painted bedrooms, we read more books, we played video games, we baked cupcakes from scratch. I found a way to have groceries delivered, I managed to have almost all of our appointments over the phone. What couldn’t happen over the phone was done by video chat when possible although that still left enough appointments that I was forced to leave the house at least once a week.
I actually started to feel ok and it seemed like I was managing pretty well, and that is when my son got sick. Something was happening he had new symptoms that couldn’t be explained by his underlying health condition. On top of it when I did leave the house I got rear ended - my car is ☠️ and I have some minor injuries but overall I’m ok, didn’t help the anxiety though. As I sorted through all of that and saw my son starting to feel better things seemed to be ok again. I started to find myself coming back to life. I started feeling less of a mombie and more like a person. I was able to actually focus on the deeper parts of my kids again and hear things that I maybe hadn’t been capable of hearing before. My youngest was learning to explore who they were and was actually letting us learn so much about being happy right along with them. My oldest was happy at home and was finally showing real signs of affection to not just me but our whole family! We were getting real “I love you!” and actual unprompted hugs and kisses for the first time in years! Our kids were thriving in so many ways! But our oldest was still talking about his friend and drawing pictures of him and trying to figure out how to send him letters.
So today I did something. Today was really big. Today I was brave. Today I won. Today I picked up my phone and I texted that other mom, the mom I met once, the mom I had that super awkward play date with, that mom who probably was trying just as hard for her amazing little boy. I texted her and we let the boys talk. They sent videos and pictures and hearts. Today we won.
