Some Days, It's Tough to be Teddy's Mom

I feel like I've said this before, but some days it's just tough to be Teddy's mom. Or dad. Or brother. Or grandparent. Or any relative.

He's such a darn lovable kid, who approaches life with reckless joy and lives in the moment. He's happy more often than he's not, unless you're trying to make him do something he doesn't want to do. Sometimes it's those are the moments that it's tough to be Teddy's mom when you're physically trying to peel a 50-pound child who's only a foot or two shorter than you off the ground when he's melted there like a pile of jello. That's physically hard and wears at your patience rather quickly.

The harder days to be Teddy's mom, though, are when it's not the behaviors that make things tough. It's the days that you have to confront that our life is so different from reality for many people. The worst of those are the seizures that put life on hold, terrify us and leave us all worse for the wear. But there are other things that have a similar, albeit less traumatic, effect.

We're pursuing neuropsychological testing for Teddy because we think it'll be helpful for his team at school as well as for us to support Teddy in the best ways at home. In a perfect scenario, we'll learn some things that will help to minimize those behaviors I mentioned above. We've been waiting for 4-5 months for this appointment, and the first portion was a parent interview. That meant I spent 1.5 hours walking through everything Teddy can and can't do. Unfortunately, there's a lot more can't than can when you're asked to compare Teddy to a typical 6-year-old child. I had to chuckle when the only questions that didn't apply to Teddy on the ADHD screening were the two that involved speaking ... only because he doesn't speak.

It might sound weird because clearly we know all the things Teddy can't do that a typical first grader can. But it's such a normal part of our life that most often we complain about things being hard, but we're still used to it. It's the times that you're forced to write down and tell someone else exactly what your child can and can't do that remind you of the thing you try to avoid focusing on: how different your life is from others, from what you expected.

But, I've filled out all the forms now, so I'll give the teacher portion to his teacher, collect that and continue on with life until we do several hours of testing next month. I'll hope for the best that day and then relive all these feelings when we get the results in black and white. Still, it's worth the emotional roller coaster for the information we should gain.