Saturday, June 26, 2010

Things that give me hope...

I know I just posted but... I have to write this.

Things that give me hope for my son...

A few weeks ago I lay in bed. P came to see me. As he walked away I said, "I love you!" It's something standard in our home. He simply giggled and as he walked away the words, "I love you too, mama" rolled right off his tongue, flawlessly, without issue, without pretense, with any thought put into them. He loves. He CAN love.

Last night I plopped both boys in the tub. P was being bouncy and only half listening, as is normal, and A was splashing up a storm. Suddenly A fell backwards into the water. His head didn't go under and I caught him in time but every fiber of P's being went into alert. He cried out, reached for his brother and helped set him up. His whole body jumped and jittered, and he told me afterwards in a timid voice that this had scared him. He loves his brother. Innately. Naturally. There is no falsehood there. He loves. He CAN love.

He greets Nik with big hugs and a happy voice. He sees me off when I go out, asking for a quick reassurance that I'll come back but typically trusting that I will and behaving for his father or grand mother. He smiles and laughs and tells jokes. He draws happy faces. He prefers happy shows and movies and dislikes violence and anger. He likes to watch sorrow because he likes to see the resolution. He doesn't like fear and is scared easily by anything even slightly frightening on a tv show. He is not a violent child. He can be defiant but he is not an angry child. He does not gleefully harm others. He does not harm animals. He runs to anyone crying and tries to make them happy, asks if they're okay, reassures them. He loves. He CAN love.

We have bad days.

We have some REALLY bad days.

And we have general frustrations.

We deal with defiance and stubborness. We deal with him unwilling to listen and some points. We have to take charge and be firm, far more so than we'd even planned.

But he loves us.

He trusts us.

He may not trust the world, he may not trust that life will allow him to stay with us, but he does trust US.

He falls and hurts himself and runs to us for a hug.

He tells us if he's sad or frustrated.

He comes to us with difficult questions and we hold long conversations about the answers.

He is totally in love with books and words and letters.

He is smart and insightful.

He is, to many people in many situations, a joy to be around.

Sometimes his sweetness can be false.

Not as much now as it used to be.

We ARE getting there.

We could possibly get there without help.

We can afford help and it IS available and we HAVE support to make this happen.

We can fix what's wrong. We can help him. We can help our family.

And in the mean time we can still enjoy our lives. We can still enjoy our sons. We can enjoy going out or staying in, cuddling, reading, talking. Nik and I can enjoy alone time, with each other or not. We can still run our household. This is not impossible. We will not go bankrupt over this. We will not live in squalor over this. We will not lose each other over this.

This path we're now on, this path to help Paxton, can only take a strong family and make it stronger, can only take a happy child and make him happier, can only bring us more peace and more success.

We will survive this.

This will not defeat us and we know because it hasn't already.

We can only get better from here.

We can only go up.

(Now if I just read this and tell myself this every day then I should be good... :) )

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