Judgy McJudgster

   There is an episode of Desperate Housewives that brought me to tears. In the episode, one of the ladies on the show is so stressed out with trying to keep up with being a mother she starts taking her kids ADHD medication to keep up. She finally ends up having a a nervous breakdown, drops her kids off with friends and drives off to a park to go and collect herself. Later, her friends go and find her and the stressed out mom says everyone else seems so happy and like they have everything together. The other moms then go into how hard parenting is, how they have cried, struggled, etc. The stressed out mom says, "why didn't you tell me?"

   I don't know if parenting has always been this way. Mothers completely divide themselves up by what parenting choices they make. We judge breast or bottle, disposable diapers or cloth, paci or no paci, public school, private school, homeschool, baby stroller or baby wearing, organic foods or non organic foods, extended rear facing car seat recommendations, spanking or no spanking, vaccine schedules, purées or baby led weaning, rice cereal or no, working mother or stay at home mom. I'm here to tell you this behavior is harmful.


   We all make decisions for our children based on what we think is right for our family. I've really gotten to point that I think there are only a few simple rules to what makes a good parent. Is the child fed, loved, safe, and happy? Does the parent, to the best of their knowledge, try to make good decisions to help their child lead a healthy, happy, and productive life? All the other stuff means nothing. You can have strong opinions on how you want YOUR child raised, but refrain from judging other parents. Women need to stick together, not tear each other down. I know so many women who vary so different in how they parent and they are all great mothers.


   I recently had my parenting called into question. Do I think this person was misguided and lacks a true understanding about our life and how it differs from the norm? Certainly. Does it hurt any less? No. Is it over the line blogging about it? Probably. Will this person ever see this? No. No harm down them. At least to them.

I have to say, today was a good day

   Yesterday was a huge success for Lukas. We went to speech therapy and he had an awesome session. We had a rocky start to speech therapy when he started last month. He was unwilling to cooperate with a new person and a new experience and I didn't know if we would be able to get through to him.With a lot of patience, a very open minded therapist, and some practical troubleshooting, Lukas now enjoys going.

   I sit in on the sessions. What is great about private speech therapy is that our goals are for ways to improve communication in the home environment. It's practical as opposed to academic. Of course, academics have their place, but basic communication skills are so much more important for him at this point. Little by little in these sessions, I have seen Lukas learn how to play with another person. Right now, the therapist is working on, "my turn" and we have been able to apply what we learn in therapy right over into our home life.

   After his session yesterday, we met with a friend and we went out to lunch at Chickfila. We ordered our food, I got Lukas to the table because he wanted to dart, and our friend delivered the food. Lukas ate his food, behaved at the table and afterward he went potty. If you haven't heard, Lukas potty trained himself in 2 days. My relaxed approach of waiting until he was developmentally ready worked! That's a story for another day, though.

  We had never let Lukas go out on the playground area before at Chickfila. We knew previously that the kids would be too rough, that Lukas may meltdown, or that he would get stuck in the tubes up above that all these playgrounds have now. Well, he did fine. He even let me take off his ratty brown shoes he's obsessed with. He played happily and his laughter from above through all the noise of other children was easily recognizable. He wasn't even bothered by the older boys who were rough and on the line of even being appropriate for such a kid area with little ones playing. One clunked into him and all Lukas did was laugh. Oh, sweet relief.

   He even left with no tears. Sometimes transitions can be difficult. We were able to smooth our way into leaving and we all happily rode home.

   I know this story may sound mundane. For us, it's a big deal. I am shocked everyday at how much my son is growing up and admire him for the new things he is able to handle with ease. Keep on rockin it, little guy.

Introduction

   When I am trying to sleep at night, I often write essays in my head until I drift off. I know it's a strange way to fall asleep and I should really work on relaxing and shutting the old thinker down, but there is comfort found in this. I never finish the essays, though. I guess this is my way of counting sheep.


   I am going to start blogging again. My goal is to just give myself something to do that might be therapeutic. I once had a blog that I wrote solely about our journey with our son being autistic. This blog will no doubt include this topic, but won't be limited to this subject. I may write about our day, current events, share a recipe, share a poem, or ramble on about spirituality. Who knows? Stay tuned.