Be Prepared - Life Rolls with the Dice

Be Prepared - Life Rolls with the Dice  I am writing this for all mothers everywhere and I hope it helps.

As little ones they give us challenges. What can I fit up my nose - oh yes a pebble out of the fish bowl. Exit stage left to hospital casuality to get it out. Much ado but it came out.

How good am I putting my rubbish in the bin - yahoo - runs helter skelter back to me and runs smack into the corner of my full shopping trolley because he was fascinated with his running feet. Lucky there is a Doctors surgery upstairs at the shopping centre. It takes the receptionist, myself and the doctor to wrap him in a sheet to keep him still while hubby waits with is brother in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later after much screaming, squirming and effort his face is sewn up and he is ready to leave - happy as larry. While he skips around the surgery the doctor insists that the recpetionist and I sit down before we fall down. Apparently we were quite a yellowy white colour - shock he said!  Huh oh yes I feel a little whoozy   Yes he is very good at putting the rubbish in the bin.

I had a friend with four wild ADHD boys. The parents were very stressed out and did lots of lobbying  for ADHD groups. Her boys were out of control and labelled - their life was a roller coaster.  It didn't seem like that to us but we stepped back - make no judgement.  Fifiteen years later four boys all grown up - all brillaint. The problem they had was incredible levels of intelligence and not a lot within the system to cope with them.  Now they are Doctors and professors. Life rolls with the dice. Not my kids but  I welcome their brilliance to our world.

What is it like to piggy back your brother - yahoo - good fun! Now lets see if we can do it with no hands - yeah. Oops he fell off. To the Doctors - broken wrist - no worries just need a half cast. I am at work and ready to give a seminar and he hurtles past me to the room he is trying to find - trips and breaks the cast. Lucky I am an Art Teacher and I am prepared. I drag out the plaster and pile it on big time - no breaking my creation!!. No a problem then but it cost him a chance to aim for the Bejing Olympics. That could have been a problem but it stopped him in his tracks and he turned around and found the job he wanted most. He loves it.

Another mother crying on my shoulder about her son having learning difficulties. Oh woe is the world. I catch up with him five years later and realise he punishes himself for everything. Now that is a problem so I take  him aside and teach him what doesn't work and what positive self praise can achieve. Then he gets howled down by my sons friends and his because I have trained them all in positive life. I even wrote a book about it.  Move forward to now - he is at University having topped the school in maths and is infact a genuis too. Funny about that. All these kids all these problems but down the track - brilliant minds that have had to come through a 'set' system. in fact most of the kids labelled earlier all made it through the HSC with extremely high marks. But not many don't know what career to persue. Me - I have always told mine find what you love to do and go there. They both have done just that and no lost lonely paths there.

Wow I can build bridges Mum so can you help me. Sure but before it is finsihed he decides, in his exhuberance for life, to try it out. Oops dislocated leg - twisted at a very odd angle. OH No it is Sunday. Ring the Doctor at home and we go to his home. He lifts my little boy (who has been growing his long blond locks to see what it felt like while playing soccer) out of the car and says 'oh that looks nasty but isn't she just beautiful. I have to agree, being me,  but he blurts 'I am a boy!' Guess I nearly had a girl for a second. The doctor pushes it back into place, bandages it up and sends us off to get crutches. Every one has a go at the crutches - how can one not try that!

Hey brother I will race you to the car. Whack he hits a metal raling, takes it in the head, then under the neck and up in the air he goes. Smash down onto the pavement. He will be OK.-  yes Mum I am OK.  Well hubby please explain why he looks green - off to hospital and under supervision. No one can find his blood pressure - panic in the hospital. Much rushing around and finally get a cuff sensitive enough and small enough to fit his liitle arm. Oh sorry about that nurse - we all have low blood pressure. He came good. Ten years later and he is in training for the worlds and the doctor points out that he has less than 5% body fat. He frowns at me ( the bad mother frown). You will have feed him better and make him eat more. My chin hits the ground because he already eats twice as much as normal and complains when he goes to other peoples places because they starve him. Five years later and after many more experiences he is a big bubbly loving muscley man with 5% body fat.  I can't tell you all the tales or you would run out of time while laughing and crying at the same time.

Be prepared - the labels, the criticisms, the frowns, the highs and lows. Just love them, stcik with them and realise very little of what is said about them in school counts for anything when they hit out into the big wide world. Conversation last week over regular Wednesday drop in for a meal, which still is too high to jump over, 'gee Mum I am waying up all my options (and so is his brother) and it is pretty scary but exciting looking at what you can do with your life'. Sure is! 

Now I am scared and I don't mind admitting it because my other son is leaving home in three weeks. I thought I had until christmas to prepare after learning that having a child move out ( the adventurous one described above) leaves a BIG GAP. So I getting prepared quickly now becasue I know that twenty two years of loving, trying, crying, hoping and caring is a long time. So I am prepared. We are going to be Darby and Joan and going it alone. Good luck with life you beautiful people.