Let me set the scene: We were in the frantic part of the beginning of the school year, where things are typically rushed as we're getting used to our new students, having to catch up on all of the grading, and acclimating to being tired all the time...again. Except that everyone was especially exhausted because we had just gotten through weeks of helping students and friends gut their houses from the flood that had inundated Baton Rouge. As part of that, our school schedule was rushed and hectic because we had to fit all the days we missed from the flood into a shorter period of time so we had seven classes when we would normally have six in a day and all breaks were eliminated. Add to this that my father had started taking a downturn in his prostate cancer treatment and had to be hospitalized after a bad reaction to his chemotherapy. Did I mention that he and my mom live with us?
It was a time of stress upon stress upon stress. But we hadn't flooded. And, while our son, Noah, was a little nutty and never stopped running around and always wore us ragged, he was safe and he was healthy and he loved us and it was all going to be okay, right?
Right?
Apparently not.
Because, while we knew that Noah was a little "extra" in general and at school, and we had been receiving notes home nearly daily about how he had fought against this rule or accidentally injured another child or ran away from that teacher, we didn't expect THE email. The one suggesting that he had ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and that we should look into getting him to a behavioral therapist. This one hurt. Why couldn't he have a more commonly understood issue rather than the one that is basically a clinical diagnosis of, quite frankly, being an asshole? My sweet little guy? The one who, when he saw me tearing up, came over to me, patted my face, and said, "Mommy, don't cry." The kid who tried to kiss other people's "boo-boos" to make them better? That kid?
Apparently so.
The more we investigated, though, and over the course of a very eventful year, the more we learned that Noah has, as we call it, "All the D's." In addition to ODD, he also has SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) and is mostly a "seeker," ADHD (I'm pretty sure you've heard of this one), and I've even seen some preliminary signs of a little OCD. He is also speech delayed. It's been a year of discoveries and dealing with stress and tragedy and it was really bad when my father died and Noah didn't understand why Grandpa wasn't coming home or why we were all sad all the time. There was the trial and error while we took him to hearing appointments and surgery to get tubes and speech appointments and occupational therapy appointments and had to find coverage for our classes on the fly so we could get him there and ordered him a sensory vest and tried out medications until finally finding one that helped him to focus enough to be able to start catching up developmentally and while we (still!) wait for his new school program that will help provide him the services and training he needs to open and when I always have to explain what's going on with him and how he doesn't have Autism, but that he has a disorder that is frequently linked to Autism and reading all the literature to try to help him and us and I'm writing this as a run-on sentence even as an English teacher to help you understand how tiring all of this is even though my son's issues aren't as bad as they could be.
Whew.
Because I don't want to talk about that stuff anymore. I want to talk about our win. Our success. And the fact that I'm hopeful again that life can be something resembling what is traditionally considered normal. I want to talk about getting a glimpse of what life as a stereotypical soccer mom could be like.
It was glorious.
We signed Noah up for a YMCA soccer league for 3-4 year-olds that our friend and co-worker was coaching. He was one of the youngest on the team and had been asked to leave his previous soccer and dance enrichment classes at daycare because he couldn't pay attention and was distracting the other students. Even with all his therapy and with his ADHD medicine, we knew this had the potential to be disastrous, but we wanted to try to give him a chance to be on a team and to have an activity he might enjoy. Since he rarely sits still, it would also possibly help him channel that boundless energy.
Week 1, he spent the practice flopping on the ground, running away and the game hiding underneath my chair. He did, however, like the "Go Lions" chant at the end of the practice and game.
Things slowly improved, especially when Billy banned me from going to practices so that Noah couldn't run to me and hide, but he was still pretty reluctant. Last week, though, the final one of the season, we made a breakthrough.
The coach had to hold practice an hour later than usual that day because he needed to finish coaching our school's basketball team. So, to avoid taking Noah home and having him grump about having to go back out to soccer practice, we went out to eat. This was the first success because his inability to sit still and to listen to us has made us avoid dining out with him at all costs. It was a risk, I'll admit it. But I put my trust in his medication and his therapy and our training and took a deep breath and dove in. We had a lovely meal at a small diner-style fast food chain. Noah listened to and chatted with us. He ate most of his meal. He was wiggly, but sat relatively calmly with us. I nearly cried.
The real challenge, though, was going to be soccer practice. When we arrived, there were only two other players present and we were waiting on the coach. Without any coaxing from the parents, the three kids started playing chase with each other. They were giggling and running and pretending to growl at each other and it was like they had been friends for ages. The parents joined in as much as we could without having the boundless energy of three and four-year-olds. It was amazing to see Noah so carefree and happy and interacting with other kids and, dare I say it, "normal." It's one of the first times I really felt like I was experiencing what the majority of parents must experience on a daily basis. He still had some difficulty listening and following the directions during practice, but he PARTICIPATED. With one Noah-style caveat: every time he made a goal, he ran over to us, pulled up his shirt, and asked for a raspberry on his belly. He would giggle uncontrollably for a second or two after this and then run back to play. We happily complied at this motivation because at least he was joining in. A raspberry on his belly is a small price to pay.
The next day, though, that was the best part. It was pretty chilly for Baton Rouge - in the 40s - and everyone was dressed up in sweatshirts and hats. We couldn't find Noah's jersey, so we put him in a dark colored sweatshirt with Batman on the front and a hood that's really too small for the shirt and definitely too small for Noah's rather large head. When he toddled around, he looked like a caricature of himself, but in reverse, since his head looked really tiny compared to his body. We were missing our star player and, when the game started, we only had four players available and Noah was one of them. I asked him, "Are you ready to play?"
And here's the best part, he said, "Yeah." Enthusiastically. And ran on the field!
Whaaaaaaaat?
The kid played for about half of the game total. And, while he didn't contribute much to the score and tended to hover at a distance from the pack, he was listening to his coach and he was trying to join in. He even, unintentionally, stopped the ball on defense a couple of times. I can work with that.
I'm not one for trophy culture, but, when the coach gave each team member a soccer ball medal with the dates of the season on it, Noah beamed from ear to ear and I felt like he had really earned that thing. I felt like WE had earned that medal. And that made it all worth it.
Later, he did an excellent job of playing and interacting with his teammates at the coach's daughter's birthday party at a nearby park. It was a red-letter day and I was so proud of him. He's even been talking about soccer and we might let him play again in the spring.
So why the title of this particular post? Because I had never wanted to be a soccer mom. I never wanted to fall into the traditional stereotype of the mother who drove her kids from activity to activity in a minivan and pushed them to do things that they didn't want to do and hauled folding chairs and snacks and tied cleats and washed jerseys. But, now that I've had a taste of it? A glimpse of "normal" and even "stereotypical" after all of the fighting and struggling for something resembling normal? I'll take it. I'll wear that soccer mom mantle. I'll cheer on the sidelines. Hell, I'll buy a pair of mom jeans if it means that my little guy is having fun and getting a chance to feel "normal" for a change. So....Go Lions!
