Wednesday, February 25, 2015

SuperKids Rock

During the past four years I've had so many people say things such as:
Wow, you're doing an amazing job.
You are supermom.
How do you guys do ALL that.
I could never do what you're doing.

I've always kind of thought to myself, REALLY? You wouldn't do this for your kid too? Maybe we could go about it differently, but really? You could NEVER do this? Then I tend to think, there's a difference between want to and have to and then I recall some of the listless parenting I see in various waiting rooms. Perhaps I just have a very aggressive stance on getting things done to help my kids.

I've never thought of all the "stuff" that comes with Will as a "have to", but more something we do because we love him so fiercely. In fact, all this "stuff" has actually given us this overwhelming love for our kids.

After Quinn arrived a friend added me to a "Mom" Facebook group. I'm now part of many Mito FB as well as the other Mom FB group. My newsfeed jumps from varying extremes of parenting some days.

The past few days both FB communities seem to be in overdrive, maybe it's the cold weather. I started thinking about the moms posting these questions/comments and realized that probably not every parent would do what we do for Will, but the vast majority of them sure as hell would.

Both worlds actually worry about the same thing, it's just different degrees of issues. I would classify so many moms as "Supermom's" who have perfectly healthy little children. The degree of need just differs.

Real posts from Facebook, somewhat edited to eliminate the excessively long back story.
Feeding:
Normal mom - help my 3 year old daughter went on a food strike and will only eat mac and cheese. what should I do?

Mito mom -  thankfully my 8 year old daughter loves to eat mac and cheese, but that's pretty much it. We are thinking of switching her G-Tube formula, any recommendations?

Illness:
Normal mom - what temp do you take your child to the ER? Is 104 scary?

Mito Mom - well, we're on our way to the ER, little guy's temp just hit 100.

School:
Normal mom - I just don't know what to do about getting little lady into this new magnet program, any tips?

Mito mom - Oh good, you were able to attend school today without major problems and we have an IEP coming up next month.

Rashes:  This is one area that normal and mito meet - what is the deal with weird funky rashes in weird funky places? So nasty... and please stop posting photos of them...

Then there are the little things I don't even realize I worry about anymore. Gas in my car for example. I was relaying this story of Will's first ER trip after he was diagnosed. It was about a week after we found everything out and he got a fever.

I told this person I made it from my office, to Will's school, got gas and to the med center in like 25 minutes. I was quite pleased with that amount of time but was really irked about having to stop and get gas. I thought that five minutes of getting gas was a horrific amount of time to waste as I knew I needed to get him hooked up on fluids and on medicine.

(Let's not discuss how crazy I might have gotten in the ER while we waiting what seemed like an excessively long time for the D10 to arrive and get the IV into his arm.)

Now, if my gas is below a fourth tank, I go fill up. I never want to be near E again and worry if that would delay me from getting Will, or Quinn for that matter, the help they need.

Probably every mom and dad has this worry; we just worry about it in different ways. I don't even realize that's why I fill up so often nor does that sort of "petty" stress bother me anymore. It's just part of our new normal.

Superparents Rock! Especially SuperDad. SuperMoms are even more super when there is a SuperDad.

And SuperKids are actually the most important part!


1 comment:

  1. Hey mama, you are totally right. I'd do it for my kid in a heartbeat too. Maybe its why I like you so much. I know I'd be doing all the same things you are. Just because I would do it, doesn't mean you still don't deserve a standing ovation for all your hard work. Its not easy and you deserve celebrating. I'm not a big fan of the "I could never do that" comments because actually you could and you would. We all would. That said, you are a really great example to other moms of the beauty of mama bear love and the strength and tenacity you demonstrate in fighting for and caring for your beautiful kids. We notice your awesomeness. Big hugs!
    XOXO
    B

    ReplyDelete