Last night Wilfred didn’t want any stories read to him. He wanted to nurse briefly, then drink a little more milk with Chris, snuggle and get into his bed. I wasn’t surprised. It had been a difficult day for him and I am learning so much about the particular ways in which he processes difficulty. I also wasn’t at all surprised when he woke up at one am asking for “Dada to please rock him for a bit”.
Yesterday had been the last day of the Robin’s Nest playgroup at the North Branch Nature Center. We have been trying to be regular there to prepare Wilfred for 2 days of Forest Preschool this coming fall. He loves it. The mud kitchen, the chalk rocks, the stacking stumps, pebble beach and the bridge over the river; and especially the wheelbarrows. As far as he is concerned, the two that live in the playscape belong to Freddy.
And yet, of course, they do not. They live at the playscape for all of the children to use. And sometimes the kids will tolerate Wilfred taking a wheelbarrow out of their hands, especially when someone near points out that the second one is available. This was not however the case when he took it out of a little one’s hands yesterday. This child was all the way upset, yelling and sobbing and all the rest. Freddy meanwhile pretending that he could not hear or see any of it as he slowly attempts to disappear with his prize into some nearby tree cover. The little boy, after a time seemingly somewhat calmer, wandered over and wrapped his arms around Freddy’s whole body. It seemed like a hug. They got very still and it was not until a few moments passed that we understood that the little boy had sunk his teeth deep into Freddy’s cheek.
Wilfie howled. Not initially but he got there. And I swooped in and other mom swooped in and did all of the things that the mother of the kid from my last post did not: looked me in the eyes and apologized, comforted her kid who was obviously super upset and she also neither condoned his behavior or forced an arbitrary and irrelevant apology out of him. All in all, to her response, I say good job mom. She modeled all of the behavior that it is so important for our little ones to learn.
In a lot of ways, the “incident”, is less where my attention is in this instance. it is Rather it is on witnessing and understanding Wilfred’s response, what it may indicate or mean about his internal processing and what lessons he may be wiring for himself around trauma and embodiment. I am watching my son. And here is what I am noticing: in both of these events, Wilfred gets very still, he almost freezes, and then he takes it. He does eventually begin to cry, but not immediately, and he at no point ever tries to fight back or get away. He stays in place and absorbs what is happening. Y’all, it is intense to witness. Like time has slowed down and everything gets first very obscure, followed shortly by extra hi-def. And I do wonder if he is learning to leave his body, or if he is able to stay. It is hard to tell.
This time, even though he was clearly in a lot of pain, he stopped crying relatively quickly. I held him and hugged him and cooed in his ear for as long as he would let me. But he became extra remote and withdrawn, like he was burrowing deeper inside of himself somewhere, or perhaps leaving. He still held on to the stolen wheelbarrow, and we still walked down to the river, but he couldn’t quite meet it and I did end up carrying him the whole long way back to our parked car.
Eider had gone down with us so we could check out yet another school option for the next year, so he helped me manage all of the things and did his very best to help me cheer his little bro up. We stopped and took a dip in the swimming hole for the first time this year (success!), we stopped for ice cream (not so successful). And then it was a long nap and an afternoon of snuggles and now the subsequent tenderness that has followed. He is doing great, and still not entirely himself yet. I am trying to learn from this as best I can and connect some dots across time and space into and from my understanding of my two older children and all of the ways that they process and hold and dissociate and come back and release.
Which makes this perhaps the perfect moment to switch this telling from Wilfred to Eider, who in current time is the child that I lie in bed thinking about last thing at night, and wake up worried over again in the morning. He, right now, is the riddle for whom I continue to find no viable solution. I am constantly looking for the path forward and coming up empty handed time and time again. You may recall that a few months ago we were all getting very jazzed about the prospect of sending Eider to “yurt school” for eighth grade in the coming year. It is a local independent place-based school with a big ‘ol emphasis on child-led learning and time outside. I think it is an ideal fit for him at this particular stage in his education. It is not nearly so big as a “regular” school but with enough other kids to form relationships without getting cliquey, and it is not dependent on me to motivate and drive his learning on my own; a task that has become incredibly grueling over the past couple of years. Anyhow, I had been under the impression that yurt school takes the tuition voucher from our town which is what would make it a viable option for us. They do not.
It is a lengthy process to become an approved independent school (versus a registered one) in the state of Vermont. There are far more hoops to jump through and information to provide and prove and it has to be done every 5 years to maintain status. It’s a lot. And yet, as far as I can tell this area desperately needs an alternative 7-12 grade option. Especially with a local town that has no public option after sixth grade. And to be able to receive tax money for tuition opens up so much more opportunity for kids who want an alternate schooling option and/or are really not going to be well served in the public school setting, regardless of family income.
To be clear, I think that Eid would be ok in public school. Ok, not great. He would certainly need the support of an IEP or a 504 plan or both. And he would need constant advocacy so that he doesn’t either shut down from the difficulty or fall through the obvious and plentiful cracks. The reason Maple is thriving as a neurodivergent learner in a public school setting is because she a special type of unicorn that refuses to take any shit from her peers or her teachers. She is constantly advocating for herself and her particular learning style. She fights for her education every day. Not everyone is like that! Eid certainly isn’t. He is a peacekeeper not a justice seeker. Both are great. One has significantly better odds of making it in a mainstream system than the other. And like I said, maybe he’d be ok. But in my heart it feels like gambling on that is a near neighbor to sacrificing my kid. Which it feels like most of us are doing enough of one way or another every god damn day already.
As caregivers we are always the watcher of our kids, the collector of clues, a decoder of what they are saying as it relates to what they are longing for. I am studying them now. Trying to find the appropriate pathways in for each of them. It is tense. And it is far from easy. And as much as I wish I were better at putting it down it is my preoccupation as well as my occupation. I have built a life around equipping them with the tools they need to find as much connection and fulfillment as they are capable of. I want them to hold the maps to their own wellbeing and know all the ways in which to orient them.
So I study the ways in which they shut down, shut out, lash out, disengage, alienate, and isolate. It is fucking heartbreaking and it is incredibly real. All while keeping the small hand of little meg in my heart’s hand so that I can continue to provide her with the compassion she needs from her own childhood trauma while at the same time not mistaking mine for my kid’s.
This weekend, I posted briefly on the socials about the image versus the reality, the picture I paint as opposed to how we perhaps more truly are, how we feel instead of how we appear. I try to be as transparent as I can with all of that. While at the same time constantly reorienting myself toward joy and gratitude and abundance that is neither toxic and false, or delusional and irrelevant. I want to keep pointing myself in the direction of whole-heartedness, and my family too. So I seek out images and feelings that reflect that. But I want to be sure I also relay the truth of what an asshole my kid is being lately, or how fucking scared I am for them in every other breath. It’s real y’all. And it is messy. As all get out. But it is also so fucking beautiful that it almost breaks me, I mean, maybe I am actually all the way broken already. So, I cannot sacrifice them. Or myself. Or any of us really. There need to be better options, for my kids but really for all of our kids. Cuz that is what they really are, ya know? All of our beautiful, perfect, horrible, cruel, transcendent, wise, innocent, children. All of ours.