Giraffe Fight

Sometimes, our morning routine resembles a giraffe fight. Have you seen giraffes fighting? I know I should be sad that there is strife even in the world of giraffes, but instead all I can do is laugh until my sides hurt. It’s hysterical. You have to Google it. The giraffes sidle up to each other and then WHAP each other with their long, gangly necks. Whap. Whap. Whap. It’s awkward and unexpected and pretty comical.

This is how our mornings are sometimes: awkward, unexpected, and in hindsight, comical.    

Our school year has started off the best of any school year so far in our entire school history. I’m in shock. We have three schools our four kids attend this year, so there’s more juggling on my part. But at each school, there is at least one person who completely has my kiddo’s back. At least one person who is supportive, on board, understanding of my children’s disabilities, and totally wonderful. I’m so used to having to go in, guns blazing, to get my children help at school—this is quite an unexpected gift.

That’s not to say our year is easy sailing, by any means. There have already been sick kids staying home, kids who can’t get to school because of their Anxiety, grades tanking, things forgotten, homework not turned in, more Anxiety, social issues…BUT. This crazy life of mine has made me so cognizant and grateful for all the little things that are going right. I take nothing for granted.

Aidan has had a few tough days. One day, his Anxiety was more than he could handle. I tried my Mama Magic to maneuver him through the morning and tried my best to calm his school fears and get him out the door. You have to be very careful with Aidan, because he is so super sensitive, and if you raise your voice or he perceives that you're mad at him, he shuts down and won’t come out of his shell at all. So you have to maintain your cool at ALL times, which is nearly impossible when you’re in a giraffe fight and that giant neck is coming at you, whapping you when you least expect it. This form of warfare is subtle, but effective.

So I did my very best to have a calm, supportive voice as I tried to get Aidan to the bus stop, although inside I just wanted to YELL at the utter absurdity of all of this. I am envious of families who don’t walk a minefield just trying to get their kids to the bus stop every day. Who don’t wake in turmoil, pretending that everything is fine, hoping everything is fine, wondering if this is the day Anxiety will be back.

I rubbed my boy's back as he lay on the floor, feeling the physical and mental anguish that his Anxiety was churning up inside him. We tried to get to the bottom of his fears so we could sort them out. My little boy was gone, and in his place was that giraffe, whapping his neck all around, lashing out, shutting down, full of insecurities and overwhelm.

I could see I was losing this battle. The bus came and went. My heart sank. This wasn’t my first rodeo; I know this kind of morning all too well. This wasn’t the first day Aidan had had too much anxiety to make it to school this short year, so I got in touch with the teacher who is 100% on Aidan’s side. After some emailing and a phone call, we came up with a plan.          

I calmly and lovingly presented the plan to Aidan. When he felt calm enough, we would drive to school and I would drop him off. His wonderful, incredible Special Ed teacher said she would drop everything to be with Aidan as long as he needed her. If for some reason she was unavailable, we had a back up person to tag team with Aidan. I told him he didn’t need to think about all his worries, he just had to get his body to school. Even just for a short time. Just get there, talk with his teacher- because she had some ideas for how to help him feel better- and then if he needed to, I could pick him up and he could come home.           

Aidan made a counter offer: he would like to stay home for a little while until his red, puffy face went back to normal. And he requested a decaf, almond milk, no whip, mocha frappucino from Starbucks on our way to school. This is his most special treat. 

So here’s an example of when parenting books fail the special needs parent. I know that no parenting expert on Earth would say I should get my kid a special drink after a morning like this. I would be rewarding his misbehavior. He was being bad and he should be punished, not rewarded. But if you parent a child who has special needs, and you know his brain is on fire, which is causing all the anxiety in the first place, you know in your heart of hearts that your child is so good. He is not misbehaving. He is not manipulating you. He is doing the best he can, while struggling with invisible disabilities and illnesses that others can’t see and are too quick to judge. This kid. My boy is sensitive, and beautiful, and perfect, and so many times on Giraffe Mornings, I want to dissolve in a puddle of tears alongside my little giraffe, because I see that life is too much to handle. I get it.

I knew that if I promised Aidan a special Starbucks drink, not only would it be something for him to look forward to on the drive to school, it would momentarily take his mind off his worries, because he’d be distracted. And the best part: he would agree to get into the van. You have to understand, in all the years up until now, if we had an Anxiety Day, my kiddo never made it into the school building. He refused to get on the bus, and it was too dangerous to try to drive him to school myself because of how out of control he was. The fact that he was willing to show up to school, even for a short time, is a monumental improvement and worth all the celebratory mocha frapps in the Universe.

So I agreed to my son’s terms. He calmed down and got his face back to normal, we got a mocha frapp, and we walked into school together. Aidan wanted me to stay with him, but I told him I couldn’t but that his teacher would be with him until he was ready to move on with the day.

I was so proud of him. It doesn’t matter that three hours later, he called from the nurse’s office to come home. The point is he got his body to school on an Anxiety Day!!!! Woot woot!! This kid amazes me. I was so grateful to his Special Ed teacher, because Aidan asked to come home pretty soon after he arrived at school. But his teacher was able to help him work through his Anxiety a bit, and he was able to stay longer. They went to talk to the PE teachers, who Aidan is struggling with. They made it to math class. Then, Aidan asked to come home again. His wise, intuitive teacher realized that this had been a MAJOR accomplishment for Aidan, and that she shouldn’t push him farther than he could handle, so she said Aidan could call me and come home.

Victory. Success. Was the day perfect by “normal-people” standards? Far from it. But for us, it was a tough, but successful, day. I was exhausted and emotional, but we had all worked together as a team to help Aidan get the best possible outcome for his day. After I dropped him off at school that late morning, I felt stupid for crying on my way home. But then I realized what a stressful, challenging, overwhelming task it is to take on a giraffe fight, and come out winning. It takes all my strength, all my creativity, all my fortitude and patience and love to get through a morning like that successfully. It’s completely gut-wrenching and exhausting. So I gave myself permission to feel emotional. I had just fought a giraffe, and my son and I had both come out winners.

Every morning that I walk my children to the bus stop, and they actually GET ON a bus, I rejoice. I rejoice that our day is going the way childhood days are supposed to. I rejoice that my children are successfully handling the things that typical kids do. I rejoice that there was no awkward, insane giraffe fight that morning. Sometimes finding the gifts in this dark journey is tough. But I never know when there will be an Anxiety Day, and so I never take the little victories for granted, and that is a gift.