It's interesting that I posted not long ago about the art of ending well. At the time, my observations and thoughts were all about other people's endings, and trying to related my emotions to past experiences in order to process changes in one particular environment.
Since then, there have been numerous changes in our own lives, and I am challenged to handle those changes gracefully, and may get another opportunity to end something well. Hopefully, each new ending we face will be one I handle better than the last.
We are visiting a new educational environment this upcoming week. If you know me personally, please don't freak out! Only a few people have heard this from me directly, and it's nothing to do with any deficiency anywhere. As is her pattern M looks like she might be ready now for the plan I anticipated next Fall. I shouldn't be surprised. Actually, I'm feeling mostly tired. The short version is that these few months following vision therapy completion were impossible to predict, and we are trying to roll with it. "He just rolls. It's cool how he rolls" ~ The Invisible Man in Hotel Transylvania, in honor of Halloween yesterday :)
The next place we are exploring is one that my husband has been enthusiastic about, and he is taking a day off of work to visit with us. What cracks me up is his supervisor's reaction. M and I have met his current supervisor only once [because he recently switched positions within the company]. When he asked for the day off to visit "a new school" (not the terminology I would use - coop is closer), apparently his supervisor was scared. Isn't that adorable?! Is it just me? What he actually said to my husband was, "you're not putting that child into public school are you?!" My husband laughed and quickly said no, and his supervisor expressed relief. This man met us only once, is not opposed to public school options, and durring a short, unannounced stop at the office one afternoon, and it was clear to him. That pretty much tells our story related to meeting new people.
It makes me remember my friend R talking with me about all of this stuff years ago. She said, "Just don't talk about it with people," after I had expressed frustration that we cannot go anywhere without facing the uniqueness of our situation head on. Well, her son is now older and she is facing it, too. I am small enough to laugh at her and we still get along well :). You see, M talks. To everyone. All. The. Time.
I don't want my girl to grow up feeling that she has to hide herself or conform or fit into expectations. Being polite and respectful is required. Becoming a carbon copy of anyone else or fitting into a cookie cutter shape is not even desirable. Balancing those things is quite difficult for me to figure out in some situations.
Which brings me back to our visit this upcoming week . . . . it's not a special interest environment, so they will not be expecting an atypical child. Well, they are expecting a homeschooled child, so they will be expecting that degree of atypicality, I'll admit . . . Beyond that, they have no information about our unique situation. How should I prepare her?
Growing up, I would have been advised to be quiet and observe, and to smile and be attentive. Many of us would have been told similar things. Of course I want her to smile and be attentive. Observe? Absolutely! Be quiet? Never. Going. To. Happen. I don't want her to stifle what is a big part of her. Does it annoy me sometimes? OF COURSE! However, I do it, too, and I want her to grow up embracing the person God made her to be - or, if you prefer - to be the person she was born to be. She is amazing, unquenchably curious, irrepressibly enthusiastic, completely precocious, and many other admirable and (to be honest) irritating things.
No matter how it turns out, we will be keeping some of our routine the same. If it goes really well, we will be altering part of our schedule to incorporate this new thing in the Spring term, and I'll have yet another opportunity to practice the art of ending well. A week ago, I did not know this was coming. Gotta roll with it. Wish me luck in being the mother she needs me to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment