Are You Serious?

Have you ever asked yourself the question the soul-stirring question Why Is This Happening to Me? Come on, it’s us, just you and my imagination, you can be honest.  I know you have.  Have you ever considered the exact circumstances of when your soul cries out to the heavens for mercy? Or maybe just a cup of wine (a cup because glasses break and we keep it real around here😁)?  I mean, damn.  We are talking about one of those ‘Are you serious Jesus?  Haven’t I been through enough?’ Type of moments.

 

Now for the disclosure. (Insert your most mature tv announcer reading voice here).  We all know, cause we watched Oprah, that life happens for us and not to us.  We also know that God, the Universe, Earth puts us in situations to prepare us for what’s to come.  Furthermore, we know that we are actually prepared for this ‘crisis’.  If we surrender to our thou.. Blah, Blah, WHATEVER!!!!!!!  Later for that B.S. Back to why me.

 

As it turns out, I had one of these moments last night.  There I was innocent at 2 am sound asleep.  My niece and I were sleeping together and she had been asleep for hours.  All was right in the World, when I heard a very loud Thud followed by giggles!  I opened one eye to see my niece smiling at me as she ran at top speed down the hall.  This meant one thing, she was headed to the bathroom!  Oh SHIT noooo, not Nadia alone in the bathroom! I jumped up running behind her and begging her not to do this to me.  Not now.  Not this. She made in there. Damn!

 

 

Nadia is 6 and she has special needs.  We are fortunate because she continues to progress…very slow progress…but progress nonetheless.  She has development delays.  One of her delays is in the area of potty training.  We are seriously trying to get her out of the pull-ups!  We’ve been trying to get her potty trained for a couple of years now.  Nadia is a smart girl. She’s hit or miss during the day with her potty training. At night, especially after bedtime, she’s perfectly potty trained!  You would be so proud of her.  She says she has to go, makes her way, will sit herself on the hot seat and executes!

 

Cut to 2 am! Guess what?!  Nadia is grinning at me putting herself on the toilet.  She reaches for her Sesame Street book to show me a horse.  Then she wants her toy that sings the alphabet.  Oh, she needs a new book now.  Did I see the duck?  Did I see the boats?  Can I sing row, row, row your boat to you? She motioned.  I’m like girl can you just pee?  We were up in that piece a good 20 minutes! She has delays in her speech too, but she smiled and said a couple of words to me to soften me so she wouldn’t have to leave! Then she tried to call my Mother in to come hang out.  When she started looking for the dog, I knew things had gone too far.   Meanwhile, there was NO PEE!  Not one drop!  We weren’t in the bathroom to use it, we were in the bathroom to party!

 

Go to hell Robin!

 

No one else was awake but us, and I asked why is this happening to me?  I know I was the one who tried to make the toilet a happy place with those damn books and toys, not to mention the singing.  So now  they all have to be used as weapons against me?!  For real? Straight up?! At 2 am?  Were those toys and the whole potty training process secretly praying for my downfall? I don’t know, but at that moment life seemed so unfair.  How did I end up in a hopeless situation like this one?  Where did I go wrong in my life to deserve this?

 
We finally left the bathroom. No one used it!!!!   We got back in bed, only for her to want us to feed her baby.  It turns out Nadi’s a really good Mom especially after midnight.  Her Mom and my Mom finally heard Nadia and everyone came running to make sure she was OK.  Nadia was fine, I was falling apart. We all hung out with her for a while and she finally fell asleep at 3:30 this morning….to be back up at 8am!  That toothless grin, perfectly in place just like it should be…

 

Meet doggy, bunny and Nadi

 

Living with a child who has special needs requires special love from your heart.  Not to mention special patience.  Not patience sometimes, but ALL OF THE TIME!  Patience wih the child, with teachers and para-professionals at school, with and from their siblings, within a family and from yourself. There is no reasoning with a child that’s so excited and proud of herself for expressing and achieving her needs – without help! Yet, I was so serious when I asked God why me last night.  I asked God, like I have many times, why her too.

 

So why me?  Why not. There’s no time to feel sorry for yourself when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.  Instead, I decided to be honest about how I really felt. Tired.  Then I focused on every skill she was showing me she’d gained by being able to plan her trip to the potty.  She plotted, she planned, she was stealthy, and she rewarded herself with giggles and reached her goal!  That means she’s  thinking !  She even shared those words with me, to let me know she was listening earlier in the evening when I told her I wanted her to talk to me.  That’s when I realized she was doing everything I have been praying she would do, months ago.  This means there’s more to come.

 

I suppose you’ll say then, that I was prepared for this moment, because I prayed for it.  You might even say this moment is preparing me for what’s to come.  After-the-cup-of-coffee-Stacie agrees with you 100%.  Two-am-half-asleep-Stacie says Bah humbug!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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