Friendly Fires

Thanks to my friends who very nicely encouraged me over the past couple of weeks while I let myself play the drama queen over Anonybabe's physical screening.

And I apologize to anybody who was offended over my histrionics about a little physical screening.

I feel I should explain, a bit.

To kids who can't do what the other kids can do (i.e. everybody):

I don't feel it's the end of the world because Anonybabe can't run, jump, hurtle down the playground as fast as other kids her age. In fact, deep down I think it's no big deal at all. I hope I'm right about this, but I think it's just a part of her story. A part of her personality. Chica is freaking deliberate. Chica is hella slow to move. Whether she does it because she is compensating for this or that doesn't seem like it matters that much. It makes her unique, it makes her frustrating as hell, and it makes her delightful, all at once.

So my depressed freak out over Anonybabe's screening wasn't so much because *sob* "Anonybabe is slow! Horrors! However shall we survive?!"

My depressed freak out was more of a crisis of confidence as a parent. I had already decided that Anonybabe was what she was. And then her teacher (who I'd incidentally never heard one positive thing about Anonybabe from) tells me that she thinks Anonybabe needs to be screened for a physical problem the same way she might tell me Anonybabe needs to be screened for cancer. Like she needs to tread carefully. Like I might start banging my head on her toddler sized table and shaking my fists at the sky. Like I shouldn't have been trusting my gut instincts when they told me Anonybabe was just fine. Like all of the things I'd been using to gauge her development and well-being (her communicativeness, her inquisitiveness, her imagination) were dwarfed by her terrible slowness.

Which made me stop and think...should I be concerned? Should I be as hushed and shifty-eyed about the fact that my daughter can't get air when she tries to jump? Should I be as dismissive about her verbal precociousness? Was she precocious at all? Was I in an Anonyfamily bubble?

And here's where I started to go off the deep end. My childhood was steeped in religious fervor, isolation, and a sense of family angst. It was a world unto itself that was completely turned upside down more than once. So it didn't seem like such a crazy stretch to imagine my view of Anonybabe was way off while her seemingly nice, seasoned veteran of a daycare teacher's was spot on. And since her daycare teacher seemed only frustrated and sad about Anonybabe's place in the world alongside her peers, my first step was to see if I could drop my view of Anonybabe and see whether I could pick hers up. Fortunately, I could not. But I did some amazing emotional gymnastics to try to do so.

It is to my everlasting shame that I seem to always give someone else's opinion the benefit of the doubt before my own. And, if I can continue being a bit of a drama queen: it scares me about my soundness as a mama. If your mom can be so easily pushed out of your corner, that can't be great for your self-esteem.

And on and on on this downward spiral.

See what I'm doing here? Going down this path that is less and less connected with reality? It's like going on the Oompa Loompa boat ride. Thanks for taking the mini-tour with me.

Anyway, the downside is that I was dismayed and embarrassed to see how far afield I could go just by somebody telling me that Anonybabe might want to get a little help climbing the monkey bars.

The upside is that now I know what it takes to make some of my old-standing issues blossom. And I know that I want to work on getting said issues under control. Maybe if I feel up to it, later I'll talk in more detail about these mystery issues.

In the mean time - thanks for being nice.