Fail

Today was perfect. I woke up and exercised, fed the kids breakfast, we did our morning routine in record time. Then we started into school. I read to my son about Archimedes “Eureka” moment, we recreated it in our kitchen with a tub of water. Afterwards we worked on our Greek vases. In the afternoon we went to a friend’s house to swim while the moms discussed our homeschool co-op.

Perfection.

Haha! That was my planned day, my reality was more like this:

I did wake up and get an exercise in, my baby wakes me up nice and early (5:30 most days). About halfway through my workout I heard some noise at the top of the stairs. Boo-boo was laying on the landing half awake. Sci guy came down a few minutes later. Sci guy had been up several times during the night with chest pain. I could tell he was exhausick (exhausted mixed with sick) but he claimed he was just fine. He turned on a show, even though he hadn’t completed his high-five. He promised me he just needed one show to feel better and then he would do his chores. 

Any guess how the rest of the day went? He wasn’t interested in Archimedes (I was!), didn’t want to work on a Greek vase made out of paper maiche. He spent the morning terrorizing Boo-boo, who was exhausick too. I just finished reading “Siblings without Rivalry” so I was determined to solve those fights in a perfect manner, but after about an hour I wanted to lock them both in their rooms. 

Not long after lunch two old friends stopped by-the ugly monster guilt, and his twin sister inadequacy. They brought their greatest hits “I am a bad mom” “I should put Sci guy back in public school” “I am a bad mom” “every other mom in the world has it all together” “remember how my house was clean last night, now look at it” “today has been the definition of mom fail” “remember that one thing that happened years ago-yep that was a good sign your life would turn out so pathetic.”

I am practicing mindfulness, especially awareness of distorted thoughts. Allowing myself to acknowledge them, work through them but not let them set up camp in my brain all day. As cheesy as it sounds I said to myself “wow I am feeling super guilty and inadequate right now, let’s examine the evidence.” 

It seems to always come back to the same thing for me-reminding myself a “mom fail” does not equal me being a FAILURE. 

I woke up with my children all night for various reasons, I was exhausted too. Cut myself some slack. Yes we all benefit from good routines. But sometimes a really rough night sets us up for a different routine. Maybe I should make a “rough night” morning routine. A mom who will sacrifice sleep for an eight year old who is afraid he might throw up (he didn’t) and a two year old who suffers from bad anxiety is hardly a mom fail. 

My children’s basic needs are met every single day. Yes they could eat more vegetables, and could definitely work on teeth brushing, but they are sheltered, fed and loved day in and day out. 

Homeschooling an Aspie is an unique challenge. All children will be hit and miss with various activities. Mom spends hours planning an awesome experiment and it doesn’t quite catch their interest. Do five minutes of research on something and the child will be hooked for days. That’s not on the mom, it is on the child. Just like how some people will be hooked by one show, while your friend is binge watching a completely different show. For no logically reason we are drawn to different things. 

Aspies I think are much more that way. If it does catch Sci Guys attention, boy will it catch his attention. I thought he would be OBSESSED with Ancient Greek, but he honestly doesn’t seem to care. He kind of seems like more of an Ancient Egypt kind of guy. One of the main reasons for wanting to homeschool my son was because I wanted to allow his brain to work the way it is wired to work. Not the way the schools want it to work. 

So I’m bagging my amazing Ancient Greek activities I had planned over the next week. He really want to learn more about the concept of time. So let’s try that one.

But if that is a fail, the activity is a fail. Not me. Not him. Not homeschooling. Just the activity. And you know what, the activities feelings are not my top priority.