“Don’t lay him down or jostle him in any way, he’s just
eaten,” I’d warn the unsuspecting loved one who just had to hold my baby boy at
that moment. Then, of course, came the
dirty looks suggesting that she had held babies before and why was I being such
a know-it-all.
“Whoosh,” smelly,
white liquid gushed from his mouth and covered her entire front side in sticky
vomit.
“Yep,” I’d think to myself, “that is why I said that,” as I
went to retrieve my now sticky baby boy in need of a bath and to be refed.
So this was our introduction to letting family and friends know
that our twin babies were not exactly like other babies – those ones that come
out at 40 weeks gestation and not 32 weeks.
Among other things, the twins both had severe reflux which required
special handling in their feeding routines – including keeping them still and upright
for at least half an hour after eating.
As the years went by, my reputation as overprotective mother
became even more pronounced. I insisted
my children did not have to be physical with relatives when they did not want
to: “No Auntie he does not have to kiss you and she does not have to climb into
your lap no matter how much you wish it to be so.” Of course, I would try to explain why I felt
this was important to their development, but like the adults in those Charlie
Brown specials, I’m sure it just came off as “wa-wa-wawa”.
Well, you can just imagine the reception when I told the
family that our daughter had a language delay and most likely Auditory
Processing Disorder. They simply didn’t
believe it. I was just being that
overprotective mother who didn’t want to just let my children be. “She would come around in her own time,” they
thought, “all this effort on speech therapy and occupational therapy was a
waste.” Not to mention the fact that I
used it as an excuse to not make her stay at large gatherings for long periods
of time.
Still, I never let other people’s opinions change the way I
reared my own children. I knew I was
being responsible and doing the best for them.
Heck, I researched everything and put every ounce of my heart and soul
into being the best mother I could be for them.
Eventually the family came around. They started to see that maybe I wasn’t this
crazy, over-protective mother they had made me out to be. Truthfully, I think having the “expert
opinions” of others made them more open to the idea that maybe I was onto
something true. Here it wasn’t just me
saying these things, but people with degrees in specialty areas were saying it
too. (Yes, you detect a note of sarcasm here
because I hate that people think you need a degree to know something, but that’s
another story.)
I don’t harbor any ill feelings towards the family members and friends that did not accept that my children had any special needs or who did not
approve at first of my parenting style.
It is only human psychology to try adamantly to not accept something
that is hard to accept; if I went through quasi-panic attacks coming to terms
with my children’s needs, how could I expect them not to have their own
problems in accepting it as well. It is
a process after all, and all those in our children’s lives have to go through
their own process as well.
