It's official, I'm becoming a blog-a-holic!
I just had to proclaim my unwavering dedication and appreciation to our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship community. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to recruit anyone with this post (although I'm happy to give more information about us to anyone who is interested! *wink*), but I can't get through the post trying to keep my community link anonymous.
This afternoon was our Valentine's day Party for the Fellowship at Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community Center. This is the second "party" we've had there and first off, it's really cool that we have get-togethers there with the kids and elderly who reside there. Both generations enjoy "partying" with one another. Secondly, and most importantly... At one point during the party I sat back in my chair, watching R sitting on some eighty-ish year old woman's lap, and seeing 9 year old fellow RE child "I" carrying J around on her hip posing for pictures with her with their matching oversized heart sunglasses and giant flower hair accessories... and I realized just how accepting this little community of "religious misfits" truly are. Of course ACCEPTANCE is one of our key proclamations as a Unitarian Universalist... but in a world where someone will tell you, "Don't worry about it," when your crazy insane three year old squeezes their plastic cup of water until it spurts all over himself, the chair he's sitting on, and the floor; and you can tell that what they REALLY mean is, "Get your stupid kid out of here." You can see and feel the genuine TRUTH behind their smiles and reassurances that they don't think you're a shitty mom who can't control their kids.
It's SO important to find a place like this, especially when you have children with special needs who you can't really take just ANYWHERE out in public for fear that they will at best, completely humiliate you with their lack of self control. It's so hard to stay home all the time, living in fear of how your children will act if you take them out. I do it, probably more than some, because I've gotten accustomed to the stares... and I think most of the time under the circumstances, my kids are decently behaved. They are certainly far from WELL BEHAVED... but I can usually at least keep them in a 5-10 foot radius of my presence.
Something I've learned though, is that taking your hyper children out in public is a lose-lose situation.... you get glares for allowing them to run wild, and you also get glared at for disciplining them. It seems you are rarely around the right person at the right time... or that people just hate hyper children regardless of whether their parents appear to be trying to control them or not! I almost want to tell each and every one of the people I come across, "You should see them if I WASN'T trying to bring some calm sanity to their lives!" Seriously, I love Brent, but I don't even want to think about what would happen to these kids if he ended up a single dad having to care for them. He's a WONDERFUL daddy, but because of his own struggle with ADHD; structure, order, and non chaos (even as little as the pathetic attempt I make) is not one of his strong points.
Find that one place you can feel completely accepted in the world outside your own home, and hold on to it with both hands AND feet. A place like this is hard to come across, regardless of how NORMAL your family might be!
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