When A Crutch Becomes A Weapon

Elias's blue canes mostly help with balance. He can walk without them, posture-poor and drunk-like, but walk indeed. He can navigate a playground. Make it across our ranch style home. Even make it to our friends' and neighbors' two houses down. But without his sturdy crutches, he falls more often, and holds onto anyone or anything for balance when needed.

(Often goosing women and grabbing men in the balls. )

When we made the switch to the single black pole, his posture seemed a bit better, as opposed to leaning his upper body forward on his canes, but we found him needing to hold our hands  more or anything he could grab. Then he had a strange period this winter where he struggled to walk at all, so we switched back to his familiar blue canes. He prefers them over the pole, and since he seems more independent with them, I've been alright with this backwards step.

Until he started swinging his canes at his sister. And me. And Nick. And for a boy who has been walking with his upper body for years, he can put some force behind his swings. He's a ripped little skinny guy with broad shoulders and strong hands. Both his thighs would fit into a pair of my socks, but don't mess with his grip.

This morning, as we tried to usher the kids out the door for a trip to Palmer, both Nick and I ran to grab one last thing, and in the minute the two were alone in the entryway, Elias wacked Olive in the head with his cane.

Our response was to take them away. When children aren't safe with tools they lose the privilege to use them. You can play with that stick until it ends up in someones eye, right, something like that.

And yet, we don't take away kids' hands when they make fists or their feet when they kick. And in some ways Elias's canes are just an extension of himself. How do we justify taking them away? And yet how do we not, when a minute alone with his sister ends with a bump on her head?

Oh, and the meltdown when Nick put his canes out of reach. Watching him try to climb up on the garbage can to reach the top shelf in the pantry, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. This is ridiculous, I thought. (Elias's new word.) And tragic. And endearing. And pathetic. And bold. And a whole stew of descriptors beyond my brains' ability to summon to the surface.

Elias, finally, walked, on his own terms, to the truck. I carried his black pole behind him and threw it in the back. A mosquito followed the kids into the cab and soon both kids swatted at the bug, distracted by tiny wings.

I hugged Nick in the driveway and gave him a cock-eyed grin. "Have fun," I said, as I planned to stay behind and have a little Christy time.

"Don't you mean, good luck not killing the kids."

"That too."

Elias's aggressive outbursts, if nothing else, remind me how thin the line is between civil and savage. How easy it would be for me to swing back when he raises his cane. To push him down and use my strength against his. The rage rises but some higher or inner power holds it at bay.

I don't hurt my son.

But I could. And I know this.

As for now, he does not. He still expects a hug when he kicks me in the shin. Sees me as the all-loving Mama who would never dream of kicking back. How long will this image hold?

Every day, as a parent, I learn new lessons in humility. I discover that I am both weaker and stronger than I ever knew. I learn how much I don't know. My question pile rises to the size of Denali as my answers evaporate with the midnight sun.

And yet somehow I keep trying. I go on loving my kids as best I can. Its not nearly as pretty as I once pictured, not cut from the cloth of Halmark cards. Not Parent magazine worthy.  Not a Cambells Soup commercial.

But its an honest love. Its human. Its the life we live, afterall.

For better or worse.

 

Comments

[Rooster's Mom]

I have yanked my son away from a situation where he was making unsafe decisions and realized that I could keep squeezing that arm of his harder than I needed to or let it go, and have shared your thoughts about humility, and pondered too how much I don't know.
Parenting is tough stuff, but you are tougher still, and love is the biggest part. Hang tight.

[Christy]

Thanks rooster's Mom. I too have realized that a part of me wants to squeeze his arm as another part of me lets go. Tough indeed. Nick's parents took him for another night last night to give us a reprieve. He had no overnight bag or anything but we all felt it was the best plan. Look forward to seeing him soon and am hoping for my happy boy to return.

[Kate]

Parenting--so very humbling and has a unique way of exposing both our strengths and weakness. And how easy it is to focus on where we fall short. But each day we get up and again try our best. hang in there! I for one think you're doing an amazing job!