Today has been a day with our sweet Squizzle. I have been able to sneak a few pictures of him doing unexpected things. Both depict different sides of him. The first being of him heaving a few packages in because he wanted to help. The other of him sitting precariously in his chair; even though I had reminded him several times to make safe choices with the way he was sitting.

There are moments when his sweetness and helpful side shine through, and then there are moments when I feel like I’m in a silent film and nobody can hear me. He has already eaten three times today, yet loudly proclaims that he is starving. It amazes me, the things I hear and see while being his mother.

There are times when he cracks me up, and then there are times when he tests every one of my mommy buttons. Today was such a day. A day that I had to rely on the Lord even more than other days, because without His strength I would have lost my patience and gotten angry. This happens because Squizzle’s anxiety and mine but heads and spurs one another on. Our stress, depression and PTSD get triggered by things that the other cannot see and then we implode.

I really love this kid. I don’t like it when my anxiety gets the better of me and I forget about his ADHD and raise my voice at something he’s doing. On good days, I can remind myself that these are regular challenges for him and I can either ignore them (if they aren’t harmful to himself or others), or I can calmly and quietly walk him through it. On days like today, I grit my teeth and talk to God in my head and often raise my voice, to which Squizzle responds; “Why are you getting mad? I don’t like it when people raise their voice.” And to reiterate, today was a silent movie day, where my voice is going but apparently the sound was on mute.

Today was a fight to get his schoolwork done, stay on task, clean up after himself, drink water, cease whining and use calm words, use ears instead of listening to respond (which means he’s already talking over what I’m saying and not actually hearing and receiving what is being said).A fight, to not get into the dogs faces, to not stand on the table but to go around, to follow the directions he is capable of every other day. But not today.

Being a momma to a child with challenging diagnoses means fighting for them and sometimes we wind up fighting with them. They are capable of oh so much, and sometimes they themselves don’t believe it or act like it. We have to stand firm on parenting them while explaining the way they think/work to their siblings to attempt to reconcile what they refuse to talk out. We have to stand firm in helping them to understand that their diagnoses is part of them but does not define them, and is not an excuse for poor behavior and nasty tempers.

It tests our strength and our abilities to overcome our own thoughts and desires, it tests our willingness to be the right parent and not to focus on being right. These are amazing kids, many people miss out on interacting with them because they view their negative behaviors as poor parenting; and that is unfortunate.

I desire to be a better parent, for my willingness to do the right thing to be stronger than my desire to be right. I desire to get to know what makes this little man operate so that I can help guide him to be the young man the Lord desires for him to be. For that, I most definitely need the Lord’s strength because without it, I am not going to make it. I remind myself regularly that God granted me this child, He knew what I would do, how far I would fight for him and how much strength I had and would need. I trust that He knows best, because I sure don’t.

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength -Isaiah 40:31

The great thing about days like today; they come to a close and a new day begins tomorrow.