No Such Thing as Normal

It's been awhile, eh? It seems all of my posts start that way. Life has a way of blasting by at mach speed without much time to pause and reflect. But once in a while, I stop...and breathe. The tears keep coming tonight...off and on...at any moment threatening to leave me powerless to their stream. I hate not being in control of my emotions. But tonight, I don't care. Because it involves my son. My sweet, hilariously funny, heartwarming, exasperating three and a half year old son, Toby. We recently had him evaluated through the local ECFE. Not for anything earth shattering or devastating. He just seems to have endless energy, has trouble listening, has a little bit of a speech issue, and tends to do dangerous boy things, ALL the time. So, as any concerned parent would do, we thought we would have him checked out. More as an "okay we can rest assured that he is a normal three year old boy". But today the phone call came. I couldn't answer because I was in training at work. But I decided to listen to the message as we took a fifteen minute break. I knew who had called. So I played the message. As I sat at the table, my coworkers buzzing around, laughing and joking during the much needed reprieve from our meeting, my world began to spin. The emotions came quick and fierce. And very unexpectedly. The words "developmentally delayed", "social functioning" and "special education" came as hard, dark, heavy words. And the tears that came threatened to spill over the threshold as I clumsily excused myself from the room. In the hallway, quiet sobs accompanied the tears. I had no control over how I was feeling, and I was caught off guard. When Toby and I were still in the hospital after he was born, the nurse came to take him to the nursery for his well-baby check up by the pediatrician on duty. As I sat in the room, waiting, it seemed to be taking forever. So I decided to waddle my way down to the nursery to see what was the delay. The moment I made eye contact with the doctor, I knew something was wrong. He stammered through an awkward introduction and asked me if I planned on having Toby circumcised before we were discharged. I quickly replied, yes. Dr. L. proceeded to mumble a few things I couldn't understand, and said he wanted to show me something. As he unfastened the diaper, he pointed to my tiny son's penis, and said, "see this line here, see how it rotates around to the top here? This is abnormal. I won't be able to circumcise him. You will have to wait until he is nine to ten months, and have a Urologist evaluate him for further complications". The tears came fast that day too. "My son has a de-de-formed penis?" The nurses were very sweet. One brought me a Kleenex and rubbed my back...as she chuckled under her breath. I was absolutely devastated. That day I knew, that no matter what life brought...I would fiercely protect my son. From whatever the broken world had to throw at us, I would be there to hold him, protect him, and love him unconditionally. Oh, I know, it sounds pretty corny...and I can laugh about it now. But there's something about being told that your son is abnormal that touches you deeply, and profoundly. Isn't that what we all hope for? A normal, healthy child? So tonight, as I gracelessly allow my emotions to take over at their every whim, I am reminded of that moment in the hospital on my son's second day of life. And I choose to accept him fully and completely for who he is. I am also fully aware, that things could be so much worse. That maybe I am being a little ridiculous when there are children who have severe Autism, birth defects, cancer. I weep for them too. My heart aches tonight. My mommy heart aches for them, and for my Toby. So, I will pull up my bootstraps (is that how the saying goes?), take a deep breath, and be the best mom I can for my beautiful child. After all, there is no such thing as normal.