Adventures in Crisis Parenting

It started when one of my teens swallowed a half dollar, or was it a quarter? She wasn’t sure, but gosh, her throat hurt. How she got it down her gullet? No clue. Why? Also no clue. The size of the coin meant a trip to the ER for an x-ray. The coin was well on its way to coming out in the end. A few days after that ER trip, the other kids and I began to run fevers. Another round of calls made to the pediatrician. “Find Covid testing”, we were told. If only it were that easy to find Covid testing days before people were wanting to travel for Christmas. We found a pharmacy with an open slot in a neighboring town. I loaded one of my feverish children into the van and off we went. When we got there, there were no tests. I drove my feverish child home. The rest of the week was a sick, sweaty, daze.

I fell back into the wise advice a friend had given me. “Stick to three priorities a day”. OK, so priority 1: feed people, care for the sick 2: attend to the messiest part of the house 3) Christmas. Christmas came, bright, but subdued, this year. That is, until the kids set the kitchen on fire. Luckily, no one was hurt and there was no damage. Also, I got to use a fire extinguisher, so, like, cross that off the bucket list. Wow! What an eventful winter break!

Ok, so back to trying to organize my life. I made up a list of daily habits that I hoped to add to my three priorities. Things like drinking water, getting outside, taking time to meditate. Best laid plans, right?

The following day another one of my older children started displaying some concerning neurological symptoms. The onset was sudden. Another call to the doctors office, another, longer trip to the ER. This time the ER was flooded, as we are at the height of a pandemic. They gave my child medicine that helps with her symptoms and set up a neurological consult.

Ok, so forget good habits, back to three priorities 1) schedule that appointment for the consult 2) feed people 3) take a walk to clear my head. We got through a day. The adrenaline let down hit like a truck the next day. I did not do much besides feed my family and make sure people got meds in the morning, but in the afternoon I was feeling up to a quick trip into town to top off with gas and drop a package at UPS.

I sat in the UPS parking lot. I’d gotten myself some hot herbal tea instead of coffee because water>caffeine. I breathed. I thought about how sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or shake my fist at the sky and scream FML! I laughed. I though about maybe going for a quick walk at my favorite park. Supper was in the crockpot, and the kids were well and happy for the time being. Why not?

Then the phone rang, an invitation to yet another adventure…( our out of the way country lane became the end point for a police chase. I came home to a cadre of emergency vehicles)

Parenting is hard. Parenting kids with special needs can be even harder. This I know. I am learning to practice radical acceptance, that everything that enters our lives has something to teach us, even the painful. Even the hard. To trust, like Julian, that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” All is being brought into the goodness and justice and wide mercy of Christ. I am also learning to hold my priorities and habits lightly. The priorities are generally things that must be done. The habits are things that are good for me to do if I am not in the middle of a crises. The trick is not to try to check all of the things off the list in a day, the trick is when the crisis ends, to do one of the “things” rather than escaping into less helpful activities. To spend 10 minutes in gratitude or mindfulness before numbing myself with social media. TO drink water before another cup of coffee, that it really doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do, as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even in chaos, there is stillness and rest.