What does your drive to school look like parents?

My son and I have a pretty scheduled school morning.  Up at the crack ass of dawn. Sausage, eggs, toast with avocado and a side fruit, served by 7am to his Highness.

Maybe some other special needs parents can relate.  If I even so much as skimp on the brand of toast, texture of egg, or number of those sausages, I’m up parental shits crick.Let me also add that I treated my son as if he had no “disability” until he was 5 because, he wasn’t diagnosed. Thereafter –

HE STILL GETS NO SPECIAL TREATMENT!

If the eggs aren’t at par or the sausages are maybe bacon. Or fuck it all to hell  – the reality: Mom’s offering a box of cereal dry because she didn’t make it to the store before said most important meal of the day. Then so be it. He deals. We deal. Its dealt with. However,

The ride to school tells the truth.

• When momma adorns a blazer? Little man knows… Momma’s hustling.

• When momma is in last night’s sweats? Little man tells her the entire drive… ‘mom you should do something with your hair ( shirt, face, breath..)

Okay kid STFU- appreciate the honesty. This compilation stems from “Momma” being ready to go to see a client – essentially, me being ready to embrace global domination. I may or may not have a pinky and the brain theatrical trailer encouraging these scenes to the personal and child fruition they do…however…thank you animaniacs leadership circa 1991 for said mentoring.

This is good! This is us!

Would hate to envision his single Momma being run of the muck, juggling a role handed to her and being brow beaten by and to anyone else’s standards (like I was) – heaven forbid! Here as an example of what I heard on this morning’s drive:

•  your hair looks like daddy on one side (aka BALD)
•  you haven’t told me what’s for dinner later so your meeting needs to wait Mom, no one likes you to be loud because they will wear their headphones
•  your gas light is on, you probably won’t make it to the appointment.

Wow right?

Actually no… It’s the wow I need and his “wow” I am blessed with.  Not only do my ins and outs not phase him, but they also ground me.

Sure we worry and want to run our positions against our spouses and in my case – Child.  However, in our situation, I’m never going to be responded to the same way as one may be from a cognitive child of his age.

But here’s us. Here’s me. Here’s him.

Unconcerned as to how it COULD be.

Why? Because if it were any different, then I would not have this post to share.

We are us and this is our norm because we are different, not less. I treasure all that these differences have taught and continue to teach me.

So, morning commute getting you down?

Fun Run : put your child on video blast with yourself as MC and them in the hot spotlight and then see where their ‘before school”, outside of typical schedule minds rear them. Would love to hear the responses of changing up their norm and making yourself the front and center of their drive in, may bring up with the “backseater” in your life.

Let’s not get it twisted little’s

Without us, there is no you. Sometimes when we switch gears, we are welcomed with the realities as well as what they perceive to be ours. And that makes the ‘drive ins’ far less traffic induced and chaos free in my world.

As a single mom with an only child sharing my 342 cents worth; day after day in Toronto gridlock.  What I know for sure is when we roll up car karaoke and banging out the air guitars in said traffic – the anxiety cladden drivers around us:

• give eye
• laugh
• nod
• thumbs up

And the overall tipping hats to our orchestrated “unscheduled” morning rides. (We are pretty exposed in my SUV Mom mobile, but I do regress we also put the windows down a titch to be heard). Why, you ask? Because this is one time of day that goes beyond the anticipated schedule and each day we treat as our stage. Embracing each other, our friends, our teachers, our businesses, or even just, our sillies.

Blessed for their innocence and honesty. He may also be blessed for my humility and understanding. Overall, I feel we are both blessed for not assuming what should be the normal way to start our days. As mentioned; outside of these drives, we truly do our best for consistency. However, there has to be a break in the norm for both parents, caregivers and those who are challenged by disabilities daily.

They need it.

We need it.

Quite frankly, the world needs it to disrupt their normalcy.

Point???

Step outside of your comfort zone and respect others for the small glimpses they may embrace. This is mine. A simple drive, founded by simple things.  Simply just respecting where each other have to go and rolling with however that looks, sounds or feels from both sides.

It my case.. it just takes us two!