Denial

Three hours past the beginning of the boys' bedtime routine I have my little giant clinging to my legs sleeping on my bed. I gave up two-and-a-half hours into it. I thought we had it. I thought I finally had him good and dreaming when I quietly closed the door and went downstairs to clean the kitchen. 

His piercing scream minutes later let me know I hadn't won the battle. Screaming and shaking he came down the steps and gripped me, trying to climb me while my hands were transferring the left-overs from a warm crockpot to the storage container. Once I had completed that one task with a child wrapped around my legs, together we went upstairs and climbed into bed. He is still off and on again thrashing in his sleep, letting out a scream here or there, not letting me touch him when the nightmares (or whatever they are) come.

I hope he sleeps.

So much of today the voice inside my head was arguing that this isn't right. That that psychologist was wrong about him. When he said, "Good job, Mommy," when I turned on Thomas the Train for the umteenth time I convinced myself that this wasn't reality. Never mind that no one else would know what he said. I know he said it. I know and he's my son, I would know if this was true. A mother would know ... wouldn't she?

When he lined his trains up along the TV stand I justified that he only did that because they just happened to be at the same height  - the stand and him - even if he did have to bend down to get his eyes to the wheels. When he moved them to the wicker chest we use for a coffee table and he knelt down to be at eye-level I told myself he just wanted to kneel. It wasn't because his eyes needed to be at the same level as Thomas the train. It wasn't that at all. When he lined them up on the ground and then laid his cheek flat against the carpet, every part of me tried to ignore that. 

When he turned around in circles until he fell into the column dividing the living room and dining I told myself he is three. Three year olds do that, don't they? Three year olds don't cry and get right back up and spin and spin and spin again ... don't they?

I spent so much of today wondering how I get another opinion, wondering who would tell me that the first person was wrong. The first person who explained it so perfectly. Who broke it down and showed me what I knew I had seen.

But what if I hadn't? Maybe I was wrong.

What if she is wrong? What if we put this label on him - that we can never, never, never take back. What if we "make" him something that he isn't. What if it is just me and how I parent him. What if I am changing my child's world - changing even his adult world - when it really is that I am inadequate. What if I am taking something from him that isn't mine to take.

What if we label him and this person is wrong. What if we are changing his life on an error.

What if by trying to do the very best by my baby I am doing the very worst. 

How do you process? How do you know?

How do you know.