I was this many years old when I realized the saying is “you’ve got another think coming,” not “you’ve got another thing coming.” Did you know this? Did everyone but me know this? I felt like I’d been walking around in an inside out shirt for decades. It’s like singing the lyrics to your favorite song and then someone tells you it’s wrong and now you can’t feel the same way about the song ever again. It is a betrayal on the deepest level.
Parenting felt like this for me too.
According to Facebook and baby shower posts and new mom pics, parenthood was bliss speckled with exhaustion fueled by giant vats of coffee, but it’s okay because it is monumental and joyous and the best thing ever! But when you start in the NICU like I did with a medically unstable preemie, the coffee isn’t cute, it’s a necessity. And the exhaustion isn’t something you overcome. It is the beginning of a very long uphill battle that is not something I ever wanted to post on social media. It truly is like stepping out of the normal flow of the universe and entering an entirely different one.
Then a few years passed and I got over it.
I really did. I knew we lived a different kind of normal from others and it was freeing in a way to not try and work towards the perfect photo, meal time, first-day-of-school experience. I laughed it off because I loved our life with Charlie cruising in his wheelchair and our twins causing havoc to each other and our personal property.
But this summer season, I sat by the pool with Charlie crying because it was too loud and too hot and too…everything and the myth of summer hit me with a humid thwack. The “Christmas is the most magical time of the year” idea has already been broken. We know Christmas is difficult for many who have lost loved ones, who are lonely, who are just plain tired. We also all know parenting is not always a “joy to behold.” But summer has always been the holdout. Summer is supposed to be that time to sleep in, relax the rules, chase down the ice cream truck, fall asleep by the pool. But I’m calling it.
Summer is hard.
If you are parenting a child with special needs, summer means a loss of that precious routine. It means losing therapies at school. It is meltdowns in the middle of the day when the iPad loses charge. It is missed flights to destinations that are more “trips” than “vacations”. It is all the appointments with specialists you skipped during the year so as not to miss school. It is your own work taking a nosedive into an abyss you will spend all of fall climbing back out of.
But there is a comfort in acknowledging this! It’s like “you’ve got another think” versus “thing.” When I started telling people this, their eyes went wide and a little watery, like how could this be true? And then we laughed and began to think up all the other things we thought we knew that weren’t true. There is a comradery in being wrong. I think we all assume summer will be fantastic. And then we all find out somewhere in July that we are more exhausted than ever. And therein lies the redemption. I am not the only one who feels this way. If you feel it too, we can be tired and a little sunburnt together while the kids scream about being bored. We can admit that donuts for breakfast is getting old and we can’t remember the last time we ate a meal at a normal hour. We can squint at each other over the heat waves rising off the pavement at the park.
So, I’m calling it – summer is hard and that’s okay! Drink the coffee, complain if you need to, and know that I am here for you. We can bust the myth of a utopian summer together and then we can eat some ice cream and feel a bit better.
Jamie Sumner is a special needs mom and author.
Jamie-Sumner.com
Author of the middle-grade novels:
