How We Do It: Part XLVII

Remember the days when your children were babies and toddlers, and you had these long days to think of things to do with them without going insane yourself? This isn't a post about letting children be bored (a conversation that the bourgeoisie takes on with constant angst) or thinking of creative ways to entertain their every waking moment. This isn't about the boring conflict between helicoptering, Tigering and laissez-faire parenting. The moments I refer to are the moments when you've already left them to boredom or self play for some time and are actually at risk of neglecting them. You know what I'm talking about, right? With a baby (Oliver), a toddler (Henry) and a disabled child (Sophie), there were days when I'd rustle all three of them to the park or the beach, if I was feeling ambitious, and there were days when a trip to Venice to go through the drive-through Starbucks sufficed. I could buy myself an iced latte and hand Henry a cookie or two that he'd feed himself and Sophie, reaching over the baby seat where Oliver slept. That's an interesting story in and of itself, actually -- the fact that Henry at three years of age was perfectly capable of feeding his big sister, but I won't tell it here. One of the interesting and most challenging aspects of having a daughter with severe disabilities is that this phase of figuring out things to do with your child goes on for -- well -- ever. For me it's been more than nineteen years. While I let Sophie tootle around her room for hours at a time, checking in every now and then to turn on music or change her diaper or even just to lie with her and give her legs and feet a massage, I feel, if not guilty, then perpetually self-conscious. Irrational or not, and please don't assure me that I'm doing a good job, I always, always, always have the needling thought floating about my brain that I should be doing something more. Henry went to lacrosse practice this afternoon, and Oliver went to the Y to work out. I took Sophie to the car-wash, the kind that you drive through, because it was something to do with her. I have strings of plastic beads around the head-rest of my seat in the car, and Sophie sits directly behind me. She loves beads and will reach and play with them for the entire time. But she also loves the car-wash, so for those moments when we sat in peace and listened to the brushes on the window and watched them fill up with soap, then listened again to the water pounding on the car, I felt free of the niggling worry and doubt and guilt that plague many of my days.