Manny Update

If you look at my Inbox, you'll see emails entitled: counseling for Manny, occupational therapy for Manny, coping strategies for Manny. I am in a bad cycle: From--I should be grateful for this otherwise healthy, kind and lovely child. But I am frustrated with his shortcomings: why can't he be just like a regular first grader? But then-- are his teachers really on our side or do they represent institutional learning and all its conventions? AND then I grieve all the plans I had for him like prestigious college or even just having a close bud in his class. AND BACK AGAIN.

And it is a sermon that I preach to myself repeatedly that this would not all be tidily solved if I homeschooled again. After the year it's been, I can see that he is like Max Fisher from Rushmore. He loves school, he embodies the school's gestalt, enjoys the trappings and the culture of school. But the grindstone, the academic nuts and bolts, he could completely leave. The homeschooling was really isolating with regard to his issues. While I feel like I know him well, and I have my honed gut instinct, his learning challenges were just nothing I was prepared for. And like with the yard help, I do feel like when I put out the request of help, with the help comes tons of air and light on the situation. His teachers comb through the minutiae of his personality and look at it with their decades of experience. AND they have fun with him! These are things, I have to admit, I could not juggle.

This year has brought air to Manny's frustration, sometimes his rage. This sense that he was contained and safe so that you could take a deep breath. Also, it has brought levity to the shortcoming that he is unable to focus on his tasks. We can laugh at his inattention because he is oblivious to things that weigh all of us down. Many of the social ills just don't register on his radar. The Lord's mercy prevails! School has offered us windows onto his mind like his performance in the school talent show. Manny did Cat's Cradle. No, he didn't sing the classic rock song. He demonstrated handwork skills with yarn for 45 seconds. He was acutely focused and as a performance, was incredibly transfixing and effective. There is no way I could have created that for him. He got up in front of the whole school for Pete's sake!

Are all of our firstborns this way? I read back on blog entries where I say that your firstborn is like your first love, you so want to KNOW them, to get into their mind, to impress them, to WIN them. Whereas the second is more like your buddy, your sidekick, your confidante. This child is mysterious to me, and why shouldn't I accept that? Why shouldn't I walk with that, that lurking sense that okayness and peace is just around the corner for him? Who said that this parenting journey promises to be formulaic or simple? May I walk better with the mystery. May I find some rest in it.