Friday, April 19, 2013

A Little Blue


Yesterday I sat in CB's IEP meeting.  
The teachers and staff appeared so much older than me. 
I stared at the black words on white pages. 
Yesterday was my first IEP meeting.
She was three and we were at the beginning this journey.

Today I sat in CB's IEP meeting. 
The teachers and staff appeared so much younger than me.  
I stared at the black words on white pages, Rella drawing on her dry erase board at my side. 
This was my 15th IEP meeting.  
I am some the wiser, I am none the wiser.
She has three years left of school, then it's over. 
Her teacher of over 5 years is leaving. Staying at home with her baby, as I did mine. 

After the meeting ended,
Rella wanted to visit the little bakery in the school hallway "just to look."
"We're just looking, not buying" I told her.
But her blue eyes and blond pigtails earned her a free mini cupcake 
from a sweet woman behind the counter.

I've worked so hard the past month to quit processed food and artificial crap. 
Rella has been the most resistant to it all.
So the cupcake made me wince after hours of baking 
homemade whole wheat, organic muffins filled with chia seeds
and wheat breakfast crepes with no refined sugar.
Yet...
the lady and my Rella were so excited about this bright blue cupcake. 

I thought about how much we want the perception of control when it comes to our kids.
I thought I had that control too, the first time around.
That if everything was sterilized and washed in Dreft and organic
and by the book, I would be Mother of the Year and my child
perfect.

I suppose you give your best effort, but some things just turn out to be how they are going to be.
You can't stop a seizure, or brain damage or autism
or change.
Even when not much is by the book you learn
it's still kinda perfect even when it's kinda not.

Maybe I can stop a blue mouth, but hey -
a girls gotta live a little.  


4 comments:

kario said...

It is so hard to walk that line between working our butts off to have a positive impact on our kids and realizing how little we can control the way their lives turn out. I have to remember that my intentions and love will do so much more than the occasional relaxing of the rules.

You are a terrific mom and your legacy will be the fact that your girls adore you and each other.

Christy said...

Oh, so lovely. The post and the picture.

Also, I'd love your wheat bread and muffins recipes. Maybe the crepe one too. Do you post them? :)on

Alicia D said...

@ christy - I don't tend to post recipes, but I've been considering it. I've done a few in the past... maybe I should?? I can email you the recipe too :)

Shell said...

"it's still kinda perfect even when it's kinda not."

I love that line. And just the flow of how you write. It's so beautiful.

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