Confessions of a Daughterless Mother

Much of raising babies, toddlers and even young elementary kiddos is simply survival. Surviving crying, pooping, puking, ear infections, coughing and croup. Managing day care and nursing and bottles and biting and teething and crawling and sassy toddlers who shriek with independence and shrivel with fear. You try and survive with your marriage in tact and maybe a friendship or two. There were days, probably weeks that grew to months, that I believed that if we made it through the day and no one died it was a success.  It's on those days where I would lay my head in bed at night exhausted from filling sippy cups and changing diapers and watching Bear in the Big Blue House and singing "I see the Moon" 13 times before bed that peace and contentment would find me. The fatigue of the day's work, mixed with relief from sleeping babies (albeit knowingly temporarily sleeping) was the perfect cocktail. Sure, there were nights when anxiety snuck in (many of them), where I w...

I drive down the street where he's been staying since Saturday. The duplex is small, practically the size of his bedroom and bathroom at home. My car moves slowly, I search the windows looking for shadows. I see none. He's supposed to be at school, but I don't know if he is. The landscape of my life looks surreal, something out of the Dr Phil show. Not the life I imagined, or the life we have worked so hard for.  This is the life for someone who didn't care, someone who didn't try, someone who didn't give their kids everything they needed. My secret is out. For two years we've been fighting depression, anxiety, ADHD, substance abuse with this kid. For two years we have fought and begged and pleaded for a change in behavior. Some days it worked, never for long. I have lived day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment, text to text. Waiting, always waiting, for the other shoe to drop, for it to turn around, for it to fall apart. Never knowing what was aroun...