Done with birthday parties and normal

I've been learning something lately. Well I've been learning a lot of things lately, but this one seems to be a reoccurring theme right now.

 

My family is NOT "normal", and it's OKAY!!!!! REALLY!

 

So what does normal mean anyway.. because I am going to throw around that word A LOT in this post, so you should be aware of how I view what normal means... 

 

Normal- conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected....  ordinary

hmm... ordinary...

while we are at it, let's look up

 

 ordinary... neither very good nor very bad : not very impressive

I've been wanting to try to make it to our church with the kids over the summer. We usually are able to go during the fall and winter because they have sunday school and they almost always have a great experience when we go. I love our church, such a great community of super loving people. Anyway, during the summer they do not have sunday school so it's just service and children are there as well. They have books and coloring supplies and they don't mind kids interruptions during service and they even welcome special needs families and encourage them to come. It's very family oriented. So I was thinking I would be brave and bring the boys to see how they would do and if they would like it. I talked to them about it and they seemed all on board when Saturday night rolled around and they where in bed  talking about the next day. Sunday morning comes and Daniel was in an off mood so there was no trying to do something new. I was disappointed for a small amount of time, but it didn't ruin my day ( like i often let those kinds of things ruin my days). I realized that it's just part of life and i am adjusting and learning to be okay with it.

We were recently invited to a birthday party, and we were all pretty excited. We don't get invited to birthday parties very often, if at all. SO the boys where looking forward to it. I did my best to explain what we would be doing and what would be going on. When we got there Josh was instantly disappointed there was no pool ( even though I made it clear it was JUST a park, but in his head he acquainted party with pool... naturally!). I tried my best to get him to have a good attitude and not cry and see how things went. As soon as we walked over to where everyone was Joshua shut down and instantly felt overwhelmed with all of the people. The younger two did fine for the first half, but then when it came time for presents and all it just was to crazy for the younger two and they had a meltdown. It also was slightly awkward for me because of a few things, but also because of having to explain why Joshua was having a difficult time, why the other two are being sensitive, ect, ect, ect. As we drove home I decided no more birthday parties. We are not normal, we can't handle it and it's OKAY! The boys all agreed no more birthday parties. And as we were home being ourselves in OUR normal, EVERYONE was happy, EVERYONE was in their "normal".

 

The thing is though.. that our "normal" is not ordinary. Our children are NOT ordinary. If you know us at all and you have had any kind of meaningful interaction with my children YOU KNOW that they have some pretty special, amazing, NOT ordinary things about them.

 

So I can't feel bad about doing what's best for my boys and I can't worry about what people are going to think if they don't agree and think i should push the kids to be more normal. I've spent a lot of time worrying about what other people think... i still have A LOT  of struggle in that department but i feel like I'm growing up a little ;) This is my family, and we can't always do normal things and I'm working on being okay with that. I think that i'm arriving there.. slowly but surely. The fact of the matter is that when one is a parent of special needs kids, one is prone to constantly go through this weird cycle( kind of like grief over the death of a loved one).. for me I will go through a season sadness for the things i miss, like grieving over a life you dreamed of lost, and then i go through a season of incredible growth and peace and a feeling of being strong, and then it cycles back again to the sadness of things I expected (like being able to go to birthday parties) but not be like i thought. So it makes life interesting to say the least! I feel less of those cycle of emotions as I get older and embrace my children for them and NOT my expectations. I LOVE my boys so much, and i am so proud of who they are becoming, but honestly i would be lying if i didn 't say that i struggle with feeling sad about who they "could" be if they where "normal".

 

But really.. then they would just be boring "normal" kids... (not that "normal" kids are always boring.. their just "normal"... ) and my kids, well their pretty awesome!

 

So we're done.. we're done with normal... we're done with trying to be ordinary... and we are DONE with birthday parties!

So it's time to go out ( or stay home, whatever way the wind blows) and be extraordinary instead of trying to do the "normal" thing.