Saturday, March 2, 2013

My Cup Runneth Over (with wine, of course)

The great thing about life is that you never know when it's gonna whisk you off your feet and make sweet, sweet love to you.

I feel like I resist talking about the good stuff all the time because I don't want to come off as some fucking Pollyanna (which I am not). Sometimes I think that if I write down all the good, then I will lose my edge. Total bullshit, I know.

So. Anyway, the other night, after Penelope NAILED her opening performance as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast, we were weaving and wading through the pretty incredible crowd in the lobby signing autographs, when she looks up at me and says: "Mama, this is the BEST day of my life!" She was holding one of my hands in her two tiny ones and her eyes were sparkling out of her skull. It was a parenting moment I wanted to bottle up and take secret whiffs out of for the rest of my days.

I'm not gonna lie, hot husband and I had serious, serious doubts that she was going to be able to do it, to follow through and get on the damn stage, remember her cues, her lines, not faint, not fidget, not cry, not run off (or freeze) in absolute panic. I had 10mg of Inderal ready if I thought she'd need it.  I feel like my two other children disappeared during the last weeks of rehearsal. All eyes, energies, tactical plans were keenly focused on Penelope and her opening night.

And, well, that's when that stud, the universe, came in all smoldering and ready for action and laid. Shit. Down.

That little girl soared, she was electric and gracious and PROUD. And her mama is still rolling in the post-coital bliss.

I've thought for a long time that as the guardians of special children, we need to exploit their gifts and in dong so, see their deficits fade.

This can be tricky territory out in the world of IEP's and transition meetings and appropriate settings.  For the most part, the world wants our kids "table ready" and not stimming and hooting and whizzing and whoooing and crying and yelling and swearing. They want them to have clean fingernails all the time and be toilet trained before they go to school and be really good at wiping their own butts. You think I don't want that shit? But, that's just not my reality all of the time. I mean, I get some of those things some of the time. So instead I focus on what my children are really, really good at all the time. It's amazing what that little paradigm shift will do for you.

Penelope is a mimic. An awe inspiring mimic. She copies popular culture to a "T". Her emotional range is very well suited for the stage and her loosey-goosey, tiny frame makes her a fascinating figure to watch. Helllooooo! ACTING. A.C.T.I.N.G. I am totally hitching my wagon to that little girl's star.

Fragile X can kiss my sweet ass this weekend. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love it!!!!!!!