parenting | Lessons from my daughter

If you are on Facebook, chances are you’ve been bombarded by quizzes your friends are taking.

What type of dragon are you? Which character of Lord of the Ring are you? And many many many more.

Maybe you are someone like some of my Facebook friends who have answered many of those quizzes.

I don’t answer them, I don’t look at what it means to be this or that…

Until….

Someone answered “what is your mental age?”

She was 34, the friends who tried it got numbers in the 20’s and 30’s. one friend got 16 and swore she was going to do the test again and score higher as there is no way she’s 16.

I took the test. 6 questions or so and got 16!

I didn’t post it to Facebook but I thought about my result.

There are no scientific knowledge behind the scoring system but….

To be 16 mentally would explain so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to physically be 16 again but when I was 16…

I knew everything.

I knew how the world worked.

I knew I could be anything if I tried.

I knew I had potential.

I had dreams.

I believed the world was a great place.

I believed in peace and equality.

I had it all figured out!

😉

Fast forward to now… Life has thrown me some serious curve balls but I still dream, I still believe.

I like to sing my head off with Emily, watch young adult movies, read young adult books. I like to spend time with Emily and daydream with her about pretend world.

I still know everything 😜 and I’m always right 😋

I think the quiz was right. I’m 16 mentally.

I have a job, a house, a husband, a child with special needs, 2 dogs, 2 cars…. And many monthly payments and obligations but above all that I still believe the world is amazing, I still have dreams and I still know that if I want something I can get it by doing the work to get there.

Emily’s diagnosis could have aged me and it did on so many level but she has taught me to be myself, to find happiness in the simple things and celebrate success.

After all, we are only as old as we believe we are and I’m apparently 16!!!

I know I am the enabler!

I know I am not helping anything by allowing this to continue…

But….

I also know that I function better when I sleep at night. I know that Emily functions better on a good night sleep.

Everybody needs to sleep but especially “I” need to sleep.

I am a sleeper!

So when life dealt me a baby who didn’t sleep it was hard.

My baby girl NEVER slept. We were exhausted.

Eventually we figured out that Emily needed to be held, needed some major cuddling time to fall asleep.

We installed a mattress on her bedroom floor.

I cuddled her, held her in my arms, my leg over her legs, my arms around her body and counted how many time she would breathe. If I could make it to 60 breath in and out without her moving, she would be sleeping.

Many times, I fell asleep before her.

😴

At that time, we still didn’t have a diagnosis. Everything was fine with Emily, no doctors paid any attention to our distress. Nobody suggested weighted blankets and special clothing that could have help calming her at bed time…

All we had was cuddles so we cuddled!

We had a short year when Emily was 4 when she slept in her bed but than we moved and stayed in a hotel room for a month.

New place, everybody was speaking English instead of French, everything was different.

We bought a new house.

And Emily was no longer sleeping… Again!

I had a new job, everybody was speaking English all the time (I’m French) I was exhausted and couldn’t imagine going through that “no sleeping” phase again.

I needed my sleep.

So I started to cuddle with Emily.

We had a double bed so we bought a king size bed.

I know, you are judging, you are thinking I need to wake-up and put her to her bed.

Again and again and again.

We tried…

It didn’t work!

I know, you are thinking we should have continued trying.

Well, I am not perfect and I value my sleep.

So, Emily is now 15 and we are still cuddling.

She goes to sleep in my bed and when I go to sleep she turns around and cuddles.

When she’s over excited, I still need to hold her for a little bit but she eventually fall asleep.