So. We're away again with the boys. We're in Halifax, Nova Scotia (just a few hours away from home). We arrived yesterday afternoon and will head back home tomorrow after lunch. Ben has his Conductive Education assessment appointment tomorrow morning. So we decided to make a little trip out of it.
We've been having a (mostly) wonderful time. We went on the Harbour Hopper tour (it's a tour of the city - 1/2 on land and 1/2 in the water) this morning. And then we spent the afternoon at Point Pleasant Park where the boys enjoyed throwing rocks in the ocean. One of their favourite pastimes lately.
I say MOSTLY wonderful because the crappy feelings keep sneaking up on me...just like in Florida. The reality of Ben's disability is so much more in my face when we're away from home. And this reality hits me when I'm not really expecting it. We're just going along and then I see Ben in his stroller while Daniel hops and jumps around and it breaks my heart.
But the point of my post is to admit something that I hate about myself. When I have these thoughts about Ben. These "poor Ben" or "poor me" thoughts, I have this awful way to make myself feel better. I think of children that I know (or know of) that are more disabled than Ben and think something along the lines of "well, at least he's not THAT disabled". I'm looking at that last sentence and I just hate to read it. I feel horrible. Is this a good way to deal with these thoughts? I have no idea. I really don't.
But it's how I deal. It's how I pick myself up and move on with the day. It's how I avoid dissolving into tears right there on the spot.
I don't even know if I should publish this post. I'm scared of what you all will think. I'm scared of your comments. Or that you may not come back here. Or that you might think that I'm referring to YOUR child. I will say that it's not usually any ONE child in particular...it's more like an odd mixture of a whole bunch of different children.
(P.S. I wrote this post about 3 days ago. I have read it every day since then trying to decide whether I should hit the "publish post" button. I'm still not sure if I should hit it, but I'm going to anyway. This blog has a few different purposes, but one of the main ones is to act as a diary for me as I deal with having a child with CP. And if this was a diary that no one read, I would publish this post. So that's what I'm doing.)
