Wednesday, December 24, 2014

What my son taught me

"Mama, don't say I smell. The boys at school say I smell and it hurts my feelings. When you say I smell it hurts my feelings too."

Nothing in life prepares you for the heartbreaks you experience as a mother.  I want to protect my kids and shield them from all the nasty things out there in the world. I did for so many years, but then I released them into the world, hoping the cruel world spare them.

However recently it happened, I was unable to protect my son from the big bad world. My son poured his heart out to me about how he is picked on by the kids in his class.

First of all, my son is the highly sensitive one of my two kids, he has such a tender heart and truly cares about other people. I noticed recently that he was not his self when I dropped him off  at school. He would quickly sit in his desk and pull out a book or something to draw on, not really having contact with any of the kids in the class.

Normally, he would run around the class trying to speak to the other boys, not really caring if I left. But this changed. He sat quietly in his desk and now I know why.

He didn't want to be seen by anyone. He wanted to crawl in a hole and be invisible. He wanted his protector to stay with him. His feelings were crushed and he felt worthless (his own words).

He opened up to me during our Friday night snuggle ritual. I smelled him again and I knew immediately he pooped in his pants. For years he had this problem, and finally after I was diagnosed with celiac, we figured out he was too. One of the symptoms in children is continuous pooping in pants due to chronic diarrhea.

It's a frustrating journey that is far from over. Even after a gluten-free diet he continued to poop in his pants. He is seven and it was a real issue. He was losing friends.

That night, once we settled in for our snuggle session, I simply asked, "Luca you smell, did you poop in your pants?"

Then with tears in his eyes he told me how I hurt his feelings when I said he smells. He explained how the older boys in his class tease him. The call him "stinky" and no matter how many times he explained he has a food allergy they still called him "stinky".

He began crying after telling me how he felt and all I could do was hold him. I had no words at that point. I just wanted his pain to go away. I wanted his problem to go away. My heart ached and I could feel his pain as if it were my own. I closed my eyes and wished it away.

But after a few minutes I opened my eyes an it was all still there: the pain, the tears and a little boy I was no longer able to protect.

I failed. I failed my son. He was hurt and it was my fault. I gave him this disease and he was suffering because of this curse he would have for the rest of his life.

Not to mention for months I asked him repeatedly if it was him that I smelled. I had no idea he was hurting. How did I miss it?

I reckon I missed it because I was too busy focusing on covering up the problem and not solving it. I was too busy worrying about protecting my baby. I should have talked to him in the first place, I should have involved him. It was not just my problem or just his problem. It was our problem.

I held him tighter and we cried a little together. I told him about how I used to also poop in my pants and one particular time in the 4th grade I went the entire day sitting in my own poop in school. I told him how ashamed I was of myself and I was too scared to tell anyone. I told him how it just happened sometimes and I had no control.

And I told him even now, sometimes I have an accident, when I mess up and eat gluten. I told him that for 40 years I thought something was wrong with me, like some horrible cancer. Or sometimes I would just blame it on having babies.

However, now we know why we are often sick, I said to him. He hugged me tighter and we just rocked back and forth until he said he was ready for bed.

Everything changed after that night. I stopped trying so hard to protect him. Instead I began to help him solve his own problem, starting with the pooping in his pants. And he began to help himself.

Now its been about a month since that night, and I am happy to report that he is no longer pooping regularly in his pants and the kids in his class who teased him are now his friends. One of the kids even came to his birthday party last week.

Life has changed for Luca. He no longer needs me at school and dodges my goodbye kisses like all the other boys do to their mothers. He is smiling and laughing and being a smart ass seven year old, like he should be.

My life has changed too. I no longer keep my babies in the nest, I am letting them soar through life. And I am flying right behind them.