OT - My Son's Comment to Me

[Madalot]

With school being out for winter break, we're sleeping in a little bit. Our master bedroom is on the main floor, off of the family room where my 15-year old son watches TV and plays his video games. If he happens to get up before me, he quietly closes my bedroom door (usually) so I can keep sleeping.

I woke up this morning to his leaning on the bed staring at me. It was late anyway, but I asked him what he was doing, why he was staring at me. He said "you look so peaceful there sleeping. I know you need the machine, but you look so...." and then he didn't say anything. So I said "weird?" and he said "No, futuristic."

I thought it was kind cute. In a year's time, we've gone from his crying over this to thinking it's futuristic!

[xenablue]

What a cute story, Madalot! Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
xenablue

[brazospearl]

That's so sweet! I bet he's a fine young man.

[Madalot]

That's so sweet! I bet he's a fine young man.

Yes, he can be. He's very immature for his age, but with his history (adopted foster child) it's understandable. He's come a very long way in so many ways.

When I first started all this mess and was using a nasal mask (all of 3 nights on that thing) and he came in and I tried to talk to him, he FREAKED out thinking I was dying and couldn't breathe at all. That poor kid was hysterically crying, thinking I was dying right in front of him.

He's come a long way to now thinking it's futuristic.

[snuginarug]

Futuristic!!! How cool!

[Madalot]

Futuristic!!! How cool!

Yeah, I've heard it called a lot of things, but futuristic made me smile. I couldn't even get mad at him for waking me up!!

[chunkyfrog]

Reminds me of my first week--I visualized myself in a future, sci-fi scenario; like visiting with aliens on their home planet.
--A guest of beings not quite like us, in a world not quite like ours.
Looking forward to an adventure to remember--seeing new places, making new friends--Thank you, friendly aliens..

[newhosehead]

This was a great story to share. I too love the "futuristic" remark; however, I love even more that he noticed and SAID that you looked so peaceful. He cares. He notices. You should be very proud.

Jeanette

[DoriC]

Sweet! Someone's doing a good job raising that young man!

[Bones]

What Jeanette said!

[Madalot]

Thanks for the kind comments. As much as my son can drive me insane at times, there's a part of him that truly appreciates me and my husband. He doesn't remember much of his early life, but he remembers enough to know that he's one of the lucky ones in this world. The system worked for him.

But it's nice to see it in action sometimes. Makes it easier for me to deal with his issues.

[jlk]

Not so much as "the system worked for him", as he was lucky you and your husband chose to adopt him. They are fun to watch grow up, aren't they! john

[Madalot]

Not so much as "the system worked for him", as he was lucky you and your husband chose to adopt him. They are fun to watch grow up, aren't they! john

Yes, they are fun, most of the time. We fostered and adopted both him AND his sister. She's a year and a half older than he is. At the time we took them in as foster children, we were the ONLY foster home that could take two children. If we hadn't adopted them, they would have been separated and probably adopted into separate homes.

The system did work for them because it brought them to us. The terms "foster parents" and "foster home" frequently gets very negative opinion. But there really are good foster homes out there and sometimes, the system does work for these kids.

[jlk]

The system worked for them, for sure. We have a family in our neighborhood that have adopted about 12 kids throughout the years, plus their 2 biological kids. The parents do an excellent job of raising great kids and most have, or currently do attend college. Some have come from very bad situations. It takes very special people to raise some of these kids, due to events that were no fault of the kids. I applaud your efforts and wish you and your husband much happiness. john

[Madalot]

The system worked for them, for sure. We have a family in our neighborhood that have adopted about 12 kids throughout the years, plus their 2 biological kids. The parents do an excellent job of raising great kids and most have, or currently do attend college. Some have come from very bad situations. It takes very special people to raise some of these kids, due to events that were no fault of the kids. I applaud your efforts and wish you and your husband much happiness. john

Thank you, John. Our situation was that we couldn't have biological children, after trying for years. We decided to foster towards a goal of adopting. Our thinking was that if we couldn't have children of our own, we could help children already in the world. Our kids were our first, and only, foster placement. We found out about my neuromuscular disease a few months AFTER the kids came to live with us. By all rights, we shouldn't have been able to adopt them, but the kids were adjusting so well with us, and doing so well, social services said that because I was expected to live a full life, at least long enough to see them to adulthood, we could still adopt them.

It's been an incredibly difficult thing, but also one of the most rewarding things I've ever done in my life. If not for this neuromuscular disease, I would take in more foster children. Unfortunately, my condition just doesn't allow me to be a foster parent any longer. My kids are old enough now that even in my condition, I can still be a reasonably good mother to them. But I could never do now some of the things I had to do when they were younger.

But as you can see from what happened with my son this morning, he's a pretty cool person and it's obvious that he has deep feelings for me and my husband. We are mom and dad now. And that's very rewarding.