Your Mom Could Beat Up My Mom!

I was reading a friend's blog (not a fellow blogger I now consider a friend although we've never met, but a friend-in-real-life's web log.) and she mentioned her precocious little 5 year old daughter's dramatic accusation that she had not won the jumping competition at camp that day because her mother never taught her how. Her mother, like myself, has CP. I pondered this a long minute after I read it. I used to worry as a child that if I ever had kids they would grow up and resent my disability one day. I decided as a kid that a)I was awesome and b)I was NEVER having kids.

Clearly, I was at least half wrong there. Funny, I never stressed over what Riley would make of my physical ineptitude for anything athletic or requiring balance. Maybe it was the fact that Mike already had a very active 5yr old when we met. I had to adapt quickly. I didn't teach Isaac to ride a bike, that was a job for his dad, but I did teach him to swing by himself and tie his shoes. He seemed to have the physical milestones well in hand.

I just needed to teach him the stuff I was good at. Fine. Good. Mike can do the running and jumping. I never thought about how balanced we are in that way. Just last weekend we took Riley to a gymnastics birthday party. I got her ready to party and then socialized and took pictures. Mike jumped, flipped, ran and climbed.

One day, surely the kids will realize that I'm different than the other moms. They will probably even resent it at some point, but all parents (aka human beings) have strengths and weaknesses. My mother certainly never taught us sports of any kind and she was perfectly able bodied. I resented my parents not being cooler or having more money briefly over the course of my adolescence. So, my kids can go for the easy, obvious failings if they so choose.

I have moments like the other day when Isaac asked why we never go to the beach, when I feel a bit guilty. Any post surgery, injury or exhaustion moment when my kids are full of energy, that I feel mopey. On the honeymoon when all Mike wanted to do was snorkel and I epically failed (and then childishly whined about it), I felt guilty. Doesn't he deserve a wife that can snorkel? Don't the kids deserve a mom who can play at the beach? Or ride bikes with them? Sure they do.

The reality is they don't have one of those. Just like they don't have a mom who can reach the top of the fridge without a step stool. They have me and I get the job done. They have a dad who can run, jump, flip, etc so they're lucky that way. Mike and I balance each other in lots of ways. Do they deserve a dad who doesn't feel anxiety meeting the other parents? Probably, but that don't have one. I pick up the slack there and no one misses out on much.

I suppose it's all well and good to ponder it as a hypothetical. I imagine it will be much more emotional when Riley accuses me of ruining her life because I can't help her with her pliés or pirouettes. Somehow it will be my fault when Isaac, who is currently going through an incredibly spoiled sport phase, doesn't win some kind of physical competition or doesn't get to go on a class trip because I'm just not capable of supervising a spelunking expedition. It will sting, but I'm only as perfect a parent as I am a human being. I have done and will do everything I can to make sure their childhoods' are full of new experiences, but please don't ask me to take them to the beach by myself, UGH.