Like Water.

We are just like that. I read a quote today. And that was what was revealed to me when I did.

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins… not through strength, but through persistence. -- H. Jackson Brown 

PDD-NOS is just like a rock. Or a few of them. Little pebbles in the path blocking up the works, making the stream branch out, around, over, under. Given time, it will break down that rock too...or at least smooth it out. And it does so by simply finding a way. We do that. Creating your own path is easy enough to do - just not always easy. You can get to Ohio by way of Texas...from NY. Trust me, you can - it will just take a longer time. And a lot of useless stops and detours along the way. Or it's the Scenic route! Depends on how you look at it.

Then I wonder if we are not really the rock? Equally as willful, Steady, constant, just trying to be a rock while this dang water keeps making it muddy. Chipping away. Pervasively. Shoved around by the current, wherever we land dependent upon where "the water" shifts us. Or worse, no movement at all...stuck. In the Mud.

And if that's too philosophical for your taste then by all means let me sum it up, we are Perplexed. By the very definition, it means: completely baffled, very puzzled. How poetic that "puzzle" is the word they used to describe it. On all levels, from watching our child figure this all out, to trying with all we have to help the school figure it out, puzzled (and exhausted) is what we are reduced to at the end of most days. Perhaps the most perplexing is just how often you find yourself back on square 1. Starting over. Gains made are seemingly left in the very day they were had. Be it Ayden's or the educators. For 1 all it takes is getting off track in a class, for the other, it is given up in the question of "If he would just....!" Ahhh, yes! If he would just and if it were JUST that simple. But it's not. However, it is consistently Inconsistent. Does that work for everyone?  Even I, a 12 year veteran can be lulled or get comfortable. I need to remember that "No News" rarely means "Is good news" - it usually indicates that Ayden has not relayed some info to me.  Leading to the eventual email or "update call" from the teacher. And POWW. The Nuclear Meltdown is imminent. Insert metaphoric red alarms and countdown . . . 8 . . 7. . 6

The actual tears were shed last night after days of math tests and trying to find them, what will I DO? They are lost, and is Mom going to find out, and I didn't do the corrections because I never wrote it down and and Math is next! oh no - aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh And now, Clean Up mode. I don my hazmat suit, I spring into action. Wipe tears, reorganize class folders, run kids to dance, do homework, make dinner, "re-group" , I send emails, make calls, fret, fight, and live to see another day. Yes. That was today. "Today was fun. And tomorrow is another one." And at the end of the day, If I am water, I'll make my way. And if I am a rock I'll be standing my ground. Puzzled as I may be, I guess I have that part figured out.