I’ve been MIA due to a viral infection. Thankfully, not my kids or me. This time, it was Dell, my darling laptop! Timing is NEVER good for this sort of thing. I was in the process of redesigning The Boys’ discreet trial curriculum, writing out my blue-sky-scenario for our encore performance of kindergarten and investigating the pros and cons of homeopathic and, comparitively, medicinal interventions for children with ADD when the virus just got the better of her and she seized up. Mercifully, the computer doc made a housecall and opted to admit her [to his workshop]. Like the grinch, he promised to return her in good health.
I missed my baby terribly the whole time she was gone to rehab but it gave me some distance and a much needed hiatus from computing. The usual information overload and tasks on my To Do list just can’t be done without her! As a society — but especially as mothers, and especially as mothers of children with special needs — we rarely get this sort of break, from our computers OR our children! So, it got me thinking about the differences and similarities between a crashing laptop and a crashing Mom to children with special needs (namely ME):
Differences:
1. When the laptop crashes, life goes on. When Mom crashes the household comes to a grinding stop!
2. To make her run like new, the computer doc strips the laptop down to its chasis and then reloads just the basic programs for peak performance. Unfortunately, you can’t strip a mama down like that. It’s our memory and antibodies that make us perform optimally.
3. Both Dell and Mama can be fixed but the process of recovering from a crash is much more painstaking [those therapists can be very expensive] for a Mom than it is for a laptop… and takes a whole heck of a lot longer. So the moral of that story is: don’t EVER let your mama crash!
Similarities:
1. Like a laptop, when Mom gets viral, most of the extraneous programs stop working while the core programs may still operate but very slowly until it finally just takes her down.
2. Crashing is a function of letting the bad stuff in — a virus, too many programs, too much to do, negativity — saying yes to too many things that just pop-up in our lives and not saying NO nearly enough! Ain’t THAT the truth!
3. It’s a really bad idea to let either your computer or your Mama crash! Do whatever you have to do to ensure this does NOT happen to either of these hyper-critical family members. Virus protection or a filter that keeps the unwanted programs and requests out, keeping the extraneous stuff out is a good idea for everyone! Just say NO!
So, the next time things seem to be going down hill — and, deep down, we Mamas do know when that’s happening — it’s time to reboot! Unload the extraneous programs yourself, get rid of the stuff that’s not useful and say NO to pop-ups. Spend your time refocusing on the core programs, tasks and responsibilities that help you run like this year’s model.
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My apologies for being incommunicado. My system’s been cleaned and I’m well rested (as if). I’m only letting the important stuff back in (you see where this is going right?) and sharing my experiences here on 5 Minutes For Special Needs is one of the “important things” for me… I hope there’s some value in it for you readers too. So, here we are — Me and Dell — posting again on Saturday afternoons (or evenings as the case may be). It’s good to be back!
More from Maggie at walkonthehappyside.wordpress.com.