I will not spit.

I have too many things I want to blog about on this foggy Monday morning.

Chopping firewood in our backyard.

Speaking of fog.  It's been foggy one week straight now!  That's 7 days of zero sunshine.  Not even a glimmer (that I could find at least).  It's so depressing.  To top it off I spend most of my days in the yellow light of my basement while I watch Marie slo-o-o-wly make her way through school work.  It would be nice to take a break and visit the sunshine.

Speaking of school: Marie is starting her morning with 50 sentences that I require to be in her very best handwriting.

"I will not spit."

I checked on her before bed time last night and found wet spots on her sheets and her fingers were wet.  I thought it was snot - GROSS.  Then she told me it was spit.  Apparently she thought it would be fun to spit on her sheets and in her hands?!?!

She used to spit; I just thought we had moved on from this weird and annoying and gross issue.  At school she used to spit on kids when she got upset.  I also used to hear her spitting while she was standing at the bathroom sink.  Now she is spitting in her blankets.

I know that getting angry over something so trivial is absolutely ridiculous.  I was so mad at her that I made myself all hot and sweaty - granted, I was also in the middle of doing laundry and our wood stove downstairs keeps us pretty toasty.

I was just so, so, appalled.  I went back into her room about ten minutes later after telling her she was going to sleep with her hands behind her head for a while.  She was spitting again!  This time just letting it bubble up in her lips.

Maybe she thinks it's cool that she can gather her saliva and make a bunch of tiny bubbles that turns into something wet on her hands.  Maybe she was trying to see how many bubbles she could make or how big she could get one to be.  I just don't think that's what her brain was really thinking.  Then again, I have no idea what her brain was thinking and she could, in now way, explain to me her reasonings for spitting on her blankets and hands.

The conversations that I have been having with Mr. Sexy about Marie have been changing these last few months.  He may not see it completely but I am starting to feel less defensive about the decisions and mistakes I make when parenting Marie.  Therefore him and I are able to have a real conversation about it.

Spitting, for example.  I showed her my frustration.  I gave her consequences.  When Mr. Sexy came downstairs I explained everything and at the end told him I could undo it all if he wanted.  I don't quite trust myself when it comes to being rational with Marie.  Mr. Sexy agrees.  He also knows that when he is parenting in anger he isn't rational either.  It always makes me feel better when he tells me he understands and that he's been where I am.

Every once in a while he reminds me that my angers and frustrations at Marie are familiar to him.  He was once there because it took him years to finally accept one simple fact.

Marie has down syndrome.

So now when she does things that are completely out of the ordinary for a girl her age he can rest in the fact that she has down syndrome and that's okay.

I'm not quite there yet.  I've come a long way and I believe I am well on my way towards this kind of acceptance.

For me, however, I still strive to mold Marie into something that looks normal in my world.  Spitting into her blankets and on her hands is not normal.  It's down syndrome in my face and try as I may, I can't change a damn thing about it!

So yeah, I'm frustrated.  And Marie is writing sentences.

On the plus side she is getting a lot of work in penmanship which is improving!