I Need A Recipe To Cook

I am not a cook.  Not a natural cook.  Not with the likes of Bobby Flay or Rachel Ray.  It’s not instinctual.  I need recipes.  Detailed recipes that give me good step by step directions.  When I have one of those, I can make something happen.  I make a mean Mint Oreo Cake.  Because I have a recipe.  I often joke, if you can Google, you can do anything short of perform surgery.

For kids though, I have no recipe.  There is no user guide, no manual, no blueprint what-so-ever.

Because of this, I worry about my little guy quite a bit.  Will he ever get potty-trained?  Will he have friends?  Will he do OK in school?  Is he ever going to master language?  Will he have a girlfriend?  There is more to worry about than I could even begin to imagine with my older two children.  So many special, other concerns.  Things I never realized I would be concerned with: Will he bite the buttons off his shirt and choke?  I mean, come on, he’s 5 ½. 

But, I also worry about how his issues affect my other children.  I can’t allow just any kid to come over and play.  I have to consider how they deal with H.  Some kids do it extremely well, others not so much.  There are a couple of kids I literally have to say aren’t allowed over if I don’t have something specific for H to do elsewhere.  We also can’t go anywhere at any time. 

I worry that this builds resentment towards H from my other children.  My kids have done a great job in accepting H for H.  He’s just their brother.  But they are getting older and he holds them back at times.  I can’t make a promise that we’ll go to the zoo/museum/movies/library/place de jour tomorrow, or this week, or even this month in case it is more than H can handle and I can’t handle H during the trip.  We always have to play a “we’ll see” waiting game.  It’s not fair to my other kids.

My second son is only 18 months older than H.  The two of them should be best of friends.  And they ARE friends (thankfully).  But C must always be paired with H to make sure H is doing fine when we do go places, i.e., the local inflatable play place or park.  C should have times where he is able to go off and just be with his friends, since there are differences in skills and maturity due to H’s issues.  C never complains (God love that kid!) and is happy to be with his brother, but I worry if I’m hurting him in some way.  Not all of C’s friends can really comprehend what is going on with H—they are only in first grade.

I never know how to explain it to my kids, about H.  I don’t understand myself.  Doctors don’t seem to understand.  No one does.  So, I worry.  I worry because I have no other plan of action.  I need plans. A recipe.

How do YOU handle the limitations of one child puts on your other children?