Planting Marigolds

We have our good days and our bad days around here.

Everyone has days they're simply not their best. Sometimes I wake up and I just know that every moment of self-control today will cost me a whole lot of effort because I'm ready to throw up my hands from the beginning.

I think for Baby S and for other kids who have suffered trauma and/or have a lot of other factors playing against them, self-control takes ready-to-throw-up-my-hands-level effort every day. Thus, having a good day is something to be incredibly proud of. It's also straight up exhausting for them. So sometimes that good day, or group of good days, results in a lot of really difficult days. It's like they can take an advance on self-control and then wind up empty for days or weeks.

Hard days can be so deflating. Regression is discouraging for all of us. Losing skills that have been mastered previously and having to work so hard to regain them must be incredibly frustrating for our children! It’s no good to say "you can do this because you did it yesterday,” because sometimes that’s simply not true. This is different from disobedience - it’s the actual physical inability to perform.

Many kids cycle through times of self-regulation and times of regression. Trauma families don’t know when we wake up in the morning whether it's going to be a good-listening day or a behavior-filled day; whether we’ll be able to do a load of laundry without another adult in the house; or if today’s going to be one of those days where the kids can’t cope 27 seconds without an adult in the room.

For us, the regulated days are incredible. Our little Rooney shines through in these moments. His smiles melt me to pieces. He giggles and laughs and interacts and chats and just absolutely blows me away. These are glimmers into who he really is, who he was created to be, and who he is becoming. I am always proud of him, but even more so in these moments as we get to connect deeply over who he is inside.

Then we circle back into difficult behaviors. We lose control of our schedule and buckle down into survival and re-mastery of all the little skills that disappear. We don't want to expect more out of Rooney than what he’s able to give in those moments, but we also never want to leave him in that place.

Recently I was struggling with not knowing how long one of our difficult stretches was going to last. When would we be able to catch our breath again as a family? As I wrestled in my mind, I looked out the window into my backyard and focused on a patch of bright orange marigolds whose colors had made me smile during many difficult days. And I remembered where they had come from.

Those flowers were a gift to me from Rooney on the previous Mother's Day. They were just bitty little green things sticking out of a red plastic cup decorated with stickers when he brought them home from school.

When he gave them to me I pretended to be excited, but inside I was grimacing. I was there the day he planted those seeds. I had found a babysitter for Big Bro and brought along Sister in her stroller for the special family activity at Rooney’s school. We’d sat with his class on the grass in the shade of a tree, ready for sweet family fun.

Right on cue, another class had come out to enjoy the beautiful day - and they had brought a BALL. This was during Rooney’s stage of maximum obsession with anything round. They’d started hitting the ball with a bat right next to us and running after it. Balls! Hitting! Running! All of Baby S's favorite things in one place. He was mega excited.

Except he couldn’t go there. His class had come outside to sit quietly in a circle and plant flowers together. We were supposed to be focused on creating sweet memories. His response? "Heck no!" (Well, technically, it was “Ball” repeated incessantly at full volume… But I knew what he meant.) He’d melted down until the other class left, leaving us just enough time to scoop some dirt into the red plastic cup and throw some seeds on top - getting loose dirt in my eyes in the process. I’d been close to my own meltdown. Watering the seeds with the spray bottle had brought his attention back; but then he’d had to pass it to the next kid, which had pushed him into another meltdown.

It was a disaster. He didn't have fun. I didn't have fun. Sister had to be supervised by another adult most of the time. I used up a babysitting offer on Big Bro to make space for the “special” time with Rooney. I’d left feeling utterly defeated.

But now, months later, I finally realized that there had been beauty in that flower-planting afternoon. The splash of orange along my fence that makes me smile as I do the dishes... The smile Sister gives me as she touches the flowers and enjoys their soft feel (and taste, but don't worry, Google says they're not poisonous)... The fun Big Bro and Rooney and I have watering them together with the hose... All of these things came from that less-than-perfect afternoon.

I'd like to think that this pretty bunch of flowers in my yard is just a glimpse of deeper things that came from that day and many days like it. So often we don't get to see what was at work on the most discouraging of days. We don't get to see how God will use our sacrifices for our good and the good of those around us.

Don’t miss the little glimpses. Hold onto them. One of my favorite bits of wisdom from Paul and Timothy in their letter to the church in Philippi is this: "[be] confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Try not to lose that confidence, friends. The dark days and downward cycles will come, but they are not the end. We can't always see what is growing in those moments. But I pray that God will faithfully use them for good, and I trust that he will keep his promises.

“So often we don’t get to see what was at work on the most discouraging of days. We don’t get to see how God will use our sacrifices for our good and the good of those around us. Don’t miss the little glimpses. ”