Beautiful Blessings and My Big Boys.

Gosh, I have to get used to this regular blogging. I keep forgetting to document the insanity that follows my every step. I know, I’m a bit dramatic but we’ve already discussed that.

I’ll start this new blog by telling you about my kids. I have two sons, aged 22 and 17. One intellectual and one realist.
Both gorgeous, both bright and empathic, both ADHD.
Our eldest son is currently studying for his Bachelors in Commerce. Literally one of the people gifted with the gab, he could sell sand to the Arabs and make it seem like he’d done them a favor.
For three years he was in a relationship with a very pretty and extraordinarily gifted manipulator.
All of a sudden out of the blue, she finished it.
The boy was devastated. His Dad and I were thrilled and had the hardest time not showing it. Having observed how this girl functioned within her little web of manipulation, I suspected that more was to come. This “dumping” was an exercise in control as opposed to a genuine intent on being single. Bingo, before two weeks had passed she was texting him with all sorts of minutiae, culminating in confessions of fooling around with another guy. Of course he reacted badly and called her a rather unacceptable name. Bless his heart, he then texted back and said sorry.
Now, I’m a bit too direct for some people’s tastes and this emotional interlude in my child’s life was one of the times when I had to bite my tongue, sit on my hands and any other relevant cliché. What to do, when your 22 year old so depressed that you can hear the loud snap as his heart breaks? You give him to his Dad.

“Son, she’s your ex. She’ll be doing more than kissing. You know what though, that means so will you”

Click, click went the wheels of hormones.

“Oh Yeah. There’s a new contingent of freshmen girls in our Student Org too.”

A few more words of borderline sexist wisdom from Pat and our lad was all set for a Friday night of womanizing. Amazing. Wonderful. Um….a tad disturbing 

Currently we’re 6 weeks further and you know what, my boy’s back.
That carefree, happy young man, who enjoyed every new experience and made friends so easily, was just hiding. Only temporarily cowed by criticism and the judgmental, closed opinions of his ex. I’m so relieved and so happy to see this re-emergence and look forward with curiosity at the choices he makes from here on.

Next we’ll approach the human conundrum that is my 17yr old. He’s a beautiful boy. It lifts your heart to look at those bright blue eyes ringed with dark and long lashes. A gorgeous, wicked smile and a dry mischievous sense of humor. Constantly involved in some scrape or another, he always gets caught. Possessing certain cockiness, he will literally strut into a room and heads always turn to look at him. Yet contrary to this outer display of nonchalance, he has trouble with shyness. I must admit he does a sterling job of hiding it but sometimes, he’ll say or do something that makes it obvious. These are the moments I realize that for all the bravado and “whatever” moments, he’s still an uncertain, 6 foot tall, little boy.

Having gained his scooter license at the age of 16, the current choice of after school job is delivering take-away food for local restaurants. We’re fond of telling people that G is on a culinary tour of Leiden because he’s worked for so many different “countries”. At the moment he’s flavor of the month (pardon the pun) at a popular Greek take-away in the city centre. Before this he worked for a Chinese restaurant and whereas he sometimes found it tedious, he didn’t really complain. One rainy night, having left an hour or so previously, he came home battered, bruised and bleeding.

“I’ve had a bit of an accident”

Immediately morphing into overprotective parent mode, I patched him up whilst giving him the consecutive third degree. The moped he’d been sent out on should have been fixed the previous week. The boss, ensuring him that it was now roadworthy sent him on a delivery. Driving along a narrow street (bear in mind it’s peeing down) he spots a woman step onto a zebra crossing. He brakes…..He screams “get out of the way, my brakes have failed” as he careers forward. Trying to avoid her, he veers to the left and of course, skids dramatically onto the wet road. Luckily the woman was fine, apart from an achy arm. My boy was cut up and shocked. The police removed the moped for inspection. It’s been returned, deemed a danger and provided the Chinese Rest with a few hundred euro fine. Our boy may also be fined for the accident because by Dutch law, once he stepped onto the moped he became responsible for it. Beggar’s belief doesn’t it!
His Boss at the time told him to take some time off and call when he was going back. “Err, you’re not going back darling” …”Fair enough, Mam”. The easy capitulation was enough indication that he was scared to venture out on their ramshackle bikes again. The following (voluntary) kiss and hug proves that sometimes, even big boys are grateful for bossy Welsh Mams.

As I mentioned earlier, both our boys have ADHD. From an early age they’ve faced criticism from different sources. Some primary school teachers have even gone as far as public humiliation. Can you imagine how difficult and damaging it must be for such small kids, who already know they’re different, to be ridiculed in front of their peers? When I hear about kids with this condition being unmanageable, I’m not surprised. I am however, often saddened.
As a result of some obvious and some obscure goings on in their lives, our lads set some stressful challenges for us to meet. Eventually, we discovered that the only way to deal with these trials was to keep the lines of communication open…. and oil them with a good dose of humor.

Now, we sit back and reap the benefits. The challenges are still there, they’re just different and more obvious. Our boys have wonderful communication skills and are such empathic young men; I often feel my heart will burst with delight and pride. In hindsight, this condition has been a curse but without it maybe they wouldn’t be the people they are today.
They still have to deal with ADHD and the accompanying stigma, but they do just that – They Deal With It.

You know what? It’s made me a better person too.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
- Horace