Paranoia or Preparedness in Calgary?

I think I walk a fine line between being crazy and being responsible. Here is a simple scenario as an example:
- we'll have plans to spend the day in Banff. I'll pack a bag of extra clothes and jackets. Another bag of food and snacks. I make sure we've got the car charger for the kids' ipods. I make sure we've got a towel or two in case someone gets soaked. In all my 'craziness', I even make sure that the kids have gone to the toilet before getting them in the car.

Now my husband will roll his eyes and be irritated that I'm taking too long to get ready while I run around getting all of this stuff together. But this is the same guy who will be using all of the items I've packed. This is also the same husband who has more than once buckled the kids into their seat belts and driven away, not realizing that his children didn't have shoes on their feet. It's an ongoing argument between us. That I see myself as being proactive and prepared whereas Jonathan is reactive and unorganized. He plans for nothing, things go awry, then he blames everyone else for his lack of foresight.

What brings me to this conversation is the fact that we've had a ton of rain in the past week here in Calgary and we're looking at a forecast for more. Banff National Park has had record snow accumulation this past winter and that means that the snow is soon going to melt. The Banff townsite, Canmore and the Bow Valley are already dealing with flooding and Calgary sits just downstream along the Bow River. Environment Canada issue rainfall warning as flooding fears continue. How does this affect me? Well I care about stuff like this. I follow the news and get weather and emergency alerts sent to my phone. In 2005, the year before we moved to Calgary, the city experienced some pretty terrible flooding (see 2005 Calgary Flood).  Any Calgarian will simply shrug their shoulders and say "that's Calgary for ya! What else would you expect for June weather?".

So knowing all of this, am I crazy or responsible if I feel that I need to prepare for a possible flood? I'm not saying that I'm going to be sandbagging a barricade around my home and I haven't run out and bought a boat to park outside my front door. I'm just saying that I'm being aware, I'm watching the news and I'm making mental notes. If water starts to pool at the bottom of the slope in my backyard, what do I do about it so that it doesn't start leaking into my basement? We only live about 800m away from the Bow River. We're on the flood plain. Is it so crazy to be cautious?

When I look out my window and see something unusual, like someone sitting in a parked car that seems out of place on my street, I take a mental note of the car description in case I need to recall it later. If I'm walking in a dark and empty parking garage to my car, I hold my keys between my fingers ready to jab them and my cell phone in the other hand with the 9-1-.... already dialed. Is that paranoia?

Jake has always had a lot of irrational fears that we've always blown off to an over-active imagination. They haven't gotten better as he's gotten older, they're actually getting worse. He's also a mind-racer. He doesn't sleep well because he can't settle the thoughts going through his brain. What's interesting is that I am realizing how alike he and I are. I wonder if many of the fears are rooted in the pages of the many books we both read. I think the thing that separates us is that I am older (ahemm.. I mean, wiser) and have the experience to know that the likelihood that any of my fears will come to life is next to nothing, but I also have the capability to do something about it so that I am prepared if those fears come true. I think my job is to pass on my 'preparedness' to Jake to equip him with some tools so that he can focus on what he can do instead of focusing on what he has no control over.

Now I'm going to sign off so I can go check the weather report and make sure I know someone with a sub-pump. If you're in Calgary and want to follow and worry with me, I found a good site: Flood Watch

My Thursday Task- Fear & Misconception

I'm not really divulging any deep dark secrets that I haven't already admitted to. I'm on another blogging assignment. I'm supposed to describe a moment when I felt afraid or describe a common misconception about myself. I think that if I describe my moment, it will prove to you all that I'm not what you think I am, so I will fulfill both obligations in this assignment.

I can remember a moment so clearly in my mind's eye. Summer of 2005. I was driving on Durham 57, headed towards Tim Horton's for my daily dose of caffeine. I had just left Owen and Will with my grandmother at the house, I think Jake was out somewhere with my mom. I remember how blue the sky was, no clouds. Everything around me was vividly green. Every reason to feel optimistic and happy. A song came on the radio, I can't even tell you what it was but I remember hearing a really melancholy note and as I pulled up to the red light to come to a stop, I felt my air get thinner in my lungs. Like a vice grip was squeezing my chest tighter and tighter and I started to panic. My breathing came in gulps and my eyes filled with tears. I remember pulling into the parking lot at Timmy's and sitting in my car, wondering how I got there because I could only see black. It's like a dark cloud had just settled over all that was bright blue and green and bright. I'm sure I sobbed for at least 20 minutes. It was as if the boys' diagnosis of autism had just hit me for the first time.

I think all the crying I had done before this day was from the shock of knowing that our lives had taken a dramatic turn in a whole new direction. But this day, I cried for my boys. I think it was the first time that I couldn't control my thoughts. I was in Owen's head. Imagining his future. Imagining that he would never speak. Imagining the loneliness and fear he would feel, never understanding the world around him and feeling afraid because he could not express his own confusing thoughts. I had recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and I just remember the sick emptiness I felt while reading about Christopher's isolation and distance from his own parents. My head was crowded with my fears. How could I learn to accept mothering a child who couldn't love me? At the least, how could I live with feeling that my child didn't want me close to him? While I cried, I grieved for Will. His aggression and fury and his single-minded focus on inappropriate behaviours terrified me. I flashed forward 10, 20 years and remembered all the horror stories I had heard of families who had to make the heart-wrenching decision to split their family apart to separate the aggressive child from the others, in order to protect them. At the time, Will had no interest in me. Owen would let me touch him, but would not let me hold him, but at least we had a connection. Will wouldn't even let me touch him. I was just another person to him. I remember saying to Jonathan, "does he even know I'm his mother? I don't think he loves me."

As a parent, I think we're all fearful. Afraid that we won't know what to do. Afraid that we're not doing right by our child. Afraid that one day our child will swerve on to a path that will lead to a place that you wouldn't wish on anyone, least of all one of your own. Most of all, afraid that our child will someday hate us. But you just learn to bury those fears and get on with it. You don't let yourself dwell on it because it's not productive. But this day those fears consumed me. It was the first time ever that I thought the thoughts out loud "I can't do this. I want out. I can't deal with this much pain." Absolute fear took over. I honestly felt like if I willed it, I could click my brain off to no longer feel the agony. Thank God that my love for my boys was bigger than my fear because I was able to reign it back in. I have never had to talk out loud to myself, but that's what I did. I gave my self a pep talk and talked myself down. I willed myself to take it one step at a time and to believe that my family was not created to be a story of tragedy, but a success story.

I will never forget that day and it haunts me but it also reminds me that my fears may have been honest, but they were rooted in unfair stereotypes. I let my ignorance of autism cloud my understanding that my boys were real people and not their behaviours. They are not autistics. They are children with autism. It does not define their future. It affects their future and it challenges them. But it does not define who they are. I can look back and be grateful because we are in a better place where those fears are no longer as founded. They remain, but I don't let myself dwell on them. Late at night when I can't sleep, they sometimes try to creep back into my consciousness, but I do my best to will them away.

So now you know. Just because I'm a mom of twins with autism, it doesn't mean I'm supermom, or admirable in any way. I'm just being a mom. Fighting the same demons we all have and just doing my best. Hoping I don't disappoint any of my three boys and praying that our hard work and our dreams for all three pay off.

Assignment completed. Now I don't want to think about that ever again.

N.B. This assignment was hosted by Mama Kat's Writers Workshop. Feel free to mosey on over to Mama Kat's for more stories by some awesome bloggers.