Life is Sweet on Planet Lyrica.



On Planet Lyrica, there is blue cotton candy
ice cream at every meal and no wet wipes!

It's been a doozy of a weekend on Planet Lyrica. For those of you unfamiliar with Lyric's world (yes, she calls its Planet Lyrica) it's pretty much fairytale land - minus the villians. There's unicorns and rainbows and princesses. There's cupcakes for dinner and ice cream for dessert. So when Lyric has a bad day, or cries or is sick (like she has been this weekend), it makes it all the harder to bear.

It's remarkable to watch her mind process the contrast she sees in her own world and the one the "real world" offers. One day, she contemplated how Jesus spends his day.

"Mom, do you think Jesus gets bored?" I told her no, that I thought he had a lot of work to do answering our prayers.

She replied, "He should at least have a swing, Mom. If I was Jesus, I'd put a swing in the clouds and answer prayers while I swing."  Wow. My daughter was offering ideas to make heaven more fun!

And it's deeply, deeply rooted. A few years ago, during an unexpected hospital stay, she was treated with a high dose of antiseizure medication. The nurses warned me that she might experience terrifying hallucinations. "Most children think bugs and snakes are crawling on them or that monsters are in the room," they told me.

That evening, I braced for the worst. How in the world could I protect her from imaginary spiders on her skin? How could I convince her the monsters she would see are not real? My worries were unfounded. No bugs or monsters in our room. Oh no. Lyric spent the evening trying to catch invisible butterflies and giggled repeatedly at the show she said Shrek was performing at the food of the bed.

Several years ago I went to an amusement park with a friend and his two young daughters. The two girls whined and cried and begged at every turn. "I want cotton candy!" "I wanna go on that ride!" "Let's play that game!" "That's not fair - she got a bigger ice cream cone than me!" Lyric simply skipped along - delighted with every stop and new surprise around the bend. My friend made an observation about how blissful Lyric's world must be. While his daughters were constantly looking ahead at what was next, Lyric lived in the moment - happy with whatever life presented her.

Most of the time, this beautiful, simple view of the world is an incredible blessing. But as her parent, it also has some scary implications. Could there be anyone more vulnerable?  I've had several conversations with her the past several years about "stranger danger".  These discussions usually end with Lyric scolding me.  "There's NO such thing as criminals Mom!" (Sigh.)

 There's no parenting manual to guide any of us on how to introduce our children to the "real" world. How do any of us prepare our kids for the fact that sometimes the people that want to hurt them aren't strangers at all - but people they know? How do we prepare them for illnesses and death, wars and fighting? How do explain things like school shootings? How do we prepare them for "mean girls", or bullies or decisions that are unfair? 

To this day, one of Lyric's favorite games is to hide under a blanket in the living room, then call out for Pat or I. "Mommy, Pat, there's a suuuurrrpprisssse for you!!" When either of us enter the room, we exclaim with delight that Santa must have left an extra present. And as we unwrap our sweet girl from the blanket, she squeals with delight every single time. "I surprised you, Mommy!" or "I tricked you, Pat!" and gives us a big hug. I don't have the heart to tell her we know exactly what's under the blanket - that at the age of nearly 10 years old, she should know that we can see her elbows or hear her giggling or in fact, have learned after 100 times that she is indeed our present wrapped in a blanket.

So for me, it means making a judgement call everyday - what does Lyric need to know to be safe (don't ever leave with a stranger) and what's ok for her to believe (mommy is going to be so surprised when she opens the blanket and finds me!)  The hardest part is everything else in between.   I can't protect her from kids that are mean. I can't protect her from the learning challenges she will face. I can't protect her from failure. And I sure as heck can't protect her from Autism. But I can help educate others - as we hope to do through the Royal Ball Run event. As I do through this sporadic, but heart-felt blog.  And I can do everything I can to prepare her. I can strengthen her. And maybe most importantly, I can spend less time introducing Lyric to the "real world" and spend more time introducing  the world to "Planet Lyrica".