I promise...I won't ever let them take your fire.

My only son was born on New Years Day of 2006.  It was a great day.  Ryder Davis Wall was six weeks early, but big, strong and beautiful.  He was the Hulk baby in the NICU.  He immediately pulled the oxygen tubes off of his face.  My boy was born feisty and ready to take on this world, and nothing has changed.  I've always said that when they let me go home with Ryder, they should have sent me home with a lifetime supply of Xanax.  I remember when he was just two years old, sitting on the floor crying, surrendering to him.  

It's safe to say Ryder has always been work.  He was a high maintenance baby, and when his

feet hit the floor, they hit the floor running.  It's been six years, and I'm still chasing him.  He never shuts up; he interrupts incessantly just like his father; he can be high strung; he chews with his mouth open; he jumps off couches; he runs in circles; he hits his sisters; he fights with me about clothes; he has awful aim in the bathroom; he is loud; he is a show-off; he is obnoxious; he is greedy; and he throws fits (yes, sometimes even kicking the floor).  It's impossible to get him to focus unless it's something he is truly interested in; he argues with me constantly; he could stare at the TV for days; he decides what food he doesn't like based on what he doesn't feel like eating on any given day; he has the most hideous cry-face; he embarrasses me in front of my friends and family, and he puts more holes in clothes than Swiss cheese has.

But...

He has the best belly laugh--it's practically music.  He tells me he loves me all the time, and when nobody is looking (and sometimes when people are), he kisses me.  The first thing he does when he wakes up and finds me getting ready for work is to wrap his arms around me or plop onto my lap.  He hugs me so hard he knocks me over.  I love to listen to him read books and sound out the words; it's like listening to him figure out the world one word at a time.  Someday, he wants to be a "worker man" building houses for people who don't have one.  He has perfect red lips and a smile that will light up your world if you just let it. 

He is funny...so, so funny.  He loves to cook.  He is amazing with babies and adores his cat and dogs.  Even though he doesn't like his sisters most days, he will tell you one of his favorite things to do is to spend time with his family.  He swings a bat like a boy who eats Wheaties everyday.  He understands more about Heaven than any little boy should because he has people he loves there, and although he misses them, he knows he will see them again one day.  He is smart; smarter than people give him credit for and smarter than most people realize.  Even when he is mean to a friend, he knows that it's wrong and will say so later. 

Out of my three children, he is the most sensitive about what people think of him.  He is scared others will make fun of his clothes or hair.  He is frightened of making a mistake during sports and hates public performances for fear of messing up in front of others.  He gets embarrassed very easily; it's heartbreaking because you can see it in his eyes.  Most people don't know these things about him, because they don't look past the rambunctious, loud boy.  

I've bitten my tongue when I've been told medicine might benefit my child, but lately I've been feeling so defeated as a mother that I decided to do some research, some soul searching, and to get some opinions of a couple people I trust most.  I've never even more than glanced down that road before.  It is my personal belief that too many children are falsely medicated because either the parents have lost control (or never had it to begin with), or are lazy and don't want to face raising anything more than a zombie-child.  It is an easy out, and it makes it very difficult for the children who truly need that sort of care to be recognized and treated properly.  However, I don't want to shortchange my child.  If my stubbornness on the issue hinders being open to something that might benefit him, then maybe I need to step out of the box, out of my comfort zone, and do my homework.  

I started to research the difference and common confusion between being "all boy" and having an actual medical problem.  Twenty percent of American school-aged children are now on behavioral medications and nearly one million children per year are misdiagnosed with ADD/ADHD.  If I had listened to a few people who thought they knew my son better than I did, he would be one of those children.  Most of Ryder's problems are in school, but like some studies say, humans were not meant to sit in a classroom for eight hours a day being told what to be interested in. I

I love this paragraph out of the article: ADHD and School: The Problem of Assessing Normalcy in an Abnormal Environment:

"From my evolutionary perspective, it is not at all surprising that many children fail to adapt to the school environment, in ways that lead to the ADHD diagnosis. All normal children have at least some difficulty adapting to school. It is not natural for children (or anyone else, for that matter) to spend so much time sitting, so much time ignoring their own real questions and interests, so much time doing precisely what they are told to do. We humans are highly adaptable, but we are not infinitely adaptable. It is possible to push an environment so far out of the bounds of normality that many of our members just can't abide by it, and that is what we have done with schools. It is not surprising to me that the rate of diagnosis of ADHD began to skyrocket during the same decade (the 1990s) when schools became even more restrictive than they had been before--when high-stakes testing became prominent, when recesses were dropped, when teachers were told that they must teach to the standardized tests and everyone must pass or the teachers themselves might lose their jobs."

I'm writing this because I need to tell Ryder I'm sorry.

Ryder, I'm sorry because I doubted you.  I'm sorry because I've questioned whether I should try to calm who you are as not only a child, but as a person.  Anything negative you do is a direct result of my parenting and the result of us learning together.  You being you is NOT a negative thing.  I love you.  I should have listened more to the people that believed in you and to my own heart and less to those that were intolerant of your boisterous personality and never-ending curiosity; those people either don't have kids, don't have boys, or have boys that are girly-men. 

I've had so many people tell me the wonderful things you will do with your life because you are who you are, but I've been so focused on worrying if you were good for your teachers, if you used your manners, and if you acted like I thought a six year old boy should--a six year old boy that wouldn't embarrass me...that I just missed it.  I've been so worried about the people in your life that you drive a little crazy, to truly appreciate what the people who love you for YOU and see you for YOU think.  I should have been your advocate.  I should have spoken up for you more when I saw people treat you differently.  It took a  very wonderful aunt of yours just today to tell me, "No, don't let them take his fire."  I promise I won't.  I never ever will.  I promise to never again try to turn you into something you're not.  I love you so much, and I will not let them take your fire.