When I knew....

When I met my husband, I was the divorced mother of 3 wonderful children.  My  future husband had full custody of his daughter.  If you think about it, that was amazing in itself; in our county that was almost an impossibility.  I loved his sweet little four year old girl Chrystene (name changed).  My mother's intuition was in high gear around Chrystene and I should have listened to it.  I knew that this child was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it and I knew that my future mother-in-law was a different sort of person herself ( that is another story) so I didn't dwell on it to much.  When Chrystene and my hubby finally became established members in our household I soon faced the worst nightmare a woman could ever imagine.  I now had a child who was four years old and completely afraid to step outside, she would stand in the doorway and scream at her shadow. I was unaware of this, my husband did a remarkable job at hiding this fact.  I always wondered why he carried her everywhere, now I had my answer.  I was dismayed how could this be?  I loved the outdoors, how could I play with my children and yet not leave Chrystene out?  I quickly thought of  a game of  "Everybody jump on your shadows"  then we proceeded to "Everyone jump on everyone else's shadows".  Luckily for me with the other children Chrystene played along.  Hubby was amazed at my mothering skills, I told him that something was not right, that a child that age is curious about things and mostly fearless.  His retort was that Chrystene was a sensitive child and was afraid of many things.   Thus ensued the first of many arguments, as I look at it now I was completely unaware of how my family would never be the same, never be "normal" again.  That I would become a different person and how my parenting skills would become quoted as "outside the box."  I always thought that as long as you did not give someone the "power"  you could control any situation.  Soon I would learn that my lifelong beliefs were completely wrong.