Barnmaven

Healing, finally

In the last twelve months I've published three posts.  Three.  I've written nine. Six posts sit in my drafts folder, unfinished. While I fail at blogging, I succeed majestically at the art of staring at a computer screen, failing to find words. 

It's hard to find the words around big stuff sometimes. If I write about something that's more theoretical or reflective, words come easy. If I try to write while my heart is full, not so much. My heart is full. My words won't flow. Don't ask me how many times I've edited this post.

I wrote in February about going back to physical therapy. I predicted that 2016 would be the year I ride again, and I was right, although I haven't written much about why. I wrote in January that my father passed away, but didn't write much about the last years and months of his life. There's a lot I tend to leave out which in retrospect I shouldn't because these two things might seem disparate, but they are deeply connected.

My dad spent the last several years of his life doing little more than sitting in a chair by the window. He was a diabetic and developed congestive heart failure, a result of which was severe swelling in his feet and ankles. He took a diuretic medication to help with the water retention, but diabetes and CHF are not terrifically friendly to your kidneys, and I think it's a delicate balancing act to get the body to shed enough water to keep the patient breathing but not enough to shut down the kidneys. Eventually the swelling was a permanent condition for him, and he had some loss of feeling in his feet as well. 

He had a terrible time walking, but he was so damned stubborn he'd refuse to use a cane or a walker, instead holding on to furniture and counter tops to make it from his chair to the bathroom or the table or to bed. Occasionally he'd fall, and since he was a large man and my mother a small woman, she could not get him up on her own. At first she called me, but the two of us could not do it. Next she called SG, but he couldn't manage it either, so she ended up being reliant on the local Fire Department to come help. 

After Dad decided to stop taking his medication just before the holidays last year, he had a fall, and when the firefighters came once more to offer assistance, he told one of them that he had decided to stop taking his medication and that he wanted to die. Because of that, the decision was made to take him to the ER and admit him into the hospital for some evaluation. At that time it was determined that he was eligible for hospice care.

After Dad was accepted into hospice and his dementia increased, he was put on an anti-anxiety medication to help keep his mood more stable. This helped a lot with his irritability, but had an even further detrimental effect on his mobility. He finally was willing to use the walker, but needed more and more help getting up and down, getting dressed, using the bathroom. He fell more frequently. Eventually he went to hospice house for a respite stay so that Mom could have time to arrange some help for herself at home, but as it turned out he never came back home, passing away five days later.

Watching how hard this was for my mother was simultaneously heartbreaking and enlightening.

I had reached a point in my own pain and mobility issues where depression and fatigue had fairly well stripped me of the idea that I could or would eventually get better. Any optimism I may have held about being well enough to ride again had exited the building. For the sake of others I often pretended that I still felt I would improve, but my internal dialogue went more along the lines of "You will never get better. NEVER." I understand how unhealthy a place this was for me to be, particularly considering my parenting and work obligations, but I didn't really  have the motivation to change it.

As I witnessed the last months with my father, helping Mom with things like getting him in to bed, getting to and from the table, going to the bathroom, it finally dawned on me that if I wasn't going to do anything to change my own circumstances, I was essentially watching my own future.It wouldn't be much fun for me, but even more importantly, my family was going to suffer for it. In good conscience I needed to find a way to get better.  I just felt like I'd run into so many damn walls with doctors that I was hesitant to go to them for more help. At some point in researching ilipsoas and piriformis inflammation, I came across an article about Graston therapy which sounded promising. I researched local physical therapists and found an office that offered the technique. I gritted my teeth and  made an appointment.

While therapy seemed to be helping in keeping my pain from getting worse, I also wasn't getting any better. I'd have better range of motion and a bit less pain after a session, but if I overdid it between sessions or went too long between, I'd regress.  Finally, after three months, my, PT suggested I visit my pain doctor for another steroid injection to help us get on top of things.

The doctor who performed my stem cell and PRP injections was no longer providing services at the practice I'd gone to, so I decided to try a different orthopedic group. I scheduled a consult with their pain specialist, who decided an updated set of x-rays would be useful. He took one look at them and refused to touch me. He referred me instead for an MRI and a visit to the orthopedic surgeon.

The 8th of August I had my right hip completely replaced.

I AM BIONIC. I also set off metal detectors, which is a great way to get felt up at airports.

All joking aside, I am not sure I can adequately describe the change this has made not just in terms of fixing my busted old body but in the way of curing my soul.

Let me ask you this: do you have a hobby or activity that you engage in that brings you joy, peace, sanity, wholeness, or any combination of these things? If you could no longer engage in that activity, would you be able to easily replace it? What would you do if it was taken away? How would you feel, in general, and how would your self-perception change?

You know, I hesitate to diminish what my horses are to me by calling them a "hobby" or an "interest." They are indescribably more. From the first moment I beheld that first horse - a fat old paint named "Ginger," it's like I was injected with a virus (benevolent or otherwise, hard to say) that wound itself around my DNA. To lose that for such a length of time; to contemplate that horses were perhaps out of my life forever - kind of took away the incentive to do anything beyond remember to breathe in and out once in a while.   It isn't just that what was happening with my body prevented me from being able to ride - it ultimately prevented me from doing much of anything with my horses. Occasionally I'd hobble out to the barn or put a chair in the pasture just to be around them. Even doing groundwork was too painful to be worth it.  In short, I've spent the last couple of years wanting to be with my horses, hoping that someday soon I might be able to ride, but most of the time being very afraid that I would never ride again. 

8 weeks post-surgery I rode my horse for an hour. We walked, trotted, cantered. Nothing hurt. NOTHING HURT. 

The time frame between surgery and being released to ride was short, I think partly because I'm relatively young for a hip replacement patient, but mostly because I was so incredibly motivated to return to my life, to get back in the game. I've since managed three or four good rides, at least two of them better than two hours long. I still feel good. 

SG and I have started going on a morning walk most days, and I feel my stamina improving right along with my mental state. 

I'm so much better. I've been gone from this space for too long. I hope this finds you all well.

Fear, Stasis, Transformation

My phobias:  Pooping in public bathrooms, spiders, drowning, tornados and confrontation.

Spiders, because of obvious reasons.  Drowning thanks to my brother and his tendency to hold my head under water whenever we were in a pool together.  Tornados?  I think that comes from the Wizard of Oz, because I've never actually been in a tornado.  They terrify me, though.

The pooping?  A delightful tale of two older girls bullying a first grader in the school bathroom when there were no adults or other students present.  Having two girls stand on the toilets on either side of your stall and mock you while you perform a perfectly normal human function apparently puts a mental lock on the sphincter.  For years.

Confrontation.  That might surprise some people.  In my comfort zone, not much of an issue.   Competition is part of my nature.  On the basketball court, any kind of game or contest,  no problem.  I'll go toe to toe with you.  With strangers, often not a problem.  With people I really care about or spend a great deal of time with, though, I've spent years choking on my fear whenever I've had to deal with others in a confrontational way.  I've gotten amazingly creative at hiding how absolutely horrifying it is for me to deliver bad news or confront someone's behavior.  

This is not in any way a poke at my parents, because like most parents, they had the tools they had and they did the best they could with them.  I can't fault them because I tend to use the same parenting toolbox.  The downside of this is that I had to learn as an adult how to find the language to explain my boundaries.  "You have to stop doing that because I said so" is really not the most useful way to confront a problem. 

Developing a lexicon to communicate about uncomfortable things is hard work, but I find it is also important work.  SG and I are a normal couple, which means we fight, we have bad days, we get cranky with one another.  Sometimes things get blown out of proportion.  Like everyone else, we either have to find ways to wind back down or we jeopardize the survival of our relationship.    In the same vein, learning this lexicon helps me to communicate better with my children and my family, my friends, people I work with.

Sometimes you have to find a way to express feelings, and I'm just as uncomfortable with that as anyone.  What I used to be really bad at was identifying the real what behind my emotions and learning to deal with the what instead of transferring or projecting.  I also have to remember in a conflict that the other person may also be engaging in transference or projection.  I might not know why, and instead of throwing gasoline on the fire by being angry, pointing fingers or placing blame, it may be more productive and compassionate to ask some questions, to seek understanding.  That doesn't mean I have to accept or condone certain behaviors, but I find it serves the relationship I have with another person for me to spend some time working on untangling that knot.

There are other times where you have to transcend feelings and cope with things on a more practical level, times when you need to let yourself and the other people involved be responsible for taking care of their own feelings and attending to the current issue with maturity and poise.  Its easy to say, harder in practice.  My children, who are not yet practiced in managing their emotional responses, are a perfect example of how feelings get in the way of progress.  The moment things go in a way they did not anticipate or expect, their emotions rise and so does their volume.  This of course is counterproductive toward achieving whatever end they had in mind, but they already lost sight of that the minute those emotions took hold.  They haven't yet developed the ability to delay reacting to an emotion in order to give themselves time to understand what is happening and how they might best react.

I meet plenty of adults who have the same problem, which I would guess is a result of never having had the honor of being around someone who was able to provide a better model of behavior, or perhaps they have not yet reached the point of being comfortable enough with self-examination to identify how and why this might be a problem.

What is interesting is the more I am able to witness other people modeling good confrontation skills the more I am able to find ways to practice those skills and have more positive outcomes.  As a result, though I still have old habits that it would serve me well to discard, I'm no longer afraid of confrontation.  I find I look forward to the opportunity to solve problems and seek resolution because I'm better at both listening and expressing myself.   No wonder -- just as it is often not much fun to have to do things you're not very good at, the opposite is true as well.

We all have different paths to walk; my path led me to the writings of David Richo, Wayne Dyer and other wise folks whose writings and lectures engaged my interest and had me wanting to learn more.  I've been privileged as well to encounter some very mature people who possess terrific conflict management skills.  Those individuals have provided me with many opportunities to learn in real-time by observing their ability to navigate situations that might have gone terribly wrong otherwise.  I've learned from my husband, who when he isn't being silly or stubborn or just a pain in my ass is remarkably compassionate and dedicated to trying to understand me and to nurturing the positive in our relationship.

If I could only apply the same principles to spiders and tornadoes.  

Not bloody likely.

 

 

 

 

Introducing LaLa

At about 7 am this morning LaLa made her grand and much-anticipated entrance.  Mama went past her due date by more than a week, but I guess we should not have been surprised, since her previous two foals were also born on April 24th.  Now LaLa shares a birthday not only with her full sister Princess, but with her half-brother Bugs.  

I am filled with gratitude that she is healthy, but also so tickled that all my silly wishes came true.  I wanted a filly.  I wanted color.  LaLa is the whole package.  She's perfect.

I haven't settled on what to register her as, but her barn name "LaLa" got stuck in my head about a month ago.  I suppose its a good thing she's filly, that would be a horrible name to stick on a colt.

Welcome to this great big world, little filly.  You and I are going to have such fun!

 

Special thanks to Michelle who let this mare have just one more filly before breaking the mold and for letting her be mine.  

 

There is no "new" year

We make resolutions and rarely keep them.  We party like its 1999.  But really, is New Year's Eve that much different than any other midwinter night when we need to inject a little life into the dark of winter?

Its another day.  A Tuesday, this year.  And I am getting to the point in my life where I truly question the point of it.  Its almost as bad as birthdays;  47?  Its just like 37 but with more arthritis.   My reaction to NYE 2012?  "Where the FUCK did 2011 go?  Or 2010 for that matter?"  We get older and time picks up speed and one day we were thirty and woke up the next and we were fifty and trying to pay for college for the kids who were just five last week.

I don't get the point of New Year's resolutions.  Can't I just decide to do things at any old point in the year?  Does it make them less important if I didn't make them New Year's Eve?  The day I listened to "Landslide" while watching my baby girl in her high chair and decided I needed another baby, wasn't that a bigger day than NYE?  The day SG and I held hands in front of our parents and friends and told everyone we were a "THANG" - wasn't that a bigger day? 

The turn of the century, sure, that was a biggie.  I'd moved to New Jersey then, my ex and I were in our apartment, a year away from buying our first house and then immediately getting "in the family way" with Amazon Girl.  We must have listened to Prince tell us how he was partying like it was 1999 a thousand times the week prior.  I don't even remember now what we did... everyone was waiting for Y2K to make the world stop turning, and like every other apocalypse that hasn't materialized (Big shout-out to the Mayans!), it ends up being somewhat forgettable.   Except for my friends who moved to an island somewhere and built a house off the grid because, you know, pending apocalypse.  And when it didn't happen, he, who was certain this was IT, went a little cuckoo, and she said goodbye to a chapter in her life and went forth to kick some ass.

And let's talk about the folly of going out for NYE if you're neither (a) single or (b) childless.  Seriously, its just not feasible.  You either have to have the party at YOUR house and hope your kids get at least a few minutes of sleep while the adults get their freak on, or you have to pay a highly-in-demand babysitter three times what she normally gets to watch your kids, which leaves you about two drinks worth of cash in your pocket, then you get to fend off the drunken drivers all the way home and hope you don't, in your sober and self-protective state, do something stupid while driving by an officer which then necessitates you proving just how boring you are because you are the only sober person exiting a party or bar on NYE.

It really just better to stay home, order pizza, and try to stay awake long enough to bitch about the horrid lack of talent on TV and how dumb all those people are to stand in the freezing air in Time Square just to watch a well-lit orb do a shabby pole dance.

The important days, they don't need a calendar reference or a national holiday to matter.  They are the days when your son asks your friend for riding lessons - all by himself and of his own volition.  They are the days when you watch your incredibly proud husband stand on stage to put his son's officer's eupalets on his Navy uniform.  They are the days when you have the perfect ride on your horse, the perfect day at work, the best...nevermind....with your spouse or partner, the day you had an epiphany you didn't even see coming, the day your daughter needs her first bra and the many many nights you tuck your kids in bed and they hug you 'round the neck and sleepily declare their love.    The days you get to spend enjoying your parents and laughing with them over memories of the past and the follies of the present.  They are the days you feel the presence of God, the days you feel the smallness of the scale of your life against the wide width of the clamoring world, the days you drink in the sunlight and are grateful for one more moment of a life so sweet it hurts.

NYE.  Fun, to be sure.  A chance to kick up our heels and shake off the past, or to try to catch up on some much-needed sleep while rude neighbors shoot off lawn cannons.  A chance to kiss your date while fireworks burst in a dazzling array and a chance to pretend you can really change overnight into someone who eschews ice cream and goes to the gym five days a week. 

To me?  Its just another Tuesday. 

Every single day of the year is a chance to start over.  We need not limit ourselves to one day in January to try to become the better angels of our nature.

What we pass along

Parent-teacher conferences were last week, and all things considered, I am happy with where the kids are at.

Race Car Man continues to have areas of concern around his ability to control his reactions, but the biggest issue I see with him is a real streak of craftiness when it comes to getting out of work.  I think he sees his hierarchy of needs in very simple terms:

Good:  Gaming time

Bad:  Anything that interferes with gaming time

You know, like meals and homework and baths and those really awful times when mom bans all electronics and locks the kids OUTSIDE.  (I'm only joking.  I don't lock them out.  At least not after the first 10 minutes.)

What's super frustrating about his report card is how he's testing AT grade level on everything.  Except that I know for a fact he's capable of doing math well beyond his grade level and in terms of ability to read he is also beyond his grade level.  Reading comprehension may be an entirely different animal, as he just doesn't see the world and human interaction the same way the educational system would like.  Still, there weren't any surprises and I am satisfied with that.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Amazon Girl's conference.  At our last psych appointment she complained about being distracted a lot in class.  She was afraid she wasn't understanding as much math as she is supposed to because she doesn't think she's listening well.  I hadn't seen any homework come home that indicated she wasn't understanding, but at the same time, I half expected to walk out of her conference with a referral slip for a math tutor.  Much to my happy surprise, Amazon Girl is doing spectacularly well in school.  Her teacher thinks she's an absolutely delight, and her art teacher wrote that she is "exceptionally creative" in the comments section of her report card.

This morning when I opened her backpack to put her lunch in it, I noticed at her binder was so full of papers that it could barely be zipped.  As I periodically do, I went to work sorting and removing the completed assignments and reviewing her current projects.   In doing so, I found a group of study sheets about our presidential elections.  One of the sheets asked the students to pretend they were running for president.  They were asked questions about what qualities they thought were important for the president to have, who they would choose as their running mate, what their campaign slogan might be, and what planks they would run on.

My daughter, my Amazon Girl,  wrote that her primary issue would be to teach people that "Its OK to be gay."  She went on to say that people needed to learn that we need to accept each other and our differences and make sure that everyone gets the same chances no matter what. 

This is not an issue I've heard her talk about, but its an issue that's been on our televisions and our radios and a subject of adult conversation in our homes this past election season.  Washington voters were asked to approve or reject SB 6239 which extended marriage in Washington to include gay and lesbian couples. 

My ex and I certainly have our issues, but we both feel very strongly about the rights of all people to be treated with kindness, dignity and compassion.  As adoptees under the closed records system, we both have an inkling of what its like to be treated differently because of the way we were born.  We are both advocates of equality for all regardless of things like race, gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. 

When I consider the things I want for my children I would have to say that their happiness tops the list.  Beyond that, I don't care if they are doctors or gas station attendants.  I don't care if they are gay or straight so long as their relationships are mutually loving, supportive and respectful.  While it would be nice if they share my faith, I happily accept that they will form their own beliefs in their own way and their own time.  What I DO care is that they grow up with a core value system that includes acceptance, kindness and compassion for other people.

Despite my failings as a person and a parent, my daughter will carry on the mission of grace and love that I consider to be one of the highest callings we as human beings will ever know.  I could not be more proud of her than I am at this moment. 

 

 

Its got Excedrin written all over it

I'm trying to post more regularly here.  I haven't been at all content with the frequency or the quality of my writing lately.  The answer to that is to exercise the writing muscles, not let them sit on the couch spooning up mouthfuls of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch  (which, might I say, is perfect for mining Heath Bar pieces of after it has been warmed in the microwave for exactly twenty seconds). 

Today has been a doozy, though, and I was so very tempted to bypass writing anything in favor of a hot bath and hiding my head under the covers.  I was up in the middle of the night last night with abdominal cramping.  When I made it to work today I was hit over the head immediately with a major and extremely inconvenient problem opportunity and a few minor and somewhat less problematic issues.   The cherry on top of this shit-sandwich of delight was the pounding in my head and the frequent feeling of needing to throw up. 

I took something for the headache and it sort of went away and then came back, but the intermittent nausea has continued and by about 3 pm I waved the white flag and went home.  I don't know what's wrong with me, I suspect a combination of tension and maybe not eating as well as I should be, but who knows.  My tummy has felt quite acidic of late and I wonder if I'm not developing heartburn as a way of coping.   Work is just tough right now, its one foot in front of the other with the finish line barely visible.  This part of the year is the busiest we get and I'm down staff.  We are all pitching in to fill the gap, and we are getting it done, but we are paying the price.  Today's hitch in my giddyup is possibly my body's way of asking me to please slow down more and to fret less.

The good news, of course, is that the finish line is quite reachable and we will get there, by hook or by crook.  Then we can enjoy a few months of breathing space and start girding our loins for the next challenges heading our way.

SG hasn't heard yet if the job he's on will go longer, but right now they are operating behind schedule so its likely.  I have been very purposefully not tying my heart to a specific return time and just reminding myself that we are more than halfway through this one either way and I will get to see him in fewer days than I last got to hug him.  Our first wedding anniversary is this Friday.  Yeah, we don't get to celebrate it together and that sucks more than a little.  We will celebrate it though, and it will be good to be in each others' company and have fun.   And on the up side, he's not stranded somewhere in the Northeastern part of the country where everyone's more than a little froggy after "Post-Tropical Storm" (my ass) Sandy hurled a billion gallons of rain and seawater at them. 

Yes, I'll take not-here over flooded, power-less and stranded.

Ugh.  Me and my headache are going to go have a lie-down.

Two steps from success, two from disaster

Life is such a balancing act.

There are periods of time where I am calm, unperturbed, I have everything together.   There are other times when I feel like everything is falling apart and I'm just screwing it all up.  I would be lying if said that I was always more together than not, or that sometimes these barometric changes never occured once or twice within the same day. 

When SG was gone, there were times I really struggled to hold it together.  His prolonged absence and his occasional disgruntled reaction to my letting him know how hard a time I was having triggered my lingering abandonment issues.  I'd have days where I felt like nothing was ever going to be OK again, even when I know better than to think that way.

Now he's home, he's been home for more than a month.  I fall into the trap of being so completely content that I start telling myself that everything will always be this way, always be OK.  And that's a trap I don't need to fall into. 

I suppose there is tipping point between the dramatic rise and fall where I am grateful for all that is going well, I am coping moderately fine with the things that are difficult, and I know and accept that things could be a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, and probably will be some of both before my turn on the carousel pony is over.  I know there are a lot of things I'm able to cope with better than I used to.  There are a lot of things I've given up trying to control and other things I'm still working on letting go of.  There are also, truthfully, many things I know that could stand to be improved.  Some things I'll very likely gain ground on and there others I quite possibly never will address.

I'm challenged at home and at work right now.  Not with the husband, thankfully.  SG is relatively unperturbable, he is fun to hang around with and the needle is staying fairly reliably in the "awesome" segment of the dial.  Thank God for that. 

I've been very fortunate, particularly in the last few years, to report up a chain of command of people I respect and who have been more than willing to mentor me.   Like a lot of people, I've worked for a wide range of managers, some great, some horrid.  I really appreciate a manager who doesn't beat around the bush, who lets you know what you did wrong and then doesn't remind you about it forever, who lets you know when you've done well, and who gives you good advice with the sincere intention of helping you to be successful in your environment.  I have rarely worked in a place where I had the level of trust in my manager and my manager's manager that I do currently.  I'm pretty damn grateful for my job and my company.  It helps that I really love what I do.  I have mentors and I have some great role models.

But like every work environment, things can change.  No, let me rephrase that:  things WILL change.  No company or culture or group or individual can stay the same forever.  As we move forward with some big projects looking to grow our business, I know my little corner of the world will change.  I need to seek the opportunities that change provides, accept that change will come, and find ways to support my people in ways that help them succeed in an environment that requires flexibility and ingenuity.  We need to continually find ways to do things better, and sometimes that means blowing it up and turning it into something completely new.  I don't think I can be a good manager if I don't find ways to keep the moments of "OHMAHGAH I'M SO STRESSED OUT TODAY" from taking over my frontal lobe.  You can't have much order and serenity inside your organization if your leadership is falling apart.

It feels like a big responsibility.

On the home front, I've made a friend recently who is a wonderful, if somewhat exhausting person.  She's boarding her horse with me, and because of her circumstances, we are bartering some property improvements and chores for the feeding and provisioning for her lovely little horse. 

Did I mention that my ex and I rarely had people over?

Well, we pretty much didn't.  Like EVER.  And of course I've mentioned that since we split up I opened my doors a little more often, but to those of you who truly enjoy entertaining I probably still look like a complete hermit.  Then I met SG, and we've had friends and family over more often than I've been used to, but I like it. And it wasn't overwhelming, but it also wasn't every day.  Now I've got someone who is coming by almost every day and interacting with us, and I'm not saying its bad, because its not -- its just a big change for someone who is used to being able to walk around half undressed most of the time.  And there are many positives -- my daughter is getting riding lessons from someone who is much more patient with her than I.  Things I need to get to and don't ever have the time to do are starting to get done.  My old horse is getting some exercise.   I've made a new friend who is kind and funny and unique.

I can wish for my little pond to always look the same, every day, but the wise little voice inside me says that stagnant water pretty quickly fills up with green slimy things.  You need a system of flush and intake to keep the water clear and potable.  So it is with my house and my life.  Change is inevitable, and change is not necessarily bad. 

Still, about once a day, I find myself starting to pace and talk to myself.  Less frequently, thankfully, I get the sensation that I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to step off, and I don't know the first thing about how to put on a parachute so I have no idea if I'm going to hit the air floating or go splat!

Inner peace, baby.  I"m working on that.

 

He's more than he seems

Picking up Race Car man after school a few weeks ago, I chit-chatted with his teacher.  I really adore her, she is so invested in her students and in helping them learn the skills they need to succeed.  I had to disagree with her on one point though:  my son is not "finally reading at grade level."

I suppose technically it is considered to be at grade level if you can correctly read a story and answer questions about what the characters felt and thought.   Kids with autism, though, have difficulty with the structure of interpersonal relationships and understanding the thinking of neurotypicals.  It is human nature to assume everyone thinks the same way you do, and my son is no exception.

No one seems to get it:  My son is NOT a  first grader.  My son is a 40 year old nuclear scientist in a miniature body.

On a recent trip to Idaho for Bill & Angie's wedding, he stole my phone and wandered around taking pictures.  I found him taking pictures of his Skylanders, and he clearly was fascinated by the play of light and color and the reflection of the translucent green plastic under the toys, because look at these:

He's got such a unique way of looking at things -- even toys.

He surprised me a few weeks ago.  My daughter loves to dress up.  The hardest thing about shopping with her is that she likes every pretty dress that she tries on and wants me to buy them all.  That and she always wants the sparkly ruffly dress that's really the most suited for a Christmas Recital even when the occasion we are dressing for is Easter or an outdoor summer wedding. 

I took both the kids shopping for new outfits to wear to my new nephew-in-law's wedding Memorial Day weekend.  Amazon Girl's choice of dress was spectacular, but I really did expect resistance from Race Car Man when it came to picking out something appropriate. 

We walked into the boy's section at Penney's and I started to steer him toward the khaki shorts and polo shirts.   He caught sight of the boys' suit section and it was GAME OVER.  From the minute he saw the shirt/vest/tie/pant combination, he was interested in nothing else.  Wouldn't try on anything else.  It was that or nothing.  So of course, we got him the suit. 

Tell me he doesn't look a little bit like a miniature Darren from Bewitched:

Striking a pose with big sister:

                    No outfit is complete without your Batman lunchbox.

And my personal favorite:  PHOTOBOMB!!

 

 

 I suppose there is some level of competitiveness even within special needs parenting.  Of course I want my son to read at grade level.  Everything that he accomplishes that helps him navigate his way through life is wonderful.  But I guess there's a part of me that wants everyone to see the things I see in my children, to look at them through the incredibly loving and terribly biased eyes of a mom.  Yes, he can read "Dick and Jane" at grade level.  But he reads the instructions for my lawn mower like a SUPERSTAR.

Lessons Learned Chapter 28

Just because your husband leaves you a voicemail that says he's heading home shortly and by your most generous calculations he will be home by dinner doesn't mean he actually will be. 

If no one else will eat the tomato pie, you probably shouldn't either.  You might end having it come out of you in the form of hot lava for the better part of the following morning.

Just because you've had the same crappy Blackberry with the cracked clitoris (isn't that what those buttons are, really?) for three years don't assume you're going to be on the replacement schedule sooner than the guy who's only had his for a year plus two months. You haven't been cultivating the IT department like you should.

Don't wait until the betta fish starts swimming sideways to clean the tank.  It is much less traumatic to keep the current fish alive than to live through the waterworks and wailing when you have to replace her.  Apparently it is possible to LOVE a fish.

Even though your enormous rottie mix is completely gentle when playing with your Chihuahua does not mean he will extend the same courtesy to your cat.  Or your chickens.

Never ask your kids what they want for dinner.  Tell them what they're having and then become selectively deaf.  Its louder but it saves you an hour when you don't have to cook three separate meals.

If your dog asks you to go outside at three o'clock in the morning, let him.  Opening the door to let him out and then back in again takes less time than cleaning up the massive pile of vomit he'll leave next to your new pair of shoes.

Your husband has learned nothing from the last thirty times he left the water on and flooded the dry pen. 

You - and your horse - are capable of so much more than you know.  If you're willing to give the relationship time and trust the guidance of a good trainer, you'll find out just what.

Flooded pasture aside, you know the relationship is forever when you'll let your husband have a look at the ingrown hair...well...THERE.  And he actually will without complaining.

Go ahead and drink the really expensive bottle of wine for no particular reason at all.  It will taste better and be more memorable than you think.

Life can be really awesome.  If you let it.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't even know where to start

I've been sick since a week ago Saturday and there seems to be no end in sight.  I don't know if its a cold or flu virus or just allergies working overtime and making my lungs and throat all nasty.  I think I have to go to the doctor if it continues much longer.  In the meantime, I've got a voice that's a combination between Brenda Vaccaro and a three-pack-a-day smoker.

Nothing terribly remarkable happened through most of last week, but then we got to Thursday and it got all lively around here.

The fun began when my adorable, darling son got a two day suspension from school for hitting someone.

Race Car man is the wunderkind of deciding what he wants to have happen and then doing whatever is necessary to achieve his goals.  He had a substitute teacher on Thursday, and although this sub has had reasonable success with him in the past, he decided he'd rather be at Grandma's playing with toys.  He started acting out in class, and whenever he was redirected he just upped the ante, to the point he had to be removed from the classroom.  After ending up in the office hecontinued to escalate.  The school is well aware that his preferred consequence is to get to go home from school, so we work together on keeping that as the DFL* option. When he realized he wasn't achieving his goal, he got physical.  Not only did he hit an adult, he stomped on her foot for good measure. 

Wish granted.  Off to Grandma's you go, son, do not pass GO and do not collect your two hundred bucks.

Its not exactly fun being the parent of the kid who's bullying and hitting others. 

I make a point of apologizing and I make sure I let the school know that I support their efforts to maintain order and discipline and to keep students and teachers safe.  I communicate to them the consequences I will be applying so that they know the behavior will be addressed.  I find that its important to reassure teachers and administrators that this child has active and involved parents and that this isn't a problem they are flying solo in dealing with.

And then I knuckle down and institute consequences for my kid.  Which means NO Skylanders, NO computer, NO TV.    He has to earn them back by making good choices with his behavior at home and at school. 

His mind doesn't yet process human interactions in a way that helps him understand that hitting is wrong.  He can grasp that its something we don't want him to do, but in his brain its only because we want to prevent him from getting his way.

It has been hard to watch his hysterical sobbing over losing his Skylanders.  But I need him to learn this lesson.  He can't be a successful adult if he just hauls off and clocks people who piss him off at work.  I want him to know that we all feel like doing that at times, but that just because we are frustrated doesn't mean we can hurt others. 

So Thursday was a definite low, with my Rocky wannabe and the associated not-fun of imposing consequences.  I tell you, though, sometimes its like the universe wants to make it up to you when things suck, because Saturday and Sunday were amazeballs.

Michelle and I went to a clinic with a new trainer we had heard about, and holy crap, you guys, what a great day it was.  I've found as I get older that I don't have as much confidence on my horse as when I was young.  I'm less inclined to push him hard and I'm far more cognizant of not wanting to get hurt.  If you want to improve at anything, though, you need to push past your comfort zone.  The right trainer is the one who wants to see you and your horse succeed, who can judge your skill level accurately and assess your deficiencies, then find ways to teach you what you need to know and ways to get you to do the things you're capable of but scared to try.  Tim is all of that and more, and it was such a blast to learn from him.  Totally worth the money and he probably should be charging more.  I will be going back to learn more as soon as possible.

Sunday, though, was the best day EVER.  Why, you ask?

MY HUSBAND CAME HOME.

If you hate the mushy junk, TURN YOUR EYES AWAY.  My house is full of the mushy junk.  The hugging, the hand holding, the smooching, the can't-get-enough-of-you, you smell just like I remembered and I thought I'd die missing the feel of your hand on the small of my back just like you're doing right now.  

The dogs are happy, the kids are happy, and I am over the moon.

He's home.

 

 

*dead fucking last