Barnmaven

What do you mean its halfway through June already?

Aside from being a great source of career satisfaction, my recent changes in job duties have also played whack-a-mole with my ability to meet deadlines and get things accomplished.  My normal duties didn't go away with the move to our business partner's offices, and so I where I used to work in shorter, intense spurts, now I find I have to increase the intensity and the amount of time involved in order to have any hope of getting even the minimum done needed to keep the hungry hordes at bay.  

By the time I get home I'm mentally wiped out, but with SG working the outage, I'm still flying a bit solo when it comes to laundry and kids and animals.  He's a huge help when he gets home in the mornings, covering those last details of getting the kids ready so I can leave for work.  Evenings when the kids are home are a chaotic, lovely jumble of feeding humans and animals and trying to skim at least the worst of the days' messes before I collapse in my chair with an ice pack on my sciatica.

Despite feeling tired and sore, I'm making more effort this year to ride as often as possible and engage in more social activities.  Last year when SG was out of town I had a tendency to hide when i was down or lonely (which was a lot) and I think that was not so good for me.  This year I'm committed to every other week dressage lessons and riding every single weekend.  I have plans for going out with friends and with SG (once the outage is over.  TWO MORE DAYS!)  Last weekend was the only weekend in months I didn't ride, but it was my 30th high school class reunion, so I have a good excuse.  I was too busy having fun and waxing nostalgic over days gone by, and after being out of town since last week I'm now paying the price at home and at work.  Not to mention I've been trying to get the pool put up for the last three weeks - not by actually doing anything but by continually reminding SG to call his nephew to help me do it.  Monday night I finally bit the bullet and started working on it.  Damn if I didn't get it half done when the skies started thundering and flashing lightning before dumping rain all over me.  Its rained every day since.  

The kids are on their second week of summer break.  I didn't get much scheduled for the month of June, but come July and August they've both got camps to go to.  Amazon Girl will take swimming lessons again and go to a horse camp and then two art camps and a music camp.   It was harder to find camps for Race Car Man.  There are some science camps locally but none with the appropriate staffing or resources to deal with his complex behaviors.  I was torn about signing him up for camps through a local disability resource center, but when I reviewed the curriculum I felt like it would be a lot more enriching for him than just having him at home or at daycare.  I've managed to set up a schedule for him that inludes several weeks at the ARC camp, a vacation bible school, some time at daycare and some time off with me and time at his dad's.  Overall I'm satisfied that both kids will have an enjoyable summer.  I'm avoiding adding up all the various costs for the camps because I'm pretty sure I don't want to look at the total.  Oh, its worth every penny of it.  But its a lot of pennies.  

The last week of school for the kids was a bit poignant for me.  The moving up ceremony for the fifth graders was on Wednesday.  I managed not to cry when Amazon Girl was handed her certificate for a Presidential Award for Academic Excellence.  Thursday was field day, and I spent the morning with Race Car Man.  He wanted very much to do two activities - the rope climb and the sack race.  He was not at all interested in trying anything else.  We talked about it for a little bit and eventually he agreed to try a few things.  When the 11:30 bell rang for his group to go back to class he'd thrown the football through a hoop, tried the frisbee toss, rolled a ball at a stack of cans and chucked a nerf ball as far as he could get it.  I was proud of him not only for making the effort to try new things as I was for his ability to change his mind about doing so.  It was a little bittersweet;  spending time with him in the comapny of other boys his age reminds me in a way I'm not used to just how different he is from neurotypicals.  At the same time, I recognize that those differences aren't necessarily bad.  Yes, he has what might be considered deficits, but he has an amazing number of positive attributes as well.  

Next fall Amazon Girl starts middle school.  It will be a big change for her -- for both of them, really.  Race Car Man has had his sister to lean on ever since kindergarten.  They ride the bus together, go to aftercare together.  In some respects its probably been as hard for them as anything.  They're typical siblings in the way that they both fight with and love one another fiercely.  Next year Race Car Man will have to learn to navigate alone, and as much as I think it will be a challenge I also think it will be really good for him.  Amazon Girl will finally have the chance to concentrate on herself and not need to worry about trying to keep her brother out of trouble.  It will be a most decidedly interesting year, for all of us.

I have a feeling it will be here sooner than I'm prepared for.

Its better if you do it quickly

I've added another guest to the pasture this week, a mare that was injured after getting her hind legs torn up in barbed wire.  The people who were boarding her didn't even notice she was injured for several days, so she was in some need of doctoring and pain management.  Fortunately her injuries are not going to leave her permanently lame.

Part of doctoring her for the moment involves hosing down her legs until the scabs are softened and then scrubbing them off with a bristle brush so that I can get antibacterial agents into the wounds themselves.  The first time we treated her there were some pretty big scabs that had to come off.  Just scrubbing wasn't working and I had to grab them and pull them off.

Its one thing to grab your kid and pull off a bandage or a scab. You know they're going to yelp, you know its going to hurt, but you have to do it fast and all at once.  And your child is (hopefully) smaller than you are and so you're not taking your life in your hands.

Its another thing entirely to put yourself within striking distance of a 1200 pound animal and do something that you absolutely know is going to hurt like hell. 

I've been fortunate in my years not to have many injured horses that needed doctoring.  Only twice have I ever dealt with having a horse stitched up.  Both of those times I just held my horse and let the vet do their job, then made sure I kept the stitches clean until they could come out.  My friend Michelle, on the other hand, has dealt with a sizable herd for a long time and is no stranger to doctoring horses.  She says that its the uncanniest thing sometimes, even horses you don't think will be able to tolerate what you need to do will actually be very quiet and patient when you have to do something that hurts.  Perhaps they realize that they need your help to get better, and so they stand still and let you work.

For whatever reason, this lovely mare allowed me to grab hold and yank some fairly large scabs from her hocks without kicking, rearing, biting or bolting.  She was an angel, and has been every day since as I clean and reopen her scabs and treat them with Betadine and a gel spray. 

I guess she knows the truth - the only way to take off a scab is to stand still and yank it all right at once. 

When SG and I got married its not like I was unaware of the fact that his current career means he is gone for weeks at a time.  I'm still getting used to it, though.  I liked having him home, having two of us doing the heavy lifting together.  Enjoying each other's company, having him there to come home to at night, to kiss goodbye in the mornings.  With him gone life seems emptier, less meaningful.  Far too stressful.  The part of me that is logical acknowledges fully the need for paying work in a down economy.  My inner drama queen, however, is less inclined to care about logic.  She's far more concerned with her creature comforts.  She wants her man home, and NOW.  She puts up such a fuss and my inner Spockette has found herself drowned out by the brouhaha.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a murmur of further jobs on the road.  Maybe months worth.  My inner drama queen blew up like a unicorn full of glitter with a hand grenade shoved up its ass. Then she stuck her fingers in her ears.

Its been a merry spectacle, let me tell you.  Tears, emotionally charged text messages.  Hangups.  And really, nothing had been decided yet. 

Fortunately, my inner Spockette and I tag-teamed her, stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth, duct taped it in place and shuttled her off to the back of the attic for the time being.   When SG called, inner Spockette and I had it all under control.  He ripped the scab off - he will be going directly to North Carolina from Arizon with no time for a visit home, and he will be gone until the end of May.  Inner drama queen made a barely recognizable muffled yelp and hasn't been heard from for a couple of days.

If you try to pull the scab off a little bit at a time it takes forever.  Every little tug hurts just as bad as the one before it and the one after it.  All you have accomplished in the end is to make your pain last longer.    Even horses know this.  Hopefully my inner drama queen has figured it out as well.

 

On love, blended families, and housework

 

Last year SG and I were a happily dating, newly-in-love couple.  Valentine's day, on my night without the kids, was so romantic.  Being an old-fashioned kind of fellow, he thoughtfully brought me a lovely box of candy and a bouquet of flowers.  So sweet.  As I recall, I gave him a book on some kind of tantric-sex thing.  (And now you know why he loves me so much).  We had a lovely dinner at a local Italian restaurant and listened to a local couple playing guitar and singing ballads.  We played footsie at the table and we stayed up way too late doing things I can't mention in public. 

A year later, we're married, parenting a blended family, working the kinks out of who's responsible for what, and marveling at how, amidst the chaos, we manage to find time for lovely kisses and murmered promises for later after the kids go to bed.  And we do.  Find time.

He's home right now, getting ready to leave for six weeks on a road job, and then starting a new job in town after that. 

We have discussions about the housework and what's a fair split of chores.  I feel that since I'm the one working full time, while for now he's home, 90% of it ought to belong to him.  He doesn't disagree, but frankly he's not the most efficient housekeeper I've ever had.  And reluctant to boot.  I don't blame him, if I have the time to do other things, the last thing I really want to do is clean toilets and sweep floors and fold laundry.  I think we both have frequent wet dreams about when he's home from this next job and working full time and we win the lottery, having enough money to maybe pay someone else to come in and do the cleaning. 

Until then though, SG is the one who's supposed to be doing the bulk of it, but frankly not getting much of it done.  Last Monday I thought maybe making him a list of the top priority items would help. Six days later, Sunday, and about half the list is still waiting to be tackled.  I did not mention, and likely do not need to at this point, that efficiency is not SG's greatest strength.  There's always a Mises Institute lecture to be listened to, people on Facebook need to be argued with, and Words with Friends (and him being beaten mercilessly by my sister) beckons alluringly.

I went off to go on a lovely trail ride late Sunday morning and then ended up doing errands and not getting home til dinnertime.  I hoped - truly hoped - that I'd come home to dinner and a clean house.

Not so.

My house was a disaster, SG was completely frazzled and chaos abounded.  "I don't know how you manage it when I'm not here," he says, "every five minutes there's an interruption.  I just lost a whole hour!  Race Car man wanted a sandwich so I was in the middle of making that and then Amazon Girl sliced her finger open and there was blood everywhere and while I was in the middle of taking care of that T-Bone managed to steal the half-done sandwich off the counter and then Race Car Man threw a fit about not getting his food in a timely manner!  I'm exhausted!"

Heh.  Welcome to my world, babycakes.  I tried not to be too obvious about the laughing.

Its not too often he gets left with them for the entire day.  And to be truthful, not every single day is THAT chaotic.  But those days are far too frequent in my house, and when we have them, it IS exhausting.  Poor guy, after that he ended up staying up almost all night working on his paperwork for the road job that was due first thing Monday morning.  I got up at 3 am and he was still struggling getting the scanner to put the 60 pages of required information into one document instead of 60 documents.  (As an aside, if you want to work in the nuke industry, be prepared to provide exhausting details about every place you have worked in the last ten years including exact dates and addresses, every place you've lived for more than three months in the last ten years, your shoe size, IQ, everyone you've ever slept with or dated or even looked at sideways on the bus  and whether or not you hate your mother. Those people give a whole new meaning to crawling up your ass with a microscope.  One thing's for certain, I don't believe I'd ever be able to get security clearance at the plants he works at.) 

I felt bad for him, so I got up and helped him get everything scanned and sorted and emailed out.  We crawled back into bed at 4:30 AM, me to get one more half hour of sleep and him to get two hours before he needed to get the kids ready for school. 

There's just no time, sometimes.  And now its Valentine's Day, and its my week with the kids, so there will be no romantic date at a nice italian restaurant with live music.  There will likely be food on the walls, children being loud, dogs barking at everything that walks by the window, cats knocking things off counters.  But there will also be stolen kisses and Valentine's Day flowers and footsies under the dinner table and an early bedtime for the youngsters so us old folks can have some adult time. 

This year is certainly a far cry from last year.  But honestly?  I think its way better.

 

 

On the calendar

I am going to the dentist on Friday.

I have not been to the dentist in over two years.

I hate the dentist. I hate needles.  I hate drills.  I hate the way my gums feel after the hygenist has brutalized them with her instruments of torture.  Okay, maybe that's not really fair-- not all hygenists do that to me.  But I have had a couple in my lifetime who really made it hurt, and one in particular who appeared to take so much joy in making my mouth hurt that I had to go home and take a painkiller to ease the throbbing in my gums.

Even worse than this, though, is my well-documented phobia about needles.  SG has to have a few tests done because, well, lets just say laughing so hard during the scene in The Big Lebowski where Walter tosses Donny's ashes from the coffee can and the wind picks them up and blows them all over The Dude's beard and sunglasses that you actually pass out momentarily from the laughing is a sign that something's not working quite right.  And so he has to have this test where they take blood from a vein and also blood from an artery, and I'm literally trying not to pass out as I TYPE THESE WORDS.  He was describing it to me in great length until he noticed the faint sheen of sweat on my upper lip and mercifully stopped talking.

So.

I. Hate. The. Dentist.

When I was young it was obvious from an early point that my mouth was overcrowded and I would need to have braces eventually.  The first time I had to have a tooth pulled to make room for other teeth I must have been 7 or 8, I don't remember precisely.  I DO remember the more pertinent details, such as the valium or whatever the dentist's office made my mother wake me up at half-after-dark-thirty to give me so that I would be knocked out and compliant.  And the fact that when you're me, sometimes you live in opposite-land so that things do the backwards to you of what they're supposed to, and so no, I was not knocked out.  I was ramped up like a rabid squirrel on meth.  I remember the dental assistant yelling at me, "You're supposed to be ASLEEP!"  Like, hello, that's MY fault somehow.  Get better drugs, bitch. 

Then there was the time that I had to have a cavity filled, and I was so anxious that the adrenaline in my bloodstream appears to have been chewing its way through the Novacaine like a honey badger.  They upped the saturation level on the gas to compensate, and suddenly not only did my damn mouth hurt, but the tiles in the ceiling turned sideways and then started to swirl around like they had melted and were being stirred by an invisible spoon.  Yeah, that was delightful.

Then there was the suffering through of the braces for two plus years, not the kind that go on the front of your teeth, no, but the BANDS and the tightening of the wires and the headgear that made my mouth hurt so bad I couldn't sleep and the retainer that I eventually just "forgot" to wear so that my teeth moved back a little bit.  And to think that when I was in the third grade I thought having braces would be SO COOL because you know, all the bigger kids were doing it.

Then there was the gentle dentist in the U-District who had a soft touch, but who also wasn't thorough and who gave me a filling when the tooth was actually cracked and needed a crown and a root canal, and so as soon as I was back at work and the numbness wore off I was in such extreme agony I wanted to cut my own head off.

Finally, though, I found this red-headed Lithuanian dentist downtown, and he turned out to be the most kind, gentle, thorough dentist I had ever found.  I saw him exclusively for the next 9 or 10 years.  I went to my appointments every six months.  I flossed.  I was a dental hygenists DREAM patient. 

And then I moved.  To New Jersey.  YOU try finding a dentist in New Jersey.   In 10 years I went to approximately five different dentists and I hated every single one of them. 

And then I moved again.

And I found another dentist who was OK, but not...just not THE dentist.  You know?  And because I hate the dentist anyway, my motivation to go see one has sagged below the waterline.

I brush, with a very expensive toothbrush that is supposed to destroy plaque, clean between teeth and make your gums as tight and strong as the buttocks of a professional soccer player.  I floss, most of the time, anyway.  But I still have the same bad enamel I was born with and I still grit my teeth when brushing my hair or clipping my nails or having a generally stressful day.  I grit my teeth so bad I don't have a single molar that isn't crowned because of me cracking it with my stress.

And now I have a tooth that's sensitive.  It already has a filling in it, and I've been looking and looking to see where there is evidence of a cavity and I cannot find it, so I can only guess that maybe the existing filling is getting old and needs replacing.  And I cannot, with the cold weather, stand having a tooth this sensitive, and I KNOW I need to get my teeth cleaned and x-rayed, and so I am going to the dentist on Friday.  I'm just scared (irrationally) that somehow I'll come home without any teeth.

My nightmare is that the dentist will look at my mouth and solemnly inform me "I'm so sorry, but they all need work.  This is going to take a while," as he holds up the biggest, longest needle I've ever seen in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other.

Ugh.

 

Earplugs. Or something.

Honestly, I don't know why we don't see more stories in the newspaper about parents with oppositional children driving their cars straight into brick walls or off of the sides of overpasses.   And I confess to having a burning curiosity as to how so many oppositional children manage to survive to adulthood.  And even as I write this I have to kind of laugh, because after this long, my coping skills have developed to levels I never imagined were possible.

My son, God bless him, is simultaneously one of the most charming and one of the most maddening people I know.  He has been at his new school for just over a month now.  He knows the name of everyone in the school.  I pick him up and no matter which crossing guard is waving us across the pavement to safety, he knows her name.  He smiles at her, waves at her, enthusiastically shouting, "Hi Mrs. So-and-So!"  And they all smile right back at him.  "Hi Mr. Race Car Man!"  They love him.  And he IS lovable.  So charming.  About two days after his birthday party he came up to me in the kitchen and wrapped his arms around me. 

 "Mommy, when is your birthday?" 

"Just after Christmas.  Why?"

"Because you made such a special birthday for me. I want to make you the bestest car in the world for your birthday."

Melting.  I'm melting.  He is so adorable when he does this.

He remembers people's names, he remembers the smallest details about everything.  His brain is fascinating to me, and I know I've only scratched the surface of what he's capable of understanding and doing.  As a kindergartner, he rarely participated in learning activities in his classroom.  He was mostly curled up in a ball on the floor, not coping.  Yet he passed the end of year testing with perfect scores.  Of course, they only test them to their grade level, so that's not so amazing.  What was amazing was that his aftercare provider, on days when he'd been naughty, made him sit in her office and do math and reading books during recess.  "Just for fun" (or so she says), she gave him the first and second grade math tests.  He scored perfectly on first grade math and about 80% on second grade math.  As a kindergartner with little to no math instruction whatsoever.   I tell people that this is the child who will eventually be building nuclear bombs in the basement if his abilities are not channeled very carefully.   SG wanted to get him a chemistry set for his birthday.  My response was "Please, no, I like my house without the burn marks on the walls and carpet."

 And then there are the days (or the segments of a day) when things just get borked. 

Now that my daughter is doing "real" homework, I've become weary of being her walking thesaurus.  We went to the bookstore yesterday afternoon and she is now the proud owner of a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a children's encyclopedia.  I showed her how to look up words in the index of the thesaurus to find what pages to look on, and she was off and running.  But bookstores - places I used to love, places I used to be able to hang out in for hours - are my nemesis anymore.  If only they would just carry BOOKS.  But no, they've got toys now, almost as many toys as they have books, it seems.  Brilliant marketing tool, people.  Oh, and BITE ME.   While I searched for materials for his sister, the little man played at the train table in the kids section and then with the muppet puppets in the puppet theatre (it sells for just $89.99, folks, and if you buy it they throw in a free puppet.  Neato Frito. )  But when it was time to check out, he was standing there holding a box of train pieces. 

"Mommy, can I have this?"

"Not today buddy.  We're not here to pick out toys."

And let the screaming begin.

Would it hurt to buy my kids a toy sometimes?  Maybe not.  But unfortunately we did that a few years ago and somehow it took hold in their minds that they should get a new toy everytime they go to the store.

"But I was GOOD!"  he shouts at me.

"Yes, you were good.  That doesn't mean I'm buying you a toy."

I finish paying, I ask the kids to get in the car.

"NO!!!! I want this train!!!"

I'm not going to let him stand there disrupting anyone else's day one second longer than I have to.

"OK, here's the deal.  You have to three to put the box down and walk to the car.  If you don't, if I have to take the box from you and carry you to the car, you will lose the chance to watch television after homework.  No Mighty Machines."

"NO!!!!!"  he screams.

I count.  He does not comply. 

I very calmly take the box from him, calmly pick up his taut, struggling body, and carry him to the car, put him in his booster, buckle him in.  He is screaming at the top of his lungs.

I get in the car, put on my seatbelt, turn on the CD player.  "Daydreamer" by Adele.  Though I can barely hear the song through his shrieking, I focus very intently on the words so that I will think about something other than his piercing yells.

He kicks my seat and screams almost all the way home.  I manage not to drive off the overpass, slam into a concrete divider or drive us off a cliff.  I manage not to scream back at him.  But finally I cannot take anymore of the screaming.  I don't want to engage and I don't want to be upset, I am working so very hard at maintaining my composure.

"Buddy, you need to stop the screaming.  If you can't stop screaming you're going to have to stay in your room when we get home."

He yells at me for a few minutes more, but then finally his shrieks turn to quiet sobs.  Eventually he stops.  He picks up the encyclopedia I bought for his sister and starts to read it.

Some might classify this as a colossal failure.  I think it was a screaming success. 

Sorry for the pun.  I couldn't help myself.

My son lost his cool, but I didn't lose mine.  Where in the past he might have screamed for an hour or longer, he screamed for about twenty minutes.  See, in special-needs-land, we measure success incrementally. 

Even so, there are still times when driving off the overpass seems like a reasonable alternative.

 

Awash in the wreckage

Four children are busying themselves as I type this.  Two are helping each other make a remote-controlled Dodge Charger leave marks in my sideboards and other people's shins.  One is diligently drawing.  One is outside making fairy wands out of sticks and leaves and string.  Its remarkably quiet -- FOR NOW.

Did you know that any sound about 85 decibels can cause hearing loss?  85 decibels is the equivalent of heavy city traffic.  A lawnmower or snow-blower is about 90 decibels.  A dog barking is about 75.  Three bipolar children failing to modulate their tone of voice while arguing over whose turn it is on the trampoline?  I'm gonna guess about 105. 

This week SG's folks are out of town and they usually babysit his younger sisters' kids during the week.  He was tagged with sitter duty.  We've had my two here all day yesterday and today as well.  Its gone remarkably smoothly, considering.  One of the girls also has multiple diagnoses, in fact she is just moving on to middle school from the Extended Resource classroom my son will enter in the fall.  She's a very bright girl and quite engaging.  She's much like my son in that during conversations with her you frequently get the feeling you're talking to a very small adult. 

A few years ago, having four children with this level of energy and dysfunction would have been unimaginable.  I guess my skills for managing the chaos have improved, as has my ability to choose when to intervene and when to let things take their natural course.  I've gained a much better sense of what really constitutes a disaster and what things I can simply smile quietly at while they work themselves out.

What I've noticed most about the three bipolars (one of them aspie) is how very BOSSY they all are.   The one kid in the middle who is neurotypical is fortunately a very low key kid, and doesn't get her feathers ruffled by the non-typicals.  Here is a kid who is growing compassion and empathy every single day.  Here is a kid who has little control over the impact her sibling is having and yet who is handling with a remarkable steadiness and calm.  It can't be easy - in fact I suspect it is harder when one child has issues and the other does not, if only because as much as these kids of mine fight, they GET each other.  Even so, this girl seems to have a unique understanding and empathy for her sibling and for my children as well.  She gravitates from one brouhaha to the next, distracting a crying child or engaging a yelling child to come play a game with her.  She has a remarkable skill for someone so very young.

When I grow up I want to be just like her, navigating the spilled lego boxes and the tantrums with equanimity and grace.

In other news, did you know how fast you go through a loaf of bread making lunches for four children?  Holy crap.

My own worst enemy

Last summer I found this great book, How to Be an Adult in Relationships - Five Keys to Mindful Loving.  Ironically, I bought it for myself well after my ex and I split.  I found it on a shelf at the Maryhill Winery tasting room/retail shop.  (I'm not sure why they carry self-help books in a winery retail shop - after all, the last thing we really want people coming to a winery doing is thinking about self help.  God forbid they should then move on to the 12 steps and stop buying our product.  Annnnnnd I digress.  Shocked, aren't you?)

So I bought this great book and I started reading it.  The author, David Richo writes about these amazing and enlightening things people really need to receive from those they love, which are also the same thing a mature person is able to give in a relationship.  Of course, I was thinking of what I was learning in terms of "I'll use this to improve my friendships and family relationships" and, "Someday, if I ever relish the thought of being with someone again, this will be useful."  But now the rubber has met the road, and I'm reminded in some rather humbling ways that my work is FAR from over.

After my ex and I parted ways, I did a lot of work in therapy, I did a lot of twelve step stuff.  And I know I made a lot of progress.  But I am arrogant in that I assume just because I'm doing better means I won't have the same problems again in the future.

There are days when I do well. Days when I do exceptionally well.  Days when I know that the relationship I am in isn't the end-all, be-all of my existence.  I had a life before S, I will have a life after S (in the sad event that someday down the roads things go south), and even while we are in each other's lives, he and I each have things that are our own, lives that we live independent of each other.  That's how its supposed to be. 

I'm worlds better at the "fixing" part of my codependency issues.  Frankly, I don't see anything about S that needs fixing.  He's pretty awesome just the way he is.  I wouldn't change a thing (unless its the occasional leaving up of the toilet seat - but mostly he's very orderly in that regard).  Where I struggle is in my need to control things or to be constantly reassured in order to push away the fear of being left. 

Most of the time I am OK.  But there are days that come along when I start to feel lost, start to feel needy.  And I forget that it is not someone else's responsibility to make me feel OK.  I forget that being OK is MY job.  Perhaps part of is being selfish, self-absorbed.  Part of it is forgetting who I am, forgetting that another person doesn't "complete" me, another person is...another person.  Someone I like being around, someone who I feel happy just thinking about, someone in whose presence I am filled with a sense of peace and love and safety.  I forget those things in the absence of them, if time or circumstance prevents togetherness...and I succumb to fear. 

Not always, no.  But sometimes. Richo calls it the "F.A.C.E. of Ego" -- Fear, Attachment, Control, Entitlement.  We become afraid, become bound in the shallow pool of entitlement and begin trying to control the other person in order to feel relief from the pain these characteristics embody.  When this happens to me, I begin to feel insecure.  I act as if another person's actions or words can make these feelings dissipate, I become anxious for them to do the things I want them to in order to feel better, and ultimately my words and actions become a wedge between us. 

In a healthy relationship, I'm not possessive of my partner.  I know he is not an extension of me, and I know that the only way to be nurtured and cared for is to provide those things for myself.   I don't need to manipulate or push him into trying to make me feel OK, because I already am OK.

And so I work to relearn, reteach myself those things which I know but somehow continue to forget.

Confidence in ourselves grows when we feel the immense joy of
fulfilling our capacity to love. In addition, we can be comfortable in the real
world that exists beyond our wishes and manipulations. We can be cocreators
of relationships in which love is more and more cheerfully and
generously given and received. We can love the moment, all we have, and
love in the moment with all we are.

-David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships

Its all party of my journey, I suppose.  I'm blessed right now, by my work, my relationships, my family, my life.  I'm challenged too, by my children, my circumstances, by my self.  And that's perfectly OK. 

When you simply remain faithful to your own reality, you evoke the
creative forces in yourself that lie just below the permeable surfaces of your
psyche. There you find abundant possibility.

- David Richo, Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side

 

S:  Thank you for patiently accepting my limitations and supporting me gently and lovingly in the face of them.

McTeacher's Night

My kids' school had a fundraising event tonight at the Mecca of McNuggets. 

The Golden Arches are a favorite of millions of children the world over, mine included.  Going there has become more troublesome of late, primarily due to my son's tendency to obsess over the Toy du'Jour being offered in the Happy Meal.

He memorizes the toys on the readerboard.  When he's earned enough stickers at school to get the much-anticipated Happy Meal, he will immediately begin considering which of the current toys he wants the most, the top selection being chosen on a rating scale of physical attractiveness, its "coolness" factor and whether or not he's already got it.  Getting a not wanted toy is second in disappointment only to getting a toy that he already possesses.  If the toy that is received is not the toy that he has been building himself up to anticipate, a meltdown generally ensues.

He's not just being a rotten child. He's not just being a "typical" six year old who is disappointed because he didn't get what he wanted.  The meltdown stems from his complete inability to accept an outcome that is outside of his expectations.  Inflexibility is one of the many symptoms of his issues.   He doesn't want to be this way;  rather, he can't help it.

But, tonight was McTeacher's night, and both the kids really wanted to go see their friends and teachers.  We wanted to support our school.  So we went.

The place was packed to the gills with elementary students and teachers, and even the vice-principal and the librarian.  The kids happily greeted their educators and their friends. 

Unfortunately, it was also LOUD and CHAOTIC.  And then...the worst. C wanted the RED TONKA TRUCK.  The one with THE HOOK.  Of course, they didn't happen to have that one available.  And they looked, trust me, they looked.  Nobody wants to disappoint the cute little kindergartner who is crying his eyes out because he wants a certain truck.  But they didn't have it.

How fast can you get out of a crowded McDonald's with your kindergartner who is melting down?  Who is the ONLY CHILD IN THE RESTAURANT who is crying?  Every other child there was happy.  Of course they were happy.  Why not?  They were enjoying the great treat of having their McNuggets and sodas with their friends, teachers and parents.  As far as they were all concerned, life was Grand.  Wonderful.  With the sole exception of my son.

I was as patient as I could be.  I got our meals together.  I got an ice cream cone for my daughter.  The lady behind the ice cream counter was patient enough to wait for a sobbing boy to select his orange sherbet cone.  And then we collected ourselves and departed.

He cried all the way home.  I cried from tiredness and frustration.

Naturally, within ten minutes of arriving home, he was happily showing off his new tonka truck to me.  It wasn't the one he wanted, no, but it just took him enough time to get used to the concept of having something unexpected. 

God, please forgive me for looking at all of those happy, smiling children in that restaurant tonight and wishing that for just once, JUST FUCKING ONCE that we could be just like them instead of being the weird family with the child who screams for reasons that aren't readily apparent to everyone else.

Please forgive me for wishing for once NOT to be the family that gets stared at as we exit yet another public event with a howling child who simply cannot handle being there.

Forgive me, when things could be so much worse than they are.  Because I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. 

Even when I am.

Um, NO.

I have come to enjoy sessions with my therapist.  She was so hard to find, the good ones always seem to be.  I find too many MSW’s or LC’s  are too accommodating, too reflective or simply just not able to keep up with me.  I’m strong-willed, opinionated, and like most of us, I can create a wall of defense behind every bad decision I make.  Its hard to find a therapist who can challenge me when they think it necessary, but do so in a way that continues the dialogue. 

I think I would make a terrible therapist.  I don’t know that I would be able to cope with it if my clients refused to examine their bad choices and make better ones.  I don’t see how I could keep myself from smacking a client upside the head who was clearly on the tracks toward disaster and they refused to listen to me.   Yes, I most definitely do NOT have a career calling as a therapist.  

So at my last appointment, everything was pretty much awesome.   She confirmed my instincts on some of the conflict I’m having with my ex, I told her about the new man in my life and instead of chastising me (which I expected) we had some good discussion around when/how the kids should be introduced.    We talked about C and his IEP and the sensory stuff, talked about some of the items I’ve ordered for him and some other things I need to consider purchasing.  And then, everything took a decidedly downhill turn.

“How’s A___?” 

”She’s doing pretty well.  Having some focus issues in class, we’re working on some med changes to compensate.  Other than that and her normal inability to tolerate her brother, things are pretty awesome.”

"Have you started talking to her about puberty yet?”

I’m sorry, what did you say?

 

 

Puberty?

 

  

Its not that I haven't talked to my daughter about how women's bodies work, and how grown up women are different than girls physically.  Its not that I haven't mentioned in passing, usually in response to questions, about things like body hair and menstrual cycles and bras. 

This is all fine and dandy...IN THEORY.

I am not.

NOT.

READY.

To have a daughter who is IN PUBERTY.  Come ON, she was a chubby little adorable baby just yesterday!  Seriously!

This is, of course, the point in the conversation where my therapist smacks me alongside the head, tells me to stop being such a giant hypocrite and start paying attention to this whole "parenting" thing I'm supposed to be doing.

She sent me home with this pink book I'm supposed to read with her.  I get the willies even looking at it.  I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS.   

I have to do this.

Hold me.

Characters

The holidays are winding down to a close, and mostly the Christmas cards have arrived, with their pictures and their annual letters detailing trips to the coast, braces for Sally, debate team championships for Billy and its off to college for little Susie and Matt.  Faces are smiling, life is good.  I usually write a Christmas letter of my own, I love to do that.  Its a nice bit of fiction, isn't it?  We're happy, we're good, never mind the dust elephants or the piles of dog crap in the yard or the coating of dirt on the windowsill.  

Its sort of like this blog -- it could all be a load of hooey for all you know.  Maybe I'm not really me at all, maybe I'm an overweight 57 year old man named Walter who lives in his mother's basement and has bad skin and a deep and abiding love for frozen pizza, Star Trek collectibles and a real light saber.  OK, well, maybe I'm really me.  But how do you really know that? 

I think the cold medicine is getting to me.  I've been sick since Christmas, actually since Christmas Eve, and I'm beginning to suspect that somehow this is tied in to the fact that I was just not as good as I could have been all year.  Hard to imagine me getting any better, I realize, but there you have it.  I was naughty and Santa caught me out.  Hence, the nasty little virus that's currently creeping its way through my upper respiratory system.   I managed to haul my sick ass into work today, which in retrospect may have not been a good idea as in my current state I'm crabbier than a pregnant sow in August and I've probably managed to spread the plague to every poor soul inside a 50-yard radius.

So my imagination, fueled by two big fizzy tabs of "plop, plop, fizz, fizz, kiss your sinuses goodbye," reads the Christmas letters and wonders what the world would be like if the fiction of 90% of the world's Christmas letters (mine included) were erased, and people wrote about their actual lives.  The parts with the fingerprints on the windowpanes, cat piss under the bed and the crack pipe hidden inside the toilet paper roll.  The lives where spouses cheat, we doubt our sanity, we fail at our jobs and we drink ourselves into oblivion nighly before 5:30 PM.  Where our kids are likely shaping up to transform into carnival sideshow freaks or third world dictators.  Where that cute puppy in the picture is actually a vicious animal who took out half the neighborhood cats this fall and currently sits in a dark, steaming corner, salivating hungrily as he plots ways to take down the guy who reads the water meter every month. 

Hi friends!  Well, I made a mess of everything this year.  My fiance broke up with me in March after he met a cute little redhead in the supermarket checkout line. He's known her for a long time but once she got that boob job he lit out for greener pastures.   I'm trying to keep my head above water, although  I can't seem to pay a bill on time to save my life and my ass grew three sizes. Most days I pick my kids up from school still wearing my pajamas.  I haven't had a real haircut in something like 8 months and the batteries in my electric toothbrush have been dead for even longer than that.   The dog ran off a month ago but I'm not complaining because at least I don't have to buy dog food, although now I do have to clean the cat litter box a lot more now that he's not eating the poop out of it.  The kids seem to be surviving just fine, I haven't gotten any calls from the juvenile authorities in at least three weeks.  I managed to hang on to my job by a fingernail at least through the end of the year and if I'm lucky I'll get a severance package next year when they finally figure out I'm the one whose been stealing the toilet paper out of the bathrooms.  But for God's sake, have you seen the price of paper products lately?   Here's hoping our annual Christmas letter finds you in better shape than we are.  Love always, us.

 

Just blame it on the cold medicine.  I do.