Barnmaven

Not defeat

Accepting a situation is not the equivalent of conceding or admitting defeat.  It simply means choosing to control what you can and letting go of what you can't.  Trying to control something that you cannot will make you insane.

Right now, on another window on my laptop, I've got a picture of my lumbar spine open.

"Hey, L5, have you met your neighbor downstairs?  S1?  Oh, wait...I see you two are already intimate.  Never mind."

There are a lot of reasons why I haven't been here.  Or on my horse.  SG being gone is part of it,  work too for certain.  But mostly I've just been hiding because frankly a lot of the time I'm in pain. I thought it was my hip and knee.  I tried injections on the bursa and then in the hip joint.  They didn't touch the pain, and the pain got worse.  Some days driving to work has been so intense that I cry without wanting to.  My knee and my foot will throb and nothing except something that would keep me from driving or working will touch that pain.  Many nights I sleep in fits and starts or not at all.

I haven't been riding my horse, not more than a couple of times over the last few months.  If I ride it hurts, if I ride I pay for it for days, measure for measure of amplified pain multiplied by minutes spent in the saddle.  

My doctor finally ordered an MRI of my lumbar spine.  The images contain no surprises.  Bulging discs.  Herniated discs.  Torn discs.  Nerve impingement.  L5 resting squarely on S1 with nary a smidge of disc to be seen between them.  I've been seeing the chiropractor a couple of times a week, and next week I will also start physical therapy.  I'm waiting for a return call from the office that does the targeted injection to see if we can get the nerve to quiet down.  In the meantime, nothing else has changed, really, nothing except my approach.

Short of taking pills I don't want to take, not many things help when the nerve flares.  Since I can't control it, I have to find a way to accept it.  I'm reminded in some ways of childbirth, when you are caught up in something that is relentless and inexorable, where there is no way out but to endure through it.   During my MRI, I was positioned in such a way that the sciatica flared and my whole leg felt like it was on fire.  Between the pain and being enclosed in a very small space, not able to move, I took the only option that I felt was available to me:  I fell asleep.

All these months it was right there in front of me and I couldn't see it.  Just...let go.  No, the pain doesn't stop.  But I can let go.  I have to learn how to keep letting it go. I am not defeated, the pain doesn't win.  Its just that its here with me, and instead of being the thing I push against, it becomes simply a part of my life for now.  Just for now.

The Queen of Managing Everything

As crazy as my life can be structurally, in terms of schedule, it is highly organized.  It has to be.  There are a lot of things we can slide on, but my kids being where they are supposed to be and in the care of the right person at the right time, this is not negotiable.  I work 45 miles away from my home; two hours of my day is spent commuting.  Because my son rides the special needs bus, pickups and dropoffs have to be orchestrated through the school and schedule changes take up to five days to implement.  Knowing ahead of time what's going to be happening and when gives me an enormous (and highly illusionary) sense of control.

So you can imagine when, on a Tuesday, my husband announced he would be leaving over the weekend to go to Nebraska for six weeks, I put my head between my knees and hyperventilated just a little bit (well, maybe more than a little bit). 

I'd gotten pretty spoiled having a stay-home man all summer.  I didn't have to worry about schedules and buses and where to be and when - I just had to get up on time, get ready on time and show up to work. 

My husband was not impressed by my impending sense of doom.  "You'll figure it out," he said.  "You always do."  BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT, DAMMIT.  DOESN'T ANYONE CARE THAT I'M PANICKING HERE?  And I did get it figured out, with the help of my friend Debbie and my mother.  BUT STILL NOT THE POINT.

So we're sailing along pretty splendidly here.  I get to see my parents at least four days a week when I stop after work to pick up the kids, who have completed most of their homework and been fed.  Four days a week Debbie comes over and makes sure they're out the door in time to get on the bus and then feeds and waters all the animals.  Did I mention I have some pretty awesome friends, not to mention parents?

It never pays to feel too much like you've got things under control.

Yesterday afternoon I discovered that my ex's schedule would be dramatically changing - ON MONDAY.   All of my arrangements for morning and after school care just got flushed down the commode. 

My husband had the bad luck to call me about five minutes after that.  I treated him to about thirty seconds of hyperventilating and exited the call.

He hasn't called me back since, and I'm not sure if he's avoiding me completely or just too busy.  I'm fairly sure its avoidance.  Hell, I'd avoid me right now if it were possible.

Its not that I can't manage it, of course I can manage it.  Its that I would just once in a while like some empathy for the fact that its not easy, that its stressful, not to mention lonely and thankless.  It would be nice if there were some kind of monetary compensation or fancy award for being the "Queen of Managing Everything."  Oh, yes, it would.

 

 

 

So, it wasn't ghosts

For months now we've been having problems with our electricity.  Weird problems.  The lights will flicker dramatically for a few seconds and then half the house will lose power.  It will stay off anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours, and then pop back on like nothing ever happened.

None of the circuit breakers trip when these power losses occur.  Flipping the breakers on and off does nothing to make the power come back on.  Occasionally, like yesterday, it will come on if you flip on a single light -- the light comes on and so does everything else.

But the parts of the house that go out are not all on the same side.  The TV in the corner of the living room goes and the entry way light - but not the table lamps on the other side of the room.  The hood light on the stove goes out - but not the stove.  My bedroom lights and my bathroom lights go, as does my bedroom TV and the hall light, but the kids' bathroom right next to mine and the kids' rooms all work fine. 

This is annoying enough for obvious reasons - blow-drying your hair in the morning when there is no power anywhere near your mirror is a seriously inconvenient thing to cope with.  Many a morning I've had to stand in the kitchen with my little round magnifying mirror.  Not being able to watch a show when the kids have everything else tied up - or even worse, having the bedroom DVR shut off in the middle of recording this week's episode of Game of Thrones -- that's seriously impacting my world.  But the worst, the absolute worst part of it is how it impacts the kids.

My son's classroom is designed around helping children with autism learn social and behavioral skills.  Everything is based on positive discipline.  The kids have several tools to earn prizes.  Sticker books for a toy out of the classroom toybox, a penny board for bigger rewards at the end of a day if enough pennies are earned.  Race Car Man's challenge has been to earn the letters K-I-N-D-L-E every day.  If he displays an expected behavior - complying with a request, transitioning from a task, being kind to another student, working on the task at hand -- he earns a letter.  If he earns all of the letters, that evening at home he can do his favorite thing -- play Roblox on the computer, or Skylanders on the Wii.  It started off as earning Kindle back when I first got the Fire and he wanted to play on it all the time.  Currently he is obsessed with gaming, and it is enormously motivated to earn the privilege of playing. 

Imagine a day when he has been great -- TERRIFIC in fact, and he comes home excited to continue the level he had to stop in the middle of on his Skylanders game last night because it was bedtime.  He turns on the Wii, turns on the TV, powers up the Portal of Power, and puts the chosen Skylander on it.  He starts playing, and he's having a great time.  "Mommy!" he'll call out.  "Look what I got for Gill Grunt in my upgrade!"  If I don't come running, he'll pester me until I look.  He's enjoying his reward, rightfully earned.  Suddenly and without warning, the power goes out and his game cuts off. 

This would be hard enough for a neurotypical child.  For a child with autism, it is akin to the end of the universe.  You can imagine the screaming.

If we were lucky, the power would come right back on.  If we were not, it would be out for hours and my son would be nearly inconsolable.  If he and his sister were playing the game together I 'd have two upset children howling at the same time.  You probably don't want to check my store receipts to see how much the consumption of wine and comfort food increased since this started happening.

We had some very miserable nights the last few months.

Our first assumption was that it was spikes or lags from the utility district.  We've had a lot of new construction in our area the last few years.  A 5 acre field that used to have grapevines on it was turned into a small development for about 12 big houses, and there are similar developments popping up everywhere.  After all, the additional users has had a huge impact on our internet service.  Five o'clock rolls around and the internet slows to a damn crawl anymore.  (Hel-loooooo Charter?  Upgrade your lines already!)

I called the PUD and they sent a guy the same day.  He looked at the power pole in the pasture and the transformer on the street, took some readings at the box on the house, and told me he could find nothing wrong.  He determined the problem must be in the house.

I called an electrician.  They dispatched a technician to diagnose the problem.  He couldn't really find anything but made a couple of recommendations.  When I had the money to implement, I scheduled the work.  The guy came out yesterday and did his thing.  I paid him and he went on his merry way.

I left shortly after that to pick the kids up from school and came home 15 minutes later to find half the house was dark and unresponsive.  SHIT.  I flipped a few breakers, went to my bedroom and turned the light on - and everything came back.  OK.  Hopefully this was just a fluke because someone was working on the box?  Of course not.  We went to Race Car Man's therapy appointment and came back again to a house without half its power.  My son had earned his reward in school and been very good for his therapy appointment, and he was itching to play Skylanders, so you can imagine the level of meltdown.  I called the electrician back.  He said he would come as soon as he could.  The power didn't come on for a couple of hours, but managed to resurrect itself ten minutes before he arrived.

Figures.

He still couldn't find the problem, but while he was looking, it went out again.  He tested the incoming power to the breaker panel and guess what?  We were getting almost nothing in on the left side of the panel from the lines to the house. 

After a rather terse conversation with the PUD, two very nice gentlmen arrived and worked on overtime hours to fix what turned out to be corroded and loose wires at the transformer.

Somehow I don't think they're going to reimburse me the $500 I paid to the electrician for something I didn't really need, but I'll forgive them since all I really wanted was for the screaming to stop.

Lady, you are so fired

There are three things it is nearly impossible to find when you relocate from one town to another: 

• Dentist
• Lady doctor
• Hairdresser

I finally found the right dentist and hairdresser in the last couple of months.  It took damn near five years, but I finally found the right fit.  Personality is a big part of it, but quality of service is important too.  I want care providers I enjoy interacting with and from whom I can expect not just a high quality of care but some personal attention.  I want them to remember who I am, what I've discussed with them in the past, what my kids names are.  I want them to remember that I never shut up about horses and special needs kids and that I hate needles and I also hate having my hair styled like I'm somebody's middle aged mother.  (Yes, I know that's what I am, I just don't need my hairdresser reminding me of it.  I want The Sexy.)

I had found what I thought was a great little practice.  It catered to mothers and children and was run by a Registered Nurse Practicioner.  They had a funky little clinic and even offered sick child care at a reasonable cost for mothers who had a sick child with whom they were unable to stay home that day.  I liked having a female practicioner for my female stuff, and I liked that she could also manage my ADHD meds.  I mostly didn't mind the long waits when I went in.  For one, OB practices are often like that.  A baby arriving might push all the appointments back.  And because she would take time talking to me, I assumed that she gave the same consideration to her other patients.  I liked that. 

Little by little, though, things changed.  And I didn't like it.  First she started offering the HCG diet out of her practice.  I'm one of those people who think that fad diets are dangerous and I wasn't impressed that my doctor was jumping on the fad diet bandwagon.  The waits started getting longer.  I waited an hour for an appointment, and it was pretty clear from the stack of people in her waiting room that she was trying to rotate too many patients.   And then, two visits ago, at the end of my visit, she handed me a business card with my prescription.  It was for a company that sells internet service and cable tv and wireless plans.  "I dont' know if I told you about this company I'm representing.  If you are in need of any data services please give me a call." 

I know doctors don't make a lot of money these days and I realize that its terribly expensive to run an OB practice with the burden of medical malpractice insurance, but really?  I'm a little more compartmentalized than that.  You're the doctor who looks at my vagina.  I really don't want you reviewing my cell phone usage, too.  And if you're trying to take care of too many patients at one time, its a sure bet every single one of us is getting a lower quality of care.

I guessed (correctly) at that point that finances were strained and she was looking to supplement her income in any way possible.  And of course, she has the right to do that.  I might not have jumped ship at that point, because I am human and I do try to be understanding.  But after the last appointment I don't know any other way to proceed.  I made an appointment for a prescription refill.  I hadn't been to her practice for three months.  I pulled up to the door with 10 minutes to spare for my appointment, only to find an empty office.  Empty as in completely devoid of furniture, phones and people.  A sign on the door only said that the office was closed, but didn't indicate if it had moved somewhere else.  I was confused.  I had made the appointment only a few days earlier.   Did they close their doors suddenly?  So I called them, and when the receptionist answered I was even more confounded.  "We moved offices." 

Wouldn't that be something you might have wanted to tell me when I made the appointment?  Or maybe added on to the "No Longer in Business" sign on your door?  So I threw the kids back in the car and drove to the new location.  I waited forty-five minutes to be seen, though the guy schlepping pharmaceuticals came in after I did and got to go back and have a few minutes of her time before I got to have my appointment.  I had to fill out all new paperwork because apparently my old paperwork didn't move to her new office with her.  And at the end of my ten minute appointment (that I had to wait a half hour for), she once again handed me her new business card with my prescription.  "I don't know if I told you about this company I'm representing."

Yes, yes you have. 

I suppose if I was interested in a dialogue I would let her know personally why I'm leaving her practice.  But the thing is, I never know if someone really cares that you don't want to be their client anymore.  Not if they don't care about telling you they've moved or remembering what they talked to you about the last time you looked at their cervix.  I mean, she'll figure it out when I don't come see her anymore.  I'm sure the request from my new doctor for my medical records will be a clue too.

 

On being right

Who doesn't like being right?  Raise your hand.  Right now.  I want to know if there is anyone out there who doesn't like to be right. 

Right.

Because we all want to be right.  It starts young.  My children already have fights to the death over the most inane topics, all because one of them wants to be right and thereby prove that ergo,the other one is WRONG.  Sadly, the one-upmanship very often persists long past its usefulness. 

I know people who are perfectly OK being wrong about some things, but with most people, if you try hard enough you'll find at least ONE subject where they will doggedly persist in the correctness of their position even in the odds of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Its a fascinating concept, this battle over who's right and who's wrong.  There are a billion things that are matters of fact and record, which makes it easy to identify the winner in many of these wrestling matches of certitude.  But when it comes to people and emotions and situations, when perception is the only player in the game, all concrete wisdom flies straight out the window.  Absent of the ability to actually read another person's thoughts, we must rely on a different set of tools. 

I've noticed that the more time passes, the more I am willing to suspend judgment of intent.  But I'll own right up to the fact that this is not always the case.  Its a crazy-making thing, isn't it?   Someone does something that has a negative impact or connotation to you.   They forget to invite you to a meeting or a social event.  They acquire something that you intended to buy or apply for the promotion you were trying to get.   You make a pact or agreement with them and it turns out they can't (or won't) hold up their end of it. 

What's your first assumption going to be?

They did it on purpose. 

She KNEW I wanted that promotion and the only reason she applied for it was to spite me.  He lied to me on purpose.  They only got that expensive thing-a-ma-jig so they could make their friends feel jealous.

But we all know its not that simple.

Have you ever been cheated on in a relationship?  I have.  It sucks, doesn't it?  I mean really, down to the bone, hurts like a someone's taken a motherfucking buzzsaw to your heart.  And when you first find out, after your heart stops trying to jump out of your chest and you very carefully put down the baseball bat you found yourself carrying as you were marching up the sidewalk, the first thought in your mind is "How could s/he DO THIS TO ME?"  As if the indiscretion actually had anything to do with you at all in the first place.  Well, maybe it did, and maybe it didn't.  In my experience, infidelity seems linked more to a problem with the perpetrator.  Unless its a revenge thing, most people who cheat seem driven to do so by reasons they don't even understand.  They're not thinking about you.  In fact, they're working so hard to maintain denial about the moral slippery slope they're falling down, they try very hard not to think of you AT ALL.  Infidelity is a selfish and self-serving act, and has little to do with whether someone really loves you or not. 

Divorce is a situation where pain is unavoidable.  Its simply not possible to take any step of any sort without causing pain to your former spouse.  Intention to hurt may or may not exist -- but hurt is done, and the more hurt there is, the more bitter and angry people become.  I'm in the middle of it now, and there's so much I'd like to say and can't, but I can promise you that it is painful, that it is bitter, that it is angry.  It is a wandering line of suck that at times is unbearable and at other times thins to the point of being barely tolerable.    I hurt him, he hurts me.  I do something, he believes I'm only doing it to hurt him, he does something, I believe he's only doing it to hurt me.  Maybe I am and maybe I'm not.  Maybe he is and maybe he isn't.  There's really no way to know who's right.  I can judge by past history and the knowledge of a person that years together bring me, but I can't read his mind, nor can he mine.

All I can do is my best to be authentic and to do the right thing and not get sucked into bitter and angry.  All I can do is try to remind myself that it might seem as though things are said or done with ill intent, maybe they're not.  And all I can do is protect myself and my family and remember that even though things are bad, they could be so much worse.  Remember that there is a history here, that even though I feel like I'm experiencing death by a thousand paper cuts, that it won't last forever.  That I can swallow my bitterness and pain and focus on the things in life that are good and real and positive -- my kids tumbling up the sidewalk, coming home from time with dad to now spend a week with me; dinner and wine on a warm evening with good friends; strong arms of love that hold and support me when I need them; the love and support of family and friends; a bevy of wagging tails and horrid doggy breath waiting at the door for me; a long ride on a beautiful horse with a good friend. 

You may think I do this or that simply to hurt you, but if you really believe that, you'd be wrong.

Time is against me

Ever since I got back from my trip a few weeks ago it feels like life is out of control.  As if while I've been out of Adderall, my life it appears, is on a double dose and I'm left scrambling to keep up all the while feeling as if my brains are scrambled.

My prescription arrived day before yesterday.  Thankfully.  Work is a haze of meetings that continue daily to cause me to be even more behind on the things I was already hopelessly behind on, and with appointments and parenting schedules and Things That Need Doing I'm surprised if I can find a moment to breathe.

You know its bad when breakfast AND dinner for all of us has been the kids' cereal more times than it has not.  I haven't seen my boyfriend in days, and my horses seem surprised when I come out to feed them -- "Hey, we know you.  You used to come talk to us a lot.  You don't like us anymore?"  "Hey, at least I'm not giving YOU cereal for dinner."

Finding time to write is challenging, and unlike those organized bloggers who have half a dozen spare posts written up and neatly tied with ribbons, ready to be published in just this kind of instance, I got nothin'.  And so my only bright idea is to write a post complaining to you about why I don't have time to write a post.  That's working for me, right?

I assure there's a bright side to this.  I'll try to think of what it is as soon as I have time.

 

 

Holes

Ah, the joys of Sensory Processing Disorder.

We are making progress, I can see it every day.  The meltdown at the chiropractor's office yesterday - after being asked to back down from a spat with his sister, he started to lose it.  Crying and being frustrated turned into pulling on his hair and then punching his eyes.  Every mental discomfort becomes physical discomfort, and he comes undone.  Keenly aware of the horrified gaze of the older couple sitting in the waiting area with us and the sideways glances from the reception staff, I pulled him onto my lap.

"NO!" he yells, "DON'T TOUCH ME!!"  He struggles to get loose.  Quietly I say to him, "Here, push on my arm.  Push me away from you."  He begins to push on my arm, getting deep pressure therapy by virtue of his own struggle.  All it takes is a few moments, and he begins to visibly relax.  "You're not pushing hard enough," I say with a smile.  He giggles.  All is well.

I wish he'd make progress about his feet, but I fear we may never see it.  I dread buying shoes; it is an ordeal that I need a bottle of whiskey, a rope and a tractor to accomplish.  The rope and the tractor are simply to drag him into the store and hold him still long enough for me to find shoes that fit him - shoes that he will actually  WEAR.  They must fit loosely so that nothing pokes his foot.  They must be reasonably soft.  It helps if they have a picture on them of Lightning McQueen or Buzz Lightyear.  He's motivated by his characters.  But if they poke his foot in any way, if he can feel a seam or a tongue, forget it.  We're all done with THAT pair, thankyouverymuch.  The whiskey?  That's for me.  Just call it anaesthesia.

C also refuses to wear socks.  His sister does as well.  Its a genetic preference, I'm sure, because on weekends I rarely wear them either.  I go barefoot constantly as soon as the weather is warm enough, and if shoes are required, they're usually slipped on bare feet.

Winter is always a concern.  The sock refusal seems fraught with dangers -- waiting for the bus, recess, walking between the portable and the main school, all in sub-freezing temperatures.  The rains of spring don't really alleviate the concern, but I've learned to just sit on that desire to FIX and understand that so far he hasn't actually lost a foot to frostbite.  The likelihood that he will make it to adulthood without socks seems more possible every day.

But the buying of shoes -- always something to avoid.  Just last night as I was getting him out of the tub and into his PJ's I noticed the bottoms were pulling away from the fabric in the front.  Oh, great.  How long can I delay buying shoes?  Days?  A week maybe?  Definitely need to do it soon.

Not soon enough.

A phone call today from the school.  One of the duties on the playground was concerned because my son has no socks and his shoe is falling apart. 

I'm getting better at not feeling like a complete parenting failure when things like this happen, but there's always a few moments where I close my eyes and let the feelings of shame, anger, frustration and resignation wash through me.  Then I take a breath, compose myself, and thank the person for calling.  Its not their fault, they're new, they don't know my son.  They don't live this.  I suppose if I was the playground duty on a cold Tuesday in February and I saw the kid who looked normal running around without holey shoes and no socks I'd probably assume there was some negligent parenting going on too.  Or maybe not.  Who knows?

Will they let me add verbage to his IEP to the effect that no one is allowed to question the state of his shoes, at least to my face?

Pardon me while I go grab a rope from the barn, rent a tractor and buy a bottle of whiskey.  I've got some shoes to buy.

 

Heavy

Some days the weight of it all becomes unbearable. 

Its not just the things that are unique to my situation, though those are a large part of the heaviness.  Living one paycheck away from God only knows what kind of financial disaster may befall is scary.  Looking at the half-ton of hay left in the barn and Christmas rushing at me on the calendar and knowing the old gelding needs his teeth floated and my daughter wants to sign up for basketball and my life insurance premium is coming due and my son needs interventions and god, the house needs cleaning and things need fixing and I need a haircut and I forgot my meds and we're out of groceries and and and...makes my heart want to thump right out of my chest and go careening madly down the street.  There's the faces of my kids and the other inmates at the zoo who all need some portion of time and attention, which becomes harder to give the more stressed out and tired I get.  There's the ungodly amount of work waiting for me at my desk and the burden of finding a new hire before the job kills me.  There's the worrying about so many things and so many people.

There's the stuff that we all go through - am I doing the right things with my kids?  Setting the right examples?  When I make decisions about life, career, finances, am I making the right ones?  Am I OK with my loved ones?  Am I OK with God?  AM I DOING THIS RIGHT? 

So.

Thursday I will cook a big ass turkey and all the trimmings and I will sit down at the table with my kids and my ex husband (yes, we do holidays together) and I will try, for at least one day, to put these things out of my mind and remember to be damned grateful for all the things that I DO have and stop worrying about the things I don't.

I have parents who support me in so many ways you can't even imagine.  Who love and listen and care and give, time and money and hugs and words.

I have beautiful, amazing children.  Children who are funny and smart and creative and kind.  Children who are sensitive and special and miraculous.  Children who out of the blue will come up to me and squeeze me around the middle and tell me they love me "more than the whole everything."

I have friends who love me.  Friends that come get me with their rig so I can ride my horse somewhere outside of my own pasture.  Friends who drive cross country to see me.  Friends who take me out to listen to a band when I'm so stressed out I can't breathe.  Friends who send me funny emails and make me laugh.  Friends who pray for me all the time.  Friends who find little ways to pick up some of the balls I drop. Friends who live in the box on my my desk, that share their daily struggles and joys and who listen to mine.  Friends who write comments here and other places that show me they are listening and that they care. 

I have these furballs, big and small, who bring meaning and joy to my life.   The warmth and weight of the purring cat on my lap, the dogs curled around my chair as I type, the horses who rumble and look happy when I emerge from the house.  My horses who let me hug them and hang on them and who put their soft noses near my face and breathe their horsey breath on me.  My silly little chickens who follow me around whenever I'm out by the barn and who give me breakfast almost every day.

And I realize that sometimes the heavy thing that I feel is not the burden of responsibility, but a large, solid blanket of love and support that wraps me up and helps me carry the weight of all the other things. 

The one where I claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that I'm not losing this battle

So let's see, where were we?

The teacher that can't be bothered to "trouble shoot" (direct quote) my son sent him home after a mere half an hour in kindergarten on Tuesday.

My emails to the Principal and the counselor have gone unanswered, though I finally received a return phone call from the assistant director of special services with the school district, who I resorted to calling Tuesday afternoon.  Since I feel my concerns aren't being addressed, I've taken the liberty of elevating things.  I am not certain this is a good move or not; by getting the district involved I risk alienating the people I am counting on to help my son.  On the flip side of that  penny, I fear if I don't take some sort of action to push things along, we might make it through the entire year of kindergarten without my son learning anything more than the fact that his teacher can't spell his name right.

Yes, that's correct.  His teacher sent home a sheet for the children to practice writing their names.  She was kind enough to give them a model to follow at the top of the sheet...except she spelled my son's name incorrectly.   After everything else that has happened it was...I can't even find the words.  Insulting?  Last straw?  Proof?  Don't know.

There's something about talking to school administrators, who must be very carefula bout how they choose their words in order to avoid any appearance of acting outside of rules and regulations (and federal laws) that makes me feel somehow shamed.  As if my son's problems are MY fault.  The result of poor parenting.  Because maybe when he was born I just took a big ole' hypodermic needle and shot him up full of anxiety and ADHD and manic-depressive illness.  Because, you know, that sounded like FUN.  And so, feeling somewhat on edge from the phone call I had with the school this afternoon, I trudged happily off to choir practice knowing that it would make me feel better to do that and that I could then come home, throw the little guy in the tub (his sister's at their dad's) and relax with a nice glass of H3 Cab. 

That was a very good plan, until I sat down with my freshly poured glass of wine at this computer and opened my email. 

"I wanted to talk to you in person but it’s hard to find a moment to do that without little ears around. So, forgive the email. I know time is of the essence. I’m sorry to put  you in this position but I have decided that it’s best that I do not continue watching _____ & _____. I didn’t want to quit on you or the kids, but I think it might be for the best. ______ & ______ are great kids and I see the good in them. However, it is overwhelming and I am thinking of my little ones. _______ is impressionable and copies [sic] everything older kids do; we just feel that it’s best to go with our instincts on this.

I regret putting you in this position but I also need to be honest with you. If it was just me watching _____ & _____ (without my little ones); I wouldn’t mind. However, I realize now that I need to look out for their best interests.

I plan on still watching them tomorrow (as you did pay me through this week), and maybe that can give you the weekend to make other arrangements?"

Ah.

I see.  My kids are "great kids" but your kids are impressionable, and so what, you don't want them to COPY THE KID WITH ADHD.  Which I get, really I do, but maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED THE FUCKING JOB.  I totally understand how being involved with me and my broken, special children isn't in the best interests of ANYONE.  I do.  And I forgive you for it.  And no, you don't need to watch them tomorrow, dear lady, because the last thing I want to do is send my children back to a home where the adult in charge thinks that they are a BAD INFLUENCE.   We get enough of that everywhere else, thank you very much.

And as you might guess, I am now sipping that nice glass of cabernet, plotting my revenge trying to wade through all of the anger and guilt and shame in my head and figure out just what on God's green earth I am going to do next.  I am simultaneously thanking that same God for my boss, who when I called him trying to explain what was happening without dissolving into miserable tears, reassured me that I was valued, appreciated, and to please not worry about taking a day tomorrow to try and solve this problem.  To not worry about doing anything that was needed to take care of my family.

And then I came here to post, and I read the really supportive comments a few of you really amazing people have left for me on the last couple of epistles, and I know that I am not alone.  I know that I am not the only person who is trying to make chocolate chip cookies out of a steaming pile of dog poop, and I know that this is not the worst thing ever that could happen, even if it feels like it right at this very moment.

And I am not giving up.  I am not going to concede that my child has no value, regardless of what some educators and caregivers might think.  Yes, he can be terribly difficult.  Annoying.  Crazymaking.  He is also adorable and loving and articulate and SMART oh my God smart, and he has the best smile in all the world.  When we do songs and stories at night, as I tuck him in, we do a hug, he kisses me on the cheek, and I say "I love you, C."  "I love you too, Mommy."  "I love you more."  "No, Mommy, I love YOU more."  "I love you more than anything, C."  "Well, I love you more than the whole EVERYTHING, Mommy." 

You win, buddy.  You win.

 

When helping isn't helping

I think its a given that dysfunctional relationships breed dysfunction.  Personality and past have a lot to do with the level of bad juju you start a relationship with, but the dynamics of the relationship develop over time and create lasting habits.

I wasn't always codependent.  There were years and relationships in my life where I didn't take responsibility for another human being's happiness or discontent, success or failure.  It occurs to me those relationships might not have been the healthiest or best, and so they ended eventually.  I can only remember one relationship in my past, though, where the mutual level of dysfunction matched the last 10 years of my life.  In my memory it seems to have been a very long term relationship, but in reality it was probably not that long at all, a few months or a year.  The habits I picked up from it have caused a lot of hurt to me and to other people, though.  It was when I met someone who was also codependent that those issues blew up into something worse than unmanageable.

(Interesting side note, I discovered last week that the man I dated for a short while back in the 1980's is still the #1 most wanted deadbeat parent in the state of New Jersey.  He owes over $54,000 in child support.  How awful is THAT?  Hey, at least I can say "I dated a guy who was Number One!")

One of the most harmful things I have done in my relationships is to continually try to "help" people.  In reality, what I did was enable people to be doing things that really weren't healthy or good for them.  I tried to fix things for them instead of letting them fix things themselves, thereby teaching them to be helpless.  I remember offering to be the stand-in for my ex and his ex because dealing with her was so upsetting to him.  It seemed like the right thing to do at the time -- I thought it would help him be less angry and upset, thereby killing two birds with one stone.  I would help him and myself at the same time.  How silly it was of me to presume to make decisions for him regarding his son, or to insert myself into a relationship that I had no business being part of.  I wasn't my stepson's parent, and I didn't have the right to be his father's voice in dealings with his mother.  I also hurt my ex by not allowing him to work through his issues in that relationship on his own; by helping him avoid the problem, I helped prolong and worsen it.  In short, I messed up, royally.

As I continue to recover I am trying to learn how to hear other people's problems without trying to fix them.  At first it seems cruel to let someone suffer, but over time it begins to feel more natural.  I can let somebody vent, let them know I hear how they are feeling, have empathy for what they are going through, but recognize that they are capable of managing their own lives and problems.  Its something I'm also trying to learn to do as a parent.

There are times when our children need something from us, something we ought to give them, and that is when it is helpful to them for us to provide assistance.   When they are babies, they need everything from us - without loving hands to feed, clothe, bathe and transport them, they would wither and die.  As they grow older, though, they need to learn how to do things for themselves.  It starts with simple things and over time encompasses the most complex decisions about who they are, what they believe, how they should handle their own affairs.

Today I got a call from my son's school.  He was in the nurse's office, crying inconsolably.  His sensory issues had kicked in and he couldn't stand the feel of his feet or his socks.  Rather than just take them off, he was having a downright fit about them.  He does this at home a lot.  Sometimes its the shoes or socks, other times its his pants or his shirt or his hair.   He'll be sitting doing something, and suddenly he'll begin shrieking and tearing at whatever item is causing the offense.  Its hard to know how to respond to these outbursts.  There's a big part of me that wants to do anything, anything at all to help him feel better.  Over time, though, I've seen that there's not a whole lot I CAN do.  If I try to help him with something he'll scream at me.  If I get upset because he's upset, I simply escalate him further.

I think the school nurse was really taken aback when I suggested to her that she simply leave him alone.  I can hear the thoughts spinning now, "Is she really that cold-hearted?  How could she suggest I ignore her son's crying?  How mean!"  The truth is, leaving him alone is the best thing I can do for him.  Because his issues aren't caused by the actual item of clothing in question but instead by his neurological response to stress and the smallest discomfort, I'm not helping him by sitting and cuddling him while he screams or even asking him what I can do for him, or trying to get him different socks or different pants.  What he needs is to be left alone, without any pressure from me, so that he can calm down and start to feel better.

I discovered this by accident on a day when I was busy getting ready for work.  He started flipping out about his hair, and I was so late that I couldn't do anything for him.  Didn't have time.  And so I just said as calmly and lovingly as I could, "I can't help you now.  You'll have to figure this out for yourself."  And eventually, he did.  My mother has seen the same thing happen at her house.  He'll start yanking on his shirt and screaming and she'll see if he's okay, and then say "Okay, that's enough,"  and walk away.  Sometimes it takes him longer than others, but eventually, he gets to feeling better and less anxious, and he pulls himself together.  The more we let him do this on his own, the better he gets at it.  I'm not going to lie and say that there are days when I'm already stressed out about other things that he goes off on a shriek bender that I don't feel like I'm losing my mind right along with my will to live, that there aren't days when I snap at him to please quit it right now fortheloveofgod!  Of course there are.   But he's getting better at it and so am I.  And so I learn, that sometimes the best way of helping someone is to not help them at all.  My son, he teaches me that.