Shadowboxer

"Defeat is not final when one falls down...it is final when one refuses to get back up and fight."

Proof that mind over matter is real….I have barely been able to get out of bed in the last three days. There is nothing physically wrong with me, except that my mind won’t let me go. I try not to think about the fact that my mother would be turning 65 in less than three weeks, a big milestone for her if she were still here (since she always said she could never imagine herself as a “little old lady”). But surprise, surprise, my mind remembers. And has been holding my body hostage accordingly.

Its a little exhausting when your biggest opponent is yourself. Everything is a fight, from getting up in the morning to going to sleep at night, and all the little tasks that need to get done in between. Nothing seems so hopeless as battling an invisible opponent who is beside you and around you every moment of the day. Most days, I wish my depression could take on a physical form so I could give it one good crack to the face. I am so tired of its bonds restricting me. I am so exhausted from trying to push past it so I can get on with my life and plans and daily duties. There is no motivation in the world that will work if the mind doesn't want to. And right now, my mind is dictating that we don't get out of bed for a few days. It is body-achingly exhausting to even think about getting up and going about a normal routine. Thank goodness for an understanding husband who doesn't question my inability to function and simply picks up the slack. A man who just congratulated me for getting dressed and downstairs, because he knows its not what I felt like doing.

I will get back to myself. And this too shall pass. Slowly but surely. I just need to keep fighting my way out of bed in the morning.

Pants on Fire

Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang them up on telephone wire.

Monkey used to sneak food when she was a toddler. She learned how to open the refrigerator while she was still in her walker, so being fully mobile opened up a whole new avenue of pantry raiding when Scootch was born. Instead of requesting a snack, she just felt it would be easier to liberate the food herself while I was usually otherwise occupied with a feeding or a diaper change. The denial was amusing  when she was three and vehemently denied she stole granola bars while the melted chocolate chips were still smeared all over her mouth. Now that she's the ripe old age of seven and a half with an attitude to match, the denial isn't cute anymore.
Its partially my fault, to be honest. We fight over so many things during the course of the day, taking her to task for the daily petty offences is usually one of the battles I choose to just not engage in. I tell her I think she's lying, she denies it, and I just leave it lie, hoping she'll at least acknowledge to herself she is in the wrong. She's not really adept at hiding the evidence, either. Which is something else I fail to point out to her because, truthfully, I don't want her improving on that particular life skill. My tipping point, however, came while Daddy was away for a few days on business. The second time that week she came downstairs dressed for school wearing my good 14K gold jewelry I pretty much flipped my lid. To which she just insisted she "found it" in her jewelry box. No. Way. In. Hades. my jewelry spontaneously traveled space and time into the little box in her bedroom!
When Daddy came home, I was more than happy to hand off the disciplinary reins to him when it came to refereeing a dinner fiasco. Monkey refused to eat her dinner the entire meal, then when everyone else left the table, she came prancing into the living room two minutes later claiming to have finished every last bite. It didn't take much investigating for Daddy to find her entire meal stuffed into the garbage can. That evening's bedtime routine became one long talk about truth and dishonesty. And in some ways I'm so thankful he's here to get through to her. Monkey listens and opens up to Daddy in so many other ways than we communicate with each other. He can get to the root of her behaviors and actions so much quicker than I ever seem to be able to. On the other hand, its positively maddening to deal with a child who is so righteous and fastidious about preaching right and wrong about other's behavior, but never seems to hold herself to the same measure. Especially when I'm the one at home usually stuck holding the ruler. I'm just hoping we're working through this phase, and she has finally learned a valuable lesson.

Meet Tyler Durden

"Who can hope to be safe? who sufficiently cautious? Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush."~Horace

I was quite the social butterfly this weekend. Plenty of places to go and things to do. And I got to do them solo, for once. So that means hubby was home alone with all three. And let me tell you, the third one is the worst. I think Little Bear is operating under the misapprehension that he is a stunt man. The current chapter of his self-discovery is outlining all the aspects of physical limits. He is into hitting his head on door frames, standing up under tables, climbing into wagons, standing on chairs, attempting to walk in and on top of my shoes, rocking on the rocking horse while standing on the runners, and jumping in his Bumbo. The ice packs are rarely cold anymore because they spend more time out of the freezer than inside.


So while at a baby shower, I got a text from hubby that said Little Bear fell off the deck, and "has some abrasions." This was the pitiful mug I came home to.

The abrasions were more specifically all the skin missing from one side of his nose. Plus a fat lip, a cut on his forehead, and a bruise on his knee. The kid is nothing but thorough. The best part is that, since we were away on vacation since Easter, we postponed the Easter photo shoot for this Sunday. You know, 18 hours after this happened.



The good news is that as ugly as his injuries look, they don't seem to bother him much. He gets annoyed that I'm constantly re-applying the sticky triple antibiotic to his nose, but besides that he isn't affected by any of it in the slightest. He also has finally developed a small sense of self-preservation when approaching the edge of a step now, since the last attempt at walking on air didn't go over so well. And he even tried some more daredevil stunts today, just to prove he's back to his old bad self. The bad news is that I don't think we'll be taking Easter pictures this year. At least not until his face heals.






But for now, we've re-named him "Fight Club."

The Invisible Life

"I like hugs and I like kisses,
But what I really love is help with the dishes!" ~Anonymous


Last night I got into one of those fights with my husband. You know, the one they wrote that joke about where the husband comes home to find the house trashed, the kids gone wild and when he asks his stay-at-home wife (who is in the bed reading) 'What happened today?' his wife replies 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day? Well, today I didn't do it!'

Yeah. That type of fight.

I love my husband. I really do. And I know he has an actual legitimate issue that makes him forgetful and absent-minded. But it doesn't mean I have to like it. And it certainly doesn't mean he gets a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for being expected to act like an adult. Especially when I'm feeling petulant and undervalued. Which I am was. Still undergoing this adjustment period to being a SAHM on little to no sleep will do that to a person. Not that it gives me any passes for being bitchy, but it is what it is. So last night, he made the mistake of needing guidance for something I thought he should be able to figure out himself, and instead of said help he got an earful.

What I laid in bed thinking about this morning while Little Bear had me up 2 hours before the alarm went off (no sleep, remember?) is how much he probably doesn't know or doesn't see about my life at home. My invisible life. The one I share with countless other moms and dads and caretakers who are at home meting by the hours in invisible increments of diapers and tickle wars and wiping jam off the countertops, instead of having projects or deadlines or production to show for their labor all day. A good day at my house is when everyone is alive and intact by the time Daddy comes home for dinner. I'm not even striving for alive and happy - that is a whole post in itself for a different day. But it makes me wonder what he sees when he comes in through the door. Maybe it looks like the house is the same level of messy, but what he fails to realize is that is still a little messy because I cleaned up all day so the mess didn't get worse. The dog is alive because I watched the kids to make sure they didn't abuse her, or unlock the front door and let her run out into the street (Thanks, Scootch!). When he gets interrupted at work by text messages from me with the kids height and weight stats, that's because I made them appointments and dragged them to the doctors. When he gets exasperated over me stressing out about bringing food to parties we have planned on the weekends, its because I made those plans to make sure we still see other people, and want to make sure that all the kids (Scootch) have something they can eat. And when he grumbles about me asking for money to buy the kids clothes, its because I sorted through all the kids things (which are organized in meticulously labeled bins in the attic) to make sure they have stuff that fits and still came up lacking. I don't even want to get started on how the clean underwear and socks magically replenishes in everyone's drawers.

I have this feeling that if our brains were projected on the wall for viewing, my screen would resemble CNN - with news stories going on between the opinions of newscasters and correspondents and the status of my kids and my schedule speeding along the bottom like a NASDAQ ticker - and his playing out like cartoon network - a mildly amusing main show always on with limited commercial interruptions. Sometimes I wonder if he finds himself at parties or the occasional doctors visit and wonders where he is or how he got there. Many times I feel as if I'm living a role out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Like the last time we went to Scootch's allergist appointment, he was standing right there as I scheduled the next visit where we would get the blood test results. I asked him if the date and time were alright with him and he said yes. And then this afternoon he's asking me what day Scootch's next appointment was because he scheduled an appointment for himself the same day (and near the same time.) Does he even remember being at the previous visit? Or was I there with his pod person?

Its these types of things that make me feel like we are the commercial interruptions in his life, instead of the scheduled programming. And the resentment grows when he comes home from a day of work and gets to relax in front of the television with a drink after the kids are put to bed, while I have to transition to the next leg of housework; i.e. laundry or dishes, that was impossible to do while running after the kids all day. Ignoring my invisible life is indirectly ignoring me. And that hurts.

(I'm still sorry I yelled at you last night, babe.)

What does your invisible life look like?

House Arrest

Hubby and I went out twice for the first time in a long time this month. The first time we ran away for 3 hours in the afternoon to catch a movie, and the last time was a wonderful dinner out with friends followed by cards, dessert, and drinks, back at their house. It catches me off guard how insulated we are, though, when we do happen to venture out. People talk of movies they've seen and events they've attended, and the only things I have to contribute are that I just scored a $10 off coupon to the newest Tinkerbell movie for the Monkey, and we went to see a life sized Thomas the Tank.

Between keeping the kids on schedule and the money tightrope we're walking at the moment, I understand its probably going to be a couple more years before we can go back to planning twice monthly get-togethers with friends again, but my other biggest hurdle is myself. Particularly my issues with entrusting my kids with other people.

I wonder if it would be so bad if Scootch didn't have such bad food allergies. This week alone I almost had a nervous breakdown filling out his Allergy Action Form for his new term at school. You think you've prepared yourself for the worst that could happen, but when the symptoms are listed in checkbox form ranging from "if child has ingested a food trigger and experiences no symptoms" to "if child has ingested a food trigger and experiences thready pulse, low blood pressure, fainting, pale, or blueness" and its up to you to tick off the box that tells them what to do in order to save him, believe me, the vision starts to swim and you start wondering if your lunch is going to end up back on your desk for an encore appearance.

And truthfully, I think its hard to gauge the perfect balance needed in a caregiver for a kid with food allergies. You want someone who is great with your children, compassionate, and loving, but ballsy enough to stick your kid in the leg with a 1-inch needle if the need arises, no questions asked. So we've basically stuck with family members when we've needed a sitter. Not that they're all at the same caliber, but for some reason I feel like if they're related, the more vested they are in the interest of Scootch, and the better job they might try to do at keeping him alive for the 5 hours I'm gone. Second to that, they're usually left in the company of adults versus the great high school kids we used to employ. I know there are some mature high school students out there, but I still feel that life experience is a better qualifier in my case (see the point about the one inch needle insertion above).

I try to reason with myself that its rare that Scootch will have a reaction. And I try to repeat to myself that we always surround our children with loving, well-meaning people who aren't afraid to take a little extra care to ensure the safety of our kids. But then hubby turns on an old episode of Freaks and Geeks so we can see vintage John Francis Daly, and it turns out to be the Chokin' and Tokin' episode where Bill is hospitalized after the kids in school stick peanuts in his sandwich as a prank.



So now my new hobby is researching home-schooling......

But seriously, I'm trying to take the time now and re-evaluate myself and my reactions to Scootch's allergies. I don't want to obsess and over-evaluate who to leave our kids with so much that our kids pick up on my nervousness. I don't want Monkey over-burdened with the task of being a food allergy enforcer when there aren't family members present. I don't want Scootch to fear going to the ice cream shop with his little league team after a game, or dread lunchtime at the school cafeteria. Maybe he'll get laughed at for always having hand wipes on him to wipe down his spot at the table and refusing to kiss the girl he likes behind the bleachers without asking her if she ate a Snickers bar in the past 5 hours, but I'm hoping those kinds of quirks will earn him a loyal following, even if it isn't a large one to get him through his childhood years. And I think that's the most important. I want him to have a childhood. A happy one. And that means Mommy and Daddy will need to get away from time to time.

Better Half

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” ~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

My husband was sent to me. This I believe wholeheartedly. God, fate, my mother, SOMEONE, up in the galaxy tilted the gravitational pull of the Earth and pulled him into the orbit of my life. One slow night after we first started dating, we actually tried mapping out all the different possibilities and ways we would have met, a 'la Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. I think we stopped around the thirteenth scenario because we started to get a little freaked out. Inevitable is a word that comes to mind when I think about us getting together. And I couldn't be more grateful for that.

Some people get insulted when their spouse or significant other is referred to as their "better half," but I'm a realist in my world, and will be the first one to affirm that term for him. He is the Roy Croft quote come to life; "I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."

When I'm frustrated with a project and ready to throw it against a wall, he's the first one to pry it out of my hands so I can go take a breather before I do anything I'll regret later. When I'm wound up and angry, he knows how long to stay silent before offering a lame joke to break me out of my red haze. When the kids are making me climb the walls, he usually manages to pop in with a distraction so I can go hide in the stairwell and take deep breaths to get myself under control. And lately, when I'm depressed, he knows just how to hold me, or compliment me, or lean down and talk to the baby in my stomach, to get me to see the light again in the self-imposed rabbit hole I fall into. Even though somedays I feel like we're doing such a good job raising our little wildebeasts as a united front, and others it feels like a baton race, I never have to wonder who or where my partner is. He is all around me, keeping me up, watching my back, leading me on, and best of all, at my side. Coaxing me to enjoy the view.