Uncomfortably Numb

~A. L. Tennyson

I wish they warned me about this in Psychology class. I think there should be at least a whole semester devoted to how depression makes you unfit and unable to handle being a mother. Because that’s how I feel.

I remember watching a video a few years ago about a high school track athlete with Multiple Sclerosis. She was explaining that after intense exertion, the MS causes her to lose all the feeling in her extremities, even while her body keeps going through the motions. Besides feeling completely in awe of her perseverance in spite of her diagnosis, I thought that was such a similar description to what I feel like, parenting with depression. When it takes all the energy and motivation you have to simply get up and get out of bed in the morning, I feel like I spend the rest of my day numb - going through the motions. There is just nothing left for when the day doesn’t go as planned, or the kids are being especially cruel. And they’re kids. For the most part, they shouldn’t be to blame for expressing themselves when they’re frustrated and confused and unsure of how to show it meaningfully. But at the same time, it hurts. It hurts so much when they yell at you and tell you that they think you don’t care about them. Because - unbeknownst to them - the fear that you’re not able to care enough plays on repeat in your own head all day. When all of the daylight hours feel like you’re running a track race completely numb, using every amount of effort you have just to make sure your kids are content, and fed, and washed, and dressed. When you’re foregoing eating, and drinks, and the rest you so desperately crave, just to make sure that you are there, and present, and engaging with them so you don’t lie in bed later agonizing over all the wasted minutes and hours that slipped away when you were so lost and struggling with your own body and mind - just to have them turn around and scream at you that all your best effort isn’t worth it...
Not worth it, and not worthy. Their words repeat what your depression is telling you, every day. When the message echoes around you in stereo, its so hard to tune out the noise. But your one job as a parent is that you must not give up. Sometimes I wonder if the pain is my blessing in life, just so I know that the numbness isn’t all there is.

In Wonderland

“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”

Most days, I still feel like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole. It has been two long years to get to this point. Two years of doubting myself, second guessing myself, and losing every ounce of confidence I had about being a good mother. About being a mother who could help her kids, guide them in the right direction. Help them learn and grow. Its two years later and I feel that I have none of these qualities anymore. And still I have no answers.

After a personality change, a near complete withdrawal from extra curricular activities, and an academic freefall, my wish for an evaluation for Monkey was finally granted. But even if we get a diagnosis that deviates from simple ADHD, I still feel like it will get us nowhere. It's almost May already. The white rabbit would agree that we are late in every sense of the word. Even with an IEP, there is no magical cure that will create passing scores in her two suffering subjects before June. No magical drinks or edible mushrooms that will instantly make her ready to be promoted. I'm trying not to fixate on a future of summer school or a repeated grade, but the possibility looms over my head every day. And still no progress report from the school. I just get to sit and wonder what is going on in the otherwordly dimension of the Upper Elementary. It's frustrating to go from such open communication in her last school, to having none whatsoever in the next. My imagination does me no favors filling in the blanks in lieu of actual information.

So I drift in this stagnant ocean of helplessness and anxiety. Wanting to know, but dreading what they have to tell me. Fearful that I won't be strong enough to help my child navigate the next chapters of her life with my sanity intact. And on and on we cycle through the same repeated behaviors and conflicts, just like being stuck at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with no escape. With the depression in the background calling me like a siren, trying to seduce me into its arms.

My only solace is to keep distracting myself with other things. Keep pushing, and living, and moving forward, to distance myself from my own mind. Doing anything I can not to go through the looking glass in my mind to the other side.

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.

The Children’s Garden

You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. ~J. Rohn

I still cannot believe Scootch has grown this fast. I remember the summer after he was born, when my anxiety was still an immobilizing disorder. I remember that fear of going outside, the rush of uneasiness if I even thought about doing something that involved taking my baby out of the house. Thankfully, its been a long time since those days. But, I must admit that there is still fear of the unknown present, that little rush of discomfort, every morning as Scootch steps out of the house to meet the bus.

Scootch has been coached and prepped about his allergies and the food at school. Sit at the special table for lunch, don’t share food with your friends, always ask a grownup if you’re not sure about something, always ask if you’re given something we didn’t pack for you….he’s heard them all. He’s repeated them to me. We’ve practiced what to do if he feels like he’s having a reaction. I’ve tried to prepare him for any possibility he might encounter. And still, after all that, he could not wait to go to school. To conquer the great grown-up wonderland of changing classes, new teachers, riding the bus, having recess, and eating in the cafeteria. No fear for him. No reservations. I guess I must be doing something right that he isn’t terrified of leaving the safe sanctuary of home. Like I was. Sometimes I still am.

I find it ironic that I suffered through the worst anxiety disorder of my life after giving birth to the boy who now makes me worry the most. I sometimes wonder if that was my initiation period to becoming his mother. If you can conquer agoraphobia, night terrors, and anxiety attacks, this food allergy thing on a daily basis should be a walk in the park, right? It still doesn’t get any easier to let him go face the great big world alone without me. At least I knew my fears were in my mind. There really weren’t people waiting to run me down in the parking lot, or break into my house and steal my kids. Scootch’s allergies are real, and his reactions are even more terrifying. But being a parent means doing what’s best for your kids, and its in Scootch’s best interest to know how to take on the world by himself, a little bit at a time. Kindergarten means one small step for Scootch, but one giant leap for Mommy’s piece of mind.

Only 171 days left.

"It's a girl"

Men get laid, but women get screwed.  ~Quentin Crisp

It is no secret I am was terrified of having a daughter. Especially having an oldest daughter. There is no end to the dangers and injustices of being a female, and my greatest fears are of her being subjected to any one of them. I was the baby in my family. The younger child, the youngest of my girlfriends. I grew up always feeling like I had an added layer of protection. I remember my brother teaching me Akido when I was 14. I remember his guy friends - my “other” brothers - popping up at the most embarrassing times and chasing off anyone paying attention to me that was of the opposite sex. I think it somewhat made me more aware of my own personal safety. People stressing about me being vulnerable made me self conscious about putting myself in those situations (lest my brother and his friends show up). Moreso when I was older and attending night classes in college in the heart of a small city. An abandoned hotel that housed a community of vagrants sat directly across the street from my building where I attended class. And the last words my (female) professor would always say as we left after 9pm were, “Stay in pairs!”  But in those growing years, I always felt protected. It makes me wonder how I can make my daughter feel the same sense of security.
I know I can't hold onto her forever. Monkey might only be six years old, but the eye rolling and frustration with me being around her all the time is already making an appearance. But how do you let them fly without worrying about them getting ensnared in a trap once they leave your sight? How do you raise her with the lesson that her voice is important, and should be heeded, when all around us, everyday, the public, the politicians, the religious leaders, are all disregarding women’s rights and demeaning women's roles or trying to pass legislation on our bodies and what we're “allowed” to do with them? When women are ridiculed as being ugly and frumpy if they're spotted in an outfit consisting of anything loose and comfortable, and even young girls who haven’t hit double digits in age are being pressurized by retailers and the media to be “sexy” and “flirty.” Or when a photo of the private parts of a female celebrity are bigger news than the movie she is promoting. Whose voice is going to be louder in her life? The few encouraging her from the nest, or the drowning cacophony from outside? I go to bed at night after tucking her in, and all I see in my head is how many examples of how to be female is to live the life of a double standard.

And now the Steubenville case has me up at night, even more anxious than before. The case in itself is a nightmare, but I think what is making me so violently ill is the reaction to the verdict. News outlets and people from all walks of life remarking on how sad it is that these smart, promising, young men will now be forever haunted by what they have done. How their once bright futures will be forever tarnished. I want to know one good reason why they shouldn't be forever affected by what they did, like their victim will be. And it would also be extremely interesting to know how such “bright,” “smart,” “promising,” young men weren't bright enough or smart enough to know that drugging someone to victimize them is wrong. That someone in a vulnerable position doesn't equal a puppet to be played with and exploited, and then photographed so the images could then be uploaded to the internet and traded like virtual playing cards of their atrocities. What kind of world is this that we have created for our children where rape culture is the celebrated standard?
The realization is that as much attention I need to be giving to developing a strong, confident daughter, I need to double up on teaching my sons to be kind and respectful. Chivalrous, even. Boys who will respect when someone tells them “no.” Who will have empathy and helpfulness towards others, and be aware of another’s feelings and how they are effecting them. I need to instill their own confidence in themselves, so they are less likely to follow a crowd for validation, and hopefully more likely to stand up for someone else, even if they are standing alone. I learned all about the bystander effect in college taking classes for my psychology minor. How insecure and scared of their peers must these teens in Steubenville have been that after the THREE parties that this girl was dragged to, not ONE person stood up, or reported, or intervened on her behalf? Peer pressure can trump conscience very easily, but my hope is to raise children who would try to be a voice of reason and restraint.

Change always seems insurmountable until precipitated by some life altering event. I really wish this wasn't so. I wish we humans would lend more credit to foresight and preparation instead of crisis management and reaction strategies. But for every daughter that is raped, there is also a son who is a rapist. I’m hoping and praying that this house has neither. But in the meantime, I'm going to do my best to teach them how to manage the ugly truth of the world. Maybe when they grow up, they can change it.

Heavy

I find myself unable to articulate well enough when people ask me about my day so they can fully comprehend what its like. I also wonder if this is just what its like for me, and not for anyone else. I feel wholly unprepared for the stress of this life I lead. Other people carry on with their lives with seemingly much more impressive challenges, and sometimes I find myself hiding in a corner by nightfall, trying to make the thoughts stop cycling inside my head, just for spending the day home alone with my children for 10 hours. I am incapable of escaping the stress mothering brings.

I never realized how much being a mother meant your body and emotions were reduced to collateral damage by the lives of your children. As much as everyone tells you, reminds you, and writes columns in every parenting magazine available about keeping calm and simplifying life to keep down stress, there are just no tips to help you when your daughter has an unscheduled half day and will be coming home on the bus 45 minutes after your son’s dentist appointment starts. Or when at that same dental appointment, your youngest suddenly has a paralyzing fear of the office and refuses to go down the hall so you can be in the room with your son while he’s getting a procedure done. By the time you do get home with only a minute to spare before the bus pulls up to drop off your daughter, you’re so stretched thin and emotionally raw you feel like an exposed live wire. And then you need to spend the rest of the day refereeing the arguments, overseeing the homework completion, redirecting the two year old so he’ll lose interest in stuffing the puzzle erasers in his mouth, and hopefully find some time to plan and prep dinner because you have parent teacher conferences to attend later in the evening. And that’s a mild day compared to some of the worst. There is so much scheduling, and reminders, and deadlines to keep track of that it never all makes it onto the same calendars. I think if I lost my phone at this point, it would set us all back at least six months, since that’s the planner that is the most handy, and therefore the most up to date.

When people insist I need to take time off for myself I want to laugh in their face, because I am never able to turn “off” completely. I don't get 5 minutes to myself in the bathroom let alone enough time to do anything meaningful like exercise or something like that. Going out anywhere involves so much preparation for childcare and bedtime routine setup, coupled with the incessant worrying the entire time I’m away from the house about the health and safety of my kids that it morphs into making me more tense than when I started. To be honest, the best alone time would just be being allowed to lie in on a Saturday morning for an extra hour without being jolted awake by the sounds my kids throwing things off the top of the bunk bed, or crashing their bodies through my bedroom door to announce they’ve pooped. Or want breakfast. Or both of those things. I have hobbies, but I’m never able to pursue more than one at a time, because there just aren’t many, if any, hours in the day I can spend just doing something that doesn’t need to be done by tomorrow morning. Because being needed all day by three little beings takes up all of my waking hours. I haven’t even been able to manage an uninterrupted cup of tea in the past two years, unless you count the one I had while on vacation in Canada when there were five other people around to distract my children for me. It’s sad, really.

And I find myself depressed by all of this. Not just the fact that I’m failing at doing a good, sane job of being a mother. I’m disappointed because this is the only chance I’m going to get of watching them at this age, the one shot I have of seeing them through these stages. And both my memories and their perceptions are going to be colored and warped by the stress that is constantly hovering and permeating our lives. Every day I promise myself I’m going to go slower, I’m going to savor my time with them, and every day that promise is broken amidst the dash to the bus stop in the morning, or the hustling to make preschool on time, or the race to make and eat lunch before pickup, and on and on. What I would give to be able to play in the laundry pile with them one morning, and maybe have time to make a hot breakfast without them having a breakdown in the meantime because they NEED to EAT! RIGHT NOW! It makes me wonder who would savor the memory of such a perfect day more? Me or them? They would probably remember most vividly the exquisiteness of such a morning, but I think it would be more sacred to me. A reaffirmation of sorts that I still exist in the remains of myself that have been splintered by motherhood. Not only that I exist, but that I can still be fulfilled by a day well lived. Restored and rejuvenated to try again to lead a life well done.

Blue Christmas

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I still pick out a Christmas gift for my mother every year, even though I haven’t shared the holiday with her in 16 years. I don’t actually buy it or wrap it, but usually in my shopping travels I see something that she would have liked, or just simply experience something that I know she would enjoy. It makes me wonder about what her preferences and likes would have been in this technologically advanced age. I like to imagine her with a smartphone and a Kindle, tagging me in numerous Pinterest posts and commenting on my progress on Goodreads. Its all very much a fantasy, though.

To be honest, I think she would be disappointed with me this year. Try as I might, the events over the last few days, weeks, and months have weighed me down this season, and I just haven’t been able to muster up much Christmas spirit. The tree and the house lights were put up, the cards were sent, but the other customs and staples of the year; the baking, the nativity figurines, the thrill of giving, were glaringly absent. From the outside looking in, I’m sure it seemed like a happy Christmas, but I’m still lacking that renewal of spirit I associate with celebrating the anniversary of a certain child’s birth. I find myself just unable to find the joy in wrapping gifts when I think about those parents and families in Connecticut who won’t have the joy of watching their kids opening their presents Christmas morning. Or make cookies with my own sons and daughter when theirs will never be able to sneak one again, or just simply enjoy licking the spoons. To watch my six year old Monkey catching snowflakes on her tongue in a magical Christmas Eve snow without remembering 20 five and six year olds that will never experience another snowflake. I can’t savor snuggling into bed at night with my husband when neighbors in my town - in my state - have no beds and no homes to gather into. The disparity of so many people banding together to try and make it a wonderful holiday for some, and others setting out to unleash their evil on the civil servants who selflessly sacrifice to help and protect us make it impossible for me to see the hope and goodness in our country. Maybe even in our world. There is so much arguing and blame going on right now. Everyone wants a solution, but nobody wants to work together to really get to the right answer.

This isn’t the world I had in mind to bring my children into. A country that is more invested in their individual right to bear arms, than in seeking to heal the people as a whole through proper health and mental care is not where I want them to grow up. Legislators who are determined to undermine and cut the pay and benefits of educators - the people who have the job of shaping the people who will lead our future - are not the people I want in power over my kids’ learning opportunities. And thinking about those teachers that died, who did the same things that they award medals to soldiers for when in combat, it seems like the biggest insult that they are not supported more by the public, or by our own government. Finally, I can't get those poor parents out of my mind. How many holidays will they spend like me, seeing gift opportunities for someone they can no longer buy for?

The future just looks bleak and unpromising to me. If ever a child’s birth could deliver us from evil, I believe it would need to be now. Searching for that feeling of Christmas while donning a lead mantle of depression is an exhausting and bitter enterprise. And yet.... and yet, even as I go to bed this Christmas night with a heavy heart I keep digging inside myself. For as in the words of Anne Lamott, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”

Surely the miracle of the season has planted a seed of hope inside me somewhere. Inside all of us. Somewhere dormant and ready to bloom in the light of the morning.

You Can’t Go Home Again

 When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.  ~Author Unknown

The Sands Beach Club, next door to the venue we held our wedding reception. photo credit: A.Mills

I’ve been trying to write this post for days. Unsuccessfully. Revisiting the task was like revisiting the well of emotion I have reserved for what happened. I could only tiptoe around the edge lest I fall in and drown. But I feel that its somewhat disrespectful if I don’t. A disservice to gloss over it. So many things have been lost, so many families have had their homes, their jobs, their possessions, their LIVES destroyed. All we lost was power for eight days and a 10 foot long section of siding on the house. There is just no comparison.
But it still is hard. The storm is not over. Although the wind and the rains have ceased, the tide of emotions is still rising and falling. Its hard to embrace the comfort of thankfulness when I’m overridden with feelings of guilt and helplessness in the face of those people not 2 miles away, who carted the entire contents of their house to the curb. Hard not to cry every time I click on a link to read another story about how people still don’t have power when its been below freezing temperatures at night, and has been for weeks. Hard to not give into the murderous rage I feel when the news reports come in of people stealing generators from their neighbors, siphoning fuel from the emergency response vehicles, and attacking the out-of-state linemen who are thousands of miles from home trying to restore utilities to all of us who were affected by the storm. And then the good tide rolls in. Election Day brought a brief surge of pride for my neighbors as people lined up in our powerless little voting station, generators humming to supply electricity to the polling booths and floodlights. Residents filling out forms by flashlight, and standing in line to vote with smiles and hellos, even though the none of us had any heat or lights or conveniences at home to speak of. The news covering government officials actually working together for once to aid the people they were elected to lead. And the stories of the donations and relief efforts make my eyes well up with gratitude. Of common men doing uncommon goodness for strangers. And for the mighty coming together in efforts to provide benefit concerts and events to help those devastated by the storm. Yet, there is only so much donating money and food and baby clothing, can do to ease the feelings of impotence.

People in my own town emptying their flooded homes after the storm waters receded. photo credit: M.Sullivan

Before Hurricane Sandy hit my state, I already had that horrible premonition feeling in my stomach. The initial reports of flooding and extraordinary wave size that were rolling in even before the storm made landfall were just confirmation to me. I went to bed on October 29th fearing the morning, not really able to sleep, and occasionally dozing off only to have horrific nightmares. Spending the next morning powerless on my cell phone checking the news and Facebook as people posted photos of the devastation was like still being locked in one of my dreams. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. I still don’t want to believe it. Places that shape entire chunks of my memories, that define rituals of the seasons, that were the landmarks of pivotal moments in my life have been wiped away. 

Dock from the river washed up on the front lawn of a home in the next town.

Home. To me, its that feeling you get. Not always a defined place on a map with a fixed latitude and longitude, but most often, the place where the rhythms and cycles of the flow of life are familiar and resonate within you. I am a creature of nostalgia, most likely because I haven't had much stability with people, and I find that returning to familiar whereabouts gives me the most comfort. These past weeks I find myself adrift and rudderless in the wrecked remains of this expanse, without my familiar touchstones and reassurances. This storm has ravaged the property of my memories. It has destroyed the areas I've celebrated at, ripped apart where relationships began, where friendships were renewed, and where I've sought solace and remembrance. In short, it has demolished my home, my haven, my sense of security. And the sad part is that its that way for everyone who lives here.

The very beach  my husband proposed, missing most of the boardwalk and sand. photo credit: C.LaPlaca

For almost four months of the year, the small strip of sand that marks the threshold to the ocean is adopted by everyone in the state. Even by people from states away. This is a loss that will be felt hardest by its residents, the people who live and work amid the devastation, but it is a loss that is shared by us all. I can’t see how anyone in this great state made it out unscathed. No matter where our permanent homes are, every one of us has a part of ourselves invested in those magical miles by the sea.

Me and Little Bear at our yearly August beach retreat earlier this year. Notice the houses upper left.

The same houses shown in my beach photo from August. photo credit:A.Mills

The same beach we sat on only two months before, viewed from the walkway between the houses. photo credit: A.Mills

Everything in Sandy’s path has been touched and reshaped. Landscapes have been rearranged. Landmarks have been expunged. And most of all, the people have been irrevocably altered. We will recover. We will rebuild. In a year or two, we will look back with pride at what we have overcome. But I don’t think we will ever be able to forget.

As so wonderfully suggested by a NOLA writer, who has lived through this type of devastation amid the aftermath of Katrina and lived to tell about it, are the words from Ulysses;

“Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Stay strong.

These people are doing amazing things for the people needing help along the Jersey Shore. Please think of donating. Project Rebuild Recover and Waves for Water.

Age of Awareness

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs. ~Christopher Morley


Since Scootch's diagnosis, I can't even begin to tell you how much reading I have done. Knowledge is power, right? I should be able to supply energy to the entire neighborhood with how much power I've accumulated. And yet, I still feel like I'm learning something new everyday.

I recently joined another website community for help regarding Scootch. They lured me in with a feature on managing anxiety associated with food allergies. (I think they just should have named it, "We're Doing This Feature For You!") The entire presentation was helpful, validating, and enlightening, but there was one point in particular that has been worrying me incessantly. They talked a little bit about empowering your own child by letting him/her become their own advocate, and most of the mothers listed how well their children do asking for permission to eat things, and knowing to tell strangers that they have allergies. One mother even said her son has known his food limitations by 2 1/2.

Huh. Scootch is almost 3. And I have never taught him to say he's allergic to eggs and nuts. Why this never occurred to me I can't say. Somehow in reading to him, teaching him his colors, numbers, alphabet, and how to go potty, I never have actually sat down with him and explained TO HIM that he has food allergies. He's always been present when they were discussed, I've told him he can't have certain things because they will make him itchy, but I've never actually filled him in on it. I found myself unsure of how much he actually knew and comprehended about his condition. Until last Saturday.

Last Saturday was Easter Eve. And Easter Eve in our house involves dying Easter Eggs. I actually remembered to buy the contraband eggs the night before while I was out at the grocery store (and then promptly forgot to buy the egg dye), and hard boiled them in the morning to prepare them. So by afternoon, after lunch, I had everything set up and announced we were going to dye eggs for Easter, and Scootch told me he couldn't. "I no do eggs, Mom. I don't wanna be itchy." Dumbfounded. That was my reaction. It became blatantly obvious that Scootch had grasped a great deal of his condition by himself, even though I didn't have a whole sit down talk with him. He obviously remembered how horrible he felt back on New Years Day when he was exposed to nuts and broke out in hives. He obviously has been listening when his sister has been integrating mini lectures about his food allergies into their play kitchen sessions. And he obviously is old enough to comprehend and internalize the stuff I have been talking over his head to others for the past 2 years. A big "DUH" to Mommy for not thinking he would simply absorb this information just like he's picked up everything else in his short life.

To tell you the truth, I think the whole reason I haven't had the food allergy talk with him is that I didn't think he was that self-aware yet. My first clue should have been that he has grasped the awareness concept of potty training, but I think in some respects, I've been short changing him a bit by thinking he is still pretty much a helpless baby. In actuality, he'll be 3 in less than two months, and is as opinionated and bright as the Monkey was at that age. He confounds me again and again, day to day, with the observations and queries that come out of his mouth with no provocation. As much as I can sit here and rationalize that I didn't do it because I wanted him to still be a carefree little boy, I'm now kicking myself in the head and feeling guilty for insulting his intelligence by not thinking he could handle the information sooner. He obviously has some knowledge about his food limitations, and it hasn't dampened his carefree attitude one bit. So instead of sitting here worrying how much information is too much information, I'm going to start giving him the basics to go on for now. Hopefully by the time we get to his 3rd birthday, he'll know his full name, his address, and his food allergies.

Hold On Tight

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another. ~Katherine Paterson


Panic. I think panic lives in my throat, because that is where I feel it first. My neck gets tight and my throat starts to feel like there is an invisible vice around it, prepared to tighten if I don't get it under control. Then come the spine tingles. They prick in the back of my neck, and the bottom of my spine, and then slowly fill in the space between. Fight, flight, or freeze. Sympathetic nervous system overload. Clammy hands, cold sweat, the rushing noise in my ears, they all pile on the panic train and start pushing it over the hill until my stomach feels like its dropping to my toes. Have you ever tried to move quickly when your stomach is in your feet? And I haven't felt panic in so long until it sprang upon me again last night. It was almost funny how the feelings were coming over me and a separate section of my brain was going, "What is this? It's kind've familiar. I've gone through this before. Oh, yeah. I remember now. PANIC!"

I've been doing exceptionally well since Little Bear was born. Considering its been a whole year and change since I stopped taking my anxiety medication, I have been pretty optimistic with how even and level my feelings have been. I've even managed short trips with my entire brood alone, and have yet to feel anything close to that crippling day in June 3 years ago when I couldn't make myself get out of the car for fear we would all be killed in the parking lot. Maybe it helps that I'm more cautious now, more prone to asking for assistance or for someone to come with me that has been helping. Or even that I seem to have slowly developed the ability to force back and tune out the anxious thoughts of death, separation, and disaster to a dull hum in the back of my mind, instead of letting them break through and dominate my thoughts. Or maybe Little Bear just found the reset button while he was in there and I got a free system restore for all the trouble he's put us through.

Either way, last night started out well. I went out shopping with Monkey for an Easter dress for her, since the store had them for 50% off. I even left Scootch and Little Bear at home with Daddy so she could have some undivided attention. I figured this would be a piece of cake, going out with the oldest. She's not allergic to anything, doesn't need to have her diaper changed. And we did have fun. She ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the prom dresses that were in the adult section, got giddy and giggly around the plethora of lace and flowers that adorned the dresses in her size, had a ball spinning the skirts out in the dressing room in front of the mirror, and even managed to put back the matching purse, hat, gloves, and headband she wanted without too much of an arguement. And I'm sure it was only 5 minutes of the entire excursion that went awry. 5 minutes that made me realize how matter how much I think I'm doing good, this will always be with me. As long as I'm living and breathing, I have the potential to freak out over my kids.

After checking out, we were walking towards the doors when something in my size got my attention and we went over to investigate. I let go of Monkey's hand to see the price and she walked away from me, around to the other side of the rack. I didn't think anything of it. I was done, turned around, and she wasn't there. I bent down to look underneath the clothes, since she likes to hide inside the clothing racks like I did when I was little (you know that curse from your mother about having a kid JUST LIKE YOU?), but I didn't see any legs under there. Checked the surrounding racks, and nothing. At this point I was still at annoyance level. So I called her. Twice. And nothing. Tried again, lifting my voice up so she could hear me over the larger part of the section we were in. Nothing. No "What, Mom?", no giggle because she's hiding, no feet running in my direction, and no helpful stranger telling me "She ran past this way." So I walked the length of the 5 aisles in the section scanning each one, hoping to spot strawberry curls, or a red jacket. Still calling her name, and still nothing. There is doubt at first. Am I sure I didn't see her? Maybe she's just hiding in another rack? I go back to the beginning to check again. No Monkey. And that's when it starts, the panic feeling in my throat. The irritation eroding and being replaced by that imaginary vice. I'm scanning the store as my throat is tightening. No Monkey. I'm feeling spine tingles as I take to inspecting other people in the area, looking for someone trying to hide a little girl under their arm as they bolt from the store. Still No Monkey. I'm jogging as the cold sweat breaks out, moving through clothing racks, weaving through people. I can't even tell you what I'm seeing, except that it's not the one thing my eyes are looking for. One final time before my throat closes up I yell her name again. Heartbeat. Silence. Heartbeat. What do I do? Heartbeat. But then there she is, popping out of an aisle and running straight at me. I'm grabbing her as she's chattering about some pretty shirt with sparkly flowers on it that she wants me to see. I don't care about the shirt, I care about her not coming to me when I called her, or at least saying something in response when I was yelling her name. I'm trying to cool down, and I'm trying to not scare her by squeezing her so tight I disrupt her air flow. My hands are still shaking a little, but the sound of my heartbeat is finally draining away from in my ears. I take her hand again. "I want to show you the shirt, Mom," and she's leading me away.

We go see the shirt. We get in the car. The whole way home I try to explain that if she wanders too far and doesn't answer my call I get scared because I can't find her. I try to practice with her what she should say if she ever hears me yelling her name. That I can yell for her for another reason besides the fact that she's in trouble. "Okay, Mom" is all she says. Okay. We're okay. I'm okay. It will probably happen again, but it should be okay.

But in the meantime, she damn well better learn to come when I call.

Through the Looking Glass

A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future. ~Author Unknown



When the doctor said those three little words "Its a girl" I'll admit I was filled with more trepidation than anticipation. As much as I knew there was an excellent chance we'd have a girl, I don't know if I ever could prepare myself fully for having a daughter. I never had a good relationship with my own mother, I don't even think I began to understand her at all until after she passed, and in some ways I think I'll always feel ill-equipped and inadequate in relating with Monkey. I'm not saying I wasn't loved, I definitely know my mother loved me and was proud of me, but we didn't relate to each other as well as she got on with my brother. I think her bright personality responded better to her charming Sagittarius baby than to her moody little Gemini. The other factor that influences me is how long I've lived in only the company of men. After my mother passed I was living with three generations of males; my father, grandfather, and brother. There were a constant stream of my brother's male friends in the house, or I was spending time with my dad and his older male friends. I've always had a small group of close girlfriends, but I've never fully related to them. Being a 15 year old adult sometimes puts a damper on finding things as amusing as other girls my age did.

So mix that all together and you can possibly see why I'm always over-analyzing my relationship with Monkey. Out of all 3 kids, she is the one whose antics get under my skin the fastest, or whose comments hit me the deepest. For some reason it always feels like she knows just what to say to cut me to the quick. She is so much like me in her tastes and interests, with the one exception that she owns more pink dress up costumes than I owned regular clothing as a child. I see so much of myself in her at her age, and I really don't want her to have the same mother/daughter experience I had. It saddens me to no end that I feel more frustration with her than anything else. Maybe its just the age or the stage, but she doesn't seem inclined to enjoy my presence or company. It wouldn't hurt so much if she was a Daddy's girl, but she doesn't care for him either. She'd much rather spend her time with Me-Ma, and that stings a little. Its not that I'm female, but apparently I'm not the right female for her to identify with. The taste of that disappointment is bitter in my mouth. Although I admit to being intimidated by having a daughter, that doesn't mean I didn't have dreams of what having a daughter would be like, or the kinds of things we could do together. And the fact that she doesn't want to do them with me hits on a whole well of insecurities I didn't know existed until she arrived.

Feeling like a weirdo through your teenage years is considered a normal course of life, but I distinctly remember feeling even more ostracized for being a weirdo with no guidance system. Teenage rebellion is a whole lot less exciting when there is no parental ideal to rebel against. Trying to find footing as a young adult without commiting a serious faux paus is a daunting task when you're trying to do it yourself without another's example. I still sometimes feel way out of league with other adults, and all these things come back to the surface when I think about my daughter not preferring my company or rejecting me as her role model. It makes me wonder if I really am deficient in some way that she can easily identify with her all seeing child-vision. And when people say having girls is harder, I believe that can be absolutely true for moms. As flawed and imperfect as we see ourselves, how terrifying must it be for all of that to be reflected back through the mirrors of our daughters? How much is exaggerated and distorted, and how much is a proper likeness? So for now, I not only strive for who I think I should be, but who I would like my daughter to be when she's older. Calm, helpful, compassionate, trustworthy, (okay - I'm still working on the calm part...). And even if she doesn't pick me as her first choice to hang out with, I'm still going to paint her toenails, knit hats for her dolls, have her be my baking assistant, and let her help me wash the dishes (by playing in the sink with the soap bubbles). Above all, I'm going to impose in her life constantly until we can improve how we communicate. Because I want to relate to this little girl. I want to understand her and help her understand me. So when the day comes that she needs help understanding herself, I can be there for her to rebel against. And I can only hope that our relationship is strong enough that I can encourage her to shatter the glass.
photo credit to C.M.C.

Premonition

My husband has a theory about Deja Vu, and the easiest way to sum it up is to use a line a character said in one of the shows my husband follows. "Deja Vu is just fate letting you know you're on the right path."

Well, my premonition about Scootch having a food allergy issue around Christmas came true today. Not the same as Deja Vu, since I would have actually known what to expect, but I'm starting to think it works along the same lines.

I don't know if you can tell from the above picture, but that is Scootch with his eyes swollen from an allergy attack. He looked much worse before the picture, and the case of hives that he had on his hands looked even more worse than that. His Grandmother ate some walnuts while we were visiting today and then put her hands on Scootch. I'm not sure whether she helped him with his coat, or if they came in contact when she was saying goodbye to him, but while I was walking him out to the car he was scratching his wrists like crazy. So I pulled up his coat sleeves to take a look and his wrists and hands were covered in hives. I quickly had hubby give him one of the Benadryl Perfect Measures I carry on me, and then I wiped his hands with a baby wipe. Apparently the baby wipe didn't do enough, though, because he rubbed his eyes and by the time we got home he was crying that his eyes hurt and the left one was halfway swollen shut.

More hand scrubbing followed by nail trimming (in case any residue was still under his nails) followed by cold compresses and we had ourselves one unhappy (but somewhat healing) little boy. But now that its hours later and I'm having time to reflect, I can feel the panic rattling under the lid I have clamped down on my anxiety. I mean, I don't even want to imagine what his reaction would be to ingesting a walnut if this is what happens if he merely touches one. After him having no reaction when exposed to almonds, I was actually feeling a little optimistic about his food allergy. Now I'm back to being completely terrified and feeling entirely helpless and vulnerable.

And the hardest part is that Scootch really isn't old enough to understand. He didn't understand why he kept itching, had no clue why he had to take medicine, or why his eyes were "hurting" after he had rubbed them. And meanwhile, Monkey is asking me if I have to use the needles on Scootch, or if he has to go to the hospital. Not exactly the right thoughts to be putting in my head at the moment, but it floored me a little that she was so astute of the situation. Even while she was telling Scootch that she knows he's sick from food he shouldn't have because he has the "polka dots" on his hands.

Walnuts: 1, Kel: 0

Help Through Hindsight

"Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith." ~Author Unknown

I was sitting at home the night of Halloween transferring the day's pictures to the computer from my camera, when I clicked back to the photo album containing pictures of Halloween 4 years ago.

Four years ago we had one little pumpkin,

This Halloween we have two pumpkins and one growing in the patch!



It was sad, exhilarating, and stressful, all in the same moment. I'm so glad that you learn to multi-task as a parent, (even if you're just multi-tasking your feelings) because, I have a confession. I feel so vulnerable and uncertain at this point about the future and what it holds for all of us as a family. Just so much is going on, and its gone from a daily struggle to fight the depression to an hourly one. Between the financial problems we still lack an answer to, the logistics of getting the house renovations finished before this kid gets here, and the physical needs that need to be medically attended to with each of us, I feel like I can't breathe from all the stress over unanswerable questions.

And in that moment where I was looking at that first photo, I caught myself wishing back for the past. Yearning for the time when it was just one child to worry about. When it seemed like the world was opening up with possibilities instead of closing in on me. When I felt feelings of peace and joy on a daily basis without having to reach for them. And I had to stop myself. I know I'm not through with this journey, but so far, if anything, it has taught me that the past is not the answer, but rather a clue as to how I need to refocus on the future. So I'm looking ahead and trying to see the light on the other end of the tunnel. I'm really, really, REALLY, hoping and praying that somehow this will all work out. That this family will thrive and grow despite the changes coming.

Basically, I'm hoping for a deliverance of multiple kinds before the year is through.

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.

Never fully dressed

When I have weeks that involve stuff like this happening, which is totally out of my control; (that crack is in my car's front windshield, by the way)


It's nice that I can come home and spend 2 hours making a dress that makes my Monkey smile like this;


Or set up a $10 slip n' slide that can elict shreiks of glee out of Scootch;

Sometimes on my darkest days, I think that if I just keep looking here, at the personifications of my heart, everything is just going to work out. If I can just keep myself smiling, it will have to turn out for the better. For them.

Hurdles

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time." ~Unknown

I like to make plans. Maybe its due in part of my OCD nature, or maybe its because I grew up in a boating family that charted and plotted a course in the summer before undertaking it. Either way, I've grown up to be a planner. It helps to keep the anxiety away when I think I know what to expect. But its becoming more clear that I should have taken up a sport like track and field in high school instead of indulging in something safe and choreographed like the Drill Team I was on. Hurdles seem to be a common fixture in my life.

When my husband and I got married, we had a plan to stop at three kids. Plans changed after Scootch was born, and I found myself unable to function or leave the house without help. So we decided it would be best to change the plans and stop at two. We've made plans since then, we just recently tried to start up our own business, bought a car, and basically have tried to stick to the plans. Apparently, though, someone else has different plans for us.

Two Fridays ago, I just got confirmation that we'll be expecting baby #3 in December, despite the measures we went through to ensure a limit on our family numbers. The anti-anxiety medication I've been on will have to be stopped for the baby. I'll have to quit my day job and hope that we'll still survive without my additional income paying for the food and utility bills since the business isn't pulling in any money yet. And I'm already stressing over having to remove my kids from their wonderful school, and turning their days full of friends and learning into being walled up at home with an over-anxious mother.

Its hard to keep feeling like I can keep it together when so many things start spinning out of control at once. And as much excitement we're feeling over actually getting the 3 kids we originally planned for, the hurdles are looking a little daunting and numerous. But I'm hoping. I'm hoping that whoever changed our plans will also point us in the direction of the solutions. I'm hoping this is an experience that might help me recover some strength against my fears instead of further exiling me to the shadows of my anxieties.

I'm hoping that hope will prevail.

Simple Math

This;


plus one very special friend;

lets them do this without me being overwhelmed with fear;

And equals this on the ride home;

I'm confident they were very sweet dreams. :-)

(Most of the photo credits go to my dear SammyJo)