All Good Things

Back at the beginning of 2015 I started a project that would last the year. I took a bowl I had in my house and some scraps of paper and started to keep a record of all the good things, big and small, that happened over the course of the year. I chose to do this because, let’s face it, the previous few years had been pretty hard to get through sometimes and when I got to the end of the year I just felt so bummed because all I focused on was the shitty stuff that happened. So, I set out to change that.

I wasn’t 100% successful. I stopped putting notes in the jar around the beginning of August. Things got busy; I forgot. Then school started and Liam got a concussion and my fall turned inside out.

But even those first 8 months of good things reminded me that hey! Lots of good and fun things happened this year and so, for the end of 2015, I’d like to share the big and the small – the joy in our lives.

• In January, a lot of my scraps of paper talked about weight loss. I did lose some weight but as of right now, I’m right back where at I was on 1/1/15 so that’s something to work on.
• “Today Jamie had a tantrum over getting dressed. But I managed to work with him enough that he calmed down and worked with me, ending up happy with his outfit.” (1/1/15) This used to be a daily occurrence. Getting him to calm down in the midst of this was HUGE.  And now? A year later, he’s dressing himself without complaint.
• “Big bear hugs from Liam” (1/20/15) Sometimes all you need to make your day brighter is a big, squishy hug from your kid.
• I continued to be in school in 2015 and I earned A’s the two classes I completed. I should have done more schoolwork but with Liam’s concussion care, I had to put off the planned fall work. That’s ok. Back at it in 2016!
• “I GOT A JOB!” (2/8/2015) Booyah. “Great first day at work!” (2/20/2015)
• I got my piano tuned for the first time in 15 years and I could play again. She needs another tune up but it’s so nice to have that creative outlet again.
• In April, I went to Texas to visit my best friend and her husband. I was away for three days and it was so! much! fun! It was just what I needed to relax and rejuvenate. I was so grateful to Scot for making it happen.
• “Jamie: buckle, car, coat, cup. All correct! No prompting! IT’S CLICKING!!” (4/15/2015) Jamie’s speech improved so much over 2015. He finally started getting ‘K’ and ‘G’ sounds correctly – something he’d been working on since he was two – and I am so proud of him for how hard he’s worked.
• We carried a fair bit of debt with us into 2015. In April we finally paid off all the medical AND credit card debt. It was SUCH a load off our minds and budget.
• I was kind of a social butterfly in 2015, much more so than in years past. I went to see Indigo Girls with the PSO (4/30/2015), I took in the inaugural Pittsburgh Listen To Your Mother show which my friend Dawn performed in (5/8/2015), Scot and I went to the symphony (5/9/2015), We hosted Cards Against Humanity game night (7/18/15), I enjoyed having a beer to celebrate Jenda’s birthday (8/4/15), and I saw Eileen Ivers perform at Hartwood Acres with Jenda and Eric. I also remember great dinners out with girlfriends and just hanging out at Dawn’s house. It seems I didn’t write these down as I should but they remain bright in my memory.
• In June, I worked hard to restore some semblance of order to my landscaping. The job was huge and I didn’t finish all of it but I put a lot of time and effort in and it showed. Here’s hoping the wildflowers I planted this year come back next year!
• “Dr. Stewart appointment with Jamie. So good to have a pediatrician who cares.” (6/16/15) When the school told me that Jamie was still struggling and might have greater issues than just a stubborn personality, I was crushed for him. It was hard. And navigating any kind of process to help him was bewildering. In the end, we asked to talk to our pediatrician for guidance and what did he do? Slotted us in at the end of his day and stayed LATE to talk with us for an hour. He helped set us on the right path to helping Jamie and I’m so happy to report that Jamie is doing SO WELL right now that we’ve closed out therapy for him for the time being.
• Also in June, we got to visit with Scot’s best friend, Anna, and her kids for the first time in a very long time. I love Anna and her whole family and we’ve known the kids since they were born. She and Casey are raising truly fantastic people and I’m glad to know them.
• We FINALLY got new garage doors on the house! (7/1/15)
• In July, the boys and I went to Michigan for several days for our yearly visit to the homestead. This was the first year that my Dad has been fully retired for the visit and it was such a great time as a result. We could be more leisurely and flexible about our plans. Everyone had a great time – from zoo visits to a day at the beach – best visit yet.
• The last big set of things I have written for 2015 is Scot’s new job. In 2015 he left BNYM to join IBM Watson and the move has been so great for him and for all of us. He’s so much happier with what he’s doing and who he’s working with. Also, their flexibility allowed us to navigate two work schedules and an intense schedule of doctor’s appointments this fall as we treated Liam’s concussion.
• One last thing: in mid-December we were finally released from all concussion care and Liam was given permission to attend school on a normal, full time, gym-included schedule. It might have been the best Christmas present I got this year.

Thanks to my little project, it turns out that 2015 was a pretty great year. We had some bumps and lumps to take but I think the joy and happiness we had throughout the year far outweighs the bad. Here’s to an equally joyous 2016!

Whew. I Made It.

The last seven days have been a marathon and I finally made it to Friday. My sanity is mostly intact, if slightly askew, and that’s about all I can hope for at this point.

Saturday: I baked. I baked and I baked and I baked. Hundreds of cookies churned out of my kitchen that day. I did little else besides bake and clean the kitchen on repeat.

With the stunning exception of screaming like a fishwife at my children who were being incredibly difficult about cleaning up the family room. The room they had trashed. The room that HAD to be clean before I could put up the Christmas tree they’d been bugging me about. It ended with everyone going to bed early because they refused to finish the job. Ahh, the sounds of the season…

Sunday: I baked some more. I also grocery shopped, did laundry, chatted with my parents, and supervised homework. In the end, I had thirty dozen cookies. I think I may have truly become delirious on butter at some point. I was also so sore from standing on the tile floor of the kitchen for so many hours that I could barely move.

Monday: Kids to school, me to work. At last, a chance to breathe! After work, I had to pick Liam up early from school so that he could attend physical therapy. That went well, actually, and I’m really hoping we are just about done with that mess. FINGERS, TOES, HAIRS, LEGS, ARMS, YOUNAMEIT CROSSED.

I also got to play Cookie Fairy for a couple of people that was pretty awesome.

Tuesday: Oh, what a day. We started off with a follow up doc appointment for Liam with the Rehab Medicine folks. That went well. Then, I took Liam to school and things started to go south. He moaned and he groaned about how he didn’t feel well and his head hurt and he was nauseated. I gave him Zofran and kicked him into school.

The nurse called me less than half an hour later. Surprise! Liam is in the nurse’s office. I had her give him seltzer, ginger ale, mints, etc. No luck. So, I had to go pick him up.

When I did, the nurse pulled me aside and basically told me that Liam is gaming the system to get out of school. Her hands are tied by the protocols she has to follow and he knows exactly what to say and do to get me to pick him up.

Now, we’ve suspected for some time that there might be a malingering problem going on here but I don’t think either one of us really knew the depth to which our son had sunk. I was furious with him. And while I did not yell, I did make it clear that he would NOT like the consequences of being held back a year because of his antics.

Then, Granddad came to the rescue. He took Liam to lunch and it transpired that Liam thinks it’s hunky dory to only be there to turn in his work and then come home and do the make up work. He doesn’t need to be in class, right?

WRONG.

Granddad, the seasoned elementary educator, made sure that Liam was disabused of this notion and also told Liam that he was to be back in school full time as of Wednesday. Full stop. Also, he was to GET HIS DANG BACKLOG OF WORK DONE.

He’s been a changed kid ever since. He goes to school all day, he puts in two solid hours on homework every night (because he’s working to catch up), he’s not constantly complaining that he doesn’t feel good and trying to win our sympathy. Kid is too smart for his own dang good.

Once that crisis was out of the way, I had a date with traffic court. About 6 months ago I got pulled over speeding egregiously. It was my own stupid fault; I was not paying attention to how fast I was going, I was having a VERY bad night, and I just blew past a cop going way too fast. STUPID STUPID STUPID. Tuesday was the court date.

The cop offered to plead me down to 10 over the speed limit. This would have left me with 2 points on my license for a year but seeing as this was still a better deal than the ticket as it was written, I took it because beggars can’t be choosers.

So, I wait around and wait around and wait around until finally I get in front of the magistrate with the cop. Except the cop tells the magistrate the wrong plea and says 5 over instead of 10 over. I, not being completely inept, keep my trap SHUT. Magistrate signs everything. Cop signs everything. I sign everything.

And that’s how I got out of having any points at all.

In between these two events, I was cleaning our basement game room. It was a total shit heap, barely navigable through the sea of Legos. Many hours later, I hit carpet. I had to clean the basement so that furniture that was in the family room could be moved down to the basement to make room for the tree. Oh how I love having to clean a room on a separate floor of my house to make room for something a floor away.

Wednesday: Kids when to school and I went to work in the morning. Then, race home because I have a thousand things to do. On my way home, I stopped at the AT&T store because I needed to ask some questions about our cell phone plan before we decided on phone upgrades.

I walked out with two iPhone 6s Plus’. Merry Christmas, honey! I hope you like your phablet!

I spent a bunch of the afternoon getting the new phone set up so those thousand chores I had kinda got pushed off. But, for the third night in a row, I went to bed ungodly early because I was exhausted. Ramfeezled, even.

Thursday: The kids went went to school, I stayed home. It was Christmas tree day and Jamie let me know it. He woke up, “It’s Thursday! Christmas tree day!” Good gravy, kid, chill out.

But before I could actually go purchase a tree and put it up, I had to a) fix a curtain rod that had pulled out of the wall A YEAR AGO and b) move furniture. Item A ended up requiring a trip to Lowe’s because I couldn’t find the dang wall anchors I knew I had. Item B required Scot’s help to move a cabinet to the basement. Luckily, he worked from home so he managed to help me get that done. Then, it was off to the nursery to get a tree.

Yep, I’m the dork that ties a tree to the roof of the car.

Then, it was unload, prep stand, prep tree, get tree in stand.

Big Fucker

So now the kids can stop bitching about it not being up yet. I’ll put lights on it either tonight or tomorrow and we’ll decorate over the weekend. My house now smells amazing.

I also shampooed the basement carpet, cleaned up the mess from putting the tree up, and then passed out asleep on the floor before the kids got home.

Friday: School for kids, work for me. I can’t believe I made it without falling over.

7 Quick Takes: Catching Up

I’ve missed this writing prompt so it’s time to resurrect it.

1. Liam is back to school. We had a really good appointment with Rehab Medicine and he has been doing well since. We had a slight bump over the weekend when he got a migraine and started puking and couldn’t stop. It required a trip to Children’s ER but they got things under control and then it was just a matter of getting through the migraine hangover. He’s also reading again and doing schoolwork again, although some of it is on a reduced schedule. But gains are being made. Hurray!
2. Jamie, poor dear, has really gotten the short end of the stick lately but he’s doing well, too. I had my parent teacher conference for him in early November and his teacher is very pleased with how he’s doing. He isn’t acting out in class and when he does have a frustrating moment, he can verbalize that he just needs to be left alone to gather himself. Once he’s given a minute or two, he’s back on track. His academics are good as well. We continue to see the psychologist who is also pleased with how he’s doing. His speech therapist is so pleased with his progress that she didn’t even feel that she needed to attend his parent teacher conference. Gold stars, all ’round!
3. Another Jamie note: I don’t talk about it much, but Jamie is still not night trained when it comes to potty training. He’s just never been a kid who wakes up dry. EVER. So, he’s been in pull ups for years now. But while he is fully trained when he’s awake and in underwear, he refuses to treat the pull up like surrogate undies. He sees it as a diaper and uses it as such. I’ve been changing poopy diapers for over 10 years now. I. AM. DONE. We’ve been trying to get him into undies but it’s very hit and miss. He was still having pee accidents (mostly minor, but still requiring linen washing) almost nightly though he will not poop in his underwear. So we went back to pull ups and all that entailed. Yesterday I found this product at Target which rather neatly solves our problem. They’re real underwear with an insert that protect him from pee accidents but as they’re real underwear, he won’t poop in them. I showed them to Jamie and he was so excited he called them “the best invention in the history of the whole world” and we tried them out last night. Worked a treat.
4. We did have an unexpected and terrible occurrence a couple of weeks ago. Molly, our adopted border collie, started biting neighborhood kids unprovoked. She’d been getting progressively more territorial and protective of us as a family and was not willing to listen to the kids AT ALL. She finally went over the line. I’m very sad to say that we had to remove her from our house. Animal Friends was willing to take her back and put her through a behavioral program and then attempt to adopt her out again. I hope hope hope that she finds the right forever home with lots of land and farm animals to boss around. She is a sweet, loving dog who just wasn’t right in a suburban setting with lots of kids. We miss her terribly.
5. We bought a new car! We said goodbye to the MINI – which while fun to drive was becoming a real nuisance. It’s expensive to maintain and the kids were quickly outgrowing the backseat room. The car was 10 years old and it was time. So we traded it in for a brand spanking new Toyota Prius hatchback. Great gas mileage! Low payments! More backseat room! Now I want one, too, but the Honda is still going strong and we can only afford one new car at a time. Still, I like it a lot and it should cut down on our gas consumption.
6. Scot and I are settled into our jobs and work schedule and things are going well. He really likes being back at IBM and is enjoying working with old colleagues again. I’m enjoying my job, too, and taking on more responsibility as the opportunity presents itself.
7. I wrote a piece for Listen To Your Mother. Auditions are in January. I’m going to audition. EEP!

Mercury Is In Retrograde And I’m F–ked

I’ve never really put much stock in the whole astrology thing. I think it’s mostly bunk (though I am the most Taurus who ever Taurus’d). So when things started taking a nosedive around here and people started saying “hey, you know, mercury is in retrograde” I thought they were nuts.

I TAKE IT ALL BACK.

On Thursday, Liam came home with some troubling news. The first bit being that he’d taken a rubber ball to the right side of his neck in gym class and was feeling dizzy and nauseated. The second bit being that someone had written “F–k Liam” in a boys bathroom at school.

Yeah. I’ll start with the second bit. It was done in the bathroom in the 5th grade hallway. This part of the building actually ONLY has 5th grade students. Liam is the only Liam in the 5th grade. Thus, one of his classmates must have written it and they can only have meant him.

Well, you can imagine how upset he was. How angry and upset Scot and I were. We spoke with the principal directly about it and the upshot of the business is this: because of timing issues, they couldn’t use hallway security camera footage to determine which child did it. The principal instead gathered all the 5th grade boys and put the fear of God into them. They were told that this was a suspendable offense and that they got lucky this time because they couldn’t determine culprit. They were told that when they see such things they should report them IMMEDIATELY so that they can sleuth out who did it. And they were told that this is not how a school that is supposed to be a bully-free zone works. They made a target of another child and that is simply NOT OK.

The principal also had the custodian remove the graffiti ASAP – so quickly, in fact, that when Liam took me in to see it, it had already been sanded away. (The little shitcake that did it carved it into the stall wall.)

Now, as to the injury in gym class – Liam was still feeling off the next morning. But I was going to be at school all morning helping with picture day so I made him go to school, told him I would be there, and basically made him give it a try. By 9 am he was in the nurses office. He just couldn’t get the dizziness under control and it was making him nauseated and unsteady on his feet. So I signed him out early, left the other volunteers to deal with picture day, and took him home.

When I called the pediatrician, they recommended I have him seen at Children’s for evaluation. Many hours and little sustenance later he was diagnosed with a concussion. A mild one but a concussion nonetheless. (I must take a moment to acknowledge that my dear friend Dawn drove all the way into the city to bring me sustenance while we waited it out in the ER. She’s a lifesaver.) So, now we’re on the concussion recovery train, complete with having to see extra doctors. GOOD GOD. He went back to school this morning and I’ll know in a little bit how well that all went. *fingers crossed*

So, this morning I head off to work. Things are crazy hectic but hey, it’s a Monday.

Until I got in the car to LEAVE work and couldn’t because the car wouldn’t start. Dead battery.

My boss saved my ass and helped me get the car jumped. I drove it directly home – skipping the errands I was planning to do – and parked her in the garage. Turned off the car. Waited about a minute. Tried to start her up again.

No dice. Need a new battery.

With help from my friends on Twitter who pointed me to a YouTube video that shows me exactly how to pull the old battery and drop in the new one, I can at least save myself the tow fee. Now I just have to wait for Scot to get home with the other car so I can purchase said battery. But, hey, Valuable Learning Experience here. By the time I’m done, I’ll know how to change the battery in my car.

So. When does Mercury leave retrograde?

New World Order

Closing in on 3 years ago, I blogged about needing help around the house and asking for it. That lasted for a a solid two weeks. Maybe. And then something happened, I have no idea what, and we all reverted to our old ways: Mom does it all, everyone else lives the life of Riley.

(By the way, I was astonished to see that post was dated 2012. Good gravy.)

So here we are, all this time later and things have changed even further. I’m in school, I have a job, the kids have full time school soon, Scot still works. And our house is a PIT. Worse, the slightest request for help resulted in tantrums from the 6 year old and sullen attitude from the 10 year old. It was so bad that we often just didn’t ask because we didn’t want to fight the battle with them. This is the wrong parenting choice. VERY, VERY WRONG CHOICE.

Scot and I just utterly lost our minds about it. Liam’s room is 12 layers deep in filth, the family room is usually not appreciably better and our kids are LAZY. I sat down and wrote out new house rules and chore lists for Liam and Jamie. Scot was on board so we sat down and had a family meeting. I laid down the law.

Welcome to the new world order, kids.

Then, I gave each of them the set of chores they would be expected to do on a regular basis. I knew that I would have to nag and ask constantly but I told them I didn’t want tantrums or sullenness about it. They were now officially on notice as to what their responsibilities are.

Earning their keep.

(NB: Yes, I know that at 6.5 Jamie should be brushing and dressing on his own without trouble. And he CAN do this but he doesn’t regularly. It goes back to his stubbornness and the need to JUST GET IT DONE.)

So, we’ve been working at it. Week One went very well. The house is in better shape (though still trashed some places, AHEM, LIAM’S ROOM) but they both did their chores when asked without complaint.

I mentioned in my last post that Jamie seems to better when we has prior knowledge of the expectations. This whole endeavor was a huge lesson in that. Two nights before the family meeting, I asked Jamie to take 2 minutes and feed the dogs before he got his dessert after dinner. This resulted in a 20 minute tantrum and a screaming match with him that was an utterly worthless parent/child interaction.

But the night after the meeting, when I asked him to feed the dogs, he said “ok, Mom!” Then he did it. With no issues or complaints. And he has continued to do so every night since. The same has been true of asking him to clean up the family room or work on cleaning his own room with me. Ask him to get dressed prior to last week and you’d get an argument about it. Now? “OK!” Off he goes for clothes.

Liam, too, has been much better. Ask him to empty the dishwasher and he does it. Ask him to clean the family room with Jamie and he does it. Ask him to clean the powder room and he does it. The only issue is his bedroom. That is largely because it was 12 layers deep in filth so digging it out requires my archaeology degree. We’re working on it.

I’m hoping that by the time school starts on the 27th we will have established some new routines and habits.

As Mad-Eye Moody says, “CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”

What A Week, Redux

It turns out last week was just as busy as the week before it. If life doesn’t slow down soon, I am going to be buried under a pile of unfinished housework.

Monday: Worked in the morning. Really getting into the groove with my job now. As of Thursday, I am fully in charge of my job and done training. It feels great and I’m finally getting the chaos under control. Not completely yet but miles better than it was. As I told my boss, “You may be the boss but *I* wear the pants.”

Tuesday: grocery shop, house chores, and general laziness. In the evening we had the art show at school.

Liam’s puppet/monster/felt-sewn-thingy

 

Jamie’s interpretation of the Mona Lisa

 

Mosaic? I don’t know. But clearly Liam has an affinity for pink lately.

 

Wednesday: Another day at home and this one was fairly quiet – thank god. We all needed that.

Thursday: Muffins with Mom at school in the morning then off to work for my final training session. I then came home and collapsed. I’m still not used to this work/commute/still have chores business. I’ll get there but so far, nada.

Friday: The biggest thing about Friday was Listen To Your Mother. My friend, Dawn, was in the cast for the inaugural Pittsburgh show. It was amazing. Tears, laughter, the whole gamut of emotions and woven into all the stories, the thread of the shared experience of motherhood. I was so glad to be there and so lucky to be a part of that audience. I then proceeded to stay out until 1:30 am at the after-party. I am a wee bit too old for that.

Saturday: Recovery from staying out until ungodly hours. In the evening, Scot and I went to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra do Fantasia Live. The orchestra played selections from both films while the animation was projected above them.

First, traffic was HORRENDOUS. I’ve never been caught in traffic like that in all my life. Driving in DC was better than what we went through in Downtown Pittsburgh that night. Thank you, Pirates game. EESH.

Second, I was really looking forward to this show. I love Fantasia. I’ve seen both movies hundreds of times. The orchestra played beautifully but the conductor was terrible. He was smarmy. “Who knew hippos could be so graceful?” He stopped just shy of the “Amirite?” and finger guns. He was also TERRIBLE at keeping the music in time with the animation which made it really jarring for me. I know the movies well enough that I saw every time it wasn’t in synch. He started the Russian Dance from The Nutcracker a full measure before the animation started!

The last piece they did was Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. It is, hands down, my favorite segment from both movies. I’ve always liked the music and I *adore* the animation that Disney created. I was very worried he was going to screw up Firebird. Luckily, he did not. So at least the concert ended on a good note.

Sunday: Mother’s Day. I talked with my Mom (as I do every Sunday) and wished her a happy day. Then, we took the kids and went to Scot’s parents house for a Mother’s Day dinner prepared by my father-in-law. It was delicious and low-key which was very nice after such a crazy week.

However, while there, Scot managed to injure himself. He was sitting on the porch filling water balloons for Jamie. When he finished, he went to get up, not realizing that one of his legs had fallen asleep. So when he stood up, he immediately collapsed onto the concrete porch and cracked the hell out of his knee.

So, yesterday evening (Monday) required a trip to the ER because he literally could not bear weight on the leg. He is, thank god, intact with nothing broken or torn. Just bruised right the hell up. They sent him home with a brace and a WALKER because he kept falling off the crutches. Today, though, he’s a bit better and at least able to hobble about without the aid of the walker.

But hey, we made it through April without any calamities so I can’t complain!

What A Week

Last week was the busiest week I’ve had in a loooooong time. I’m not quite sure how it filled up so fast. And this week isn’t looking much slower.

Monday: Went into work. Got shit done. Felt good. Then I went home and tried to get shit done there. Wasn’t quite as successful on that front.

Tuesday: I was home all day aside from running errands like grocery shopping. Actually got some crap done. Made pie. I was going to make a nice dinner for everyone – thawed a nice pork loin and everything. Then, Scot needed to take the kids out to get birthday cards for me so they went to dinner and I stay home. And the pork hit the fridge.

Wednesday: My birthday! Yay! The big 3-9. I worked in the morning then came home and relaxed because: birthday. I had a big lunch that day so I wasn’t really interested in dinner so once I fed the kids it was present time. To sum up: I’m spoiled.

Thursday: Home again but busy all day. Target run in the morning. Dental appointments for the kids in the afternoon. Dropped Liam off to play with a friend after school. Then, I had to get downtown by 6 pm to meet friends for dinner and then INDIGO GIRLS WITH THE PSO. Holy crap, that was a great show. Allison got FANTASTIC seats. They chose great songs to do with the orchestra. I really enjoyed it.

Amy, Emily, and the Orchestra

 

My one regret about the show is that they didn’t do any encores. I know that they could only do the songs that they had rehearsed with the orchestra but I thought they would have save one or two for encore. Nope. Sadness.

Friday: Whew! I got to Friday. I spent the whole day cleaning the house because my mother-in-law was coming over to watch the kids so Scot and I could go see Avengers: Age of Ultron. The family room was so incredibly trashed that it took me 2+ hours to unearth it. I did three loads of dishes in the dishwasher that day. EESH. The movie was great, though!

Saturday: I had all sorts of things on my to-do list for Saturday. I did my nails and napped. I was wiped from the week and I just couldn’t force myself to do anything more. I think I also managed to get some reading for my class done. Finally made that pork I’d defrosted.

Sunday: Laundry. Errands. Schoolwork. Chatting with my Mom. Then, in the evening I headed over to Dawn’s and helped her pick an outfit out for her performance at Listen To Your Mother. She’s got a killer bod and a killer red dress and she’s going to ROCK IT.

In the midst of that hugely busy week, somehow THIS week got just as busy!

• Monday: work
• Tuesday: Art show in the evening at school
• Wednesday: errands, chores, house stuff
• Thursday: Muffins with mom in the morning at school, work
• Friday: Listen To Your Mother!
• Saturday: Fantasia at the Symphony with Scot
• Sunday: Mother’s Day

When did I become a social butterfly?

P.S. Happy Star Wars Day! Scot and I are nerds in love. Our new rings:

“I love you” “I know”

All The News That’s Fit To Print

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks around here. Vacation reentry almost did me in but I got through it and so did everyone else. We now have 3 more days of April and I might be jinxing myself by saying this but *whispers* so far, so good. (NO WHAMMIES!)

For me, things on the work front are going really well. I had my first day of work where I was really flying solo and it felt so good. There is a lot to do and lots I need to catch up with because things have been very loosey-goosey before now. But shit is inching ever closer to a line (as opposed to splattered on all four walls).

After a decade at home, it is amazingly fulfilling to me that I can go do a job, use my brain, and benefit someone’s business in a real and tangible way. Like, I had forgotton how good it feels. It’s a completely different thing from the satisfaction of taking care of a family and home. I think this is going to be a huge boost for me – not just financially but mentally as well.

So yeah, I like my job.

Liam has decided to take a break from Tae-Kwon Do. He’s been feeling very stressed with school – more than I realized and I feel so bad for that. He just had too much on his plate between TKD, band, chorus, school, etc, etc. He was strung out. So we took TKD off his plate. We set up some ways to help support him better with schoolwork. We had a talk about how the PPSAs are bullshit, they mean nothing, and we didn’t care how he did on them. In fact, we’ll probably opt him out next year. They cause him anxiety and he doesn’t need that.

Jamie continues to be his usual mercurial self. He’s starting to be able to read a bit but he’s not too confident with it yet. To be honest, I think he’s scared to make mistakes and that keeps him from attempting things sometimes. He just doesn’t ever want to be wrong. But! He’s made a speech breakthrough and it’s a BIG one. That pesky ‘k’ sound is suddenly coming out correctly more and more often on a spontaneous basis. He’s even correcting himself before I even have a chance to prompt him. I’m so damn proud of him. He’s been working on that sound since he was TWO. FOUR YEARS. And he’s getting it. He’s also starting to get ‘g’ but it’s not showing up as frequently as ‘k’ yet.

Scot is doing OK. Work has been stressful and spring storms have kicked his migraines into high gear. He’s had two rounds of Botox for the migraines with a third upcoming in June. If #3 doesn’t truly lessen the severity/frequency then we’ll be done with Botox treatment. I had such high hopes for it to work for him – he’s a good candidate! – but I have my doubts that round 3 will be a miracle cure.

Speaking of medical things – we FINALLY paid off all the medical debt we had from the Great Organ Removal Festival of 2014. It took us a full year to get it all paid off but it’s DONE. It’s such a weight off our shoulders as it was a huge drain on our already very strained budget. So, I am glad to have that done. However, that said, I have to say that we are very lucky. Over the course of 3 years, it took 2 job losses, 2 surgeries, a broken arm, and 4 hospitalizations for our budget to come to a point where we were truly in the red. Any one of those things could have been the tipping point for many, many families. We are so lucky that the combination wasn’t enough to break us.

Last but not least, I’m about start on the first of my final 3 classes for school. I have the book in hand, the courses have finally migrated and been put up for purchase, I’ve gotten access, and I’m ready to go. My original timeline of being done by June is out the window. No way, no how. But I’m taking these last three courses one at a time instead of in a group (for a lot of reasons) so I think I’ll be able to get through them a little more smoothly. Reimbursement Methodologies is first up – which dovetails nicely with my job.

All in all, life is very good. I’m tired and I’m still trying to figure out how to cram in all the things I need to do into the time I have. Despite that, I feel like I’m emerging from a protracted hibernation to a springtime full of possibilities.

Mental Health: On Being The Spouse

It’s a given that we don’t talk as openly as we should about mental health issues. But there’s a related topic that we talk about even less: being the spouse of someone with long term mental health issues. So I’m going to talk about it. Nothing I say here is meant to diminish or denigrate the struggles of those with mental health disorders. Rather, I’m trying to highlight the issues unique to being a partner in these circumstances.

Where do I begin? I guess with the obvious – it’s HARD. Very hard. I believe that every relationship has its challenges – we are all humans who make mistakes, after all – so I don’t necessarily think that other couples have it easy. But there are a whole mishmash of emotions and reactions that go with this issue; it’s sometimes hard to sort them all out.

• Guilt. Guilt is a big one. I feel guilty that I get frustrated with my spouse for things I know he has no control over. If I’m frustrated, how must he feel? But I do get frustrated and even angry sometimes. And when I calm down the guilt comes crashing in.
• Jealousy. Seems a little odd, no? And yet, there are times when I am so jealous that he gets to have a breakdown. He gets to put down so many of his responsibilities and fall apart. I’m not allowed to do that. I have to hold things up, hold things together, take care of the kids, and keep our lives afloat. There are days when I want to be the weak one, just once, and those are the days I feel jealousy.
• Exhaustion. All of the responsibilities of our lives, all the details I keep track of, all the things I do. Day after day without a break. Man, do I get tired sometimes. In fact, I get tired A LOT.
• Confusion. Was that thing he did or said the result of depression/anxiety or did he really mean it that way and I have a right to be upset? Lord above, this one bites me on the ass. I thinks it’s one thing and then, whoops! Nope! Depression! Then it’s back to guilt and see bullet point #1.
• Anger/Frustration. How come I never get a break? Why is everything on me? It’s not FAIR!, says my toddler brain. And guess what? It isn’t. But in the immortal words of Grandpa from “The Princess Bride” – “Who said life is fair? Where is that written?” I bet my husband doesn’t think it’s fair that he has to live with anxiety and depression all the time, either.

So, how do we deal with it?

• Communication. This right here is the key. Open, honest, CALM communication. In front of a neutral third party if necessary and not my spouse’s regular therapist. Someone else. Someone who just sees us as a couple. This isn’t a regular thing for us but we’ve done a few sessions in the past and it really helps. Also on the topic of communication, sometimes it feels like a Sisyphean endeavor and I just know that rock is going to roll back down the hill and crush me. Or I know that I have a thing to say and I just can’t get it out right. So I say “I’m having trouble phrasing this and I know it’s going to come out wrong, so please take it in the spirit it is intended and not how it sounds.” It may sound silly, but it helps my spouse to know that I’m not attacking and I’m not trying to be nasty – I just can’t figure the delicate way to say it. Then we can get to the heart of whatever the issue is without hurt feelings.
• Time. Time together as a couple. Time alone. Time away. He gives me time away from the kids, away from the family – sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a long weekend – because it helps me recharge and jump back into our lives. It’s so huge for me. I know what a monumental gift it is for him to take over everything on the home front. I’ve gotten better about asking for it when I really need it and so has he. There are times when he needs quiet and restful time and I try to make it happen. It goes back to communication – not just about problems but about everything. Also, time in the sense of longevity. We’ve been married 13.5 years. We’ve been together for over 15 years. Over the course of that long a relationship you learn what constitutes “big stuff” and “small stuff” and you just stop giving a shit about the small stuff. There are things that were once “big stuff” to me that are now very, very “small stuff.”
• Patience. If there is one word that people never would have used to describe me when I was growing up, that word would have been “patient.” Because I wasn’t. About anything. But dealing with these issues has taught me patience. Patience with myself, patience with my spouse, patience with our circumstances, patience with my expectations of things. It does no good to let impatience lead to frustration. It doesn’t change anything. So I’ve learned to slow my roll and just simmer down on that front.
• Love. We may get mad at one another. We may argue. We may not like each other sometimes. But we never stop loving each other. We never stop supporting each other. We never want out. No matter what the issue is that we’re presented with, we both know that we don’t want out so it’s not a consideration and it’s not an insecurity added to the situation. I once said that we are not perfect people but that we are prefect for each other. I truly believe this. So why would I go anywhere else?
• Support. Friends. Family. Therapists. Doctors. They all have a role to play for us as a couple and for me as the spouse. As hard as it can be sometimes, it would be infinitely harder without the support we have around us.

I’m not afraid to say that these are my struggles; no one else should be either. It doesn’t make me a bad person and it doesn’t mean I love my spouse any less. These are just the challenges we face because of the circumstances we’ve been given.

5 Quick Takes: The “I Couldn’t Think Of 7” Edition

1. Continuing the theme of catching up on the goings on around here, way back at Thanksgiving, Jamie’s kindergarten class put on a puppet show about the first Thanksgiving. It was really cute. I was worried that Jamie would get really nervous and have a freak out because of all the strangers watching but he did great! I was really proud of him.

peeking out from the back row

Also, check out these cookies for the refreshments afterwards!

2. Occasionally I manage to capture sweet family moments on camera. I don’t remember what they were watching on TV, but I found Liam and Scot like this on the couch. Gosh, I love them.

awwwwwww

3. I like to humiliate my dog. What better way to do that than to dress her up as a tauntaun?

Why are you doing this to me, Mom?

Seriously. Why?

4. Molly is loving all the snow we’re getting. She was made for this weather and she loves to go out and romp around in the snow. Ellie likes it, too, and they play and chase each other like crazy with snow flying every which way. Also, it is MUCH easier to photograph a black dog on a background of snow!

POUNCE!

Molly Bloom Whitesocks in her natural habitat.

5. School. School is going well for me. I am nearing completion of my 3rd semester of classes – I take finals this week. I had wanted to take them last week but it got a wee bit insane and I decided to listen to the universe and put them off a week. I have to be done by February 12th so I still have plenty of time to get them done. After that’s done, I’ll have a break of about a month as the online program I’m in is migrating to a new learning platform. But, in mid-March I can register for my 4th and final semester of classes. I look to be done by the end of June. Then, it’s time to weather summer vacation with the kids and work on job searching. I’m a little nervous.