My Turn

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, has read this blog, or heck, even met me once, that I do not do a very good job taking care of myself. I almost never put myself first. This does not make me selfless; it makes me stupid and tired and filled with pain. Ever since I hit 40, every day seems to be a new "what fresh hell is this?" I have gained weight, my joints hurt, my hands go numb, I don't sleep well, I have digestive problems, and the latest delight? It seems that I snore. Loudly!
I have always associated snoring with being sloppy and unkempt. I know it's not true, but there it is anyway.

I start the beginning of every new year and summer with the same vows: I will exercise, eat healthy, lose weight. There always seems to be something that distracts me from this ( a new book, laundry, dishes, school work, the girls, the dog, Rob, the computer, the TV, chocolate, cookies, a warm blanket...).

Well here it is again. I weigh the most that I have ever weighed and feel generally all around crummy. I am going to start with a couple of very simple things: drink more water (easier than I thought), eat more vegetables ( and consequently less junk), and walk whenever I can. I'll see how I feel after that and then go to the doctor. Wish me luck.

Craft at Your Own Risk

This was the year of the ugly sweater. Caroline was invited to an ugly sweater party. In a moment optimism, I showed her a site that showed steps to make your own ugly sweater. I also found and bookmarked sites with directions for making candles, vapor cubes, and root beer reindeer. In my defense, it was the beginning of December, and we had just put up the tree. I was so excited and full of the holiday spirit. Flash forward three weeks, interim reports were due and I was behind on all things school and crafting. I pushed through with much grumbling and frustration. There were some arguments, but eventually fun took over. The kitchen was a mess of candle wax, thread, felt, and baking materials. I also spent a few late nights sewing the sweaters.

The night before break, I'd forgotten that Lily had girl scouts. I dragged my sweater with me and stitched gloves onto it for moose antlers. Caroline knew how tired I was, so she  got all of the ingredients together for saltine toffee ( my traditional gift for the staff at my school). Once I got home, I settled down to make saltine toffee. I was trying to work on the sweater while making the toffee and scorched the first batch. I only had enough butter for one more batch, so this one had to work. I put the sweater down and paid close attention to the butter and sugar. I got everything in the oven and things were moving right a long, until I opened the oven door. As I pulled out the pan, a couple of pieces feel off the pan and hit the bottom of the oven. I got the pan safely onto the sink before the pieces caught fire. I slammed the oven door shut as the smoke alarm went off. Caroline went over to fan the smoke detector. She noticed the fire and started screaming for Rob, "Dad there's a real fire in the oven get down here!" I knew the fire would go out and stood there with the tongs ready to pull them out after the fire was over. Rob made his usual smart remark about my cooking. I yelled at the kids to grab the dog and I threw open the back door to let the smoke out. I yelled something along the lines of "Calm down for God's sake these things happen all the time!" Caroline countered with "Jesus, Mom, the neighbors can hear you!" before she realized she cursed too. We ended up laughing and trying to finish the toffee. The chocolate wouldn't melt because by that point the house was freezing. Caroline took a picture of the charcoal/saltine once I pulled it out of the oven. She posted it on Facebook with a cheeky remark.

We ended up spending the rest of the night laughing and joking. We had so much fun making all of the crafts. There were quite a few bumps, but we had a blast. The toffee didn't end up looking very beautiful, but it was very tasty. Everyone loved their homemade gifts and our sweaters. I heard a lot of "I had no idea you were so crafty!" I am sure that none of the gift recipients envisioned, fire, cursing, BIG messes, and last minute rushing. They were probably envisioning mother and daughter togetherness with an adult who had her crap together. What they don't know won't hurt them.


Oh, who I am kidding? I can't resist a funny story. Of course I told everyone I made a mess and swore and set a small, yet controlled oven fire. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't teach my girls to keep calm and laugh on?

New Traditions Meet Old

December was a blur, but what else is new? I got the idea to be crafty this year. Partly because it is fun and partly as a way to make it through the season. Grieving during the holidays is such an odd mix. I want to make it a special time for the girls. I always loved this time of year, even when I was traveling between my parents as a child. It is so hard to have a holiday without your family. I having been reading posts by bloggers who are separated from their families by misunderstandings. It is hard for me not to be judgmental. Every misunderstanding and frustration that I ever had with my parents and grandparents, pales in comparison to not having them at all.

Compared to last Christmas, this will be a much calmer one. We are going to my brother's for Christmas Eve and my step-father is coming over to our house for Christmas dinner. We had our annual Christmas party with our friends. We have reached an ease in our "old" age. Our children are older (the youngest is five) and more independent. The kids hung out in the den, watching Rudolph, eating candy canes and cookies, and playing Candyland. Meanwhile, the adults holed up in the dining room, drinking wine, beer, or hot rum punch, and playing Cards Against Humanity. We laughed so hard, our stomachs hurt. We all share the same sick sense of humor, so it was a perfect group.

We are off from school for the next two weeks. I spent the Sunday after our party doing absolutely nothing. It was glorious! I am looking forward to a lot more relaxing.

I Survived November

It is almost Thanksgiving, and I can finally catch my breath. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you know what a crummy month this has been. It began with our anniversary in the hospital with Rob's poison ivy stricken face swollen like the bloated zombie in The Walking Dead (his words, not mine) and ended with me throwing out my back. In between, I fell off the porch, sprained my ankle and banged up my knee. I have been powering through it because we don't need more doctor bills, and I don't have time to go to a doctor anyway. We have also had happy and not so happy report cards, confusing teacher meetings, all amongst the normal chaos.

Amazingly (well really not), Rob and I have kept our patience and humor intact. That's what 19 years of marriage does to you. When you get married, you have no idea of the life time of crap and insanity you are signing up for. Sure there are the sweet wonderful moments, but the true test is how do you handle the tough stuff.

The vows should go something like this (in no certain order and personalized for us): I promise to love you through car accidents, emergency room visits, kidney stones, the flu; through pregnancy, mortgages, credit card bills, child birth, teething, potty training, midnight vomiting, and midnight pee. I will stand by you through lice infestations, stitches, speeding tickets, family deaths, diabetes, depression, anxiety, dead fish and lost dogs, good grades and bad, grad school, ADHD, big and not so big tantrums, Target, Giant, and other various errands. I will cherish you through weight gain and hair loss, through hearing loss and bifocals, and intestinal distress. I will honor you as you clean up poop and vomit, scrub toilets and wash dishes, fold laundry, and vacuum again and again. When, in the melange of all this, I invariably lose my temper and say hurtful awful things, I will remember to apologize and be humble enough to admit when I am wrong. And above all else, I will never lose my sense of humor.

 I can't wait to see what our 20th anniversary brings! I love you Rob Simpson!

Halloween

Here is Halloween in my mind:

I spend the month before creating a witty, intellectual, and highly creative costume for Lily. She as my quirky and brilliant daughter will be in on the design. Maybe it will involve some sort of pun or a reference to a TV show, book, movie, song, that only my highly evolved family will understand. We of course will be delighted in our brilliance! I will arrive home the evening of Halloween to prepare a healthy and creative meal for Lily and her friend. It will be fun (it is Halloween after all), but nutritious (maybe even... organic!). After the meal, in which no one questions what is on her plates and asks for something else, we will get ready. While we are getting ready we will listen to campy vintage Halloween music.

We will head out walking through the neighborhood. The neighbors will be delighted by Lily's costume. She will make eye contact and charmingly thank everyone for her treats. She and her friend will skip and dash delightedly through the neighborhood. No one will be driving like a bat out of hell, and I most definitely will not have to yell at them to slow down. There will be no smoking parents swearing at their children. There will be no middle schoolers pushing my children out of the way. This is a holiday for everyone, so of course the middle schoolers will all be wearing costumes. They will let the little kids go first and compliment them on their costumes.

Afterwards, I will meet back at our house with other cool parents. We will sit our and drink local brewed pumpkin harvest beer (yeah, I know I don't drink beer, but this scenario calls for beer). Our children will sort through their candy. They will choose a handful of pieces to keep and give the rest to me to donate. They will then spend the rest of the evening playing creative board games.

This is the reality:

I drag through bumper to bumper traffic after spending the day with my adorable, but insanely hyper class. I drive through Wendy's because there is no time to make dinner. I stumble through the door weighed down by fast food bags and papers to grade. I am greeted with

"Ican'tfindmymask, thereisaholeinmycostume, and Ineedsomedeodorant"

(all said in one breathe without looking up from the TV).

I take a breathe, put down my things and counter with

"Where did you last see your mask? Give me your costume and why do you think you need deodorant? Where is Dad?"

After finding out that her armpits itch and she thinks deodorant will help, I explain that deodorant is to keep us from being stinky not itchy, and she doesn't need it yet. She does need to take more baths, but this isn't the time for that argument conversation. Rob has just returned from a week out of town and is sleeping off jet lag. I hand her the bags of food for her and her friend and proceed to race around the downstairs looking for her mask with the dog right on my heels. I calmly state the following:

"Give me your your costume. Well then put some clothes on. You should wear something under it. Push all of that crap over on the table so you two can eat. No don't pick up the broken printer off of the chair. Get another chair! Why is there a printer in the chair? Help me find this stupid mask!"

I look all around the upstairs for the mask and finally find it on top of a pile of laundry. Lily responds

"Oh yeah, I put it there when I trying to put a costume on the dog!"

I go downstairs to get out the sewing kit. I feel Lily breathing in my ear as she asks me

"Did you fix it yet?"

I explain that no, I did not, I was looking for her mask. I sew the costume while barking:

"Quit playing with the toys and eat your food!"

We finally get outside. I leave the bowl of candy on the porch with a nice note telling everyone to take two pieces. Lily is Spiderman and has made a cool speech bubble sign saying trick or treat, so she looks like a comic book. She get embarrassed by the sign and shoves it in my hand. We dodge the hyper non-costumed preteens and proceed to trick or treat. Lily is overwhelmed and refuses to speak, so her friend does all the talking. When trudge back to our house when her friend has to go to the bathroom, we discover that all of our candy is gone.

Once we head back out, Lily has started talking again. We chat with some neighbors and the girls end up with a huge haul of candy. When we are back home they trade candy with each other. They disappear into the bathroom and return giggling covered in fake tattoos. They finally lay down to watch a movie (after some persuading on my part). Lily's friend falls asleep, I go to bed, and Lily stays up watching TV.

Before I go to sleep, Caroline texts me to tell me that the Halloween party she and her friends planned didn't go as she thought it would. She goes on to explain that maybe her expectations were unrealistic. I know exactly what she means. The trick is to have fun even when things don't go as envisioned.

Bean 2.0

We  still have not met with Lily's teacher (reasons in post above), but I have progress to report: medication works! She is on a very low dose that is administered through a patch. I don't think she'll mind me sharing this because she is insanely excited about the whole thing. She likes going to the nurse's to get the patch removed at the end of the day. I can't really blame her; I too was an hypochondriac-attention seeker . I used to wish I'd break my arm, so my class could sign it. I thought that would make me special. I know, not very healthy, but perfectly normal, and I out grew it! Plus, this gives Lily a valid reason to see the nurse (whom she loves), and get a little TLC.

I also think she sees that it helps. We do! She is calmer, more focused, just a slightly up graded version of Lily. She is Lily 2.0. She still has her quirks and goofiness. She also still goes to great lengths to avoid the things she should be doing: brushing her teeth, showers, cleaning up, homework... all the things that get in the way of what she wants to be doing: watching TV, playing with her dolls, eating junk food, playing computer games.... The difference now is when she is called out for it, she does it. Oh it still might occur with grumbling, denial, and belligerence, but it occurs, so win for us. If cranky children scared me, I would have quit teaching long ago!

There are also these moments of pleasant reflection. She'll stop and talk to us about something interesting or something she learned. I want to hug her and yell "Welcome back! We missed you!" We have less and less of the frantic grabbing of attention through tantrums or maniacal silliness. Again, when it happens, we call her out and she settles (noisily, but settles).

We have learned to give her breaks, redirect, and give her sensory outlets. I bought her an awesome fidgit called the Tangle. We have one in the den and one in my purse. I have also discovered the power of writing lists where she can see them. I write brush your teeth and hair on the mirror with dry erase and she gets to cross them out when she is done.

When you put her creative energy with my creative problem solving mind and Caroline's solid good example along with Rob's love and compassion, well, you get success. At least for now.

Choosing a Path

I am over due for a Lily update. Now that she is nine (or as she would insist 9 and 3/4), I have told her she can decide what I do and do not share here. I want to keep those who love her informed and just maybe offer hope for other parents in our boat. However, I don't want to violate her privacy. Yes, we have a plan to help her with her ADHD and anxiety. No, she doesn't want me to tell you what it is.

She is doing well. We had some small victories this week which made my heart soar! The first one being: she read a book, with chapters, without pictures, voluntarily! The second being: I finally seem to have found a way to get her to sleep on her own and mostly stay asleep (it involves the hall light on and reading a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods and snuggling with the dog). It is still hard for her to stay down all night, every night. Much like both of her parents (it is 4:38 am as I write this) she seems to suffer from hypo-insomnia. Of course these are not typical things to be excited about when you have a child her age, unless she is Lily. I have shared with those who love her and are invested in her progress.

She has been particularly saucy and surly this week. It seems to be stemming from stress and frustration at school. It sounds like she is spending a great deal of time on the computer doing state test prep. My feeling is: how can she fill in the gaps she has just by taking practice tests? She needs direct instruction and remediation. She also needs to be engaged with hands on and creative learning activities. I had an upsetting conversation with her teacher last night. Her teacher feels a great deal of pressure to get her students to pass the state tests. I could care less about the state tests, as long as my girls are learning. Rob, as usual, has been awesome. We are going to meet with her teacher and come up with the best way for Lily to learn. We will do whatever it takes. We will be polite, but assertive. She has two years left in elementary school. This is her last chance to remediate the skills we didn't know she'd missed until last year. There is not a moment to waste.

This all sound like it went down so calmly. No, there were lots of tears on my part after I hung up with the teacher. Three thoughts charged through my mind: the teacher feels my child is a burden, is there any place for her in the public school system, and I really wish I could talk to my mom about this. I talked to Rob and he helped. I love this stage of marriage. We are problem solving partners! Maybe we need super hero capes. I also talked with my close friends at work. I have processed enough now to go on to the next step without being overly emotional.

I realize how difficult things can be for Lily. I am also fully aware of how she makes them even more difficult through her actions and reactions. I am not making excuses. There is an entire team of people working to support her and give her the strategies to succeed. Her success will look different than what we first envisioned. We have to just wait and see. I do know that she will find a path and Rob and I will be there cheering her on as she sets off down it (knowing Lily it could be climbing over, around, and on top of that path).