So much to do, so little time!

Anxiety on the receding level means action on the mommy level. Grief is still there, depression is lurking behind (in a shadow, obviously) and anxiety still has me grinding teeth and thinking stupid thoughts while missing other thoughts of greater value, but the energy to do the things of family living is returning to our family life. Luckily, I still don't have a job, though it seems possible in the future. I keep telling friends I cannot fathom how I ever had a full-time, high-intensity job AND cared for kids and home and did all that therapy for Hannah, lived with a depressed and slow moving husband (in secret he may have been speedy, I am still not sure) and...!!!...then started on therapy for me, then spousal suicide and then more therapy for Claire, then me...then arrgghhh...then I remember that I was propped up with oxycodone from November 2010 to March 2013. And then propelled by PTSD, grief, sobriety and the need to eventually get better, then ... .... .... PRESTO! I now operate at roughly 65% and climbing of who I used to be before I married a depressed! lying! manipulative! wrongly made! sort of beautiful in a flawed but beautiful manly and deeply fucked up manly way kind of man and had children with him and eventually had all my own previous flaws and insecurities meet up with special needs! Depression of self plus spouse! Life threatened babies! Death of a parent (and beloved dog)! Life in a CAPITAL L Sense, plus regular life and fell the fuck apart. Boom. Did I mention BOOM!? So now, I figure 65% operational skills is not bad, considering. People say you need a year for grief, you need a year to get equilibrium in recovery, and obviously you need a year plus for PTSD due to its earth shattering and ass kicking nature. So sixteen months since spousal death, this is not bad, not bad at all. Except ALL. Kinda bad still, honestly, but not AS bad as before. A win!

We live to fight the good fight, and smile a little today. Knowing there are more smiles tomorrow and beyond.

In the last two weeks I have spent 40 hours or so pulling weeds, been social repeatedly on as many as four days in a row, volunteered at church, co-parented other peoples' kids as well as my own, gone to continued therapy, sorted the detritus of about the last two plus years in my homey mess and recycled or tossed quite a lot of it, and been validated for how I have cared for my daughter with a metabolic disorder and CP by people in the know who say I have done well by reducing PT and just living. I have read books to my kids and encouraged them. I have loved myself, if not fully, at least I have tried, and told myself it is OK to gain weight while I am in triple recovery, and I bought clothes for me in this size, to reconfirm my affirmation. Firm is a word that partly fits, except for when I jiggle a lot. I have prayed and meditated, though not always with feelings of peace. I have felt optimism, pessimism but less so, hope, despair (natch) but then, hope some more, belief I can truly make my journals of turmoil into a book that might help others recover from trauma and despair, doubt, and, ultimately, belief, again. We have been to the zoo, swimming lessons, the lawn mower repair shop, book club, the store (too many times to count reliably) and I almost set up the computer again to receive pix so I can catch up on holiday and event posts.

Crap, I am pooped. But also, I am having some extra coffee so I can keep going.

Rattled

So recovery from trauma, from grief, from anything probably always goes only in fits and starts. One of those sayings we should all drop is that it gets a little better every day, because that sets us up wanting things to get a little better every day and when it doesn't we add it to our stockpile of things we suck at.  We should instead say "every now and then you'll notice that the hard stuff gets a little easier to bear" and leave it at that. Today I learned that my neighbor passed away, just over three weeks after his cancer diagnosis was made, and leaving a daughter in my age range and his wife of fifty years grieving, as well as many other family members and friends.  I was able to run over and give comfort and say nice things but I came home and was rattled and had to have a brief lie down.  When I realized I was not just mourning him and the loss of a father and husband, but also feeling some ugly nasty feelings I don't want to have, I had to get back up. Also, the phone rang and I am trying to actually take calls and stop avoiding people and things, so I answered, to hear from a dear friend who checks up on me now and then.  This friend has the distinction of being one of my few friends who has had the awful experience of losing a child, and having had the trauma fairy come to wave her PTSD wand at her family.  I told her how I'd gotten rattled and she told me that she lost her footing a few days ago when she learned that a neighbor who, like her, had previously lost an adult child who died in a random fatal traffic accident, has now suffered the same again, now losing one of her teenaged twin girls in a head on traffic accident and the other remains in very serious condition.  This mom is driving back and forth from one city to see her injured daughter in the hospital and to see the other at the morgue in a different city.  I can't believe it even though it is surely real.  The horror that family is going through astounds me. And I can't believe that you can survive the worst of the worst, get on the other side of the abyss, and it can happen again.  I can't go through mine again, I know I can't.  So, say a little prayer for moms in distress.

Spousal suicide / PTSD/ scorecard

Number of times my arms went numb yesterday - 3
Number of times I flinched at sounds and light flashes at a kids movie Sunday - countless
Number of times my head went zingy yesterday - 3
Number of people in my family of 3 who graduated from counseling - 1 (not me)
Number of IBS events - more than I care to say
Belief that my daughter will be OK - almost 1

Today I believe I will get better, someday

Some of the craziest sounding PTSD symptoms I have involve the sensation of skittering on my feet while my mind is racing as I try to get things done.  All of the body stuff is just plain weird but certain things are so nonsensical I don't like to even describe them, so saying I feel I am skittering out of control when I just need to do an errand is the best I can do. I know and am conscious of the fact that I am not required to go one hundred miles an hour but I feel as if I should and as I think of the steps involved, to say, get groceries, I feel mounting tension and so I just stop and do less or nothing.  This explains why my house looks so bad, the do less feature, and also is part of why I seem to do nothing compared to pre-PTSD /sobriety life. I am going to check with my therapist on Thursday but I think the unease I feel that sort of paralyzes me is really about doing too much, the perfectionism trait common to addicts/alcoholics/women who work and deal with special needs kids and a million other things. All this therapy I have been getting and I just figured out I need to give myself permission to fail. Bugger.

Friday Haiku - Psoriasis, Death, and Taxes

O, psoriasis!
Bane of my adolescence,
I have not missed you.

Next time you come back
I will punch you in the throat
and I won't feel bad.

But for now I will
hide my spotty self in lots
of baggy clothing.

And think of all the
weird baths, lotions, creams and pills
you brought to my life.

I can blame taxes
getting filed with a dead man.
Why ever, you came.

You're a right bastard.
You actually suck out loud.
Please take a long hike.

Spousal suicide / PTSD / parenting scorecard

Compliments on how I am doing at staying sober and alive - a few

My ability to teach my kids that we can dislike what Daddy did but still love him - better than expected

My keeping an atmosphere in which they express love for Daddy - amazing

Feeling a boatload of PTSD symptoms as I deal with estate, taxes, and what to do with the cremains - better than you might think but still packing a whallop

Ability to get rid of Daddy's car and clothes - still behind the curve

Number of counseling appointments this week for the three girls who live here - 3

Number of people for whom the counselor says we are almost done - 1 (not me)

Number of times I burst into tears at memories and intrusive thoughts today - just 2

If my arms weren't numb and my hands not so shaky I would be kicking butt and taking names.

C freakin' P

For World Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day I figured I would add to the interwebs' collective store of knowledge about CP but it turned out I learned far more reading other people's posts. How is it possible that I didn't know that no one does CP research? Go figure.

We are lucky, because CP doesn't really hold Hannah back that much. She is in a regular class, doesn't have identifiable barriers to learning that the school can assist with (they adapt when she uses scissors, etc., as needed), and as far as I know she has no cognitive impact (she does think farts are super funny but somehow I think that has nothing to do with CP). She is clever and smart and beautiful and sometimes quite winsome and sweet, and sometimes hisses at me like a feral cat (probably more related to being five, having her father commit suicide and about 90 days later mom went off to do forty five days in rehab, again not so much CP related behavior). Mostly she navigates her world incognito, and maybe is perceived as young in her peer group, which is actually true.  However, despite her success, when we were at a park playground near our home and ran into a family with a child in her kindergarten class who is very active and able bodied, that child asked me why Hannah needed help to navigate a tricky monkey bar feature and proceeded to show far more interest in Hannah's big sister.  Every now and then she drools a little when she concentrates. We still end up at Shriners all the time for OT and PT, use stretching braces at night and continue to get conflicting advice about the benefits of using AFOs (proof there oughtta be more research right there, since the conflict comes from two parts of the same hospital so what is a mother to do??)  I don't, at this time, teach Hannah that she has special needs and the word disabled is never used here. I think she would tell you her Righty doesn't work all the time, or that it gets tired, I don't even know that she knows she has CP although she might be able to say she had a stroke, I dunno, I'd have to ask her.  It is not ruining our lives but it is a drag.

I wish I could be a little more grateful, as some moms sound when they tell how they love their child and CP is part of who that child is. I guess I still don't have that level of acceptance. If I could wave a magic wand and take CP away from Hannah, I would do it quick like a bunny and never look back, because I hate that she can still be a doctor but perhaps not a surgeon who needs two strong steady hands to operate, or when and if she has kids her not quite as able hand won't be as handy to hold her baby or a million other things that will be harder for her than they would be without CP.  She is indeed the child I wanted and she doesn't disappoint me but I do wish I could smooth her path down to the regular rocky path of life from birth to adulthood.  I do wish she didn't have to spend time at a clinic where the Cozy Coupe cars weren't specially built with IV stands and stickers that say "cancer fears me" but yet I am grateful to have such a facility available to my family so she gets the necessary help to be able to do the most she is capable to do.

A rant about "mild pedophilia"

I tried very hard not to write about this but apparently I will have writer's block until I do.

Of course I love to look at my NPR app on my iPad, and this week saw a story on evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who mentions in his new autobiography having been subject to "mild pedophilia" in school.  This popped up a few times in my Twitter feed over the previous week also, I assume, because it stood out for its nonsensicality. It is an oxymoron to me, and I can't work out how the interwebs didn't light up in universal disgust.  My folks, language snobs from way back, would gently mock those who said "half dead" "a little pregnant" or "genuine imitation." Also, since I know a little about the harm done by pedophiles, I have a strong desire to scream about "mild pedophilia" because even if Dawkins didn't defend it per se, a whole bunch of people defended it while defending him, and I am really angry about it all.

No one should sexualize a child. No one.  It isn't mild to do so, no matter what.  Sure kids engage in self exploration, sure they play doctor or whatever with each other, but sexual contact intended to result in sexual gratification of the adult or child is simply wrong.  I am glad if Dawkins wasn't traumatized by his experience, but I hate that he describes it as "mild" pedophilia. Pedophilia cannot be mild, ever, full stop, and you don't have to be a conservative to say so.  When I went strolling about the internet to see what other people thought, my head exploded (metaphorically).  How can there be so many people who would justify this type of behavior that falls short of rape and say that it is how conservatives and the religious right condemn normal behavior? Who are these people?  A lot of anonymous commenters said things like children need to learn sexual behavior and people in traditional societies masturbate children to calm them and that is not seen as abusive, and only in today's modern society do we create the trauma by telling children they were traumatized.

All these commenters say that Dawkins was not defending mild pedophilia the first time, or when he explained his remarks later in an interview with The Times.  Here are the quotes of that interview I found:

Today we read, almost daily, of adults whose childhood was blighted by an uncle perhaps, or even a parent, who would day after day, week after week, year after year, sexually abuse a vulnerable child. The child would often have no escape, would not be believed if he/she told the other parent, or told a teacher. In many cases it is only now, when the abused children have reached adulthood, that these stories are coming out. To make light of their stories, even after all these years, might in some cases re-awaken the trauma of not being believed at the time when it was all happening, and when being believed would have meant so much to the child . . .

I cannot know for certain that my companions’ experiences with the same teacher were are brief as mine, and theirs may have been recurrent where mine was not. That’s why I said only “I don’t think he did any of us lasting damage”. We discussed it among ourselves on many occasions, especially after his suicide, and there was indeed general agreement that his gassing himself was far more upsetting than his sexual depredations had been. If I am wrong about any particular individual; if any of my companions really was traumatised by the abuse long after it happened; if, perhaps it happened many times and amounted to more than the single disagreeable but brief fondling that I endured, I apologise.

Something is so very, very wrong that the man doesn't notice the likely connection between this pedophile's actions and his suicide.  That teacher knew it was wrong. Who knows what path led from his touching and assaulting unknown numbers of his students, but when he took his life and "upset" his students he made it clear that he knew he was wrong, and who are we to say his molesting wasn't as wrong as some other things are, and not such a big deal?  It need not be deeply traumatizing to be wrong, it is enough that that one teacher may have fondled so many boys who didn't tell, who didn't get help, and who then went on to "initiate" other boys that way and thereby doom so many other kids to being victims.  The code of silence begins with each victim, and each failure to recognize the harm done, and the minimization of saying "well, it didn't hurt me much" degrades the care we owe to every other child who that perpetrator's actions ultimately affect.

Would Dawkins be able to view this the same way if it had happened to his own child? If he could, then the Selfish Gene he writes of must be dominant in his family, and I am sorry no one could nurture it to less prominence in his psyche, but I surely don't want him as my neighbor, kids' teacher, or professor. I want to be around people for whom children deserve to be protected from intentional harmful actions regardless of the level of harm intended or inflicted.  Introducing a young person to sexuality is just plain wrong.  Sexualizing a child, acting without consent and without that child being capable of understanding their feelings is not ever mild, it is always and forever a moral wrong. I have never been called conservative but I want to stand up now, for all past and future victims and say, an adult who touches a child and intends sexual gratification or either party is wrong, and not mildly. Pedophilia is not mild at all.

Ain't that a KICK in the head!

Never let it be said that I don't, on occasion, make you laugh. At me.

I have posted before about my hair.  My ahem, gray, hair. Guess what? I have more gray than ever, thanks to the drubbing of 2013, in fact, one temple comes in positively silver.  I like gray hair on other people, actually, my husband (for all his many faults, today we will refer to him as my husband) was very much a silver fox, and foxy.  I like gray on others, but not on me.  If my kids were teenagers I wouldn't be sensitive about it and probably wouldn't bother with coloring my roots, but since my kids are wee I continue to color so I don't get mistaken for their grandmother.  Since I color, I like to brighten my own color which runs brown with red highlights, and make my own flowing tresses pop, and so since I made a very real redhead I generally try to match her as best I can.  My husband banned me from doing my own hair color at home, and really, that is OK since I wasn't very good.  But going in for a hair appointment means getting up and going in and this year, my hair has not been top priority for me.  I had roots a good inch and a half long a few months ago, but I finally got in and fixed it up.  When I went last time my stylist friend was excited to show me Red Hair Root Paint! that I could use when my roots got long and I needed a tide me over.  Of course I bought it, and today, since I was trying to look like I bathe regularly, I put on makeup, fluffled my hair and sprayed it on. Lo, and behold, my selfie, which makes it appear a wee red devil put a boot mark on my forehead.  And this is after I removed the thickest paint from my part.  Yeah . . .

posting my way through anxiety without mind numbing drugs - bite me, MCADD

Argghh, just a simple little cold/flu, the ubiquitous second week of the school year bug in all its minor chord glory, is here to rattle my cage in my new single mom state. I have decided that Hannah ate enough, is large enough, that the fact that she threw up does not mean we need to race off to the Children's Hospital in the middle of the night, getting a blood draw, IV and having her catheterized to check all relevant levels of stuff that matters in the world of metabolic disorders.

This is one of those places where my late husband was in some ways helpful, in that he didn't get so wound up with worry and count approximate food vs. vomit ratios, and yet, I always knew that if we separated I couldn't count on him to get Hannah to the hospital should she actually need to go, and I could lose her to his lack of worry.  And still I hated having to worry so hard about her since I had to worry for the both of us.  The three times I have taken her in to the hospital with vomiting and illness were all times where her test results showed she was just beginning to experience a metabolic process that could indeed be serious and ultimately fatal should she not get her glucose into a normal range.  I know at those times I did exactly right to take her in, and get a glucose IV that would load her up and keep her going until her appetite returned as the virus ran its course. But what about the times we  just rode it out and treated her like a normal child who has a brief illness? Am I risking her life when I don't take her in?  I know from the patient education we have received that she doesn't always need intervention and the best person to gauge that is her caregiver but I don't really trust myself to get it right, even though history has proven I do. And so anxiety kicks my butt, every single time her little regular virus with a high fever comes calling.  Every. Single. Time.

Last night I kept her in my too large bed, felt the heat waves coming off her body, and gave her sips of flat Sprite, apple juice, and water in between hurling into my stock pot that I kept at the foot of my bed. But it always seemed that every sign showed she was not in distress beyond expected levels for vomiting and fever, and if I could get her to keep high calorie fluids down by morning we could make it through.  And we did.  I imagine she will not go to school tomorrow either, and hope we both get more sleep tonight, and today I have one more example to tell my PTSD addled, anxiety riddled mind that I actually am up to the job of mothering this child. And that may sound more credible tomorrow.

Let's talk about PTSD, let's talk about you and me

That title has a tune in my head, just so you know. You can imagine your own to fit it you don't like mine. When I was more myself, and sometimes now, I sing in my head and sometimes aloud, though you wouldn't really be happy to hear it.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no one expects a train wreck in their personal lives. That dissappointingly inadequate what to expect when you're expecting book doesn't cover special needs in the way lives are ultimately experienced, no one expects a spouse's suicide or chronic and destructive lying, and when those things happen it is rather distressing, to say the least.  Did unexpected life events come when you were unprepared, and did you feel powerless to deal? Then you have trauma.  Do you relive it, get your ass kicked by it over and over in your head and heart and body, and find yourself lost in a loop of crap? Then you may have PTSD.  I didn't feel OK about accepting that diagnosis last year before my life took a turn for the worse in February.  I thought PTSD was for Veterans, police, etc., and people would think it was bullshit if I said I couldn't function because I feared losing my child if she didn't eat, but once I had even more trauma on a whole new level of awful, and stopped medicating myself with oxycodone, now I do really know it was real PTSD before and it got bigger and badder than ever this year. Among the many things I avoid that remind me of the worst things, talking about the worst things rates pretty high up there, but dumping some out seems to be part of getting well, and if it helps any of you, then let's get better together, 'cause staying lost in a mental health mire of nightmarishness is a lousy option for any of us. Self medicating was always a poor choice and is no longer an option for me.

What I didn't know about PTSD before would fill a large academic volume, and getting to know it on a personal level, it is full of assholery and deserves a poke in the eye, just in case you wondered.  I imagine the shrinks know that it is the result of self preservation mechanisms gone awry.  Much like an allergic reaction though, when you feel anaphylaxis you really have to wonder what good histamines are in doses that can kill. I am tired of intrusive thoughts, tired of a racing heart and pounding ears, tired of my arms going numb and tingly when I feel anxious, or even when I talk on the phone about anything of any importance.  I am tired of hostage dreams, I am tired of the fear I feel when I see a car that looks like my husband's (and I know where his is as it is disabled and in my back yard but it still scares me) and I am tired of wondering when I won't be so tired of these and oh so many other things that upset my apple cart hourly.  So now you know why I stay home and watch Downton Abbey on Amazon and don't take calls and texts and emails even from the people who love me and want to help. I don't really like having to explain how sick I am almost as much as I don't like how sick I am.

Sobriety is my most joyful thing, next to my lovely girls.  Sobriety gives me hope over PTSD, oddly, even though the power triumvirate of PTSD, anxiety and depression led to my addiction.  I feel my best doing outreach at my treatment community, and the most like who I used to be, but I know ifI don't kick some PTSD butt then I won't win the war.  So, let's get crackin'.  Let's talk about PTSD and women and mothers and parents and survivors of the unimaginable.

I will be staying home for a while, not working, as I find that my energy level tanks much earlier than before, and no one will think I am sober if they see how much my hands shake.  Frankly, if people knew how busy my mind is recalling memories, avoiding memories, and keeping myself from screaming then they wouldn't think I could pay attention to much else anyhow.  So I will be back and talk about this more, here, where it is safe.  Thank you.

Things I learned recently at my mom's new nursing home

In January, all ice is slippy, even in parking lots full of old people who might drive over a woman who is lying on the slippy ice, thinking "I've fallen and I can't get up.  This can't be happening to me . . . again . . . and are those stars or cartoon birds circling my head?"

And I would like to note that as far as the sandwich generation goes, I think I am the mayonnaise.  Never be a condiment when you could have been a staple, right?  Grease is generally the wrong choice, do you agree?

My aging parents are aging out quickly - I have been having regular conversations with my daughters that Grandma may not be around much longer.  Worse still, the nightly Claire cuddle and discussion to run down the key points of her day all too often involves me spending too much time explaining things that defy explanation - heaven, death, reincarnation, how the baby Jesus fits in all this, why we need inside voices in the nursing home chapel when it has such lovely acoustics for making echos, and why the "outdoor" baby Jesus has now disappeared from the front entrance to the (Catholic run) nursing home in which we have recently installed my mother.  It was actually pretty hard to explain the fake manger alone, since "no room at the Inn" seems so unlikely given the number of Holiday Inn Express locations we pass regularly.  The Magi also presented some challenges, showing up at the drop off driveway late, as they did, and with non-matching head coverings. 

I don't like holding someone else's teeth.  Under any circumstances and regardless of how much it helps a really demanding and nutty old lady . . . I really hate touching the dentures.  Fake teeth are somewhat distressing but fake gums . . . that just isn't right right.  Mom had just been fairly sweet and my sister and I were feeling somewhat sympathetic when she asked us to glue her dentures back in since someone who had recently done the job had failed to use enough adhesive.  I quailed at the thought.  Some of my worst teen aged hangovers were those I had when I still slept at my parents house and would use the bathroom they used and have to use their sinks.  I will never be able to forget what spilled powdered denture adhesive does in a sink. (Tell your kids - this is yet one more reason to go to college: so one might have the kind of job that provides dental insurance so one can have implants and not be limited to dentures.  Yay, me!  Yay college! Yay Law School! Yay!!!) Powdered adhesive might come out of the bottle green but it is made to look like the gums it adheres to - so the overspray of green Fasteeth powder would hit the water droplets in the sink and make little globs of pale pink fake gum tissue, glistening in the sink all day long. Possibly all week long unless someone was motivated.  Hungover teenagers are not motivated to remove disgusting things from sinks, they just gag and try to move on.  Or move out, and in with a boyfriend.  I digress, though.  My mother now uses adhesive that looks a lot more like toothpaste and that is a distinct improvement since I was not required to handle even a little bit of fake gum tissue.  My sister and I shared the odious task.

I am so glad I am not a CNA.

Other Grandmas in the nursing home are jealous of my Mom's grand kids coming in so often, and frequently try to get a handhold of young girl as they run by.

Claire and Hannah are not as afraid of arthritically misshapen hands coming at their heads as I might have expected them to be.  I think they know that all these other Grandmas are truly interested in getting up close and personal and so they exploit it by smiling and shouting and then pretending to be shy.  When my family members pretend to be shy (or suddenly are) they get a lot closer to me.  I am a little tired of just how far up my butt Hannah can stuff her head when it is time to hide.  Somehow I still get surprised.  But if Lord Honey tries that at the next party we go to I really will strangle him, because I am pretty well done with head up my butt syndrome - this is where I put my head after all, and my butt is not that big.  I have been losing weight, people.  This is a one head butt.  No room at the Inn. 

Time. Marching on. Thank all that is holy.

By golly, is that the time?  Time to sit down and consume all my remaining outlandishly overpriced and calorically overdense foods before reentry into reality tomorrow morning?  Yes, it is time, apparently, since I sat down to blog with a crusty roll (less crusty than a few days ago) the last wad of pâté (I am so hoping Blogger can read pâté as pâté and not pate because, ooooh, ICK!) small slices of dilled Havarti, half a cheese danish and a chocolate caramel nut thingie (name of which escapes me but this goody will NOT escape me).  And an eggnog with rum, natch.  Sadly, this year I couldn't even keep up with my previously set standards for eggnog consumption because this year I was too busy to drink.  Yes, strange but true, we haven't restocked our eggnog from Costco for three weeks, and that is not like us.  Over the past few weeks I have countless times found myself failing to urinate when the urge occurred, only to realize that hours have passed before I finally decided I could pull that off.  Now you may hate me for this, and I do apologize, but I lost four pounds in December.  Before you throw something heavy at my post, do remember I am actually overweight, and fair is fair - someone has to lose pounds in any social circle because the number of pounds compounded between any group of people is a constant, shifting back and forth between the folk according to a fairly complex mathematical statement that if I revealed, you'd have to kill me, so my lips are sealed.  Will you feel better when I tell you that not one person set foot in my house over the holiday season?  Not one?  Not my sister, my niece, my aging parents, my bestie, my other lesser but still beloved friends, not even a neighbor (they left their shit on the doorstep and ran).   So I have to eat the food now, before the break ends, because no one else did.  I don't think people meant to ignore us, I think I only invited people who were unavailable, or so I like to think.  My bestie was in Puerto Rico, my aging parents are too decrepit to climb three stairs to my front door and so prefer we gather as a family at my sister's house, and everyone knows people with kids don't actually have friends. 

So what did we do from that point about three weeks ago until now, when I finally did three loads of laundry and put it away in the same 36 hour span rather than allowing it to mound on the window seat amongst the toys and handmade, glitter saturated Christmas decorations (glitter, as you may know, is Satan's dandruff, and remember the Satan / Santa conundrum, then add laundry and I think you'll see what I mean).   Well there was the shopping, and the wrapping, and the sickness, and the illness, and the wrapping, and the shopping, and the unwellness which delayed the shopping and the wrapping.  Anyway, the aging parents decided to go for broke and check into a nursing home and a hospital simultaneously two days after we had a child with a serious illness which requires the maintaining of a constant normal blood sugar barf her way through the night, Christmas night (bringing our percentage of children who barfed on Christmas to a respectable 50% of the four children in the household).  If it were me, and I were three years old, I'd be pretty upset to find vomit in my hair and my naked parents running around rapidly doing laundry and making me bathe in the middle of the night, but she handled it with all the grace a three year old can muster when she hears "good job, honey, you got it in the bucket!!" 

We did have fun.  We did have lovely gifts, some loud and some not, and some that brought great joy to their new owners.   We fully and finally realized just how much work my dear departed dog was doing to keep the floors clean - having now noticed that the rate of increased mopping is causing the kitchen floor tiles to buckle and rise up (the sort of uprising which leads to an all out revolution, eventually.  I know other parts of the house are planning insurgencies and I am turning a blind eye to the rebels, like many a colonialist before me).

The de rigueur photo post is coming . . . the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future are coming . . . and possibly so will I when you tell me this whole rigmarole going on repeat is at least nearly one year away. 

The one that got away, and other domestic failures

Observe, the tri-tip roast.  Notice the extra sparkles, glinting on the surface of the carefully prepared meat, perfect for a Sunday dinner?  No, those sprinkles are not a new take on an old theme (glazing) or I guess maybe they are, but not intentionally.   While this roasted at a fairly high heat, per a carefully chosen recipe from the Internet, natch, the Pyrex pan exploded.  I wish I hadn't been out shopping, as it purportedly gave out quite an unexpected BOOM when it went, which had followed a few sessions of the smoke alarms going off as the olive oil burned off the roasted root vegetables also being prepared.  Sigh.  Yes, I am that good.  I stayed away long enough to ensure my husband could get the oven cleaned up and order in pizza.  Happy Anniversary, Lord Honey!  We had actually celebrated with a date night the previous evening, so it wasn't too likely to cause marital devastation, even though we courted each other with me preparing food for him while he worked on my house for free, thus generating a perpetual expectation that I can provide a decent meal every night.  Not so, but whatevs. 

I don't have my tree.  I took last year's Christmas cards off the mantel today.  I have yet to complete the long threatened toy purge although I did at least begin.  But the middle of that project leaves things in a muddle, rather, as the 17 pieces of 17 toy sets are sorted back into a harmonious grouping of like things alike, leaving roughly 1900 pieces of toys on the floor waiting to be grouped.  I have not completed my Christmas shopping, and I have baked nary a treat for my neighbors. 

Eggnog, it's time.  Come to Mama.  Bring Captain Morgan's spiced rum, please. 

My life is out of order, so why not my blog?

I should have posted Halloween's gory, sugar-laden glory, but I haven't.  I should have memorialized the changes in the household as we swing into fall and settle into the "school year" which for all obvious reasons ought to be when we celebrate the New Year - but I haven't.  And three posts of "significance" are in the drafts folder, moldering in their significance. 

So let's just focus on this weekend past, and the development of a toddler in diapers and her metamorphosis into Undie Girl! Who wears panties!  And sometimes pees through them right into her shoes but still - panties they are and panties they shall remain, regardless of how urine soaked they may be!

I know I am lucky that my child with CP is training in a normal age range, and some of my bloggy friends will read this post with envy in their hearts and I do not blame them one tiny little bit, but I think those who don't live with CP or see Hannah tip, slip and shuffle every day and the ways in which she compensates to keep herself oriented will know how her condition makes this type of skill building more challenging than it is for typically developing kids.  My sister told me that she thought potty training was easy (yeah, I know) and she just waited until her kids were developmentally capable of doing each step on their own and then she just told them they were potty trained and it was done in a day.  My response was something like "oh dear, I've swallowed a bug . . . 'scuse me while I cough 'til I vomit so you can't tell whether I am laughing or crying" and then I explained that I'd hoped that Hannah would potty train before the point at which her size and balance would allow her onto a grownup potty without a very real possibility of doom and bloody head injuries.  So we waited a bit to push it, until her preschool teacher said she was ready to move forward.  So of course she wants to do it herself, now that she knows the joys of peeing in the toilet, and so we now have worked out that she should step onto the step stool, pivot slowly and carefully and safely to face away from the toilet, pull down the panties and pants while standing on the stool, and then sit down.  I particularly enjoy the stand up wipe maneuver she has created while standing on the step with her pants around her knees, and the shrieks of "Hannah do it!  Hannah do it!" should I try to help her get her pants up before she tumbles to the floor with an arm that doesn't do a lot to break a fall and her knees tied together.  It is nerve wracking, rather, but I haven't got another plan.  Because I want her to speak to me as an adult, I show you only the photos of the approach and the about to sit down position . . .  I'd just like to say it is a good place to have your sense of calm tested.  And I recommend not wearing the tutu.  Just sayin'.

You may not know this but I suck at mind reading, in Hannah's eyes, anyway.  Invariably I am supposed to help her, or not, and I get it wrong.  She manages to get her pants back up on her own with only a 15% angle droop on her affected right side.  I was complimented by our OT when I described how I've been coaching Hannah on getting her pants up and down by hooking the thumb and then sliding it around to the side.  But by the end of the weekend she had scratched her right leg a fair bit with the awkwardly oriented thumb sliding up and down the leg, but she did mostly handle the pants herself and I believe ultimately this will challenge and improve her right hand strength and dexterity and particularly her thumb strength in an important way - but my heart may give out before we get there if I have to watch her pull up her pants standing on that stool too many more times with her heavy little noggin (weighing more than her tiny ass, I am quite sure) just dangling out over those unforgiving tiles.  I am sure there is a mathematical equation to describe the fulcrum and whatnot of head hanging forward while butt dangle backward and tug the pants with unequal force between the sides and not apply too much force that puts the whole thing in a downgoing motion.  From my recollection of higher math and physics and how they become one in the end, I have gleaned that the equation looks something like   O(h) x WTF + zOMG    where h is Hannah and F is floor and OMG is that unreliable thumb with a curl and the directions say solve for fuckity fuck.  I think I told you I don't have a math degree, right?

I like it better when she drives.  

Someone is very, very, very close to reading. 

The confusion and excitement and whirlwind of the last couple of months can best be demonstrated by my Fall centerpiece - consisting of three miniature ornamental ears of corn, some autumn leaves collected by the girls on our many leaf walks, and a piece of rubber dog poo, to keep things in perspective.  Wanna come over for dinner?

Only an empty place

Farewell sweet Sophie.  She has been known as Soph, pumpkin, the beast, pumpkinette, muffinpie (everyone in my house can be a muffin), puppykins, pupster, Sophster, a demon of shoe eating evil, Soph-a-loaf (as a puppy she often looked like a loaf of bread while sleeping), half of "Soby" when in the middle of a roiling, rolling ball of puppyness all intertwined with her dear friend Toby (you couldn't see where the Toby began and the Sophie ended)   When I said my farewell I called her my baby. And mostly I called her mine.

People have asked me lately "how are things?" and mostly I discuss how the upcoming changes in our family life are intimidating: aging out of Early Intervention, having to fly solo on making therapy choices for Hannah, Claire starting Kindergarten, having two drop off points and two pick up points for day care each day, and now I have a new change for the list - we are a family without a dog.  In only the first two hours without her I had twice looked to her to see if she wanted to come out when I stepped outside.  Repeatedly since Monday, when I had her put down, I have looked to where she normally camped out and I've been so startled to have seen only an empty place. 

Sunday night I said my real farewell to her, when I'd carried her outside to go potty.  She'd been 48 hours since her sudden onset of "idiopathic neurological inflammation" - meaning the wiring is fried in the old dog's brain - and 36 hours since we'd begun a course of steroids that should show signs of working 24-48 hours after beginning treatment.  I knew then that she wasn't improving enough for me to feel it was fair to force her to stay for me.  I can only imagine what it is like to suddenly develop noticeable nystagmus (rapid jerking of the eyes) and to experience having one's entire visual field jerk back and forth repeatedly, causing a pronounced head title, dizziness, clumsiness and a general utter lack of well being.  After I helped her to walk and to do her business, I hunched down and cradled her shaggy head between my head and shoulder and I sobbed to her all my sorrow to send her away, all my regret that I'd not had more time for her since I'd had children, all my joy in having her in my life for fourteen years, and I told her I could let her go to Dog Heaven if she was ready. 

I am glad I could give her a peaceful ending.  I am glad that I didn't waffle and wait a few more days to see how she did, I am glad I had the courage to see it through and send her on her path.  I wish I'd laid down near her to cuddle her sooner before the vet came.  I wish I'd read Dog Heaven to her more than once that day.  I wish I'd petted her more in the years since she became so old and stinky.  I wish they'd all live longer, to match their families. 

Even on the day I had her put down, Claire shouted at her sister to stop her from walking in the grass and getting her feet covered in dog poop and then she quickly remembered that Sophie would no longer be pooping in the yard.  Since then she keeps noticing the good things about not having a dog, and then quickly adds that she misses Sophie and she is about to cry.  I keep realizing how I am not yet ready to be glad I don't have a dog.  I like my glass to be half full but counting my blessings in this regard is not yet on my list of things to do.  It took me days to get the dog food and water bowls up off the floor and have the kibble tossed out.   I keep finding myself listening for toenails going clickety clack across the floor, and for her annoying heavy panting and sharp coughing/gagging throat sounds that have become the soundtrack of my life and are now strangely absent.  Last night Claire decided she wanted to give her picture of the day to Sophie, so she put it in the place where her bed was in the corner of my room. It is only an empty place. 

Haiku Friday: Home Ec. Dropout Blues

The matching dresses
so dainty and fresh last month
now have unmatched stains

crushing discontent
inverse of those ladies on
TV commercials

I do not smile when
laundry soap makes things sparkle
instead I just sigh

and hope that one day
I'll not dress the girls in silk
when they eat chocolate.

And I'll never know
the secrets of the happy
laundress who loves soap

Hello my lovelies!

I owe you guys, big time.  I have been a bad, bad blogger.  A good blogger may be many things, but most importantly - she blogs.  At least she shows up and posts appealing pictures.  A few of you have kindly, as requested, sent me the post that got away (it was very big, very juicy, really outstanding in every way - just like the fish that got away . . . except I didn't see it skipping off into the sunset waving the finger) and the nice thing to do would have been to say thank you by actually putting the post back up.  But since the last time I posted I have attended many weddings (three), had work keep me in the office until after 10:30 one night last week, I have taken the girls out for fun and wholesome activities involving fresh air, live music, and food from many cultures of the world  (we had one meal with food from the cuisine of El Salvador, Thailand, Vietnam, and Sudan) and we became so unfortunately full that we had to skip the churros (Basque churros, not Mexican churros) and the baklava of Bosnia (that really and truly was unfortunate as Bosnians really do know something very special about pastry).  So I have excuses, and they are many and varied.  But you didn't come here for excuses.   Let's give give you a look at what you really came here for.

reasons to log off yesterday

Blogger ate my post about Hannah's second round of constraint casting.  If anyone has it in their Google reader, will you send it to me?  Mo left a funny comment and that is all I have to go on . . .

These headlines were on the Yahoo home page. 

     How to make an autonomous, acrobatic spider robot for your kids


     Spiders will be the newest astronauts aboard the ISS


     Watch a hummingbird-shaped spy drone flutter around, steal your secrets

Mind you, these headline followed a story about a woman convicted of murdering her infant daughter in a kitchen appliance (the type that cooks food quickly).  I can't actually let those words appear on my blog.  Can. Not.  She was drunk and doesn't remember. 

Who gave you the right to have Shaun's hair?

Huh, I say? Shaun White's hair?  Huh, you say? That was pretty well my reaction, also. I pay for this hair color and I can have whatever I want, or so my stylist says. Frankly I was befuddled that the grocery store clerk sweeping the floors felt so free to say any such thing to me at all, after I processed that he was actually speaking to me. How does my hair at all resemble that of the carrot top snowboarder, who by the way, is so last Olympics?  Other people have actually complemented my recent coloring job, so I am not actually worried, just baffled.  So now you have an idea of how I look these days, I bet you'd like to know how I am.  So would I . . . but I am still baffled.  And struggling, a bit.  More than a bit.  Trying to reconcile things that cannot be reconciled in my mind, therefore, since I didn't know how to talk about it here, I stopped talking at all.  But I promise to get back online tomorrow and have kittens pooping rainbows just to show that things are indeed hunky dory, and if you are either Claire or Hannah, they are. 

I meant to introduce this concept under a new feature of WTF Wednesday, since I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for Friday Haiku, and Wednesdays are in general, baffling, but Friday will do to introduce my new feature, since this Friday happens to be April Fool's Day.  Here's what I mean: