Are you kidding me?

I can talk freely now

March 29, 2010

For the past few weeks it’s been killing me to be prudent. I’m so used to using this space as the place I pour my heart out, that when something came along I really couldn’t talk about publicly, I almost didn’t know how to process it. It was like trying to talk with my hands tied behind my back – sure I was able to do it, but it felt so dang unnatural.

Anyhoo, the point is: We’re moving.

Bear’s job has been bad news for a long time now. It’s been quite the saga but let me try to tell it in the briefest of nutshells. The company that brought us down to San Diego sold the building that Bear ran. The company who bought it had a policy to always fire the boss of a building they bought and put in one of their own people, so with Atticus in the hospital and about 30 days to get a new job, we had to take the very first thing that came along.

Which rarely ends well.

We tried EVERYTHING to stay in the area, but everything just failed to work out. Timing was off, companies changed plans, every time it looked like something was going to happen, it would fall through. Finally we found ourselves out of options and with no more time to wait.

Luckily, blessedly, Bear’s first company in Modesto has wanted him back ever since we left. Where everything was falling through to stay, everything fell into place to leave. Bear’s going back to a company he loved, to run a building he loved, in a town we loved, the only bad part is leaving. We already found dream renters for our little dream house, and Atti’s entourage is helping us set up the care he’ll need up there. The only hiccup so far is trying to find a house to rent up there, but we’re still working on it.

Anytime I’ve told someone we’re moving to Modesto, they react like it’s a tragedy. It’s true, if you’ve heard of Modesto it’s probably because of high profile crimes or the drug problem. But the thing is, we just loved it there. It’s a mid-sized city plunked in the middle of miles of farmland. So you get the benefits of a large community while still getting the blessings of rural life. If we end up staying there, it won’t be hard to get the farm of my dreams. And really, the beach is wasted on me. I much prefer mountains and prairie.

I told the girls at church yesterday and it was so sad to see their faces. I love working with the teenagers, and I love *these* teenagers. That is definitely in the Con column. And then of course there’s the fact that we’re leaving my carefully nurtured little house. I’m making myself have a stiff upper lip about that one, but when we drive away leaving my blooming ranunculus behind, I expect a breakdown will be inevitable.

I’m just praying we can find something not too terrible to help ease the pain a little.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, My Dreamhouse in Progress

Happy Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day!

March 20, 2010

Cerebral Palsy is a brain injury that occurs either during pregnancy or shortly after birth. There are many causes: problems during pregnancy, infection, brain bleeds, traumatic birth, and as in Atti’s case, oxygen deprivation. Whatever the cause, the damage inflicted to the brain is in the area that governs motor skills.

The brain works like a big electrical circuit board. Messages go from the brain through a system of neurons, like electricity through wires, until it reaches the muscle and tells it to move. When the brain is damaged in this area, it’s like the wires are cut and there’s a blockage in between them.

Because the brain is a marvel, as these kids grow they can often develop new pathways. So to continue our analogy, it’s like the wire can snake around the blockage and repair itself. But this requires more work than I can find words to describe, a staff of dedicated therapists, constant stimulation, a very determined kid, just the right kind of injury, and a whole lot of luck.

I give thanks every day that so far, I have all that.

Atti loves his therapists. He loves physical therapy. He wants to move so much. He talks like crazy and I can usually tell what he means.

He is the happiest little kid. Tenderhearted and affectionate. He loves animals and music, I think he’s going to grow up to be my little poet. When we go horseback riding he spends half the time patting the horse on her fuzzy rump. He’ll crawl over to me and press his forehead against my lips for a kiss, and then lift it up and drop it back over and over and over again, making me give him kiss after kiss after kiss.

He is the light of my life.

Cerebral Palsy makes life complicated, but it’s no tragedy.

For more information, check out the CDC’s site.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Atticus, Do-gooding, The Good Life

It sounded good at the time.

March 17, 2010

This is probably my longest running WIP ever. I think it’s been six years since I started this dang project.

I thought it was the coolest idea – knitting with plastic lanyard to create a waterproof bag. How perfect for a beach tote! I think I saw it on Carol Duvall, but the person demonstrating it said that it was a perfect project to take to the pool because it couldn’t get dirty and as it got warmed by the sun it became easier to knit. She failed to mention that when it’s not warmed by the sun it’s like knitting with rebar.

I sit in the sun so rarely that this project has hardly seen the light of day. This is its year. I’m going to finish this dang thing or just chuck the whole lot.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Stuff I Make

Neverending Mama Guilt

February 17, 2010

After naming my child Atticus you’d probably assume that I take him to the library every day, that we lounge around bookstores in our free time, that he’s already worked his way through the entire Seuss oeuvre. Not so much.

Oh it’s a sad fact of life that there are only so many hours in a day, and we all must pick and choose what we’re going to spend our time on. And even the most virtuous non-time-wasters still have to decide what good thing they’re going to have to do without. There’s just. too. much. to do. And for us, for now, the thing that we’re doing without is a ton of time reading books and out exploring the world.

Up until now, I haven’t felt too bad about it. I’m pretty realistic with myself and I’ve learned to say no over the years. I wouldn’t have thought I’d take it so personally that I can’t do everything, but now I’m starting to worry if I’m impacting his development.

He jabbers constantly, way way more than many of his friends, but his ratio of actual words is probably lower. And after last week’s zoo trip it got me thinking that maybe he could do more if I spent more time exposing him to more. Maybe if I was constantly reading to him, or taking him out to explore one new place after the other, maybe he would be able to talk and interact more. Maybe I’m inflicting my homebody-ness on him and he would be better off if I came up with a different approach. So then I get weepy and beat myself up for a while.

But then I have to remind myself that language is not the only issue we’re dealing with, and that’s one that he’ll probably, almost definitely, be able to catch up on, and that it’s far more important to address his physical needs. But since that is somewhat easier for me, seeing as it involves a whole lot of floor time and getting him to crawl around the house – which Gizmo takes care of for me, I naturally tell myself that I’m just taking the easy way out.

I suppose there’s no way to make it out of this motherhood gig without second guessing yourself. I just wish I could get it through my head that I don’t have to do it all, at least all at the same time.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Atticus, mama musings

The daring young lady on the flying trapeze

February 3, 2010

One of the friends that came over last week is a fellow blogger from here in San Diego, but she is a PR professional, so she actually knows how to do all the stuff that I’m so bad at. Like returning emails. Or responding to comments. Or being polite.

Natalie told me about how many other bloggers exist in SD, which I knew nothing about, and what a great community they’ve developed. Then she told me that they had planned a get together where they were going trapezing, but it was full. Until Thursday when she emailed me that there were a couple spots open, so I jumped on the opportunity. This is, like, Bucket List material. It didn’t matter how overcommitted I was last week, when are you going to get another chance to ride a trapeze?

Heights have never really bothered me, so I didn’t expect to have a problem. Until I started climbing that rickety 30 ft ladder. The adrenalin and nerves were so overwhelming I could hardly move. They were trying to explain simple maneuvers to me, like “hold the bar over your head” and it took me a good 10 seconds to get that message communicated from my brain to my hands.

Even once I’d made the leap and was more flinging through the air than flying, all I could think was how fast I was going and how my hands were sweating so much I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hang on.

But I did it. I landed safely in that net and crawled out with every part of me shaking. It was exhilarating and crazy fun.

Then the night took a bit of a bittersweet turn for me. Everyone else moved on to start tackling tricks like knee hangs and backflips and catches, and I could. not. bring myself to get up there again. I’ve mentioned a couple of times lately how I’ve been struggling with my anxiety. I’m not currently medicated which means that I need to pay special attention to my emotional state and cling to my coping mechanisms. Once I got off the trapeze the adrenalin was so intense, and the fear of the rest of the tricks was so great, it just knocked me flat. I felt like if I pushed myself, I would launch straight into a panic attack. And that is the LAST thing I would want in front of a room full of delightful brand new acquaintances. So I decided that “chicken wet blanket who is still able to smile and laugh and hold conversations” would be a much better impression than “hysterical hyperventilating blur running from the room.”

By the end of the night, I was ready to go back for more. Watching everyone else continue to go up and accomplish all these amazing tricks gave me a sense of security I was missing earlier in the night, and the adrenalin rush had faded enough to clear my head. But, of course, by then we were out of time. So I’m eagerly awaiting the next get together when I can go in a whole lot more prepared and conquer all those anxious feelings.

Bloggers as a rule tend to be awesome, friendly, entertaining people, and this group was a ton of fun. It was hilarious to watch the trainers try to deal with a roomful of people attached to their smartphones and cameras. @EyeMusing, @MrsNatalie, @CandiceStone, @CathyNguyen, @EverydayMama, @GingerAnderson, @Hip_M0M, @iizLiz, @jboydSanDiego, @Karinayhmy, @RockOnMommies, @SugarJones and @NBCPhotog and @CaliforniaKara who recorded the whole thing. It was such a great night, and so so awesome to hang out with a bunch of people who get what I do. Not once in the whole night did I have to say, “Have you ever heard of a blog?”

The crazy pants we’re all wearing were donated by sponsor @Bskinz, so it looks like I’m going to be on the news flying through the air in my zebra spandex. Who wouldn’t have been anxious, right?

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans, The Good Life

Finally!

February 1, 2010

I made these little makeup bags from this tutorial as presents for the outgoing presidency. I filled them with fancy soap and lotion and told them they all deserved a rest.

Eight weeks ago I was asked to serve as the Young Womens President, and yesterday it all finally happened. Eight weeks! For eight weeks I’ve been sitting around biting my nails and obsessing over everything I had to get done, but without being able to do anything about it. It’s made my anxiety go through the roof, but it’s also made it really hard to blog about what’s occupying my mind, because I couldn’t talk publicly about the only thing I could think about.

Young Womens is the organization at church that is over all girls 12 – 18. We teach them on Sunday and have youth group one night a week, and then there’s also a whole host of other activities and responsibilities that go with it. I’ll have a group of about 8 other women who will be working with me to get it all done, so that means planning meetings and phone calls and emails and a whole lot of work. I’ve been told by people who know that it’s a similar work load to being a PTA president. It’s slightly overwhelming.

I have been so anxious about how I’m going to fit everything in. Atti has this new therapy so he now goes to therapy four times a week, I’ll have meetings at the very least twice a week for YW, and I have the two different careers I’m juggling that I can’t bear the thought of giving up. Bear and I have talked about some changes we can make to make everything work but it’s a whole lot to manage.

Every time I look at what I’ve got on my plate, I just can’t imagine letting anything go. I can’t cut back on the blog, it’s my connection to the world. I can’t cut back on the work I’m doing in the Mormon Studies world, it keeps my brain engaged and keeps my faith in tact. I can’t do less for Atticus. And I love these girls. I can’t say no to them.

I had an old bishop who used to say, “A change is as good as a rest.” He used to listen to his kids whine about doing yardwork, so instead of letting them quit, he’d send them inside to fold laundry. He used to say that using different muscles was just as restful as using no muscles, and 100% more productive. So I’m clinging to that. When my toddler gets to be too much, I can go hang out with a bunch of teenagers who love me and tell me how great I am. When I get tired of writing, I can go make something. It will all just take some careful planning and a whole lot of discipline.

And ice cream. I think I’ll need a lot of ice cream.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

I’m not enjoying this

January 27, 2010

As part of my New Years resolution to reclaim my formerly stylish self, I decided to finally get serious about losing some weight. It seemed like a good first step to feel better about myself, as well as to get back into my formerly stylish clothes.

So I went to Costco and bought myself a scale (which have been forbidden in my house for years), printed up some monthly calendars to track my progress, and got to work.

My first day I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes and then couldn’t walk anymore for the next two days.

It was unbelievably discouraging to discover exactly how out of shape I was, and really REALLY tempting to just stop right there and get used to being that way. But I knew I couldn’t let myself be satisfied with such a low level of ability. So I switched my thinking entirely. Now instead of “working out,” I’m doing physical therapy. Weight loss stopped being the goal for a while, physical ability became much more important.

Imagine my delight when I’d step on the scale every morning and it said I weighed about half a pound less than the day before. After two weeks it said I lost nearly ten pounds! I thought that finally, after a whole life of unsuccessful exercise and lack of athletic ability, things were actually coming together. I was doing it. Until the next day when it told me I gained 20 pounds. And then when I stepped off and stepped back on it told me I had gained another 2. The whole thing was scale error. I will not lie. I bawled like a pouting child.

I have to keep reminding myself what this poor body has been through. Surgeries, hormones, medications, traumatic birth. In a six month span of treatment (that didn’t include a pregnancy) I lost 30 pounds and then gained 50. Not that I know about these kinds of things, but I can’t imagine that my metabolism is functioning optimally.

After a solid month of exercise every day, I have lost one pound. But it certainly doesn’t take me two days to recover from a walk anymore, so that’s what I’m trying to hang on to.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans

Trying to peace out

January 21, 2010

It’s been pouring rain here all week. Pouring like it’s time to build an ark. And rain is my cryptonite. In that it makes me want to drop all my plans, grab a blanket and a kitty and hit the couch listening to the wind and rain. When it rains so rarely around here, this is a reasonable indulgence, but a week of couch time is a bit much.

I started feeling guilty about this yesterday, and then I realized that I needed to take advantage of it while I had it. So I absolved myself of guilt and pulled out a puzzle. I spent the whole of Atti’s nap time listening to a podcast and putting together little pieces while watching the rain on the window. It was awesome.

The last few weeks have been crazy overscheduled, but in ways where I wouldn’t want to give anything up. Friends and family in town, entertaining, doctors visits for Atti and for me, along with his usual rounds of therapy. There’s some new responsibilities on the horizon that are going to take a tremendous amount of my time and energy (no I’m not pregnant), and then we got the phone call saying that Atti’s been accepted into the therapeutic horse riding program. So now he’ll have therapy four times a week.

That’s when the panic attacks started.

It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve been dealing with anxiety since I was a teenager, and while I’m not currently medicated, I have a huge selection of coping mechanisms to keep things humming. That’s actually how I picked up crosstitching, actually. To ease my troubled mind.

But it also means that I need to be aware of when I need a literal mental health day, and to jump on the opportunities when I can claim them. Yesterday I found myself with a couple free hours, so I forced myself to chill out with a puzzle instead of doing the dishes. Today Atti had a cough and runny nose so I backed out of playgroup, my sister is on her way out of town and the next guest hasn’t made it to me yet, so I’m going to take my chance while it’s here. Today I think I’ll read a book. And listen to the rain.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans

Discovery

January 8, 2010

During our epic eight year battle with infertility, I would regularly make little bargains with God in a last ditch desperate attempt to make things work. “God? If you give me a baby, I’ll stop swearing at other drivers.” “God? If I get a baby I’ll donate all my Christmas presents to Goodwill.” “God? If it works this time, I promise I’ll give a penny more often than I take a penny.” But the one thing I could never bring myself to bargain over was the potential ability of my child. Never once was I ever even tempted to say, “God? You can give me a baby with whatever challenge you’ve got. I’m willing. I just want a baby.” Never once. I was so terrified at the thought of raising a child with special needs, so sure I did not possess the mix of tenderness and patience and ferociousness it requires, that in all my fruitless bargaining I never even hinted at the offer.

I had known a few of those moms over the years, and I would marvel at their capabilities. I’ve known families that adopted child after child with profound needs, sacrificing wealth and worldly ambition to nurture these little spirits. Their lives seemed holy to me. I was sure that these were a special type of people, gifted with benevolence that the rest of us mortals could never obtain. They seemed like saints.

Despite all my fear and the certainty I had about my own limitations, my own calling into the Sisterhood of the Special Needs came. My son Atticus was born at 28 weeks via emergency C-section, spent 3 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a couple months into his hospital stay the doctors found some brain damage that resulted in Cerebral Palsy.

If my life were a movie, this is the part where I would go out walking through a late night rainstorm, railing at the heavens and cursing the God I believed in. But nothing so cathartically dramatic was available, so my husband Jared and I spent two days catatonic in front of the television, the floor littered with Cheese-It crumbs and Ho-Ho wrappers as we tried to eat our feelings. Once we found the strength to leave the couch and wash the orange dust off our hands, we made our way back to Atti’s bedside to discover that he looked exactly the same as he did before the diagnosis. He was still our teeny little super guy. He was still the hard won little blessing that we had rejoiced over before. He now just carried this label that left everything else up in the air. I was overwhelmed with love for him, but the visions I had of my future were terrifying. I had no idea how I could be the mom a kid like this would need.

Suddenly I found myself in this club of sainted women, only I was a bundle of neurosis with a short temper and serious self-doubt. But since I was still in the club whether I wanted to be or not, it meant that you didn’t have to be some paragon of virtue to belong, which meant that those women I had always admired weren’t some rare breed of perfection but regular old women who were just doing amazing things. And since I was just a regular old woman, maybe I could get there too. This realization gave me the faith I needed to straighten my shoulders, take a deep breath, and get to work.

It’s been nearly two years since he was born, and we’ve spent three or four days a week shuttling between doctors and therapists of every stripe. Every few months Atti accomplishes a new skill on his way towards independence. His progress is slow, so slow that if you didn’t know what you were looking at you’d think he was stagnant, but it is progress nonetheless. We have become cheerleaders for every independent movement, recognizing how many muscles and systems have to coordinate just to eat, and thrilled on a day when he poops. He’s growing into such a motivated and stubborn little kid, I think he’s going to prove the doctors wrong with a smirk on his face.

My journey into motherhood was so very arduous, on the surface it probably seems to bear little resemblance to the majority of mothers out there. I still find myself choosing to say “when Atti was born,” instead of “when I gave birth” because that emergency trip into the operating room and then three months away from my baby seems to have almost nothing to do with the typical experience. But I think my experience carries what is true for every mother, just compressed.

Motherhood seems to carry those moments for everyone – moments when you are convinced you don’t have it in you, moments when you feel at the absolute limit of your capabilities and you’re still being asked for more. It’s easy to put moms like me in our own category of saintly special cases, but it’s just not true. Getting this diagnosis did not come with a special gift basket of great character traits. When my worst fears were realized and I was forced to confront what I was going to do, I didn’t do anything more or less than most mothers do daily, I discovered more in me than I thought was there, and I did what my child needed.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Atticus, Grand Schemes and Other Plans, Matters of Faith, The Good Life

Embarrassing mommy moment #1

November 18, 2009

I mentioned the other day that we had a traumatic doctor’s visit? OK. Here we go.

Atti is a bit of a mouth breather. More like, a total mouth breather. It’s a really really common preemie thing for their adenoids to develop faster than the rest of their nasal passages, which can lead to some blockage. They typically grow out of it, but if the blockage is extreme, than they’ll operate.

He’s not in any discomfort, but I think it is impacting his development. He struggles to eat, coordinating all the chew, swallow, breath, through one option is difficult, and I think it’s affecting his speech too. He talks like crazy (must post video of that soon), but it’s really difficult for him to say things that require him to close his lips – like an m or p sound. He still doesn’t say Mama. He calls me something that sounds more like BalBal. But I’ll take it.

All of this was really low on the priority level. It was far more important that we work on making sure he could see, getting his weight up, starting therapy, but now that all that is running more or less smoothly, I felt brave enough to tackle something new. Plus, between my snoring Bear and three snoring cats, a snoring Baby was just one too many things to sleep through.

It took us a while to jump through all the hoops necessary to see the right specialist, and then we had to wait for the appointment to open up, and sure enough, when it was finally time to go to the doctor, Atti had a big fat snotty nose. I called to make sure that it would be OK to bring him, and the person I was talking to only seemed concerned with what Atti would tolerate. So I brought him in, knowing my little guy to be just the sweetest and most cooperative little thing ever.

And he totally was. Until they brought out the camera on a tube that goes down his nose. After a solid week of his mom wiping it raw whenever he got within reach, my poor sweet little lamb turned into a raving beast and it took three of us to hold him down long enough for the doctor to shove the tube down his nose only to be stopped by the torrent of snot trying to make its way out.

The doctor finally gave up and sent us down for an X-ray, and the nurse asked, above Atti’s screaming, if she could give him a sucker. Up until that moment, Atti had never tasted sugar. I described before how I wasn’t really anti-sugar but anti-fighting with my child, and right then it sounded like the perfect possible moment to lift the no sugar ban. Since eating is difficult for Atti, I wasn’t sure what he would do with a sucker on a stick, but he popped that thing in his mouth and went at it like he was built for it.

I carried him to the building next door and waited for our turn at the x-ray, and looked down to discover that I had a bright blue blotch on my white T-shirt, right in the middle of my breast, looking just like a Blue Raspberry nipple.

Finally, we got called into x-ray, and by this time, Atticus was PISSED. He was already sick, he had tubes shoved up his nose, his mom threw away his sucker, and now he had to lay naked on a cold table while a guy who smelled like cigarettes shoved him into the proper positions. When all the x-rays were finally taken, I pick him up and sing him his songs, and finally Atticus decides that I’m going to stop letting people abuse him so he calms down and nuzzles into me. The x-ray tech comes out to tell us we’re free to leave and puts his hand out for Atti to give him a High 5.

Atti gave him a High 5 all right. And then he grabbed the radiologists hand and bit him.

He may look sweet an innocent, but don’t be fooled!

I’m standing there with my child on my hip, covered in his snot and blue raspberry drool where a nipple would be, while the radiologist lectures my under 2 year old about biting. I wanted to fold my arms together and blink really hard like I Dream of Jeannie so the whole thing would go away.

Instead I mumbled apologies, sprinted away as fast as I could and just thought, if nothing else, this will make great blog fodder.