Are you kidding me?

2009 Year of Pleasure #45

November 17, 2009

I guess I just need to get used to it. We’re in those toddler years where some days I have my little buddy and some days I have a tiny adorable petri dish. First a month long cough, then a cold, and now apparently the flu. And he is generous enough to share it with me every time. So I have tucked myself into the couch with a blanket and the heating pad, the remote control is in reach and I have a big ol Coke to drink, and I’m crocheting to distract myself from the aching body.

It’s not fun to be sick, but it seems to be the only way I can make myself just stop and chill out for a while.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Stuff I Make, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

5 years

November 13, 2009

As of today I’ve been pecking away in this space for five years. It feels like it couldn’t only be five years. I’ve lived lifetimes since then!

I started this blog just after we left New Hampshire and moved to California. I hadn’t found a home in our new location, I was so very sick, and I felt this need to communicate with someone. I’ve also always felt ….haunted, maybe?…. by the need to write, but so terrified by how much I wanted to be good at it that I barely wrote anything at all. I found myself at this moment in my life where everything I was doing wrapped up, and I was left with this wide open future and no idea what I wanted to do with myself, or was even capable of doing. I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have much of a career, and the broadness of my open life was almost claustrophobic.

2005 was a trying and yet wonderful time. We were so desperate to have a baby, but by then that wasn’t even the central issue anymore. I was so sick, and we had no health insurance to make that change. I spent my days on pain pills, and if I did one thing in my day – cooked dinner, put the slipcovers on the couches, took a shower – that was a productive day. The posts back then were few and far between, and I think that’s because I was in too much pain to put thoughts together, but also because I was surrounded by some of the greatest friends ever. There were so many people who took such great care of us then.

By 2006, health insurance kicked in and we started trying to get me healthy. That sucked, and I am loathe to think about it too much. It was a really tough time. But this is the year that I really started to discover myself. This was when I did most of the work on my craft book that didn’t go anywhere but was tremendously educational for me. This was when I started to appreciate how essential creation is to my identity and accepted that no vision of my future could be complete without it.

Of course, as soon as I realized what I needed to be happy in my life without children, children became a possibility. Doesn’t it always work that way? Again, looking back my first reaction is always, “Boy, what a hard year.” A move away from beloved friends, miscarriage of a hard won pregnancy, failing to make a place in my new community, a fire threatening our beloved home, but then, also, beauty. Finding healing in the hard work of my hands, getting pregnant with Atti and staying that way, communing with this new little life in me.

2008 was the year everything changed for us. In the very best ways, even though it came at such a cost. Nearly two years later I can’t really even write about that time when Atti was in the hospital, or the fear I’ve had to learn to walk with as we work towards his future. It’s so terrifying and heartbreaking to think back on, but it was just so wonderful to have him, none of it seemed to matter.

I think that is the biggest gift that blogging has given me. I look at the big events of all these years and when you add it all up, I should be in the red. I shouldn’t be joyous when I’m dealing with miscarriages and moves and prolonged chronic illness. The life that I’ve been given is ridiculous and hard and even sometimes ugly in the big picture. But somehow, it doesn’t really feel that way. I have a record of all the little tender mercies, all the oases of beauty that sustain me, all the loving kindnesses of supportive readers, and when you add it all up it so outweighs the big hard things that I am happy. Truly, profoundly, almost unbearably happy.

I can’t thank you guys enough for being here through it all with me.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Grand Schemes and Other Plans, mama musings, Mushy Love Stuff, The Good Life

Bye day

October 23, 2009

I still have loads of Halloween stuff to share, although even I am beginning to run out of steam by this point.

We went to our big Halloween party last Saturday, and when I went to Target and saw Halloween everywhere, I actually had to stop and remind myself that the holiday hadn’t actually come and gone already. My mind is already full of Christmas plans and Thanksgiving dinner.

But for today I am going to beg off. I got rearended on Wednesday, spent all day yesterday between the autobody shop and driving an hour away to my very wonderful dentist who managed to get by without giving me a root canal, but still had to mangle my mouth to get two temporary caps in place, and I am going on week 3 of the worst cough I’ve ever had. A muscle pulling, doubled over, eye popping cough. And now Atti’s catching it.

I am staying in my pajamas, snuggling my baby, and spending the day playing free hour downloads of silly computer games.

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

Mama Bear in action

September 28, 2009

Who could discriminate against this face?

I know I shouldn’t blog this…there enough people I know in person who read my blog that this might come back to the source, which really wouldn’t be very productive, but I just can’t hold it in. I haven’t been able to do anything since it happened but pace around the house and say, “A BABY! THEY KICKED OUT A BABY!” So let me try to tell the story while being a little vague to protect the (hopefully) temporarily stupid.

Last week Atti and I were at a playgroup. It’s one of those situations where the parents bring the kids, leave them with an attendant, and then go in the other room to hang out with the other parents while the kids experiment with a little autonomy. Many parents leave altogether and go run to the bank or something until the time is up. We signed up for the multiple week session, and when I signed up I talked to the lady about Atti’s disability. She assured me it wouldn’t be a problem, but I was welcome to attend with him to make sure.

Since then I’ve been pretty disappointed, but it was really important to me to make it work. For a bunch of reasons, but the biggest one was that it was recommended by his therapists that he spend time with typically developing kids to get motivated by seeing how they were able to move their bodies. It’s been challenging for me to see the gap between what he can do and what they can do, but I know I’m doing Atti no favors by sheltering him. So I sacked up and did it. In all the times we’ve gone, I’ve never had one of the teachers ask me about his needs. He just plays near the other kids, sits there for the instruction period, but is otherwise pretty much ignored. I tried not to think much of it because he had me with him and wrangling 20 two year olds is not an easy feat. It’s easy to ignore the one that’s taken care of.

Last week one of the attendants I really like was there, and she shooed me out the door. She promised that she would grab me if he needed anything but told me that I deserved a break and he could totally handle some independent play. I was a little hesitant, but I thought again about my instinct to shelter him, so I let him go without me.

I’m not even kidding – not five minutes went by and one of the other attendants was bringing him back to me. Kids often get brought out for stinky diapers, tantrums, separation anxiety, so I figured he just didn’t handle being alone very well. Until I saw my favorite attendant and she told me she got in trouble by the director. The director came in, saw Atti without me, and just said, “He can’t be in here without a parent.” and made another attendant take him to me.

We finished the rest of the lesson, but the more I thought about that the more it stung. I’ve never even met the director. She’s never even asked what Atti was capable of, she just must have known that on his chart it said DISABLED. I read the rules thoroughly. Not only is it nowhere in the rules that disabled children need a caretaker, it specifically states that they will make accommodations for children with mobility issues. If she had bothered to ask I would have told her that the only help Atti needs is a special chair to sit up in. He is perfectly happy to play lying down while the other kids play sitting. It’s not like I’m asking for something that would change how they operate.

I just continued to fume until the time was up, and on my way out to the car I caught up with my favorite attendant. I wanted to hear more about what happened before I went off on a tear. I could barely even say hello before she was all, “What was that, right? I’ve already called her boss and told him all about it. I couldn’t believe she said that, I was so taken aback I couldn’t even stand up to her.” A little while after I got home I got a call from the director’s supervisor and he was apologizing all over himself. I was so relieved that I didn’t have to convince anyone that what happened was wrong. He promised me that this “would be addressed.”

So in reality, I didn’t even have to make a big stink to stand up for the rights of my child. The people working there took care of that for me, and that’s probably the only reason we’ll finish out our time there. But I just can’t shake this…shock, I guess. I mean, the director is like a cartoon villain, right? She kicked out a DISABLED BABY.

I guess it’s hard for me to come face to face with the fact that Atti is going to face bigotry in his life. He’s so perfect to me, it’s hard to accept that there are people in this world who are never going to see him as anything but disabled.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, baby news, mama musings

Christmas Tree skirt recovery

September 24, 2009

I’ve been working on the tree skirt for our Family Traditions tree for years now. Like, lets see…holy cow. Six years. I just counted. It took a few of those years to get the beading finished in between other projects, then I had it sitting in the Work in Progress drawer for a few years waiting on a backing, then a dry cleaner broke a lot of the beading and it needed to be replaced, and finally. Just when I had it all done save for buttons. The worst of all. Cat pee.

This tree skirt has a voodoo doll out there somewhere. It’s cursed.

On my list of Crafty goals, I thought this was going to be a gimme. Just a little binding to finish. But in trying to recover from the cat pee, which turned into taking off the entire backing and starting over, then soaking the skirt in salt water and vinegar to try to set the color, and soaking again, and soaking again, then finally giving up on it ever being colorfast when you notice that even the beads have turned red, then taking the red beads off and redoing them all, then redoing the backing, redoing the binding, and following through with the buttons that got me into this mess in the first place…..

It’s finished. It took half my year, but it’s finished.

The good news is that my cats are very predictable in where they’re going to act out. They never pee on a made bed, or fabric that is neatly folded. They get seduced by a nest. As long as I only have this skirt available when it’s carefully spread out, I think I’ll be fine. And if *ONE MORE* thing happens to it, I’ll know it’s doomed, throw it in the trash, and cleanse my house with sage.

The buttons are cute, but so not worth all the trouble they caused.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, Over the Top Christmas, Stuff I Make

Crafting FAIL

July 31, 2009

Just in case any of you were operating under the delusion that everything I make works out perfect every time…..

Styrofoam melts in the oven. Thought you should know.

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

Oversharing the medical info

June 26, 2009

This week has absolutely kicked my trash.

Cars broke down, I missed very very very very important appointments, showed up late for other ones, waited around for another appointment that apparently didn’t exist, stressed over projects that are shots in the dark, and basically just let my whole life get completely away from me.

Juggling as much as I am between my little needy guy and my silly needy self, it doesn’t take much of a misstep before I drop everything and it all comes crashing down around me. That’s how this week feels.

Atti’s eye surgery is coming up on the 7th, I’ve got two additional appointments for it on top of the usual four appointments a week, and then I’ve had a ton of my own appointments trying to track down the cause of a bunch of vague mystery symptoms. I’m like my very own version of House over here. I haven’t wanted to blog about it because I didn’t want to be a drama queen, and Heaven knows there’s enough drama in my life without making stuff up, but this quest is dominating so much of my time and my thoughts that it’s hard to keep it to myself.

Over the past year I’ve been growing increasingly tired. Not just new momma tired, because I’m not sleep deprived at all and I’m not exactly chasing him around the house. No, it was more like, I have to sit down in the middle of the staircase because I’m too exhausted to take it in one trip, tired. Like, I can’t lose any baby weight because I’m so tired that my feet in sneakers are too heavy to lift. Not really normal. I had all the typical tests – thyroid is fine, iron is fine, potassium is fine, I pass the depression screening, no lupus or rheumatoid arthritis – and then just chalked it up to part of being a woman. We’re all tired, right?

Then the headaches started, and the blurry vision, and terrifying memories of my trouble with high blood pressure made me take this whole thing a little more seriously. I had my pressure screened and it was dangerously low. Suddenly all these symptoms that are totally benign on their own are a little frightening all lumped together. I have a history of fainting, but nothing dangerous. I have asthma that I’ve never really been able to properly control. I get tired, headaches, blurry vision, poor circulation, random little bumps and flutters in my chest….and then the doctor heard a heart murmur.

I can’t seem to help myself from savoring the drama in the telling of this story, but I’m not on the verge of death or anything. In fact, what is freaking me out so bad is the fact that this is probably something that I’ve lived my whole life with and it’s not worth doing anything about, which means that I’ll always feel a little cruddy. The thought of needing to get a valve replaced is actually comforting to me, that’s something they can fix. It’s the thought of having to live the whole rest of my life just kind of weak that is really terrifying to me.

Anyway, I’m going in for an echo cardiogram on the 10th, just after Atti’s surgery, to see what’s going on in there and if there’s anything to be done. For the next few weeks posting is probably going to be a little on the light side, but I’m going to do my best to avoid just sitting around chewing my nails to the quick.

P.S. Just so I don’t leave you in a bummed out state, here’s an adorable palate cleanser for you. Atti and Bear celebrating the Laker victory.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, baby news

Cheetara in mourning

June 18, 2009

We’ve had more sadness around here for our kitties. Lobo’s been gone for just over a month, and we were really hoping that he’d managed to get one or both of the girls pregnant before we lost him.

I discovered he was successful by looking down at Cheetara in the middle of Atti’s therapy and seeing a paw and a tail on it’s way out. I started trying to get Cheetara comfortable but she wouldn’t stay still. Every other cat I’ve ever heard of goes off somewhere privately to have their litter, but Cheetara refused to be anywhere without me, even wandering around the house with the baby mid-delivery. I think she must have known something was wrong and wanted my comfort.

Seeing the paw and tail was a bad sign. The baby was breach, so it didn’t make it, and it was the only member of the litter. We called the baby Snarf (children of the 80’s will get that one), let her take a few deep sniffs of the little body, and when her animal instinct to eat it kicked in, we took the little guy away for a proper disposal.

In the week since then, Cheetara has never left my side. She’ll climb into my lap when I’m on the sewing machine, she’ll sit at my feet when I’m on the toilet, and at night she wants to sleep so close to me I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up with fur in my mouth. Jem has suddenly started showing a lot more tenderness towards her, nuzzling up together like they haven’t since they were kittens. I know that I shouldn’t ascribe human emotions to an animal, but if I didn’t know better I’d swear she was grieving her losses.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, crazy cat lady

Another Funky Day

June 3, 2009

If you’ve been reading along with me for any length of time, I’m sure that you’ve picked up on the roller coaster of emotions I’m on trying to parent my sweet little guy. Sometimes I wonder how different this would be from parenting any other child. Maybe I would still have days like today where I’m sad from all the pressure and worry I feel trying to help him meet his full potential. Maybe it’s just part of parenthood. Maybe it’s all hitting me harder because right now the stakes are so high for him.

As of yesterday Atti is 16 months old. His adjusted age, what he would be performing at if everything was perfect, is 13 months old. But he still can’t sit up independently, he can’t hold a bottle, he doesn’t crawl or walk. He struggles to eat mushy carrots.

I know I’ve written this post before. This is part of going through therapy. He has fallow periods. There are long stretches where it seems like he’s doing nothing, and then one day I’ll wake up and all of a sudden he’s got a new skill conquered. Those fallow periods are integral to therapy. He’s slowly building muscles, gaining size and strength, conquering all those infinitesimal steps along the way to achievement that I can recognize. I know that in a few weeks I’ll be in a new place, with new skills we’re working on. But the bigger he gets, the more these fallow periods wear on me.

This weekend we went to cousin Micah’s birthday party. 20 six year olds were running around having a wild rumpus while I sat on the couch with Atti just watching. I held the 7 month old baby of Bear’s cousin and I was absolutely shocked at the difference. The baby offered resistance. He stood on my lap like a ship captain. He sat up without my help. It was probably the first time I’d held anything other than a newborn in Atti’s life and the difference was heartbreaking. You tell yourself that he’s not that far behind. He’s not that different, he’ll just catch up. And then to feel it for yourself…it’s kind of hard to stay in your denial bubble after that.

So I gave the baby back, took Atti off his grandma’s hands, went back to watching the other kids run around, and thought about Atti’s future. He’s now 25 pounds of dead weight. What not too long ago was a delightfully snuggly little feature, is now serious work to carry around. His grandma is 5’2″ and already struggles to manage his little body. We are not far away from addressing using a stroller like a wheelchair, everywhere we go. And that would mean a whole lot more sitting on the sidelines and watching as all the other kids ran around and played.

Then on Monday we went to the birthday party of a friend of ours. They took over a little pizza place and we all got together to have a nosh. But we got there late so the place was really crowded and all the chairs were taken. We left the stroller in the car thinking that it would just be hard to manage and in the way, and we’d be fine once we were sitting, but then there was no where to sit. So we ended up standing against the wall trying to juggle Atti, the big diaper bag, and two plates of food. Then Atti choked on a noodle and barfed all over Bear, so we threw up our hands, apologized to our friends, went home and I’ve been despondent ever since.

There’s just such a steep learning curve to parenting this kid. He wants to move so badly. He gets so mad, he throws tantrums, he bangs his head against the floor. His tests say that he’s advanced in a lot of the emotional/intellectual aspects, so my little guy is already entering his terrible two’s, exacerbated by the fact that he cannot do what all the kids his age are doing. He gets mad, my heart breaks even more, and I can’t help but think about what our lives will be like if he never gets more mobility.

I keep trying to remind myself of that parenting mantra – Everything will pass. For good or for bad, everything will pass. During these fallow periods it’s so tempting to think that things will always be like this. That from here on out, this is what my life will look like. But it won’t. He may be going slower than other kids, but he hasn’t stopped yet. So I just have to find a way to hang in there.

Filed Under: Are you kidding me?, baby news, mama musings

In Praise of a Good Boy

May 18, 2009

My sweet little boy cat Lobo died today. We have no idea what happened. About two weeks ago he started losing weight but we thought that was just in hair that came off in the bath. Then he stopped eating, he grew lethargic, and last night he started having spasms and didn’t have the strength to hold up his head. It just came out of nowhere.

Lobo came to us as a kitten the month before I had Atticus. The whole time Atti was in the hospital, Lobo would let me cradle him and pretend I was holding my baby. As soon as he heard that breast pump start whooshing, little Lobi would come running to sit in my lap and be my surrogate baby boy.

As soon as Atti did come home, Lobo immediately adopted him. He played the role of big brother and best buddy, always keeping Atti company during tummy time, sniffing out any therapist that came to the house, and letting Atti endlessly pull out his whiskers and fur.

I’m one of those crazy cat people who believe that our pets have a spiritual mission of their own. They come to us to be little fuzzy helpers, to teach us lessons, to support us and give us comfort during the hardships of life.

Lobo was here to help Atti. He helped me get through that awful hospital stay, and since then he has been right by his boy every minute, even sleeping on the changing table while Atti slept in his crib. He would perch himself just out of reach, being the motivation for Atti to make his little body move. The therapists started calling him The Therapy Cat.

We’ve tried to have Atti play with some other kids his age, but it doesn’t really work. He can’t run or even sit up, he can’t defend himself while everyone is learning to share, the other kid gets bored because Atti can’t really interact, it’s just not working out yet. But Atti always had a playmate in Lobo.

I’m just wrecked over this. I know he was a cat, not a person, and this kind of thing happens, but it’s just such a loss in our family. We’re going to miss this little guy so very much. But he was just the best cat while we had him.