Twinkle Little Star

Playing Hookey House

Oh.

My.
 
God.

You all with the parenting partners--the live-in kind, I mean--have been holding out. Having another live person in-house to share in the childcare gig is, um, REALLY FUCKING GREAT. I have not updated for a while not because anything was wrong, but because I was having such an easy, breezy time of it with my friend Nik here for the last week.

Disclaimers:

1. None of this is meant to be any kind of poor reflection on D's role as my partner. It is just the reality of the situation where the kids need a lot of physical care at this age and D has a lot of health problems right now. I think that when the kids no longer need so much physically from me in the next few years, I will not have so much of this "single mom" feeling.
2. Despite the topic of this post, my visit with Nik consisted of other things besides my slave-driving enjoying having his help with the kids. We actually did--gasp!--grown-up things as well! And had grown-up conversations! But for this post, I'm going to talk about how I turned over all manner of responsibility to him for a week and enjoyed being a lazy couch potato mom.
3. I'm going to cover up my ears and "la la la la la" when you comment about how I am forgetting that in real life, partners have to work and wouldn't really wait on me hand and foot and have spats about the laundry and whose turn it is to give the kids their baths and who forgot to bring home the milk from the store and who spends too much time on their hobby or whatever. You hear me, commenters? La la la la la la la.

But here is the thing. In my decision to become a mom, I knew I could do it and be good at it. What I severely underestimated, though, was how much exhaustion and the constant day-to-day 24 hour-ness of it would compromise my parenting skills. And how much work and discipline it would take to control and manage that so that I wouldn't go insane. It isn't so much about having a husband or a father, it is about having a second pair of hands, eyes, ears, feet, voice, physical presence in the vicinity. How nice it is to decompress with someone in the quiet of the evening and just talk about the day without the kids. (D and I do this often, but can't every night. Especially lately when he has needed additional night attendant care.)

I mean, get this: On, I think it was last Monday morning, I got to sleep AS LONG AS I WANTED TO, knowing full-well that the kids would be up, dressed, had breakfast and be entertained and safe while I slept. I have not had one. single. day. in the past three and a half years where I didn't have to get the kids up. This was literally the first time someone took the kids in the morning for me since they were born. And I realized how much easier and less stressful it is when you don't have to do EVERY bathroom trip, change EVERY diaper, mediate EVERY sibling dispute, and watch EVERY move they make all day, every day. It isn't as if I haven't had babysitters or occasionally D or my father look after them while I am in the vicinity, but for 8 days straight? By Friday or Saturday, I felt about 30 pounds lighter just from the stress that had been released from my brain. And the freedom to just run up to the store unencumbered by children. How many more little errands you can do without them. To just have them able to seek attention from someone else besides me all the time. I was such a lazy, slovenly mom all week. It was great.

What concerns me about this little experiment is this: Say I had help all the time. I wouldn't be as lazy of course, and my 'help' wouldn't be able to be as accommodating because of course they would be living here and having their own life, too. But I could see the potential systems that could be set up. The divvying of the work, the things that you could rely on. The backup you would have. The improvement potential. The better mom I could be. How much am I cheating my kids by compromising my own skills, energy and sanity levels with this exhaustion? I made this decision, I don't regret it. I will work it out. But what is my responsibility here? How hard should I try to get support so that I can be a better parent to my kids?

I'm not going to go out and get married or anything. Nik and I are not in a position to get married and besides, 3/4ths of other people's husbands sound like they don't pull their own weight anyway and then it becomes a management issue where you are parenting the husband as well. D will be able to step in to the role more and more as the years go on. So this is mostly a semi-permanent problem. Or a semi-temporary problem, as it were.

Or is it a problem? Tons of single women do this, many while working more hours than I do. Maybe I'm not working hard enough. Maybe I just need to suck it up and demand more from myself.  No, the baths won't get skipped when I'm too tired. The toys will get put away each night. The homeschool projects will get done each day. I will not yell at my kids when exhausted. Ever.

Sigh.

Just the mere thought of that level of expectation for myself makes me want to run into a wall repeatedly. No, there must be a better way to be a single mom of two preschoolers. Hire more help? Ask for more help from volunteers? Manage my stress better? My schedule better? Work less hours and live more cheaply? Work more hours and end up with a salary that goes to daycare, yet gives me a kid break?

It is the age-old question. What level of good parenting is good enough? I think--I KNOW--I do a pretty good job. But when smacked in the face with how much better I could do if the work were shared, it makes me wonder if pretty good is good enough. But there are no live-in partners; no stay-overs at daddy's house in the immediate future at least. So, I guess I just continue to put one foot in front of the other, try to control my stress level and energy level to some decent degree, and just be "good enough."

But I had a very nice week.

How I &$%^!@#ing Hate Potty Training

I have to admit being a lucky  parent. Except for Naim's feeding problems early on and Aaron's febrile seizures that seem to have ceased, I have had very few, if any, real problems parenting them. And the aforementioned problems are purely medical, not behavioral--as in--there wasn't anything I could do about them anyway except ride them out.

They weaned nicely out of co-sleeping and slept through the night from five months on. I've only very occasionally had to rescue them from a midnight fever, fall out of bed, or nightmare. They gave up the paci at probably two months. (Although I still have a finger sucker that I'm basically ignoring at this point.) Giving up the bottle was a non-issue. I weened them down slowly while they learned to use a cup and then, the day after their 2nd birthday, got rid of all bottles altogether. It was a nonevent. Also non-eventful was the switch from cribs to beds. I skipped the toddler bed, the guard rails, the mattress on the floor, etc. They had a choice for a few weeks to either sleep in crib or bed, then I sold the cribs and that was that. Aaron especially is picky about vegetables, but going to solid foods and having them eat themselves with a fork and spoon was, if not instantaneous, pretty smooth going. We have our share of tantrums, but between signs, and my inability to understand or put up with grunts and moans, they developed language (even Naim's pronunciation is getting good enough for strangers to understand). I think we came through the so-called "Terrible Twos" without too much permanent damage. Except for the fact that there is two of them and only one of me, which is always a challenge, we've really had no serious struggles.

That is,

Until,

Potty Training.

A great deal of the problem has been me. I have been inconsistent. I have potty-trained other kids before. But never two at once. Never two boys at once. Boys. Boys, boys, boys. I cannot tell you how sick I am of little-bitty p*enises and their inability to remain positioned IN THE HOLE! How many times have I said, "Check your p*enis, is it in the hole? It needs to be in the hole!"

Part of the problem is that I'm sick of dealing with potty and poop. Okay? You know how auto mechanics always have junked up cars and computer IT guys always have a million non-working computer parts strung across their desk? It is because when you do something "professionally," you lose any inspiration to deal with it on your own time.

I deal with bodily fluid. A lot. D's bodily fluids, the cat's, the dog's when she is here, my own, even my dad's sometimes (because men's inability to keep a bathroom clean has nothing to do with anatomy, it has to do with the arrogance of the patriarchy...but that's another rant altogether.) Anyway, there are days when I have literally cleaned up after six or seven people's piss and other bodily fluids and mess. The cleaning up  of butts, the cleaning up of bathrooms, the laundry, the litter box, the poo in the yard. AND I'M NOT GETTING PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS!!!

Yeah, so. I've been unmotivated and inconsistent. I have stopped when my dad has been in town, cuz who wants to deal with that temper fallout when the kids pee on the living room floor? I have tried boot-camping it for several days and then go crazy being stuck in the house all the time. I have done it the naked kid around the house way, which works with Naim but Aaron really doesn't give a flying fuck if pee should happen to come out as he is playing with his fire truck. He just keeps on playing. I have tried being super positive and fun about it. (We did the big wrapping up of the big boy underpants and presenting them as a Very! Special! Present!) We did anatomically correct peeing dolls. We've talked and talked and TALKED about all the convenience and wonderful greatness that goes with having a clean, dry bum and going in the toilet. I have tried sticker charts and even candy incentives, which as I knew, wouldn't work for very long. (Naim will go for that for about 4 or 5 days before he doesn't care anymore. Aaron will go 4 or 5 hours before he loses interest.) I have read potty books, I have tried different potty chairs. I have tried pull-ups, cloth padded training pants and Thomas and Diego underpants. I have tried encouragement and big celebratory dances after a success. And without really intending too, I have yelled in frustration after the 35th accident of the day. I have tried doing them separately and together. I have tried waiting a few weeks until they are "ready."

And before you all start giving me advice, they ARE ready. They can hold their bladder for hours and even sometimes all night. They can tell you in detail how they should stop what they are doing and run to the potty chair and pull down their pants and blah blah blah. They can pull down their pants themselves. They tell their dolls that "Potty belongs in the toilet." They totally get it. They just know that I'm going to cop out and give up in a few days if they just complain hard enough. And I do. Because I am tired or I'm so behind on housework or we are going to have to be out all day for several days in a row or I have to run and help D do something and it is just easier to throw on a diaper and go.

So, here is my new approach. And I'm not giving up. I'm going to push through this until we get to the other side. And my dad is coming next week so he will just have to deal with the mess. And there is mess. Aaron sat today on the living room floor and pooped and just sat there in it as if he didn't even notice. Basically, I'm going modified Alfie Kohn. Or is it tough love? I don't know, but I'm done with candy and stickers and begging them to go potty and having a screaming match when I ask them to sit on the potty. I'm not saying a word anymore. I'm only really doing one thing:

The diapers? They are gone. No more diapers. They get a pull-up at night, but first thing in the morning, it is off and that is it. I went and got a bunch of just navy/neutral colored sweatpants at a consignment shop and I made up a backpack with about four pants and four pairs of underpants and plastic bags and wipes and paper towels and we go out the door. If they have an accident (and they do) we stop everything and go clean up. And they have to do the cleaning up. And the majority of changing clothes. (I help with shoes.) I have told them that I will clean up anything that lands in a potty chair, but anything that lands anywhere else? They have to clean up. I got a bunch of paper towel rolls, a big bottle of 409 and carpet cleaner and some of those clorox wipe-y things for them, and I stand over them until it is "clean and dry." Nothing else happens until they and whatever else they hit are "clean and dry." I don't even make them sit on the potty chair anymore. I sometimes 'suggest' it, but I'm not demanding it. No more wars over this. They make a mess, they stop and clean it up. I say nothing positive or negative about it, I just make sure they don't go off before it is cleaned. And NO MORE DIAPERS. I will not give in. Right? Tell me not to give in. Cuz, sometimes, when you've cleaned (or, ahem, supervised the cleaning of) your 6th mess today...it is quite tempting.

So, your job is to tell me that this will work and that I will not be standing over my college freshman son as he sits naked and smeared in his own fecal matter on my living room floor. Tell me that this will get better.

I think Naim will be okay as long as I'm consistent with him for long enough that he builds it into his routine. He has done altogether better than Aaron so far. (And I had a big breakthrough with Naim today. He actually sat on the big, real toilet today!!! Of course, I had to contort my body so that I was hunched over behind him "holding" him on the toilet so he wouldn't fall in. But he was pleased with himself and he eventually let me get out from behind him as long as I held both of his hands. This makes it much easier to go places with him without having to tote a potty chair around with us.)

Aaron, well, I keep reminding myself about how long it took him to walk. he didn't walk until about 22 months. And he never wanted to "practice" and he never wanted any praise for it. He finally started walking behind our backs. He would walk when we weren't looking and immediately drop to the ground if we said anything. Finally, he gained enough confidence to fess up and walk in public. So, I'm hoping that if I kind of get very uninvolved about this, except for my boundaries of no diapers and I'm not cleaning up after you, that he will be happy to eventually do it on his own. I'm hoping.

Aaron is a kid who does better the less you interfere with him and demand things of him. He has attitude. And the instinctual thing to do with him is to get all up in his ass about everything when he gives you attitude. But that just makes it worse. The more I look the other way when he doesn't want to come to dinner or go to bed or pick up his toys or pee in the toilet, the more he will comply on his own. He wants to be respected to do the right thing without being told what to do. And I totally get this because that is exactly how I was growing up. I'm trusting my kid! Wouldn't Alfie be proud of me?!?

Some other post that doesn't involve so much talk of pee, I will talk about how as the kids are maturing, I am getting more and more unschool-y and unconditional parent-y. For now, it is just nice to realize (or keep telling myself) that I do have two able-bodied kids that will  be able to take over their own care at some point in the not so distant future. After cleaning up after everybody's ooze and goo, I have to remind myself that hey...these kids can do it for themselves. It may take a little frustratingly messy time, but I just have to get out of caregiver mode and stand back and let them.

The Sweetest Day

D is home from the hospital, now. And he's pissed. He has done his own research to find out what happened, and it turned out that there is such a thing as intrathecal baclofen withdrawal, which can be very serious. It causes wild blood pressure fluctuations (check), fever (check), severe spasticity that can result in autonomic dysreflexia (check) and altered mental state (check, check and triple check.) All of these symptoms can then mask an infection (check.) When he went to the hospital this time, he had a new infection, pseudomonis (sp?).

It turns out, according to this article in a medical journal dating June of 2005, the new best practice is to not remove an infusion pump when their is infection present unless everything else has been tried first. The danger of any infection around the pump is that since the catheter connects the pump directly to the cerebral spinal fluid, bacteria could bypass the blood/brain barrier and infect the brain. How are they treating this now? By putting the appropriate prophylactic antibiotic in the pump itself (along with the usual baclofen) until the infection clears. This has worked in the vast majority of patients studied. It saves the patient from two surgeries and two or more months of pain, and forgoes the danger of the intrathecal baclofen withdrawal.

AND THEN, he gets sent home with an IV + an oral antibiotic and plain ole' Rite Aid pharmacy refuses to fill the oral antibiotic because of a serious drug reaction that occurs with one of the antispasticity drugs he is now taking. Nice catch, pharmacist. Bad slip prescribing doc. So now he is on two IV antibiotics. So he has two bags hanging off of the PICC. And this is something we have learned. If you ever have to get a PICC line, get the double port one. For some reason, they don't like to do this, they like to do a single port one. But every time D has had a PICC and we've argued for the double port, it has ended up that he's needed it. Besides then you can do blood draws and stuff with it. Anyway, I think one of the issues is that his pain management doc, the one who controls the pump, went to India for a month and left a NP in charge. I'm sure that the NP is great in many things, but this was a complicated situation and an actual real live doctor (or two) should have been brought in. D says he is done with that pain management clinic.

And as long as we are talking about medical things that piss us off...here is another thing. I have been very, very good about not writing about the in-laws, haven't I? But this little tidbit pissed both D and I off right good. It is not really a secret that I think that one of D's relatives is, well, a dumbass. Not that he is intellectually challenged, I think he is very smart. But he doesn't make decisions with his brain, he is driven mostly by his tiny, widdle, ego. So he has been sick with an infection. And he finally went to the doctor and got antibiotics. And for whatever reason, he got really sick on these antibiotics. Okay. So a normal person might call the doctor and get his scrip changed or perhaps get an antinasuea scrip or whatever. Not him. He is going to tough it out. So he stops taking his antibiotics after only a few days.

Ok, besides the fact that this is just stupid for his own health, he has an immune compromised brother with MRSA. I have an MRSA colonization, and I would not be surprised if his mother and father do too. His mother and father who are in their 70s with health problems. If you are not familiar with MRSA, it is a superbug. One that is very hard to fight because it has grown resistant to all but a few antibiotics. How did this happen? There are many reasons. Antibiotics in the animal meat we eat is a big one. But another big factor is caused by people who have abused their antibiotic use by stopping them too early. If you stop too early, you kill only the weak bacteria and the stronger ones go on to breed even stronger ones. They become so strong that they become immune to the effects of antibiotics. This is at least sorta, kinda commonly known? Right? I know it is known in our family.

So, he is too much of a tough guy to go see the doctor (or just make a phone call and a trip to the pharmacist) to straighten this out, so he is going to endanger the lives of his brother, his mother and everyone else who is immunosuppressed? I know the correlation isn't as direct as if he sneezes on his mother then she will get infested with a superbug. But it is just so goddamnned disrespectful to people who are fighting for their health and life in the sea of infections we all live with now. Why not just go blow cigarette smoke on someone with lung cancer, why don't you? (And to end this on a snotty little corollary note, I hope his significant other was able to hold him down and shove the needed antibiotics down his throat, as apparently I was supposed to hold D down and make him show me his foot wound way back. You know, because we women "caregivers" supposedly are to be held totally responsible for the medical decisions of our perfectly competent male partners.)

</snot>

Anyway, D got better and better each day in the hospital as far as coherence and withitness. He is far from being home free on this thing but that first week home was really goddawful and it is much better now. Doing antibiotics, laying low and trying to control pain and spasms as much as possible, and waiting it out until the next step can be taken. Hopefully that will be putting the pump back in. But to think there was a possibility that we could have avoided most or all of this is really mind numbing. This has turned out to be "A REALLY BIG DEAL." Every time a major infection like this happens, I know that this may be it. This may be the time he doesn't recover and it gets him. These superbugs are getting harder and harder to fight; they are running out of antibiotics to try. When he went back in last weekend, I was really thinking...what if this is the time? What if I have had the last coherent conversation with him? What if they run out of options? And every time he beats it, I'm happy, of course, but I know it is bringing us one step closer to the time when it really is the one where he can't beat it and there are no antibiotics left to try.

This knowledge I carry with me always. The fact that any one little thing could change everything in an instant and their is no guarantee that there will be another day with someone you love. On Saturday, my dad wanted to take me and the kids to the coast because it was a nice day. But the kids hadn't seen their dad in about 2 1/2 weeks and woke up in the morning asking to go over there. It was one of those things where I would have liked to take the kids to the coast. My dad does not often ask to do stuff with us. He is always busy doing his own thing. But I thought, what if something happens? What if I tell my kids we can see dad tomorrow and then tomorrow never comes? I could not live with myself to have to tell them again that they couldn't see him and this time it is for good. This is how I have to think and balance things out. Of course my dad could get hit by a bus and fall down dead and I would feel bad that we didn't go to the coast with him, but the kids weren't asking to do that. They were asking to go to daddy's house. They had been asking for days. And I kept saying soon, when daddy gets back from the hospital. (We did not go visit him this time because we were all sick ourselves.) So I kept putting them off and putting them off. But I am not ready to put them off forever. Maybe that day will come. But not today. Not today.

So we went over to his house and he had not gotten out of bed since he'd been back, nor had he been outside (except for transport to and from the hospital) in over three weeks. So my goal was to get him up into his chair and take a walk with the kids outside. It took quite a while to get him up. Lots of having to stop for spasms and dizziness and lots of tubes to rearrange. But we did it, finally.

And it was a nice day for us in February. And sometimes it is easy to feel bad for all the stuff we go through together, but that walk was the sweetest day. It was like triumph and winning and gratitude and peacefulness and joy all mixed together. The kids were happy, we stopped to see a cat, we stopped at the gazebo, we stopped at the playground. The four of us. D holding Naim's hand in front of Aaron holding my hand on the sidewalk. Would I take this for granted if we could do it everyday with no IVs to worry about and no hospitalizations to work around? Probably. There may not be much good about this health crap, but at least it teaches you to know, and know deeply, a sweet day when you get one.

Glad to have Dad back. (All those packs on his lap? That's all the IV bags and infusion pumps in there.)

Aaron still refuses to be photographed. He feels no obligation toward his public.

D took this picture. Caught Aaron finally.

Way to Many Thoughts on Discipline

ETA: I just realized that I wrote this whole post largely using a second-person you this and you that, which is very obnoxious but unintentional. I'm too lazy to change it, so just accept my apologies upfront. It should just all be more of a "this is what I tried and this is what has been working for us yadda yadda" tone to it.

Well, Ambien is helping my sleep. I can tell I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. It is amazing how useless you can get when sleep deprived. I'm still having what I call "the donut" sleep patterns. It is when I fall asleep immediately, wake up 45 minutes later, and then stay up for various lengths of time until I fall asleep again--if at all. For example, I could sleep from 10-11, be up from 11-6 (with several attempts to go back to sleep in-between there) and then sleep from 6-8. Now, it seems like I am sleeping from 10-2, up from 2-4 or 5, and sleep till 8 or so. So that is much better. Last night, I think I did about 7 hours with only about 1 hour in the "donut hole." Part of it is my nutty hyper-arousal, but part of it is the longing to get things done. I lay there and I think, the kids are sleeping, I could get up and get so much done. And I do. God knows what the house would look like if I didn't take at least one night a week to do a housework all-nighter. But I'm trying to see sleep as a priority on my to do list, instead of being optional. I am accomplishing something if I can get a decent amount of sleep. It makes the rest of the time way more productive.

I've been thinking about really defining for myself my approach to discipline with the kids. I have so much experience as a teacher, both with making behavior plans for kids and with teaching positive behavioral supports to other teachers, that I do so much on instinct. Then, when D can't replicate exactly what I want him to do, I get frustrated. And admittedly, when I've been overtired I've been taking shortcuts. Another mom with a three year old that I see frequently does the unconditional parenting/Alfie Kohn approach...and we have been commiserating a bit about discipline. Her son is a good kid, but extremely high energy and he sometimes has a hitting problem. And then I have Aaron with his destructive habits. I don't go as far into unconditional parenting as she does, but she is good for me to be around because I think her approach challenges me to really think about what I do and why I do it.

My sister and I have been getting along well for the past couple of years. But every once in a while she pisses me off. It's not really  a pissy thing as much as she's just stupidly annoying sometimes. She does not have kids, nor does she want them--which is fine. She is okay around other people's kids. But often she gets on the phone and just goes off on what I should do with my kids and how I should do it. Kids that she has met ONE time, for two days. She takes her cues from other friends of hers with kids or (cringe) supernanny. It is so outlandish sometimes it is funny. She is an accountant for a pharmaceutical company, and to be honest, I have very little idea of what she does. It would be like me pulling some piece of advice out of my butt about how she should handle finances based on some crappy financial infomercial I saw on TV or something. Sometimes the things she says don't even illicit a response from me because they are just too irrelevant that it isn't even worth it.

But it isn't just that she is unfamiliar with kid discipline techniques. It is the issue with control. At 39 years old, she still hasn't a really realistic hold on what you can control and what you can't. Not that a lot of people don't have this problem. I think one thing you learn in the disability community is a really realistic appreciation for what you can control and a really practiced skill about what you have to let go. If she would have the opportunity to take the kids for 24 hours a day for a couple of weeks, one of two things would happen (or both): 1) she would have a nervous breakdown by the sheer enormous amount of things you cannot control with young children, or 2) the kids would be irreparably harmed by the amount of authoritarian control she would impose on them. Seriously, the uncontrollable amount of mess itself would kill her. The hours would kill her. The amount of time that is no longer your own would kill her. This is apples and oranges, obviously, but when my mother was ill and needed both physical and cognitive support, she never really got a grasp of the control issue. I'm not going to talk about it here, but it was quite frankly shocking, and very frightening to see how she struggled to handle that. This is why, although I think it is fine for her to have a relationship with the kids and visit them and otherwise be in their lives, we have made other arrangements for guardianship should we die in a fiery plane crash or whatever.

My approach to discipline is that less is more. But that there are definitely limits to what I will put up with and there are definite expectations that I have for their behavior. At three, these are limited, but they will continue to grow. Also, although I don't completely abandon behaviorism at this age, the goal well and truly is to be parenting at the Alfie Kohn level (no rewards/punishment, just love and logic as they say), by the time they are teenagers if not sooner. It is certainly not my desire to be manning computer time and TV privileges when they are 17 years old. By then, hopefully I am just a guide for them as they make their own (hopefully wise) decisions. To get to that point, you can't be doing heavy duty control and behaviorism their whole lives, you've got to let go and let them screw up and let them succeed on their own. They have to have the space to become their own person. Parenting is all about the long, tedius, slow, aggravating surrender of control.

Now, I say all this as if I have a clue as to how to raise teenagers. And although I've had a lot of training on teenager discipline, that doesn't mean I will have a clue as to how to raise MY teenagers in MY situation. So, all this is a day-to-day work in progress. But here is how it works out in my head:

The Rules

In my head there is only one thing, or the main thing, that I need to teach my kids-- Respect. And that is broken down into three areas:

1. Respect yourself
2. Respect others
3. Respect the planet and universe that sustains us.

These rules carry out throughout life, but obviously look different at different stages. At three, they look like this:

1. Respect yourself, i.e. eat your vegetables, brush your teeth, take a nap, go play instead of watching TV.
2. Respect others, i.e. tell someone you are angry instead of hitting them, share and take turns, say please and thank you.
3. Respect the earth, i.e. just use the amount of water/paper/cheerios/whatever you need, take care of your belongings, clean up after yourself, DON'T DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!

As a teenager, these rules might look like this:

1. Respect yourself, i.e. keep your body healthy by not putting toxins in it (cigarettes, drugs, alcohol), Stand up for your beliefs and don't give in to peer pressure, exercise, take responsibility for your sexual health...
2. Respect others, i.e. be honest with others, follow through on commitments, do your share in contributing to the household, try to understand others and tolerate differences...
3. Respect the earth, i.e. recycle, take care of your belongings, utilize money wisely, don't consume what you don't need, tread lightly on the earth...

Or whatever. The Respect rule is mine, and then we decide together what the specifics are underneath each category. We even do that now to some extent. The ways we show respect is largely a social construct, it means something entirely different to D's family than it does to mine. And culturally, some of the differences are more diverse. So, the actions themselves are subject to the context at hand. Your actions are only as respectful as the 'recipient' receives them to be. It is a lifelong lesson to learn what respect is in different contexts. So, these 'sub rules' are constantly subject to discussion and change. The good thing about toddlers is that now they are easy. "Don't Hit" is pretty universal. Trying to understand others is quite complex. So you just have to constantly adapt to where your kid is developmentally.

Also, as a parent, what you can do discipline-wise is very much based on context. My friend, the Alfie Kohn devotee, has just one child (for now, she is expecting another) and she is privileged with a lot of time, freedom and support. She also has a personal style that lends itself to a more flexible approach. She is in a great environment to have the opportunity to do some very "let the child lead" kind of things.

Contrast that with one of my guilty pleasures, the reality TV show "Jon and Kate plus 8." This family has a SAHM with a set of 6 year old twins and a set of 3 year old sextuplets. I love watching that show because that mom is waaaaay more bonkers than I am, so it makes me feel better about myself, I'll be honest. But! I say that knowing full well that if I were in her situation, I would be just as bonkers. (Although when she said that she gets down on hands and knees to clean the floor three times a day, I was pretty sure she was certifiable. She has some of my sister in her. But she has some of me in her, too. She's tough. She will get through this. My sister would have blown her brains out before the kids were a year old.) Anyway, what she can tolerate with eight small children has its limits. Her kids don't enjoy the same freedoms as mine do. She has to be more strict with them just to get through the day. How else would you feed 8 kids three times a day and clean up and have them all play together and keep your sanity? You'd have to keep a tight ship. Just as my kids have more flexibility that hers do, my friend's son has more flexibility than mine do. In order for me to get through the day, I have to maintain a higher level of order than her. There is just one of me with two toddlers and a quadriplegic to deal with. Everyone has to play their part in cooperating. But God I love that show. And that women just kills me. She is hilarious and she really is a very intentional parent. Even though I sometimes cringe at how much her kids get put in time-out. I do admire the way she gets all those kids out of the house to do all the things she does. With two kids, getting them out of the house is no easy task. With six or eight? That's some nail-scratching guts. Oh, and her husband is kinda cute, too.

I entertain myself by the fact that I'm not her. A portrait of the Gosselin Family, mom, dad and 8 kids.

The other variable, of course, is the kids themselves. All kids are different and need different approaches to discipline. What is nice about having multiples is that you get a better idea of how much you actually influence their behavior vs. how much their own personality does. Aaron and Naim need very different approaches to discipline. Naim really wants to please, and he is very sensitive to being 'yelled at.' But as a three year old, he quite often does not know what is expected of him. And needs to be told again and again and again. He does very well with a lot of structure and he likes to know exactly what is expected of him. He will eventually get it, but you have to tell him, very nicely, very patiently, 500 times what he needs to do before he will get it sometimes. There is no reason to put him in time out. He is rarely what I would call defiant, but he does require a lot of patience and a lot of encouragement. I don't know if he has ever even been in time out.

Aaron needs a bit of a stern hand sometimes, but at the same token, he needs a lot of freedom. He needs to decide for himself what to do. He needs to find his own way. He wants to try out all the options and pick which one is best. He doesn't like to be ordered around and told what to do. So, I try to let him go his own way as much as possible. But when it is not possible, sometimes I just have to use my Mean Mom Voice with him. And then, he requires absolute follow-through on 'threats' or he will manipulate to get you to cave. When he finally does do what you ask, it is usually done along side a crying fit of protest. One thing I have learned with Aaron is that, while I'm insisting that he does the thing he doesn't want to do, if I have some empathy for his plight--the tantrums go away quickly. It is instinct (or exhaustion) to want to get mad at the kid when he is tantrumming. But with Aaron, while I'm making him do whatever, if I say, "I understand you are mad that you have to go to bed. I know it is hard to go to bed when you want to stay up and play. I'm sorry that you need to go to bed now, but you need your rest  so you are ready to play tomorrow." Blah, blah, blah. Its hard to be told what to do. I don't like it either. So a little empathy goes a long way with him. He also, NEEDS time out sometimes. And will often put himself in it. Sometimes his behavior just needs to be nipped in the bud and there is no other way to do it but pull him out of the situation. But I do time out with him a bit differently than Supernanny. Sometimes it is the toy that gets time out, not him. If I do physically pull him out of a situation, I usually stay with him, instead of isolating him off on his own. (Unless I am so pissed off that I need a time out myself, which has been known to happen.) I also rarely use a time limit for him. He usually gets to decide when he is ready to play nicely (or whatever) on his own. I would say he gets a time out about once a month or so. It is not that often.

Aaron's moods depend largely on the environment. So if the schedule is set up right, many of his problems disappear. Right now, the new goal for getting him to quit destroying things is to wear him out. I'm trying to set things up so that we go somewhere and do something physically active every single morning, even if it is just a walk. Then lunch. Then "school" in the afternoon. Which usually has a craft/artsy thing to it and then I'm going to add a music or some kind of get moving aspect to it every day. Then nap. At least for an hour. Even if he doesn't sleep. Then up and dinner and play time and baths and bed. The idea is to structure his day so that he has plenty of opportunities to expend his pent up energy doing things other than destroying things. Then he will be so tired at nap/bedtime that he will actually sleep rather than destroy things. It works when I can work it. Meaning, it is much harder for me to keep that schedule than him. But I'm hoping that when my sleep gets turned around and without the constant messes to clean up, it will get easier.

I have to have a good reason to discipline them. Or at least I try to be intentional and not arbitrary about it. (Although we all have our moments when we just want them to Shut the F*ck UP!) So, I kind of have a running list of questions I ask myself to see if it is worth me harping on them about:

1. Is it dangerous to them or others?
2. Is it detrimental to their health? (i.e. eating a huge bag of candy might not be immediately dangerous, but may make them sick later on...or just fat.)
3. Is it going to cause permanent damage to property?
4. Is it something that should never be done, no matter what age? (i.e. Naim often likes to loads the dishwasher all wrong. I let him do this because eventually he will figure out how and it is appropriate for people to load the dishwasher at any age. However, sometimes he likes to crawl in the dishwasher. This I don't let him do because it is not appropriate at any age to do this. Same with hitting. Sometimes they are rude to adults because they don't know the polite ways to say things. But telling people what you want is appropriate and they will get more tactful. However, hitting is never appropriate so that is not allowed.)
5. Is it something that has very negative consequences that they aren't able to see yet for themselves? (i.e. taking a nap will make the rest of the day go so much better. But they don't see this link yet, so I have to 'artificially' impose the consequence on them.)
6. Is it something that is causing negative consequences for the whole family unit (or friends or whoever we are with at the time)? (Aaron's destroying things is a good example of this. A whole canister of oatmeal around the room is really not a long term big deal. But the fact that cleaning up all the time makes me insane and exhausted and takes time away from me doing (fun) stuff with them and their father means that it is detrimental for the family unit.)

I think that is my basic criteria to be The Enforcer. I think a lot of times parents struggle with inconsistency because they wait until something is actually happening to decide whether to intervene, or they are on top of it one time and exhausted and let it go the next time. (I do both of these, btw.) But I think having an established system up front helps to know whether to jump in and intervene or just let it go and let them have some freedom to be kids and make their own mistakes. And it changes over time. I used to have to harp and intervene all the time about sharing and fighting over toys. Now they often handle it themselves if I just stay out of it. They know how to share and take turns and make trades and deals, so after the skill is learned, it is up to them to apply it. Now, I only intervene if they ask me too or if it occasionally gets so out of hand that I can't stand it anymore. (loud screaming.)

So those are my thoughts, all written out now, about my approach to discipline. I'm sure it will change by next week. But in general, I feel confidant in my abilities and my approaches seem to be working for the most part. My kids are generally well-behaved and pleasant to be around. Exceptions usually occur when I've screwed up. Which usually happens because of exhaustion. Which means that I better go to bed now.

Christmas 2007 in Chapters

Chapter 1: Zoo Lights

Zoo lights kinda sucked most of the time and it was mostly my fault for not thinking it through well enough. The kids (and by kids I mean Aaron) broke my white cane, so I've been using another telescoping sorta sucky one. On the train, I threw it in my bag. After a half-hour train ride, I got off and somehow no longer had it.

Okay. Well, I'm meeting another mom so that makes it easier, and there are supposed to be a lot of lights, right? So maybe I will be able to see better than I usually can in the dark. But I waited and waited and waited at the designated spot, and she didn't show. I waited for about 40 minutes and walked around a bit to see if I missed her, but the kids were getting antsy and I had a decision to make. Should I go it alone or get back on the train and go back home? I decided to go over to where the entrance of the zoo was and see how I did. I didn't do well. I couldn't even tell where the line was or where to go to get in. It was one of those things that was going to be dangerous and miserable to get through, so I turned to go back home.

Right when I was turning back to head to the train, she appeared. It seemed that I had said to meet at the elevators closest to the zoo and she had only thought that there was one set of elevators coming up from the train station and was waiting at the other one. I did walk up to the other one once, but we must have missed each other. (BTW, in case the person in question ever reads this, I hope you know that I'm totally not mad at you about this. I was just frustrated by the whole situation I sort of found myself in. Mistakes/misunderstandings happen and its all good. Not like I haven't made a bajillion mistakes based on a misunderstanding.)

However, at that point my kids had sat through a 1/2 hour train ride and another over a half an hour wait. Then about a 15 minute wait in line. Then, we decided to head for the train ride. You have to buy tickets at the front, which is dumb, because then if you change your mind you've already paid. So, I wouldn't have waited in this train line if I were on my own. (Not that I said anything, so again, no blame except on myself here). Anyway, since I couldn't see, I had NO FREAKING IDEA how ungodly awful long this line was. I kept thinking we were at the end of it and just steps away from the train and then we would turn onto a whole 'nother subsection of line. It just went on and on. So, in addition to the kids' already hour and a half long wait to do something fun, We must have waited for the train for at least another hour. My kids were miserable at this point and it was just the point of no return for them. I was letting them in and out of the stroller and then they would want to be carried and my arms were aching and then Naim would throw a shit fit every time the line went away from the train and it was just a pain and not fun.

Naim getting impatient in the train line. He sucks his finger while holding on to the other arm when he's upset. He's always done this. It's kinda weird.

Then, after the train ride, I got lost. We had parked our strollers in this designated space and when we got off, she went that way and I must have missed the turn and just followed the crowd out. So, with two kids in tow, I had to find my way back IN the train area. This is where I knew I had seriously fucked up and the situation was out of my control. I had NO CLUE where I was or where I needed to be. All I could see was a mess of disorienting lights. I couldn't even see people to ask for help. I asked a few passersby if they knew how I could get back to the stroller area and they didn't know short of going through the entire train line again. Thankfully, the kids were being good and dutifully holding on to each of my hands, but I kept thinking, "Kids? As you trustingly follow your mother, you have no idea how much she is fucking up on the job right now." I was actually using them as my 'guide dogs' to watch out for steps and stuff.

I knew I needed to find someone who worked there who could get me through, but it was too dark to see who worked there. So, I asked 'The Next Person Who Walked By' to help me find someone who worked there. She had trouble as well, but finally we found someone who was holding those lights that airport people use to direct the plane with, you know? And he basically cut me through the entire train line and finally found my friend and the strollers.

An aside: I can't believe sometimes how nice some people are compared to how snotty others are. The person who helped me find the employee, she had her own kids in tow and was totally wonderful about stopping everything to run around and figure this out with me, a total stranger. Then, when I walked with my two little kids through the line with an employee, people were snotting at me not to cut in line. Even when I told them I was just passing through the line, not getting in line, someone said, "Why does she get special treatment?".

After that, things got a bit better. We walked around the zoo and it was kind of a neat atmosphere with all the lights. We spent some time watching a brass band that was playing Christmas Carols. Naim really liked that. I was fascinated watching my friend and her daughter together. Her daughter is just a month or two older than mine, and she would so dutifully follow right behind her mother while her mother walked anywhere from two to six or eight feet in front of her. She just followed along like a little puppy dog. I think Naim could do that, but still I would be afraid in a crowd like that that people would get in between us and we'd get separated and I would never be able to find him. I need contact. And Aaron? Aaron would be gone forever if I let him go like that. He is a wanderer. If he gets more than four to six feet away from me in the dark like that with such loud noises, I'm done for.

Better times for Naim. Listening to music.

So, I had the double umbrella stroller, and I always kept one in the stroller while the other had to "help me push." And even this was tough. The stroller is wide and keeps running over people's feet and can't fit anywhere narrow. The whole night was an effort of intense concentration and alertness on my part. Exhausting. I was a bore, I had to work so hard on just keeping our shit together. This was a new friend and she was a rookie at being with me. I'm sure she'll never want to go anywhere with us again.

And the whole night I kept saying to myself, "I should listen to Emmie. She's SO right about the harnesses. This would be so much easier with harnesses. I should listen to Emmie." Emmie has used those cute little animal backpack harnesses with her twin boys. And has made really insightful comments about how kid harnesses have such a stigma and are looked down upon, yet everyone shoves their kids in a stroller for the same purpose, to keep easy control of their kids. And yet, aren't strollers (at toddler age, I'm not talking infants here) so much more confining than harnesses? At least with harnesses they could walk around some and explore and get some exercise. The other thing is, they don't have to use them. You can have the kids wearing the backpacks and walking with you, and just take out the 'leash' part of the harness if needed. Whereas if you choose a stroller, you're pretty much stuck with it and at least one hand occupied all the time. In the end, to not do something that makes perfectly good sense and will work for you and keep your kids safer while still allowing them some freedom just because you are worried about what other people will think is just stupid. (As if, with all the other reasons we'll get stared at, harness stares will be such a big deal.)

And lo and behold, a Christmas Miracle! I get home and waiting for me is an email from Emmie offering to send me their harnesses that they aren't using anymore. Yea! Emmie!

Naim on a hippo statue while Aaron stands by. I didn't get really any good pictures at zoo lights. Too busy getting my ass lost.

Chapter 2: The Weekend

For the past several weeks/months, I have had significant trouble sleeping, even though I am exhausted all. the. time. I actually can fall asleep really easily, but then I wake up anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours later and then I am up, anxiety ridden, till 5 am or even just never go back to bed. Then I'm so tired the next day that I can't get anything except the essentials done. I've tried limiting my caffeine, not watching TV before bed, thought it might be my 30 year old mattress I am using now and am looking in to replacing it. Then, on days when I go over to D's to work, I've been doing the bare necessities over there and then collapsing on the couch in a deep sleep while he watches the kids.

Finally, on a terrible Saturday night with no sleep at 7 in the morning on one of those days when I probably have had 5 or 6 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours, it occurred to me. This all started when the kids got to big boy beds and Aaron started destroying everything. (A condition which still comes and goes, it improved some before we had another setback). They haven't been really taking naps, either. The problem is that I don't feel like I am EVER off duty. Naim doesn't like me to go to sleep and turn off all the lights until he is asleep at night, or he starts throwing things around. Then Aaron starts throwing things around in the morning if he gets up before me. They never sleep for naps anymore. The place is pretty childproof but then I always fear those little things like what if they knock over a bookcase and kill themselves. They have already destroyed a lamp in their room. They knocked off the light bulb and it shattered to pieces. What if they electrocute themselves? What if they just simply pull all of the toilet paper out and TP my house with it? Its not the end of the world, no. But it kind of is when there are messes to clean up all the time. I spend my life cleaning these messes instead of being able to do anything fun with them. One more big mess can send me over the edge.

It is a cyclical problem where I know that their schedule needs adjusting, we need some new routines, they need some more outings and stimulation. Aaron especially needs more stimulation right now than it seems I can give him. I've been looking into preschools but many are too expensive or have a "3 by September" rule so I have to wait until next fall. I need a break. I can't get one. I don't sleep and am tired all the time, which makes me less able to find stimulating things for them to do and then they get bored and start destroying things again. And I'm never off duty. When I wake up at night, I usually think I awoke because something has happened or they need me. Or did I remember to put the locks on the closet doors? I better check. Or I need to go check and see if they both ended up asleep in their beds instead of (really!) Aaron falling asleep on top of the bookcase. I'm never done, I can never relax. Naim is a dream child mostly. If it was just him, or even two of him, I think I'd be okay. But Aaron, as it turns out, is a--shall we say--"spirited child." He is a challenge and I am not meeting his needs lately.

So over the weekend, my body just collapsed into flu and exhaustion and depression. I have not had a break from the kids (for more than 3 or 4 hours, which is rare in itself) for over three years. They have not ever had even one day apart from me or I from them. Its not right. I'm not sure what to do about it. You can say "get a babysitter" but it isn't so easy. All my affordable babysitting attempts have fallen through for various reasons. Right now, I am looking at possibly hiring a young man from my church who works in the nursery with the boys and they like him. The only issue is that he has (high functioning) autism. I don't think I could leave the house with him there. He still may be a great help if I can get some other work done or rest. Or if he can perhaps help with some of the housework kind of stuff (which I'm not sure about yet.) He also doesn't drive, so we'd have to work out transportation. I'm very interested in giving him a go, but I'm not sure how well it will work, or if it will work at all. But he's a nice kid and I'm thinking I can hire him for minimum, so we'll see.

But what this has to do with the weekend is that three times, D has come over and spent the day with the kids so I could rest. It was the only way I was not going to lose my ever-loving mind and even attempt to have some kind of Christmas for the kids. He has been a bit sick with a post-operative infection from his pump surgery. And his incision is a bit open now so the infection can drain out and he has to be careful. So it was with much guilt that I had him come over, but if he hadn't...I swear I was headed for hospitalization or something. I was getting so sick and tired that I couldn't think straight and nothing made sense that came out of my mouth. Just the very thought of my dad coming in January and bringing that dog that I will have to manage as well and clean up after was sending me right over the edge into middle of the night terrors.

Things are better, I have been catching up on sleep. But the problems remain. At least now I have a clearer head and can start to figure stuff out. I need to look at schedule. I need to look for regular outings that occur pretty frequently and will stimulate and wear Aaron out. I need to look at some more baby proofing (at this point, it is kid proofing and involves heavy duty locks, rather than those pansy-ass baby proofing products that he laughs in the face of) so that I can sleep and feel like he is at least safe somewhere. I need to pursue a regular babysitter, if not this kid then something else.

Sometimes it takes you going nuts to realize that there is a serious problem that needs serious action to be dealt with. So that was what this weekend was all about. I'll get there, but it is going to take some serious strategy.

Chapter 3: Christmas Eve

The only thing on the agenda for Christmas Eve was the church service, which I always found relaxing in previous years. The kids have done well the last few years, and I tried to set up the day so this year they would do well, too. I tried to make sure they were well rested but also a bit worn out, well fed but not needing to go to the bathroom for an hour, etc.

But! It was not to be. They seemed fine all day but when we got there, they wouldn't shut up so we went back to the 'cry room.' Our cry room actually is a little play room with windows and a speaker with the service piped in. Naim was fine after a while and I sent him out to sit with his dad. Aaron, on the other hand, won the contest for the Most Obnoxious Kid in the Room.

There were 3 or 4 other kids who ended up back there. Every time a kid would come in, Aaron would say,"I don't like him! I don't want to play with him! Go Away!"

Big fat roll eyes slam head into brick wall emoticon here.

Now, here is where again, I will never judge another mom again and I'm ashamed that I used to do this. One experience with a kid does not a bad kid make. Aaron is usually a pretty social kid who likes to play with other kids and can be very polite about sharing and trading and taking turns. But on this night, he was a brat. And he got a time out. And we struggled through the service and had a struggle to clean up all of our toys afterwords. We were going to go downstairs for their little social thing and they had the accessible door locked again (happens less and less these days, but still occasionally happens.) At this point, I was worn out and the thought of dragging my kids  in the cold around the building and through two sets of staircases to go around and unlock the door for D was more than I could take, so I just wanted to go home. Which made Aaron scream bloody murder, because he wanted to go downstairs and socialize now, of course. Now he wanted to play with the other kids. So that was relaxing Christmas Eve at the church.

I put the kids to bed so D and I could have our steak dinner in peace, and that was nice. And then I sent him home so I could finish up all the present wrapping and stuff I still hadn't gotten done.

Chapter 4: Christmas

Despite all the crabbiness and all the--well--Aaron, Christmas actually turned out pretty good. I kept the kids upstairs and fed them breakfast up there until D and his dad got here at around ten. I had the train set sitting out in the living room and I carried Aaron to the bathroom and he caught a peak of it. But it was funny. He was all, "Gasp! A surprise! (sign for surprise) I saw a surprise! (sign)" I told him to whisper so Naim wouldn't hear about the surprise, so then he started signing everything while whispering. "Gasp! A train surprise? A present? For ME?"

The Xmas morning beeline. I don't know what that face I'm making is all about.

When I took them downstairs, they made a beeline for the train set. They were pretty excited and crashed the track and bridges almost immediately, which I knew was going to happen. That track assembly is going to take a bit of practice for them, but they'll get it. Luckily, we had other presents at the ready to distract them from track frustrations. We spent the morning happily opening presents. It went quicker this year than last year. Because this year they wanted "more presents!" while last year they would play with something a while until we nudged them along to open the next one. They are starting to get this whole present thing. Yea! Consumerism!

Aaron and Naim with the train set before the hurricane hit it and left the Island of Sodor in ruins; it's minority inhabinants to be left for dead by our classist regime.

Oh! Before I forget. On cue during the present unwrapping, as if in a oversentimentalized Hallmark Channel Christmas Special, another Christmas Miracle! It started to snow! Supposedly, it hasn't snowed here on Christmas in over 56 years! (Didn't stay on the ground, though. but was pretty to watch.)

Then we went to the Christmas Dinner thing at my church. And this time the door was unlocked. It was really nice. There were more people there than I thought would be, and they had all the tables set up with candles and china and there was wine and lots and lots of food. They set up a little kid area with a kid table and chairs and some toys and markers and paper. The kids got a gift bag with candy and a small toy vehicle in it. There was another boy about their age and this time Aaron played nicely with him almost the whole time. Aaron was pretty good except that he went to the dessert table and took just one bite out of four different pieces of fudge and then put them back. Luckily, people just laughed about it. Naim stuck with his dad mostly. Usually during potluck kind of things all I do is work because I have to get food, drinks, silverware,etc. for four people by myself while watching the rugrats at the same time. By the time I'm started eating, everyone else is done. There was some of that here, too, of course, but people actually ran and fetched things for me, like a drink for Naim or a fork or dessert for the kids. When you NEVER get waited on, I mean like EVER. And you are always the one who has to get up during a meal and fetch the juice, the butter, the seconds, the whatever, then you have to clean up afterwords as well--it is so nice when someone does something simple like just gets the kids some juice that it practically makes me want to cry. I almost don't know what to do with myself. Its silly.

When I go to social functions with kids now, time warps into something I call "Toddler Time." Even if I've had a nice time and the kids were relatively well-behaved, I think I have spent hours and hours somewhere and when I leave and look at the clock, its only been like two hours and I am shocked. This is what happened here. We were the first to leave, and I  had the "get the kids to bed" excuse to use. But I thought we had been there at least 3 or 4 hours. Turns out it was only two. Well, that was enough. I'd go again next year. I figure each year these things are going to get easier and easier.

Appendix: The Loot

For both kids:

• Train set (mom)
• Set of a bunch of space shuttles and rockets (dad)
• (btw, remember the plastic hunk of kitchen junk? After dragging all the peices out twice to put it together and failing. I gave up. It is pissing me off and it is going to Freecycle.)

Naim:

• small stuffed kitty cat that meows and moves and blinks (grampa b.)
• Knit hat (grampa B.)
• matchbox airplane
• creepy feeling rubber dragon and dinosaur
• Melissa and Doug farm jigsaw puzzle
• Animal planet safari animal playset
• Max and Ruby book (Julie)
• School house puzzle (Julie)
• Fisher Price turtle game
• 2 finger puppets
• Little school bus (from church)
• Candy
• Train Christmas Ornament
• Gift certificates (the SILs)

Naim discovering the wonders of "More Presents!"

Aaron:

• little stuffed dog that barks, etc. (grampa b.)
• knit hat (grampa b.)
• matchbox airplane
• Creepy dinosaur and dragon
• Little people helicopter
• Melissa and Doug train puzzle
• Roger the Snake book (Julie)
• Barney Puzzle (Julie)
• Fisher Price Oreo game
• 2 finger puppets
• little ambulance car (from church)
• candy
• Volkswagen bug Christmas ornament
• gift certificates (the SILs)

D helping Aaron unwrap. This is Scrooge of me, but I f*ing hate that Santa hat D wears every year. Which is probably why he wears it.

D:

• sweater (parents)
• wheelchair reflector light (parents)
• security video camera (his B/SIL) We were kind of dumbfounded by this one. We both said, Oooh! a good gift! We have been thinking for a long time about how to give D access to the kids room upstairs, because they are starting to want him to go up there to show him things. We thought about hooking up video somehow. So this is (I think) what that is in mind for. Although I think he is going to exchange it for one that can work on his computer instead of the TV, it is still a thoughtful gift.
• RAM (me) Isn't this romantic? Isn't it special? Over the weekend I finally confessed to him that I suck. I didn't get him anything. I said to pick out something he wants and I will get it for him...and he picked RAM for his computer. I said email me the exact thing you want and where to get it and I will order it, so that's what I did.
• His favorite oatmeal choc chip cookies (me and the kids.)

Me:

• Kitchen timer (D) This is a joke. I've somehow managed to break, like, 4 of them. I use them for turn taking for the kids or getting them to pick up their mess in a certain amount of time or occasionally for time outs.
• Chocolate (D)
• iPod Shuffle (D) This is a good little iPod for me. I needed one that works without a screen which I can't see.

*If you are wondering about gifts from my family, I have asked them to contribute to my "trip back to the Midwest" fund. My fake grandmother is 85 years old, and I am determined to try to make it back with the kids this spring/summer. It is expensive to fly for the three of us!

I've Got Me Two Three Year-Olds.....So Take THAT, Bitches!

First of all, thanks for all of your comments on the TMI post. I'm thinking about pursuing the Mirena option, although it squicks me out a bit. But I've done some research and as they say, "It's not my mother's IUD." I'll let you know how it goes.

And yeah! The kids are three! Holy Crap how did that happen. We had a nice day at a local pizza place with an indoor hamster cage playroom. D's dad came with us and we had an unplanned meeting with a friend of ours and her little boy, so that was fun. The kids made birthday cake with me and we had cake with D's dad. We gave them each one small present (little airplanes) and a present to share (a doctors kit.) And that was it. (Party in the summer.) Pictures are on D's camera, so I'll put them up when I get them.

Three years old is a big milestone for me because I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief about my paranoia that they would be removed from my care. I know this is quite arbitrary. It is based entirely on a comment that was made while I was in the hospital with them. But this comment ran over and over in my head and I would imagine myself as a mother of three year-olds. Where we would be and how we would get there. It seemed so very far away back then, like centuries away. But it came so quickly! And its here and we did it and no one can say we didn't or couldn't. So, okay, here is the letter I've been thinking about writing for three years. But couldn't write it until the kids were three, as you soon will see why. I might have to do some edits and shorten it up of course, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to send it. So here is the letter to the maternity ward director where the kids were born. And crap, I can't figure out the formatting. Sorry, folks. It seems to happen every time I Xed something out

December 8, 2007

Dear XXXXX,

I was a patient on the maternity floor of

XXXXX

Hospital

three years ago from December 7-12, 2004. I gave birth via C/S on the 7th to 35 weeker twin boys named Naim and Aaron. Perinatologist Dr. XXXX was my attending physician and the children were seen by pediatricians from The XXXX Clinic. Dr. XXXX is their current pediatrician. I am vision and hearing impaired, and the babies’ father, D XXXX, is a C6 quadriplegic. We stayed in

Suite

30

, if I remember correctly.

I am writing this letter because of several comments that were made by your staff concerning our ability to parent our children. Most notably, a comment overheard by a friend of mine as she waited in the hallway near the nurses station in which a staff member said that even if my partner and I managed to care for our babies the first month, they would definitely be taken from us by the time they were three.

This was not the only comment made in regards to our ability to successfully parent our children. A CNA (who referred to us as ‘welfare cases’) told a pediatrician right in front of us that the ‘word on the floor’ was that if left alone to us, our children would not be fed and cared for. We also were told by a lactation consultant that I did not have what it takes to breastfeed and should probably give up my pumping and feeding schedule. There were other slights and judgments made in regards to our ability to parent as disabled people.

This was extremely distressing for us during a time when we were in need of support. I had just had a retinal detachment and lost most of my remaining vision 3 weeks prior to the birth and had had a difficult eye surgery and bed rest leading up to the birth. My children, particularly Naim (Twin #1), were going through the usual problems that many premature babies go through, such as jaundice, low glucose levels, and a lack of a good sucking and rooting reflex. I was also recovering from a C/S and could not find a level of pain medication that didn’t make me extremely drowsy. I was not at my best, and I took the advice of our childbirth class instructor, who told me to use the hospital stay as much as possible to rest and recover. She suggested that I put the babies in the nursery at night and to not be shy about asking for the nursing staff to assist with their care while I was there. This is advice that sounded reasonable to me, yet apparently backfired.

I feel that the preconceived notions regarding the abilities of people with disabilities caused us to be unfairly judged and thus perhaps led staff to make decisions that were not in our children’s best interest. For example, other premature infants without a developed rooting and sucking reflex are often treated with an NG tube until their ability to eat on their own develops more fully. Perhaps this was a judgment call that could have gone either way. But in the four to six weeks following his birth, Naim was seen several times by a WIC dietician and nurse, a XXXX

County

outreach nurse, and the feeding clinic at XXXX. None of them could get him to eat any better than we could. We tried different nipples such as the Haberman, we tried different techniques and positions and schedules. Nothing worked. We ended up just dripping drops into his mouth, birdlike, for the first month. Finally, near his original due date, he just suddenly developed a sucking reflex. My point is that in any other situation, a baby like Naim would have been treated as he was; a premature infant with eating difficulties. Instead, some of your staff blamed his problems on us, on our inability to feed him due to our disabilities. I think that these types of judgments can potentially be harmful to patient care.

The other way these judgments and prejudices were harmful to me was the stress and fear they induced when I had to hear such comments. I did not know how far this would spiral out of control. Every time the door opened, I wondered if some social worker was going to come and take my children away. I was not able to rest and recuperate in the hospital; I was put on the defensive. One reason I did not accept hardly any pain medication was because I did not want to be mentally compromised if I had to fight for my right to keep my children. I cannot even describe to you the insult added to injury that the words of your staff caused my partner and I. We literally became fearful of some of the staff and watched our every move, making sure that we did not ask for or accept much help. We knew our every move was being scrutinized. This was not conducive to a recuperative stay for any of us.

I would like to take a few minutes now to tell us a bit about our family, and perhaps dispel any misconceptions you may have about us. I have a master’s degree in education and have taught school as well as worked at XXXXXX and XXXXX Children’s Hospital as a research associate and a child life therapy assistant. My partner Dwight and I met in college. His education is in computer engineering and he worked as a software developer at Hewlett Packard and now sells software for XXXX. We have been together for 13 years now. We are not married due to health insurance issues. He relies heavily on TriCare, military insurance he gets through his father’s service in the Marine Corps. If we married, he would lose this much needed secondary insurance. At the time of my pregnancy, I had recently changed jobs and was not able to have my pregnancy covered by my COBRA BCBS insurance due to the preexisting condition clause. I also receive Medicare through a disabled work program. I currently work as a CNA and as a writer for a disability education organization. Because of the job change, my pregnancy and our children’s first year of medical care was covered by Medicaid, which I paid a premium for. I imagine that this is why we were thought to be “welfare cases.” The children and I are now covered by a BCBS plan. We have a modest income, but we do work and we do meet the financial needs of our family. Regardless of this, I would hope that anyone who finds themselves utilizing Medicaid or other financial assistance could count on being treated in the hospital without judgment or rude comments.

As with any new parents of twins who had some eating and health issues, the first 3 months or so were tough, but slowly the kids got over their health issues and gained weight and began to thrive. We have occasional help from family, friends, and babysitters like everyone else, but we largely take care of our children entirely on our own. I developed a method for using a white cane while pulling the kids behind me in their double stroller. I learned to gauge diaper rash I couldn’t see by how they reacted when I cleaned their bottoms. I hooked up my hearing aid FM system to a baby monitor that would signal me when they would cry. DXXX developed ways to hold them and feed them by propping them on pillows. He could pick them up from the floor by using a transfer belt or just sticking his arm in the back of their overalls. We both developed ways to keep track of them at the playground using bells and lighted shoes and by starting small and setting clear boundaries while slowly expanding their world. Instead of sitting on the park bench watching them, I got to have the fun of following them up and down the playground slides as my way to keep track of them. There really has yet to be any parenting challenge that we haven’t effectively met.

They just turned three yesterday. And we still have them and have never been even close to having anyone threaten to remove them from our care. We have purposefully taken advantage of such programs as Healthy Start and the Washington County Public Health outreach program in order to have ‘witnesses’ that would vouch for us if there was ever a problem. These professionals have been in our home on a monthly basis for three years, and their time is coming to a close. We have always received complements on our parenting skills and how well the children are doing.

And they are doing wonderfully. They are healthy and well within normal range on the growth charts. They have met or exceeded all of their developmental milestones. They have learned both sign language and English and have that wonderfully hilarious vocabulary that three year-olds are known for. They enjoy trips to the park, the Children’s Museum, the Zoo, Church activities, and outings with other children. They enjoy traveling with me on the MAX and buses and are learning the rules for crossing the street (which in our case means they are learning traffic rules and patterns and the sounds of the intersection as well as red/green lights.) They will be starting preschool in the fall. They have no problem relating to our disabilities because it doesn’t seem like anything is different to them and I think this helps them to relate to others with differences. They are a joy to be around and they are the best decision I have ever made. They are the light of our lives.

I hope that by sharing our story with you, that you may look at the attitudes and prejudices that may be impeding on your staff’s ability to give the best quality of care to all of your patients regardless of their life circumstances. I want nothing more than to make you think twice the next time you have a disabled mom or dad in your care or anyone who may be struggling with a unique situation. And I want whoever said our children would be taken from us before they were three to know that they most certainly were NOT. There was never any reason to think that they would be.

I would also like to say that we do know that not every staff member felt the way that these ignorant people did. We did have wonderful nurses that seemed to go to bat for us. It almost seemed like there was a bit of a divide among your staff. We sensed a lot of ‘office politics’ going on that week that we might have been in the middle of. I wish I could remember all the names of everyone who was so kind to us. We were given the biggest suite and DXXX was accommodated with his own egg-crated hospital bed, which helped ease his stay with me. We had a wonderful nurse that helped me check out on the last day and gave me a hug and lots of encouragement. We had a nurse that was with us for the day shift for about three days and a night nurse that was very helpful. Now that I think about it, it seemed like the nurses that spent the most time with us were generally supportive, while those who only saw us briefly had the biggest misconceptions about us and caused the most stress. I think that proves that when people take the time to know us as who we are, not who they think disabled people are like; they don’t have any problem with us. Again, my point in all this is to encourage your staff to look at their prejudices and to share with you how much fear and stress it caused us to be judged in such a misguided way. No new mother (who has done nothing wrong and shown no sign of being unfit) should have to recover from a Cesarean and get to know and care for her preemie twins while being terrified that they will get taken away. That was nothing less than a nightmare.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my situation. I hope it helps you better serve future patients.

Sincerely,

Lisa XXXXX

Regrets? I've had a few...but then again, too few to mention...

Cupla emails I thought I would address here that are kinda related:

"My husband and I are going back and forth commiserating about when is the right time to have kids and if there is a right time......

I have been reading several blogs by mothers lately to help me get an idea of what its Really Like(tm), and I have to admit, I'm scared. You talk about tortured first months and how it sucks ass and everybody says how hard it is. Do you ever regret it? Do you wish you did things differently? Do you wish you waited for a better time? ...."

And also:

"I found your blog because my sister-in-law who is my best friend, has twin baby girls and she is really struggling right now. I loved your day in the life post, but that was a while back, do you have a toddler update? How are you managing toddlers these days?..."

Okay. As to the first (and other moms, feel free to weigh in here, also), I could never tell someone else when or whether to have kids, it is just such a personal decision based on so many factors. However, I'll answer these from my own perspective only.

Do I ever regret it, assuming you mean 'it' is having kids? Let's see, how can I put this so I'm perfectly clear?

NOT FOR ONE. SINGLE. SOLITARY. IOTA. OF A SECOND. NO MEANS NO MEANS NEVER MEANS NOT AT ALL... and on like that, infinity...

I think this comes from having some infertility issues, also from being disabled and having people tell me ad nauseum that I couldn't/shouldn't have kids. And from just always wanting to be a mom and from just having great kids. I am actually so far away from regret about parenting that not a single day goes by that I don't think how lucky I am. Sometimes several times a day I just marvel in gratefulness. Sometimes it just hits me at odd moments, when my kids are just climbing up the stairs for bed, others when they will do something so sweet like put their hands gently on my face and ask for a kiss, or when I hear them laugh uncontrollably or when they do something genius or just silly. If I could put a dime in a jar for every time I thought to myself, "My God! I'm so lucky I can't believe I'm pulling this off! I'm so glad I did this!" I'd have the kids' college fund by now.

The bitchin' and moanin' is not inherent to being a parent or to the kids themselves. It is a management issue. In short, this is my problem: The amount of work I have to do or should be doing is by far greater than the time and energy I have. There is very little I can do right now to change that. It will not last forever, someday the kids will be off with their friends, and someday later I will be a crazy old deafblind cat lady who does nothing but writes blogs all day or something while my kids are with their own families and having their own lives. But for now, when the kids need me and mainly me 24/7 and I also have to piece together a living and manage a house, I just have to suck it up. I went in knowing this, as much as you can know something before you are in it. I could say I can't complain, but I think people can complain even if they predict and intentionally put themselves in this situation. Complaining is a survival tactic. It's decompression. I use it to its fullest.

Any parent will tell you that there are different frustrations at different times in a kid's life. In infancy they won't sleep through the night. As teenagers they struggle with independence. Toddlerhood is particularly menacing in a way. Their physical and mental abilities surpass their maturity and impulse control. They are sometimes incessant in their wants. I think of the scene in the movie Rain Man where Raymond goes on and on about his underwear and how it should be from Kmart. Then Tom Cruise stops the car on the highway and gets out screaming in frustration. That's how toddler's are. I have a kid who asks me if he can vacuum 3645 times a day. I let him vacuum once a day, but beyond that, I have to either hear the vacuum cleaner all day or hear, "mama, I vacuum now?" every five seconds. It is cute and its a stage, but it can also be maddening. Every once in a while, I need to scream about it. But the thing about kid frustrations like these is that they change all the time. You never have to live with any one hell for all that long. And when its gone, you almost kind of miss it.

While they are going through their annoying and frustrating stages, they also go through such amazing changes that slowly metamorphosize them from those clumps of cells in your uterus to that blob of needy flesh that was your newborn into an actual human being. It is like watching a flower bloom. And you don't even know what the flower is going to look like. You don't know if it will be a rose or an iris or a lily or what. They are definitely not exact clones of you. The mystery is amazing. With every frustration, there is a thousand tiny moments of awe and discovery. You just have to let yourself notice them. I think a lot of moms are bitching on their blogs because they are shoving their frustration aside when parenting so that they might not miss the good stuff. Then the maddening stuff comes out later on to their friends or partner or on their blog. You have to do a lot of compartmentalizing as a parent.

And you have to do some kind of balanced combination of keeping things stable while constantly changing. Kids need stability, because they are constantly changing. And you have to provide both the stability and the ability to change with them. I think a lot of times, when parents go through rough patches, it stems from their kid changing; having a different schedule or need or a different way of expressing themselves, and the parent hasn't yet caught up to it or figured out how to address it. You are out of sync. And it takes a while to get back into sync. And even figure out how. Parenting is a slow separation. You start out as life support for your child, you end up with an independent adult that is closer with their own significant others than they probably ever will be to you again. It can be heartbreaking when you think about it, but I guess you have try to enjoy the person they become, that they have to become on their own. That has to be your payoff, not the intimacy of dependency at the start. From my experience, it seems like the parents that change with their kid and find some joy in the separation have the best lifelong relationships with their kids. They see them as their own people, not objects to be owned or trophies to show off. That is probably my main goal as a parent, to give my kids the support they need, but also to allow them to become the people they will become. I think this is the only way to have a good, longstanding relationship with your kids.

But none of us will do it perfectly. So, do I wish I did things differently? Yes and no. There are so many variables to parenting that you aren't ever going to do everything right. So can I look back and see places where I screwed up? Sure. But I think the key here is to just fix it as soon as you can. I've yelled at my kids when I shouldn't have. I have made bad scheduling decisions that didn't work for them. I have pushed them too hard to do this and perhaps not pushed them hard enough to do that other thing. The decisions you make are limitless, you aren't going to hit every one (or even a majority of them) out of the ballpark. I think it is more important to be flexible, look at what you could do better or differently, apologize when you screw up and then fix it as well as you can. I have been apologizing to my kids since they were way too young to have a clue what I was saying. I think the resentment comes in when parents act superhuman and as if they can do no wrong. Or when they stay on a path that isn't working just because they have too much pride to change or are too afraid of change to change. But again, you ar