Twinkle Little Star

Updates

My eye: itchy but good. Vision returned to status quo.

D: also itchy but good. Stitches to be removed Tuesday.

Kids: itching to get out of the house but good. Full scale revolt was averted thanks to a visit from Aunt Val and cousins R and B, a rice table, and a trip to the playground in 40 degree weather. Tomorrow we shall return to regularly scheduled programming.

Dishes: avalanche averted. Three loads of catch-up dishwashing done today. Laundry is another matter all together.

Thanksgiving: Set and Scheduled for Friday. All I need is bottled gravy from the store. I can cook most things from scratch if I want to, but I don't do gravy without a safety net.

Bonus: Patched eye and nonworking computer gave me a chance (or lack of excuse) to catch up on LD friend calling. Nik continues to totally ROCK in the friend department. Stupid 2000 miles between us. Stupid immigration laws.

To do list: Xmas Shopping, Super Secret Project that D and I are working on, budget stuff for next year, some of my "paid" writing, Religious education committee meeting, Thank you notes to PH and SC, email J and Shannon, Call kids nurse for 3 yr. visit, get Dec. 'school' stuff ready.

Bed: Going to it.

Multiple Systems Failure

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

D had surgery on Tuesday, so we had already planned to reschedule our Thanksgiving for sometime next week. Surgery went well. He was sick for a bit afterwords and wasn't released until today. Last I talked to him, he was getting ready to be discharged. That was several hours ago, so I assume he is home now. I'll call him in a bit and get the report.

This is the pump that they replaced. It is a Medtronic infusion pump. It is kind of like having an IV on board in your body. In his case, it delivers a medication called Baclofen, which helps control spasticity. Since his spinal cord injury is incomplete, it means that his brain does get messages from his body, they are just the wrong messages. It is kind of weird. He can think about moving his toe and his toe won't move but he says it feels all tingly. When things touch his legs and stuff, sometimes his brain will get the message that it is dangerous, like when you touch something hot and your hand automatically spasms and springs back. So, he is having these spasms all the time for no real reason. It is uncomfortable and annoying, so thus the Baclofen. This new pump will only have to be filled every three months rather than every month, so that is a good thing. To refill it, it is a big rigmarole where he has to call ahead to order the meds and go to the doctor and they have to stick a needle in and empty all the meds that are left and refill it. It's just one more thing that has to be done, so it will be nice to have to do it less often.

So that went okay, but it complicated the matters yet to come. On Monday night, I was just getting ready to get the kids to bed and I scooped up Aaron while he had all his accoutrement's that he needs for bed in his hands. (Trucks, trains, blankets, etc. Aaron travels with many, many necessities.) He was in a good mood and didn't do this on purpose, in fact, I can't quite tell you what he did exactly, but in his usual squirminess he smacked me in the face with something. In the eye to be exact. In the right eye, the only eye I have that's still barely worth a shit. I remember dropping him and falling to the ground. Very. Bad. Pain. Indeed.

I was hoping it would fade in a few minutes, but it didn't. I couldn't see anything and I immediately got some lubricating drops and flushed my eye out. After a million surgeries, my eyes don't tear up right anymore and are a breeding ground for infection. And who knows where Aaron's slimy little hand had been, you know?

I spent 20 minutes trying to recover, no dice. I finally put the kids in bed. Very angrily as a matter of fact, but they weren't cooperating and I NEEDED them to cooperate. So, that wasn't a proud parenting moment.

Every few years it seems like I get some sort of abrasion on my eye. I don't know why it happens to me so often when it seems to happen to other people, like, never--but maybe it is because I am no good at ducking? I don't know. But anyway, I knew the drill. So, and don't get on my ass about this--I'm a professional, damn it--I remembered that our cat Scrapper had a scrip for an NSAID eye drop and an antibiotic ointment for eyes before she died. It was terramycin, which is a little more for rickets and shigella than the macrobiotic I really needed, but I figured it couldn't hurt. I med up my eye, and fashion an eye patch out of Kleenex and an old cataract eye shield I had. And took about oh, 6 Tylenol PMs and went to bed. Thinking, this will be better in the morning.

Nope. I wake up in horrible pain at around 4:30am. It is so bad I can't hardly breathe and my hands are shaking. I Know that D has to be at the hospital for his surgery at 5:30am. I briefly consider tagging along and going to emergency, but I know that it will just stress everyone out. So I rule that out. Then, my next idea is to get the kids and take the train down to a nearby smaller hospital emergency. That emergency room is quick quick quick as far as emergency rooms go in this town, (heh, I know them all), and easy to get to. Its only two blocks from the train station. But I have two concerns. First, my insurance could decide not to pay if they determine that I had a nonemergency. Second, even though I could see nothing, the two blocks and the train worried me. It wasn't the not seeing so much as the fact that I was in that amount of pain where you are just so easily distracted. My "Samurai Awareness" was gone. I didn't feel like I could manage the kids and dealing with strangers in this amount of pain. It also seemed like one of those things that if I did it, everyone was going to think I was weird and get on my ass about it.

So, I waited, and waited and waited until 8 am. I was going to call someone and see if they could take me to an urgent care or watch the kids while I went or something. Next systems failure. My computer. Something was wrong with it. It wasn't working or talking to me or nothing. It was an easy fix later on, but at that time, I couldn't figure it out. Too distracted, no vision at all and no ability to problem solve. So all my phone numbers, gone. I can't see a phone book and usually have trouble with directory assistance.

So I wrung my hands for an hour and agonized over my hatred of calling people for help. Finally, I looked through some Braille numbers that I had made three years ago when I was blind and had no computer after the kids were born. I found someone from church that I really don't know that well, but she has always been very nice and she gave me her number back then "if I ever needed anything." So, I called her at 8. She answered but she didn't have a car available and a good hour and probably a bunch of phone calls from her later, I had a ride from my wonderful RE who was at the church at work that day. Actually, she came to my house and we drove my dad's car. Car seats and all that.

So, that is my long story about how I asked for help. Which I still hate. You know one thing I hate? When you call someone asking for help, trying to be cool about it and not just bawl on the phone and freak them out, and they can't help you so they go through 100 options that you've already thought of. I mean, I'm not saying I'm mad at them, but it is just like, okay, for me to be calling you, who I barely know?...I've already thought of a neighbor, a family member, a friend, D, calling the pharmacy for scrips, the lift van, etc. I'm calling you out of wits end sheer desperation and I can't explain why I can't just call Casey Eye Institute and get one of my 55 doctors to give me a scrip. If I call there and even tell them I'm blinking funny they will haul me in and run 25 day-long tests on me. I was trying to not have to go ALL THE WAY downtown, but yet still see an ophthalmologist so I wasn't completely negligent. Compromise with me here. But okay. She meant well. My point is, asking for help is hard and it sucks.

But Sara, the woman who ended up helping me, was totally lovely and let me direct the goings on and was very wonderful with the boys and had no problem driving my dad's car and is just an all around wonderful person that really, consciously puts the UU principles into action better than pretty much anyone else I know. She drove me to an urgent care, they shipped me to an ophthalmologist in the same building, I got an anesthetic (Oh, thank all the gods, finally), and he gave me a better broad spectrum antibiotic and packed up my eye like only an eye doctor can and I was outta there in under two hours. Sara and the boys waited in the lobby area where they could watch bulldozers at a construction site and so that was just neato mosquito for them. So, it worked out.

Then when I came home, I did something I don't think I've really done since before I was pregnant. I slept and slept and slept. It was like my body shut down and spent all its energy on healing my eye. I didn't take any pain scrips specifically so I wouldn't sleep and so I could still take care of the kids. But my body decided for me. I have been sleeping for almost three days now. the pain was still bad and the only way to deal with it was to turn all the lights off and sit quietly and not move my eyes at all. My right eye was patched shut so I couldn't open it, but even moving my left eye around made my right eye move and that killed. I put on just enough lights for the kids to barely be able to see, and we spent three days with me being totally blind and them pretty much as well.

I cannot even count the number of TV hours my kids took in. TV saved us, I'll say it. I love TV. At least when I'm sick. I would get up, get them dressed and fed, get a pillow and blanket and lay on the couch while they watched TV. They watched Noggin from around 9 to 12, and then I would get up and feed them and stuff. Then more Noggin from 1-3, then I would get up and give them a snack and turn Noggin (which changes to the "N" at 3, a teenage channel) to PBS. Then let them watch kids shows on PBS from 3 to 5:30. No nap because they weren't tired. Then get up and feed them, play with them for an hour, put on a DVD and bed at 7 or 8. Then I went to bed. And this actually worked! They were SOOO good! I was amazed. They knew dad was in the hospital (or hopisal, as Naim says) and that mama had an owie on her eye and a BIG BANDAID on it. And they cooperated. No messes, no fighting, they would play while they watched TV. Sometimes they would come over and lay with me and snuggle while they watched TV. It was so helpful, yet kinda scary!

I did go feed the cat and D's house. But even there, when I got there, I slept while they played, and then we came back home. D's dad was nice enough to go and get me the rest of my antibiotics so that saved me a trip up there and gave me more time to sleep. (oh, the Dx was two big, huge abrasions on my eye...just as I expected.) And that way I didn't have to smile politely with my big, pathetic eye patch on when Naim told strangers (like I knew he would), that "mama's got an owie on her eye and daddy's in the hopisal having surgety.") Love those conversations. Those always lead to my fear of DCS being called on us.

My eye feels about 75 percent better today. I still haven't gotten my vision back yet. I have some of it, I'm not walking around with the lights off anymore completely blind, but it still isn't as good as it was. I'd give it a couple of more days, but by then if it doesn't improve, I will probably have to adjust to it being this way permanently. Whenever I lose vision, I just adjust in silence. No one ever seems to get that it is still hard and a big adjustment when I lose vision or hearing. I think they think I'm too far gone so what is a little more? It was kind of the same way when D lost his foot. No one seemed to really get that he would have to relearn how to transfer and balance and how to do different things again. It was just, oh, he doesn't need it. So, if my vision doesn't improve in the next couple of days, I will be going through my usual adjustments and adaptations privately and no one else will notice. Its probably for the best. If they did notice, they'd probably just think there is even more stuff I couldn't do.

I was going to invite my friend J over for a non-Thanksgiving something or other today. A meal that isn't turkey or something. But that didn't happen. And now I have 60, yes 60 emails to go through. So, if you sent me something, I'll get to it eventually.

Despite all this unpleasantness, I'm very thankful for many, many things. That D and I are still reasonably healthy and that he made it through the surgery OK. That I had friends who were willing to help when I needed them and that I found the good sense to call them. That I had my dad's car and that we didn't crash it or anything. That my eye wasn't worse and didn't need some kind of major hospitalization or something. That my kids were WONDERFUL, absolutely WONDERFUL the last few days and they have enough intuition to know when they need to be caring and step up and be a little better behaved. That next week sometime, we will all sit down as a family and have turkey and apple pie and all the other yum yums. And that vision or even less vision, I have the resourcefulness and the skills to get our family together and care for them and make a big meal and eat it and all that good stuff.

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 are not going to hit the changes exactly right or on time, but at least you have to be flexible and humble enough to try.

Would I have waited to have kids? Actually, I would have had them when I was 25 or so instead of 34. I came from that generation where women were supposed to wait and wait and wait some more to have kids. You had to go to college, get your career established, have some fun single time, get married, buy a house, save some money, blah... until every facet of your life was just so, and then you could think about having kids. In most cases, it isn't ever going to happen perfectly. There is no perfect time to have kids. Some times are better than others, sure, but it isn't ever going to be perfect. I wish I would have had kids earlier because I would have been healthier and had more energy then. I would have gone through college and had my single fun. Married or not, who gives a shit (in my case, your mileage may vary). I also don't necessarily know if I would have moved to Oregon if I would have had kids back then. There is a lot of good about Oregon. A lot of things I really love and would miss if I moved away. But two things about the Midwest that I miss are the space to roam, backyards, big public parks, space in between buildings and cars and queues and everything. Also there is more of a sense (or it is somewhat easier to obtain) a sense of community in the Midwest. Oregon is very liberal, which is nice, but it is very fragmented, too. People are so liberal, and so live and let live that sometimes that means "you do your thing, I'll do mine, nobody gets hurt." It is good and bad. I really don't know how I would be accepted as a deafblind single mom with kids conceived through a donor. But after the judgmental questions and looks wore off, I'd probably have about four or five people waiting to babysit my kids. I never went without ride offers in the Midwest. It was almost too much help to manage sometimes. In Oregon? I get a ride offer maybe a few times a year. Also, it would have been cheaper to live as well. So there are trade-offs. Here I can get anywhere via public transportation and there are a lot of places to go for kids, so it would be hard to move now. But if I started off having kids when I was 25, I doubt I would have moved to Oregon. I have family there. More than just my dad and sister. It would have been nice to have them get to know us. So, back from tangent, waiting is not always best, I don't think. It is not necessarily going to always get better. You may have more money but less time and energy. And after granting enough money for the basics, I would go for time and energy when it comes to raising kids. Don't take those for granted.

Despite my health and my old age! I am extremely lucky to get to spend the time I do with my kids. That was a hard decision to make, giving up my career for all practical purposes, to stay home with them. I played by the rules and worked my ass off for a career that just looked at me as disabled, damaged goods in return. This kind of work is much better. It is hard work, and it is all day and never ending, but it is the kind of work you like to do. So if you are going to work hard, you are lucky if it is something you really want. My motivation for my career declined as I saw the outlook looking more and more bleak as my disabilities progressed. This is something that no one can take away from me (well not with out a bloodletting fight, anyway.) This is something where I know I'm doing something worthwhile that I enjoy and that I manage myself and where I can see immediate results. It is sad that society dismisses parenting like it does, it gives the impression that it is all doldrums and monotony. And there is some of that. But it is something where you get out of it exactly what you put in to it. I like that kind of work.

Okay, my schedule. God, what do I say here? I keep fiddling with it. And here, this is going to show you how anal I am, and I will probably remove this is a couple of days, but here is my latest written out schedule:

My Schedule (.pdf)

That schedule is already outdated. I've switched a lot of stuff around so Aaron gets more supervision and Naim never naps anymore, so... But I literally have to write down everything I have to do and when or I lose pieces of it. (So, if you are laughing that I put down when to take the kids to the bathroom, I understand why. But I actually need to remind myself to do that. Oh, and "Centers" and all of that? Its just the wording that Funshine Express uses, but it means, I'm going to throw crafts and activities their way.) The other thing about that schedule is that it assumes that I can get up and be energetic all day long and accomplish all those things. That does not happen regularly. So I am perpetually behind on housework, office work (writing, things I actually get paid to do), there is always more that D needs that I could be doing and just don't have the time. That part where it says "free time"? It really doesn't exist. It does in that I do flop on my ass after I put the kids to bed and say, forget it! I'm done. But it isn't as if it is a schedule that actually maintains what I have to really accomplish. There is no schedule right now that will really work to get everything done in a timely manner and still leave time for free time.

My solution? I shirk my responsibilities in a priority and rotating order. One week it is housework. Then when the kitchen is so gross I can't find a clean spoon anymore, that rises in priority and something else gets dumped. Maybe laundry, until I haven't a clean pair of underwear in the house. Then it is something I promised to do for church. Or a much belated phone call to a friend, or my blog or whatever. I rotate the people I blow off so hopefully no one person is getting screwed all that often. The daily 'have-tos" get done. The kids get fed and clothed and entertained, D gets fed, I get showered (usually), things like that. But everything else is on a rotating schedule of blowing it off until I can get to it. So, it isn't a model of a great schedule, but it is the best I can do.

One thing I will point out, if you are new to reading my blog, is that I have a set of unusual circumstances. We are running two households. The kid's father is quadriplegic so although he can help, sometimes I have to help him help. Like I have to stick around and grab the kids out of some predicament they got themselves into when he can't. I also have to do things for him. When we sit down for dinner, I not only have to get juice refills for the kids, I have to get refills or whatever for him, too. When my dad is here, he is pretty self sufficient but at times I have to manage him a little and help him out. I also don't drive, which takes more time to get errands done. I also have to take longer to do things because I can't see and hear well. We have to watch our money and budget closely, so that is sometimes time consuming, and you just can't hire out or get something new that would save you time all the time. And I have two kids that are exactly the same age. There are challenges there. They both need the same things at different times and can't really help each other out like different age siblings sometimes can. I know its all relative, but when I think of a household with two able bodied adults with decent incomes and just one kid, it is hard to see what they possibly could have to complain about. I bet they get actual, real life "free time" once in a while.

But again, I am not complaining. Well, I am. I'm doing a tough job. And for the most part, I'm doing it very well. So I get to complain sometimes. But I chose this, I wanted this, I enjoy this, and I never, ever regret this.

Bouncy Bitchy Bullet Blogging

• Ebbs and Flows. The first six months of parenting were torture, the next year and a half was relatively smooth sailing, the last six months have sucked ass, but I think the tide is receding and it is getting fun (and slightly less messy) again. I have a feeling this will be the pattern for the next 20 years.
• His and Hers surgeries. D and I are both up for surgeries in the near future. D is having his next Tuesday. He is getting his medtronic infusion pump replaced before he starts beeping (literally, it beeps after seven years and if you don't replace it, you just have a beep emanating from your stomach. It is a little hard to explain to airport security.) I have the return of my friend, the kidney stone. The same one they couldn't get to seven years ago (seven again. A pattern?). They removed the big ping pong ball one and said to come back when this one reached ping pong ball sized. I think we are on the verge. The challenge? Can I figure out what to do with my kids before I keel over in pain? Right now the pain is livable and comes and goes, but it is increasing. The race is on! But I hope to make it until after Christmas. Who wants to come stay with my kids for a week? Anyone? Anyone? I have a fast Internet connection and cable! And I promise you'll probably only have to clean up two or three disastrous messes in any given week. Huh? The Northwest in January? The cold and stormy gray Pacific? Doesn't that sound inviting?
• Belated Trick or Treat. I forgot to blog about Halloween. We had a fun week. Naim was a Thomas Train (or was it Aaron?) and the other one? was a firetruck. We went to two Halloween parties that were okay, but trick-or-treating was really fun. I didn't think they would get into it and I thought they'd be shy, but after they figured out the pattern (pattern = talking to strangers will get you candy) they loved it. Naim talked up a storm to every one we met. We only went to about 10 houses before I lost my motivation to walk at twin speed and they had enough candy, but next year I'm sure we will be able to go longer.
• Antecedent ->Behavior->Consequence. If I could figure out how to do it, I would give D a big box of foresight for Christmas...because he has none. None. No ability to estimate how long something might take, what contingencies may occur, and what consequences will happen when you choose to do Choice A as opposed to Choice B or C. It is seriously like that part of your brain that monitors time is missing. And that part of your brain that can foresee what will happen next? Gone. I don't know what happened to it. Was it ever there? Did it get knocked out of him in the accident? He will seriously sit there and tell me at 4:30 that yes, he is coming over at 5:30 after he makes three phone calls, puts up a sale on ebay, has his bath aide come over and help him shower, feeds the cat, charge his wheelchair, and waits for his dad to drop something off. Like in all seriousness. He seems to have no clue that he just promised to do 3 and a half hours worth of stuff in under an hour. He seems to have no means to guide him to reality in what he can actually commit to. And don't get me started on the pictures. The professional pictures he wanted to take this summer, but when I made the appointment (for two weeks later) he seemed startled that I had done it when it came upon him, before he got his hair cut, got new glasses, and cleaned up his wheelchair. So we went by ourselves and I got pictures of the kids. He wanted to try again, so I said, ok, made the appointment again. Got mine and the kids' hair cut, gave everyone baths and washed the nice matching clothes for everyone. Including D. I asked him 2 weeks ago if the pants he was going to wear fit over his prosthetic leg. Yes. You've worn them? Yes. Do you want me to help you try them on? No. They are big enough, he says. Until 15 minutes until we are supposed to leave. He calls me. Uh, they don't fit. He is stuck in them and can't get them off and has no other pairs clean to wear. We end up having to cancel. After I got everyone up early and bathed and cleaned and shiny and even (gasp!) straightened my hair and put on make-up. Made sure the kids didn't get food or god knows what on their clothes. Does he know how hard it is to get the stars and planets to align to make that happen? And can he align a few stars for himself? Not a clue.
• That's way too long of a bullet point. So I'll say it again. Foresight. Is that bottled somewhere? Can I get it at Walmart? Amazon? Really. How does one live without it? Okay, I'm done with that, now.
• More than being a man in a skirt.When I was young, my mother used to use the line, "just wait until you have children..." And she was right. I do understand a lot of things better now that I have children. And one of the things I am discovering is that 75% of what I learned from her about women's issues and feminism is entirely false. Not in a "She was so wrong" way. More in a "Our understanding of how the patriarchy works has evolved a lot from back then when she was forced to "pass" to get a shot at a career." But that is a post I've got percolating in my head that won't take to bullet points.
• Points. Points. Points. Here I come. I blew WW for the last several weeks. I've started again.
• Dioramaggedon. My webuddy, John Scalzi, is killing me this week with a funny post about the Creation Museum. Several months ago, someone dared him to go visit it because it is a few hours drive from where he lives. He didn't want to go. So people offered to pay him. Then he said he'd go but only if people donated a collective total of $500 to an organization that supported separation of church and state. He ended up getting over $5000 in donations. (He has just a few more readers than I do, I'm sure.) So he went, and made a slide show and a post about it, but best of all...now he is having a lolcat photo captioning contest about it that is just cracking D and I up. Go check it out if you're bored.
• I Could Respond If My Head Weren't Exploding. This is not directed at anyone here or online, but I just have to get this off my chest. If you are going to compare homeschoolers joking around about snarky comments they dream of saying to strangers who make judgmental drive-by comments about homeschooling with being white and not having a safe place to make black jokes? Even if it was "just a metaphor" and not what you truly believe? Then I cannot even form words to even respond to that it is so asinine. The stupid? It burns.
• Big Misogyny, Small.... And another thing that has to escape my mind into the ether that is not directed at anyone here. If you are going to mock some courageous and hard-working women who you saw training in Marine boot camp on TV, imitating their high-pitched hoorahs and how funny their little delicate bodies look while they hold their big, manly guns? Well, then I don't think you really understand the principles on which this country is founded that your precious marines purport to defend. And the follow-up with the backhanded compliment about how now that there is a woman space shuttle pilot so we can't make fun of women drivers anymore? I know you mean well, but just give yourself a little nudge, a teeny weeny push into the 21st century. Read a book by a woman instead of misogynistic overzealous military generals. Look around and see that women have been basically kicking the asses of men for the last 20 years in education, salary increases, upward mobility, etc. while still being forced to raise the next generation and clean up after the menz. You should be on your knees, thanking those women marines for being willing to serve and basically volunteer to help clean up this mess that all the rich white dudes created. That is all.
• Noodlebugs. God! Blogs are for Bitchin' aren't they? I'm just spewing all over the place here. I need a bucket and a mop! That wasn't my intention. My intention was to say, hey! Despite these annoyances, things are better! The kids are happy and fun and doing great. I do feel like we are perhaps moving into a bit of an easier patch where we have a good routine down and have balanced my changing the environment to them following the rules. The work is exhausting still and I am still perpetually behind, but I really enjoy my kids every day. They are so funny! Every morning, Naim has to get his sillies out. He runs all over and wriggles around like a nutball and then he suddenly freezes. I have to ask him, "Are you all out of sillies? I think I see some more!" This causes him to wiggle into a fit of giggles and start running around and wiggling all over again. We have to do that about 10 times. Aaron is all into space shuttles and space ships and rockets and UFOs. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, turns into a rocket that has to count down and be blasted off. They say rockets and dinosaurs and vehicles are the gateway drugs to science careers. He obsesses over all three so perhaps he will really get into science. We'll see. He is getting so fun to talk to, now. He even is telling me things that I don't know. Today he told me he played with dominoes with Jose. This was from the gym daycare. He told me a thing that happened in the past, while I wasn't there. I didn't even know he knew what dominoes are. We don't have any here. When I went to pick them up, they were both in full conversation mode with the daycare folks. Just chatting about all kinds of things. I think it is so cool that they have relationships outside of me. They are expanding their world.
• No white, english speaking, middle class, christian, average-acheiving male Child Left Behind. I read an article in US News about NCLB. It was the stupidest article ever. It was like, with a straight journalisticy reporty face, all "gee, kids who don't speak native English are not doing well on English standardized tests. All the schools with  a predominant ESL population are not meeting the NCLB standards. What SHOOOOOUUUUULD be done? Oh, perhaps punishing the schools and teachers with more negative consequences will help. Yeah! Lets take their funding, their special programs for ESL kids, and their autonomy away and replace it with a standardized English/eurocentric national curriculum. That will teach those ESL kids to do better on those English Anglo-Saxon luvin' standardized tests!" That article was like reading about how to fix your air conditioning by bludgeoning it repeatedly with a sledgehammer, then when that doesn't work--your next big idea is to go turn up your furnace.
• ¿Lengua materna? ¿Sabe usted Cherokee? Okay, now I quickly reverted to bitchy-spewy mode, didn't I? But that reminds me of another thing. A couple of weeks ago D got one of those stupid forwarded email things from the Relative-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless-But-Who-Has-Violently-Different-Views-than-He-Does. The email itself was praising some jackass that was having a hissy fit because some Mexican restaurant owner had a flag-pole and dared to put the Mexican Flag above the American one. Well, that was bad enough, but what really got me wasn't the main gist of the email, it was the senders forwarding comment. It said something to the effect of, "This reminds me of how annoyed I get when I have to push "1" on the ATM for English (as opposed to Spanish)." I shouldn't be shocked about this kind of stuff, but I always am. Someone is such a hater, such a petty person, such a small-minded individual that pushing "1" for English is bothersome? Really? Is it so hard? Is it such an affront to your white American ass? I had never, ever thought about ATMs having Spanish and pushing 1 for English except to say, cool. Spanish for Spanish speakers. You know, the Latinos that have been here since before the 1400s? The ones who were here before the Europeans? The ones who owned Most of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California before we destroyed them? And their progeny who come up here and who work their asses off doing all of our crap work? Yeah, those people shouldn't be able to deposit their paycheck. uh uh. Again, the stupid? It burns and burns and burns.
• Welbutrin: $50, Psychotherapy: $150, Surgery to reconstruct imploding head: $500,000, Blogging: Priceless. Okay, so there seems to be a theme here. Which is, in between surgeries and having fun with my kids and totally loving homeschooling and laughing my ass off at the creation museum and all the other fun stuff we are doing...I've dealt with several incidences of assholery this week. But the good news is, I didn't even go off on them and lose my temper and tact! I just politely stated my opinion or in some instances, just left the situation. And thought to myself, oh! but this is all gettin' blogged. That's the only way I can pull off nice sometimes, is to blog it later on. I know, I should pay all of you a therapy fee for reading this.

Progress, and a rantastical late night tangent of some sort.

Oh, how I love you people who live in my computer. Thanks for all of your suggestions regarding Aaron the Hurricane, and for making me laugh about it all! I think what I really needed was to take a step back and let someone else think about it for a while. There have been no major disasters the last few days. (Well, except for the destruction of a cute little growth chart I had just hung up, and hadn't even written any of the heights on yet. But, it was only a three buck thing, so...whatever.)

I have taken a bit of all of your advice. First, I went baby proofing crazy. I got a gate that is quite large and goes across our kitchen entry way. I can't leave it there because otherwise D could not get past my garage door, but it helps for when I am sleeping. Next, I got these things that make it hard to open our lever door knobs. We put lever door knobs on the house so that D would have an easier time opening the doors, and now of course, like all the things we did to make it easier for D, also makes it easier for toddlers so its biting me in the ass. We have a pantry door that has been a huge problem area. Naim has already figured out the baby proofing thing on that door knob, but he is a little more crafty mechanically speaking than Aaron, so hopefully he won't spill the secret. In any case, it makes it harder and takes longer to open the door, so it may buy me 30 extra seconds when peeing.

Also, the sticky tape suggestion is a good one. I haven't tried it yet, but Aaron always likes to have something in his hands. I did recently give him a small foam cow that is made out of the squishy stuff that those foam stress balls are made out of. He liked that a lot, that is until he decapitated it and amputated its legs (leaving little bits of foam cow gut every where.) Stuff like that horrifies me. I think killing the toy animals will lead to killing the cat and then becoming a wife beater and then graduating to a serial killer. But D just laughs and says that when he was little he wanted to take everything apart and see the inside and figure out how it worked and what it was made out of. So, lets hope it is just his scientific mind at work on his varied experiments.

I have tried giving him things to destroy, but it is something that really has to be supervised and isolated. Leaving him with a "destruction corner" does not bode well. He really doesn't understand the difference between what is okay to destroy and what isn't. It is all so confusing, isn't it? I tell him not to rip the books, but I really don't care if he rips old catalogs and we even rip paper on purpose for certain art projects. Consistent rules are harder than you think when thinking in two year old terms.

I think the advice that really resonated with me and was what I needed to hear was Linda's, who told me that her twin girls either clean up the mess or sit. Well she said it better than that. But I think I have been really lax about that and I am finally getting on the stick, no exceptions. One problem is that Aaron would sit while Naim gladly cleaned everything up, but then I actually started assigning Aaron specific jobs or sections of the room that I don't let Naim touch. So that, and organizing the day a bit better so there is always something exciting around the next turn, if the mess is cleaned up, has helped a lot. My GOD it takes a ton of energy to get that kid going sometimes, though.

I think Alfie Kohn really screwed me up some this year. You may remember that I read his book, Unconditional Parenting, early in the year. (Here is what I blathered about it, then.) It has been reinforced by a family in my church covenant group, who are very pro-alfie. That's fine for them, and I still think he has a lot of good points, but when it comes right down to it, I cannot get on that bandwagon wholeheartedly. At least not as an Alfie "purist." And I think I've felt a bit guilty about that. To me, it is a matter of respect. If I am going to, as Kohn suggests, respect my kids and treat them as I would adults, then I expect the respect in return. Well, not literally. I do understand that 2 year-olds do not have the maturity to show respect the same way as adults. If my little kid hits me, or destroys property or whatever, sure...try to figure out why. See what you can do to support him and understand him. Don't withhold your love or acceptance. But the bottom line is, He is not going to hit me or anyone else. And his is going to know that in no uncertain terms and there will be consequences, just like there would be if he was an adult. (My kids in general don't hit, push or bite, but we did have a bit of a play-kicking problem briefly.) Point being, I still get to have boundaries. I still get to draw the line. I am not these kids' sacrificial servant to be tread upon just because I am the "mother" (cue angel halo music) and I am putting their needs before my own. I have seen people who have kids that are disrespectful to them by hitting, destroying things, whatever, and they go up and give them a hug and try to understand unconditionally why the kid is acting this way. Well, sometimes there is a legitimate underlying reason that needs to be examined. But at two, many times the reason is BECAUSE THEY CAN. You all are right. He destroys things because it is fun. Because he wants to see what will happen. Because it is the bees knees to be able to make your room rain goldfish crackers or picture book confetti. So, as I would not put up with this type of thing with adults (as Kohn says I am supposed to be respecting my kids in like ways) WHY would I accept this from my kid? So, I am not going to drop kick him out of the second story window, and I am not going to stop loving him, but I also am not going to put up with this crap anymore.

So, along with some schedule adjusting and baby proofing, its hard-ass mom who makes her kid help clean every horrid mess before doing anything else is the plan.

All this brings me to a related topic that I have been thinking on for a while. Despite our current challenges, I don't think of Aaron as the "bad twin." I bring this up because it doesn't seem like my father and sister can stop comparing my twins. It is so easy to fall into that pattern with twins especially. I understand Aaron, because in a lot of ways, he is like me. He is extremely independent and knows what he wants. He is very diligent and focused on something he is interested in and hard to pull away. He knows what he wants and he is not happy about being told otherwise. I get Aaron because in many ways, I was him. And I don't want the family dynamic that I had to put up with to happen to them.

Naim is dependable. Naim helps me get through my day sometimes. I can have him do little things for me. Run errands and fetch things for me. When I need to pay the clerk at the store, I know Naim will stay with me, while I have to keep my eye on Aaron so he doesn't run off. Naim is usually fun, while Aaron is moody. Naim is mostly smooth sailing, while Aaron is guaranteed to bump heads with me many times a day. It would be very easy to call Naim "the good twin" and my "favorite." But I recognize that just because Naim is (right now at least) easy to parent, doesn't really mean all that much about who he or Aaron really are. Naim's behavior just happens to be more compatible with my lifestyle right now. This is more of a coincidence that a great virtuous character that Naim has vs. a moral breakdown of Aaron.

I'm going off on this because I don't want them labeled like I was. I was the bad kid. My sister was the good kid. Now, I did get into some minor trouble growing up. I had a truancy problem. My grades were mediocre. I could be slow and distractable when my parents wanted something done. My sister was probably very easy to parent. She studied hard and got good grades. She was never in a lick of trouble. She was the model of efficiency around the house. I can see how her personality was probably more compatible with my mother's. The traits she had lined up with the ones my mother valued. The good traits I had were and still are not valued. And the problems I was having were supposedly just because I was lazy, irresponsible, the bad kid, wrong. I could have used a little Alfie Kohn. I could have used someone to really try to help me examine the underlying causes of my mediocre grades and truancy. (I now see a lot of it having to do with my disability issues that were almost virtually ignored if not denied by my parents. I mean, why show up for math class if no one, for 12 years, cares whether or not you learn or could even see and hear to learn. Easier to call you stupid and lazy.)

Even now, my main title is "the person who can't get up in the morning." Being an early riser is next to godliness in my family. It is the answer to all problems. It is the character trait that shows how hard working and ambitious you are. My circadian rhythms were always off. I was never, and will never be, an early riser. I can do it if I have to, but my natural biorhythms won't get there naturally. It is only by force. In general, I have about 5 times more energy at night than in the first 4 to 5 hours in the morning. And it really doesn't matter when I fall asleep or wake up. Anyway, and I'm just going off on a little peeve right now, I have been lectured this week (and my whole life) about how if I would ONLY get up earlier all my problems would be solved. Aaron wouldn't destroy things, I would be able to exercise more, the angels would sing, and pennies of gold would fall from the sky each morning, if I could only get up earlier.

My kids go to bed at 9:00. What other 2 year olds do that? And the reasons are many. One is due to my work schedule with D and his visitation schedule with us. If the kids are up that late, they get maximum opportunity to be with dad. And the other is because generally they will then sleep till 8 or 9 o'clock. So that means I get maximum use of their in bed hours when my energy is high, and then can get maximum amounts of sleep before they get up. The hours between 9-midnight are the only ONLY hours I have to myself. And that is when I can get things done. Writing, working, extra housework and laundry, whatever. When my dad comes to visit, things sometimes get a bit screwy because he gets up at 6 or 7 and is not at all respectful of the rest of us who are sleeping. I don't hear it because I'm deaf, but the kids do. He turns on the TV loud. He turns on his computer, he is loud in the kitchen and manages to make very burnt smelling toast that fills the house every single morning. He opens the garage door and slams the doors. The kids wake up early, and if they don't come get me, they end up just wandering around the house. (Its not like he is going to watch them or play with them or feed them.) So then I have to get up earlier, and the kids get grumpy earlier and fall asleep during dinner. I don't like it, it makes for rushed and grumpy mornings for us all. When he isn't here, Naim usually comes into my room and gets in bed with me about 8:30. Aaron gets up and comes in but moves out fast and plays around. Yes, this is one of the many destructive periods that I've baby proofed and rearranged for. But after about 15 minutes, Naim and I are ready to get up and then we quietly go downstairs and have breakfast and get dressed and start our day.

It works for us. It doesn't have to work for anyone else. It doesn't really affect anyone else. I used to work flex time from 10-6 and others came in from 7 to 3. Guess what? It worked for me. It didn't really affect anyone else. So after 37 years, you'd think they would be mature enough and a bit less self absorbed enough to understand that it is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. I have heard about this my entire life, and most annoyingly since I've had kids. It was always, what are you going to do when the babies wake up early and need to be fed? And what are you going to do when the kids get out of cribs and wake up early? And oh my god, if you didn't sleep so late your life would be so wonderful and all of your problems would be solved. You'd think I had a major heroin habit the way they talk about it.

Anyway, this is just one of many things I have been labeled as over the years. And why I try so hard to reject whatever labeling my family or others do with Naim and Aaron. It can be such a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can keep you from figuring out how to really problem solve a challenge you have in life because you just assume that it is because you are stupid, lazy, bad, wrong, irresponsible, a night owl, worthless, or whatever else they tell you that you can't control, rather that being supported in having the ability to find causes and solutions for problems. How nice it would have been for someone, somewhere, to care enough and sit down with me and have enough faith in me to help me figure out what exactly was going on with me at school and what could be done about it instead of writing me off as stupid and lazy.

I was telling my sister about the 30 year old rule I have. Unless you were significantly abused, you can no longer blame your family for your current flaws after the age of 30. And I really don't. I am me and I have to deal with my own stuff and my parents did the best they knew how to at the time. So this isn't about that. This is about learning from your mistakes. They are off the hook in regards to me. It is water under the bridge and all is forgiven. However, I'll be damned if I'm going to let them do the exact same shit to my kids.

Part of the problem is that they can't change their behavior unless they admit there is something that needs changing. Both D and I have discussed this. Perhaps it is generational. Our parents have done some extremely hurtful things to us. And perhaps they didn't mean to, but they did. And we are supposed to make ammends and apologize profusely for whatever transgressions we have done, but they never, ever will. And what would be so nice, what would make it all so much better, is if they could just admit that, hey, I did the best I could--but what I did there obviously didn't work out the way I wanted it too, and I was wrong and I'm sorry. I will try not to do something like that again. And both of us would be like, OK, wonderful. Thanks so much for caring enough about us above and beyond having to preserve your ego. But it will never happen. D's father, to his credit, is a very good listener and even though I disagree with a lot of his opinions, he does make an effort to see our side of things and will apologize to us (and accept our apologies) when we have had disagreements in the past. But my family and D's mother? We have to accept that it ain't gonna ever happen and just move on.

But when you have kids, where do you draw the line? Where do you say that the behavior your family members are exhibiting are not acceptable to you as a parent? Its not like cut and dry physical abuse. It is just like a large degree of lack of respect. MIL has already taken care of that for us by just ignoring us altogether. (Even though she and D still talk occasionally, he says he just nods while she talks about herself and he doesn't really get in to his life or his family with her.) But my dad is a harder problem. He does some things that are easy for me to ignore because I am used to it and just space it off, but that D finds absolutely disrespectful and abhorant. D is afraid that when the kids get older and understand more and are affected by it more, it is going to cause major problems. He says I am so much more relaxed and happy and a much more fun and better mom during the months when my dad isn't here. And I feel it too, sometimes. How much of this is going to rub off on the kids?

My dad is good with the kids in some ways. I go back and forth between thinking it is great to have an intergenerational household to thinking I'm screwing up their lives with this living arrangement.

Aaron will probably get past this destructive phase in a week or a month or a year. Will my family still be talking about how he wrecks everything when he is 37? Will he, with all of his wonderful qualities, be made to feel like the black sheep? He will probably always be strong-willed, but instead of using that to his advantage, will he always be made to feel like a failure for it? And Naim, who is easy to parent but obsesses over the vacuum cleaner and order and routine (highly valued in my family, but I worry about it making life hard for him to be that inflexible, so I try to curb it while they root it on)--will he become so pressured by the expectation of perfection that he will not take any risks and miss out on all of the vast colorfulness of life? I know I can't shield them from everything and everyone who doesn't respect their humanity in the same way I think they deserve, but how far do I need to go to save them from this which made much of my childhood miserable and took years to move on from? Or am I just worrying over nothing, and my family will not have near the influence over them as the positive roles of D and I and our other friends and their friends that they will meet along the way? Aaron's destructiveness is so easy. Parenting is hard.

I am going to have to change the category on this post because it meandered out of control into the field of cheap therapy and sanity questioning. Sorry, folks. I wrote this in about 40 minutes and that's too fast even for me. I became incoherent somewhere along the 85th paragraph.