Mom to the Screaming Masses

Trying to Find the Words

As the week went on, things seemed to get more and more dark. Bombings. Shootings. Explosions. Earthquakes. Everywhere I looked, something worse was going on.

Friday came, and I was glued to my tv, just like everyone else. I knew the afternoon was set up to be a disaster for me - school dismissal, soccer practice , soccer pictures, golf match at the other end of town, musical concert in another city. All occurring within a three hour time span.

Which seemed so trivial after the events of the week, but there you go.

3:00 dismissal. 3:15 pictures. 3:30 drop off at the golf match - 10 miles away. 4:15 soccer pick up, back at school. At 5, I almost decided to skip the outdoor musical production - the weather was getting bad, I was tired, and the thought of driving from the edge of one city to the far end of another was so not appealing. Traffic was insane, my shorties were cranky, and I was hungry. I desperately wanted to pack it in - and my child swore she didn't care if I came to hear her.

But I decided to do it. I begged my mom to take my small girls and fill in for me at golf, and I drove. And I drove and I drove.

When I got there, the production hadn't quite started, and I stood in the middle of the blocked off road. I stood still while people milled around me, jockeying for position, while the musicians warmed up and all around me, there was noise and chaos. I stood totally still and just - was. The music started, my child began to sing, and for one brief minute - there was no bombing, no explosion, no man hunt, no earthquake - there was just peace.

For that minute, standing in the street, surrounded by a swelling crowd, it all evaporated and I was at peace.

Having a Bad Day

Did you ever have one of those days?

Wake up early, on a day when you have no reason to wake up so early? After a cruddy night of sleep that might as well have not existed?

Go to an incredibly difficult exercise class, struggle through the entire way, and feel like total crap about yourself the entire time you work out?

Lose a friend, when you have so few to begin with?

Check your bank balance and just want to, you know, cry - but it's too much effort?

Look around your house and see the overwhelming stack of responsibility that falls on your shoulders - and know that you have zero desire to rectify any of the issues?

Struggle with most of your kids, and feel an utter futility about the future?

Wonder why you bother sometimes?

Or is it just me?

We Take it on Faith

When we left for school today, the entire city was shrouded in thick fog. My daughter exclaimed, "I can't even see the Westin!" The Westin happens to be the tallest building in our immediate vicinity. "It's like it's not even there!" she shouted.

It's there. It didn't disappear. We take it on faith.

My cousin's daughter had a baby last night. She has some medical problems, but we all know that she will be fine.

We take it on faith.

Delay No Longer

Today was a tough day.

I had two funerals to attend. (I have a third one tomorrow.)

Both of the women who were buried today had breast cancer.

I have had one mammogram, four years ago. I'm 2 years overdue for another.

There's absolutely no excuse for this. Although I have no markers for breast cancer, no recurrent episodes of breast cancer in my family, and absolutely no indicators in my body that point to cancer - the daughter of one of the womn who was buried today was my own daughter's friend. And this is the second of her friend's mothers to die of breast cancer.

Project 3/366

Can you see the date that this prescription was given to me? March 31, 2010.

OMG.

I've just called. Appointment is scheduled for next week.

Do you have a similar health issue you've delayed? Do it. Now. Today.

PS - it was more than a little surreal to attend a funeral for a woman with the same first name as me, married name very close to my maiden name - who was the mother of six children. Kinda felt like I was spying on my own funeral.

1930-2011

Vaughn Aten. My Grandma. Killed by a Driver who chose to run a red light. She joins my Grandpa, who died in 1992, and my other four grandparents who predeceased her as well. I know that I'm lucky to have had a larger than normal number of grandparents, and to have had them as long as I did. I wasn't close to my grandmother in recent times, but I will treasure the memories that I had from my younger years. I remember my grandparents coming to visit us in their Airstream. They'd park it in the drive and visit with us. We'd drive to visit them in the summer and although she was diabetic, Grandma would always make sure we had treats.

I will always keep the memories of the special joys we have shared close to my heart.

Do The Papers Tell the Real Story?

So, the plot thickens...

I have not used the name of the child involved in order to protect the privacy of said child. I'm not using gender as well, to complicate matters further. (!!) If you do know which particular child I am referencing, please keep it to yourself. I know it makes for choppy reading, and I apologize. I need advice and guidance, not complications in this child or my own life. This is long. This is wordy. I apologize. Thank you for your help in this.

Child X was diagnosed two years ago with Slow Processing Speed. We all thought Child X had ADD - this child is a daydreamer and take forever and ever to do anything. At the request of the principal of the school, as well as the thought of the school counselor and the teacher last year - all of whom were convinced that this child did indeed have ADD, despite the test results (it was thought that, possibly, Child X tested better than s/he should have because it was computer based and interesting) - Child X was started on ADD medication. At the time, I researched dietary supplements for ADD, we tried several herbal choices that made no difference and I began the supplements in conjunction with the ADD medication. I do not like ADD medication, but Child X's self esteem was in the toilet and I hated to see this child feeling so rotten, and so I agreed to give it a try. Pediatrician GoodGuy agreed it was worth a shot, although he did not like to prescribe medication, but we thought it could help - homework took hours, daydreaming was a huge issue. This was April of last year.

I've written about this before, but I can't find it and I'm too tired to schlep through and look.

Back To Normal. Mostly. Sorta. Kinda.

As far as I think I can be, anyway. I'm not sure I'll ever be the same again, but I am not sure that I want to be the same person - if that makes sense, and if it does to you, well, take a minute and explain it to me, m'kay? Cuz I sure as heck don't get it AT ALL.  As someone so callously told me yesterday - it's not like it was your first kid, and it's not like you knew that you were pregnant all that long.  As I told that someone - bite me.  Hard.  Before I shower, please.

I spent the past three days relaxing and eating. Eating all the wrong things.  Cookies?  Check.  Fattening dinner?  Check. I did not care and had no desire to care.I allowed myself those three days to just - be. And not think too much. Thank you so very much for your kind and wonderful wishes to me, and my family has been nothing but awesome and amazing, especially those in my husband's family who told me this weekend that they read here. (Hi!)  My husband - who is a very good guy, in spite of his unfeeling remark (for which he has since - like a good man - apologized for) - folded all of the laundry last night and then spent ten hours today cleaning the attic overhang of the birds that have nested, thrown a party, and reproduced like nobody's business. Gooood times, ya'll, there's nothing but GOOD TIMES in our house.

But Friday is another day, and with the dawn comes a new agenda.

I will be appearing on Fox43 - channel 14 if you have cable, don't make the same mistake that my hubby did last time and watch an hour of Animal Planet waiting for me to appear - "Mom's up next guys, right after the sperm whale and before the badgers - I promise!"  I will be chatting about the Big Event that I put on this weekend and hopefully not making SUCH an idiot of myself as I did last time. If you've got free time in the morning, and you live in my fair city, why don't you watch? Everyone needs humor first thing in the morning.

I had a completely back to normal day today, as I drove just under 100 miles in the space of three hours, criss crossing two cities for soccer and muay thai class and then we had a completely fattening fast food dinner and I came home to make oatmeal banana pancakes (for tomorrow's breakfast, since I won't be here to cook) and my very famous chocolate chip cookies for my son and his ever present best buddy to take to the pool party that they are attending and all.  The girls who are attending REQUESTED them.  I feel special.

But mostly I just feel - I dunno - numb.

Thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings

This is going to be a really long, angsty and rambling all over the place post.  Don't say I didn't forewarn you.And, really, I don't want to type this.  I really don't, but I need to.

Last week, you all know was a really odd week for me, full of lots of stress and lots of drama.  It was also full of one other thing, something that I wasn't planning on blogging about for weeks, if not months.

I found out, late last week, in fact just before the wedding, that I was pregnant. 

It was definitely not something that I'd planned or sought out in any way, had in fact been avoiding actively, and timing wise, it really sucked.  I had just gotten over a major injury to my leg, and had the episode with the doxycycline stuck in my throat, creating an ulcer in my throat and stomach and sending me to the ER for two sets of chest and abdominal x rays, and home on three different medicines. Medicines that I later found out were Class C, but at the time, I didn't know that I was pregnant. Which, of course, I was.