The Elf is Doing His Job

This past weekend marked the two year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre.  Shortly after it happened a Facebook friend, an old friend from high school who is now a writer, shared a blog entry she had composed. She made the remark that this wasn't her tragedy and didn't want to pretend that she was feeling what all those families had felt.  Well, I don't agree with her.  Sandy Hook was my tragedy.  It was every parent's tragedy, every teacher's tragedy, every town's tragedy.  It was an American tragedy and we all should own it.  No, I don't know the grief they are feeling, but I can imagine it pretty damn near closely.  I've said before that Sal was a first grader at the time of the shooting and for weeks after it happened I could not get out of my head it happening to his class.  I couldn't get out of my head the terror those children must have felt.  I could not get out of my head how frantic that faculty must have felt.  I couldn't get out of my head, putting Sal's face and his classmates' faces to those faces.  I couldn't get out of my head, seeing myself sitting at the local firehouse looking into the faces of the parents whose children were in Sal's class and knowing it was their room he came into.  It was that image that we don't think a lot about, but I remember that's where the Sandy Hook parents went to wait for their children.  They went to the firehouse and waited and probably one by one as the children came in and met their parents in tearful hugs, the others sat.  There must have been a slow realization as those parents of the victims sat looking at each other the connection they shared.  And somehow I put myself there in the firehouse and it was me.  We all feel their pain in some way.

Distraction...distraction is what I need because if I allowed myself, I could drown in the remembrance of that day.  And thankfully this season, Bell-Bell is providing a nice distraction.  Yes, all you Elf on the Shelf haters, Bell-Bell is keeping me sane this year.  Bell-Bell, the Elf, was given a very special task this year in my home and it was to distract...or maybe I should say the opposite; it was to focus.  He directs our focus each day, and each day our focus is each other and sharing something simple of the Christmas spirit.  And it's working!  That little elf has given me back to my children and Christmas back to me.

So here is what Bell-Bell has been having us do since my last post:

December 9th:  Make a cake for Milo's birthday.  I swore I would never have a December baby, but you know, that's not exactly in your control and along came Milo, right in the middle of the Christmas festivities.

December 10:  Have a movie night (on a school night!) and watch Rudolph and Frosty.  We have these two on DVD.  I kind of miss the waiting for the Christmas special to come onto TV, but this way is nice because we can watch them early and still get in bed before 8.

December 11:  Decorate the Christmas tree!  My goal since having Miles is to have my house decorated in time for Miles's birthday party.  This was an easy one to work into the schedule.

December 12:  Cut out paper snowflakes.  Yes!  I bought a stack of white coffee filters and after some arguing about scissors and cutting ability, Sal, Eli, and I settled into making a giant mess of paper in the kitchen.  This one brought back so many memories.  I taped the snowflakes to all of our windows.

December 13:  Party!  Enjoy Milo's birthday party.  Christmas had to take a back seat to the birthday boy.

December 14:  Bake cookies with mom.  After Milo's party, our nephews stayed for a sleepover.  Their mom doesn't bake, so last year I had them over to bake cookies and decided to continue the tradition this year. They each helped with one batch and then were off and playing, but it's a memory for them and it's fun for me.  My boys wanted nothing to do with baking last year, but this year, maybe because of Bell-Bell, they were very excited to help.  I'm not a Lego builder or a video game player, but this is something I can do with them.  I can read with them.  I can bake with them.  I can do crafts (simple ones!) with them.  This year when they were excited to bake with me, it made me feel...I can't even describe.  Last year was a real downer when they really wanted nothing to do with the things I love.  They're boys.  We were touching on that "cool" factor and that it's not cool to bake with your mom.  Thankfully, they've gotten past that...with a little help from Bell-Bell.

December 15:  Watch Miracle on 34th Street.  I can't really say this was an epic fail, but it was a fail nonetheless.  They gave it a shot, but as I was watching it through their eyes, they really aren't at the age to appreciate it; after all, they believe...Maybe in ten years time if Bell-Bell is still making his appearances.

December 16:  Bell-Bell brought us each a candy cane and I made crockpot hot chocolate.  I was hoping for a cold, snowy day, but a somewhat chilly rainy afternoon would have to do.  They loved it.

December 17:  Today Bell-Bell has instructed Daddy and the boys to string up Christmas lights outside.  We generally don't decorate the outside of our house because, well, here's my vanity (my house vanity) coming into play...our house is ugly.  It's in desperate need of a new porch, new siding, new paint, etc., etc., all things we have no money to repair.  I'd rather not draw any more attention to it by stringing lights and shining spotlights on it.  The boys do not understand this, so with the help of Bell-Bell, I'm getting over my own insecurities and letting them have a decorated house.

And here's the special part about this whole Elf adventure...I truly believe there is some magic at work.  Last night I went out to a chorus concert.  The community chorus I sing with goes to a couple retirement homes and performs our concert for the elderly there.  I had to leave early because this particular home has a strict 8 o'clock bedtime.  While I was gone, completely unbeknownst to me, my Eli apparently went up to Bell-Bell and whispered a secret in his ear.  He asked him to hide in the Christmas tree.  I came home after they were in bed and it was my job to find a new spot and guess where I picked?  Yup!  The tree!  My husband came up and told me after seeing where I put Bell-Bell what Eli had whispered.  Somehow that whisper made it to my ear.  Some Christmas magic and Divine coincidence at work, if you ask me.

I Didn't Get the Job

Well, the school day has come and gone with no phone call, so I guess that means I didn't get the job.  No love lost, right?  I mean it's not like I got this great vibe during the interview and really liked the people.  They barely said two words to me outside of reading from a piece of paper.  But it still sucks to be rejected.  Let's face it, I'm a bit lost here in New Jersey and this rejection is one more chance gone by to find my place.  I know, I know.  If I didn't get the job, my place wasn't meant to be there.  But where?  I thought I had it at the adult high school and it was such a fleeting moment in a lifetime.

I hear my boys coming home now.  At least I know my place with them.  

Bell-Bell

Three years ago I was nine months pregnant with a ten pound baby and wasn't thinking straight.  I was in Target one day hobbling along and saw that damn Elf on the Shelf and thought Awwww, how cute!  My boys will love having an elf!

This is ironic because at the time I was a miserable bitch who found no joy in life whatsoever.  Nothing was even remotely cute to me.  Nothing...except that creepy elf.

And once you're in, you're in.  I got to pinning all the cute antics an elf can get into and my husband and I started out having a blast, but then what do you do when the elf is fishing in your toilet and you have to pee?  You can't move him.  The book says so!  He'll lose his magic!  We can't have Bell-Bell lose his magic!  (That's our elf's name--Bell-Bell.  Sal named him.)

Once he took a bath in marshmallows, only I forgot that the cat LOVES marshmallows and Bell-Bell was accosted and there were marshmallow paw prints all over my dining room table.  The boys burst into tears because the cat had touched Bell-Bell and his magic was gone.  No, animals have Christmas magic, too, so they can't hurt elf magic.  Oh, the lies I've told in the last three years.

Now, compound the elf pressure with the fact that I haven't really gotten along with Christmas the last several years.  Something always seems to happen that makes the holiday very difficult to enjoy.  Our first Christmas with Sal we were battling some pretty serious ear infections that could not be cured.  We were also facing him having surgery in the new year on his penis.  His foreskin was slightly twisted, so he'd need to have a special circumcision to correct it.  It's all fine now, but at the time, well, you can imagine.  Two Christmases later we were at the emergency vet on Christmas Eve with our dog who somehow injured her back.  The vet said she'd never walk or run again and we were faced with putting her down.  (The vet was wrong and it turned out all right, but that Christmas was pretty awful.)  The Christmas after that was following my unemployment. Then there was Sandy Hook.  That was the worst.  Sal was a first grader at the time, and well, that hit very close to home.  I was ready to pack it all up, but you can't when you have kids. I think most of us went through the motions that year.  Last year, the cat's tail got lopped off in the door.

Life doesn't stop for Christmas, or for that damn elf!  But, this year I stumbled across advent activities to do with your kids each day leading up to Christmas, and I thought what better way to love that elf again and maybe to start enjoying Christmas again.  This instantly became my December challenge.  Twenty-four days of stopping and spending time with my boys care of Bell-Bell.  You see, Bell-Bell brings us the activity each day.  There are no antics this year.  Each day he turns up in a different spot with a little note.  Some are simple little crafts (I only do simple.)  Some are activities we have to do anyway, so we just worked them into the schedule.  Here is what he's had us do so far:

December 1st:  Bell-Bell appeared with his book and movie and we read and watched the movie together.

December 2nd:  Bell-Bell put out some paper and markers and the boys wrote their letters to Santa.  (This was fun because it was the first year Eli was able to write his own letter.)

December 3rd:  Bell-Bell brought out the manger and we set up the nativity together.

December 4th:  Family game night!

December 5th:  Bell-Bell built a pyramid out of some canned goods and instructed us to go to the grocery store and pick out a few more to drop off at the food pantry.  (Took the bags to church with me yesterday!)

December 6th:  Make reindeer food.  I passed this one off to my husband as he hadn't done much with them and I was out of the house that morning.  What's reindeer food?  Oatmeal and sugar mixed together.  We had some colored sugar so that made it festive looking.

December 7th:  Bell-Bell told us that we were to go to the tree farm and pick out our tree.  Our tree farm even has tractor rides.

December 8th:  Today Bell-Bell brought decorated paper for us to make paper chains.  (I bought these strips from Oriental Trading a few years ago for a couple bucks and never got around to doing them with the boys.  They have sat at the bottom of a storage tub far too long.  Bell-Bell is also helping us to clean out.)

There are the people that hate the elf and have banned him from their homes.  Then there are the people that love the elf and the set-ups and the antics.  And for the record, I don't feel these people are doing these elaborate set-ups to outdo the neighbor's elf.  I think they do it because it's fun.  I mean, it is fun.  We made some pretty cool scenes, and the boys loved it.  But, suddenly it became work.  Suddenly, I hated Bell-Bell.  I don't want to hate Bell-Bell.  Bell-Bell is magic.  Bell-Bell is love.  He's our own special elf.

Bell-Bell, this year, is my therapist.  He's still a little bit of work, but the end result of the work isn't a toilet I can't use for an entire day.  The end result is a few minutes to sit down with my boys and forget about the checkbook or the interview or homework.  So Bell-Bell is good this year.

To Call or Not to Call

It has been a very interesting week.  Was Thanksgiving really just a week ago?  I'm having a hard time trying to wrap my brain around that.  First, I'm somewhat happy to announce that I somewhat completed my November challenge of thirty scrapbook pages in thirty days.  I completed the layouts for all thirty pages.  Sadly, I did not complete all of the embellishments.  I got about six pages completed before I had to pack it all up in preparation for Christmas.  But, thirty pages!  Thirty new pages are sitting there just waiting for a few stickers and stamps, and considering how the second half of November treated me, I'll consider that a success.

Monday morning rolled around with me keeping Eli home due to the fact that he was without teacher.  I called the school and left a message for the principal to return my call with news of his new teacher.  I then called the superintendent and had a lengthy discussion with him about our situation.  He was very accommodating to our circumstances and informed me that I'd be hearing that day from the principal.  I did not hear and had to call after school hours.  Finally, he called me and after a curt conversation (on his part), Eli had a new teacher.  We met with her the following morning "supervised" by the principal, yet another act on his part to show off his so-called power.  She requires all of her students to go to the bathroom at the designated times and has a very clear discipline policy.  This week Eli has had no accidents and we've had communication from her every day reporting on his behavior.  One day he even made his way back up from a warning to being "ready to learn."

Generally speaking I am a quiet, introverted person, and as most introverts, I am observant, taking in my surroundings, and waiting for the right moment, the right time to speak my mind and only speak it when needed.  I do not generally spout off my opinions at will for any or all to hear.  And that is why I have absolutely no use for the principal of my children's school.  I am appalled at his behavior towards me and my family and his misuse of his position to give himself a sense of power or self-worth or whatever he feels he is lacking in his life.  Everyone is so focused on the parents' role in the school, the teachers' role in the school, the students' role in the school.  What about the administrators?  The leaders?  The people who set the tone?  The people who set the example?

And with that, I will now share where I was yesterday...a job interview.  Two English teacher positions were posted before Thanksgiving.  I applied to both and got a call Monday from the one district.  This district neighbors our small town and it's a very nice suburban, middle-class demographic.  They also offer employee discounts for sending their own children to their schools.  It's the "perfect" place for me to be.  It's also a long-term substitute position that could potentially lead to nothing permanent.  Or, it could be a foot in the door.  And ever since I scheduled the interview, I've had severe anxiety.  The "what-ifs" abounded, still do, but I carried on and prepared for the interview.

It was terrible!  It was completely robotic, with the three administrators taking turns asking me questions and writing my answers down, no response, no dialogue.  I have some pretty unique experiences in the field of education, and you'd expect people who have not shared those experiences to maybe want to learn a little about them.  I talked about them as much as the pre-planned questions allowed, but that was it.  And then it was my turn to ask the questions.  This is not my forte in the interview process, but I had some planned.  Here's how it went:

Principal:  So, do you have any questions for us?

Me:  What do you expect of me in terms of classroom management and routines?  Do you want me to follow the established routine, or do you want me to create something of my own?  (The teacher is not coming back this year, so these will be my students for the remainder of the year.)

Principal:  Well, I would only expect you to create your own plan if you found serious fault with what was in place, but I can assure you that this is a very beloved, accomplished teacher who you'll be filling in for and she is very well like and respected by all of her students with virtually no discipline issues.  The system she has works, so I don't think it would benefit you to walk into her room on the first day and rip down her list of rules (and he actually put his hands up and acted out ripping something off the walls.)

Me:  Okay.

Principal:  Do you have any more questions?

Me:  Nope, I'm good.

And then I went and wrote a two paragraph essay on the scope of language arts as it pertains to the Common Core Standards, and if you are not familiar with Common Core, you should know that the scope of language arts could fill pages upon pages of books.

Yeah, I'm really starting to question if I want my foot in the door.  I will either get a phone call Monday or I won't.  I can't really go into all the fears and questions I have going in my mind right now.  My mind is far too manic on that subject to put my thoughts into words.  I just pray that the way will somehow reveal itself to me.  And in the meantime, there is my December challenge...it's been a fun one!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving I am thankful that this week is Thanksgiving and I have the perfect excuse to say to the outside world a big EFF YOU.  I don't know what went wrong these last few weeks other than I stopped scrapbooking and everything else went to hell.  But if there was ever a time for me to escape from reality and celebrate my family, now is the time to resume it.

We met with the principal of the elementary school who was in no way helpful nor sympathetic to our situation.  What was suppose to be a meeting about this teacher's negligence, turned into a full on argument about one homework assignment that we as a family chose not to do because there was alternate material that would be more meaningful.  One assignment.  Do you really want to open a discussion as to the shortcomings of the district's homework policies and lack of differentiated instruction?  This is about my child's teacher refusing to comply with a simple request to make sure he goes to the bathroom twice a day.  Now he is on a power trip and had us wait until Wednesday for him to make his decision, which he didn't do.  He refused to return my call Wednesday morning and when my husband went in for answers, he said, "What can I do for you?"  Like all had been forgotten.  Supposedly the switch will occur Monday and go into effect Tuesday.  Thank you, dear Mr. Principal, for fucking with my son's education.  

Then there is my work.  I have been under ridicule from my boss for the past few weeks because apparently I have had inappropriate communication with a couple of my students' guidance counselors.  What was so inappropriate?  One of my students is recuperating from a serious back injury and is going through pretty intensive physical therapy.  I wanted to know from the counselor if he was physically capable of meeting the weekly required hours and how much I should push him.  I know!  Isn't that an awful thing to communicate as one professional to another?  Apparently, it's not my job to ask those questions.  The second one was because through a dialogue with one of the counselors, I replied to a message of his without a formal address, such as "Dear Mr. Counselor" and didn't follow the script in our handbook.  We were having a discussion about the ongoing progress of a shared student, a student who suffers from bipolar disorder.  My boss actually rewrote the email for me highlighting the greeting and closing.  Once again it comes down to a matter of control.  We must micromanage every little insignificant detail, once again at the expense of the student, in order to feel important, in control, and God forbid not to possibly have me look more competent than you.

For the next four days, my goal is to not stew, as best I can.  My work is just that, work, so if they want me to play the game, then I'll play the game.  And as for Eli and the school situation, my fears are that the principal will continue to play games and not make the switch on Monday.  I wanted Eli to go back to school Monday with a fresh start, but that's not happening.  Hopefully, we can actually start back on Tuesday.  That is what I will be praying for this weekend so we can settle back in and resume some sort of normalcy for him.

Can I take a minute and just let you know the kind of kid Eli is?  I think that's what makes this all so painful.  Eli can make friends with anyone, and usually does.  He has a very encompassing energy that just draws other kids into whatever is playing out in his imagination.  All are welcome.  Eli is the kid that hovers over me making his lunch because he cannot go to school with a peanut butter sandwich.  He loves peanut butter, but one of his best friends is allergic to peanuts, so he goes without.  The other day he was at his soccer banquet and was eating some Doritoes.  His teammate was sitting next to him and somehow Eli learned he was allergic to Doritoes, so Eli got up and threw away his plate and wouldn't eat them either.  That's the kind of kid Eli is, and he doesn't deserve this.

I have seven page layouts to go.  The plan is to finish them Friday and then Saturday and Sunday work on the embellishments.  I'm behind in my plan, but maybe being behind at this point is a good thing..more to do to occupy my mind.

I'm also reading Bridget Jones's Diary.  There are about four, maybe five books, that have caused me to literally laugh out loud.  Tina Fey's Bossypants is one, and that one had me laughing the entire time.  My husband thought I was seriously losing it.  There was also a Sophie Kinsella book, not the any of the Shopaholics, but the one about the girl who loses her memory.  That had a funny part in it that had me laughing for awhile.  And both Bridget Jones books (haven't seen the third one yet).  And there might have been a few others, but these are the ones that stick out in my memory.  I had thought when I initially picked it up again that it would lighten my mood, but reading Bridget as a happily married 38 year old, versus reading it as a single 21 year old certainly had a different effect.  God, she's annoying and really and truly messed up. I also cannot get the image of Renee Zellwiger out of my head, with her weird, fake pouty lips and screwy British accent.  There had to have been a better choice.  But, it's a fast read, so I'm almost through and then can jump into something more my 30-something speed.

So that's my Thanksgiving holiday.  I pray that soon a door opens for me that will allow me to make some changes for myself and my family, and in the meantime I pray that life settles a bit.  Have a blessed holiday!

Where the F**K is my bathing suit??

I thought that maybe the spring, summer, and beautiful fall we had might have helped my body to make a full recuperation after the bitterly cold winter we had last year, but this week temperatures dipped below freezing and I immediately went into full on hibernation/depression mode, donned my stained sweatpants, ordered Taco Bell, and began ranting about how much I hate living where I do and searching for houses in much warmer climates.  I'm pretty sure last winter did permanent damage to my body.  Just like my butterfly bush almost died, as did many of them around us, and no hydrangeas bloomed this year, I think something inside my bones will never be the same again.

And guess where I get to go tonight?  An indoor water park for a kid's birthday party.  Have you ever been to an indoor water park?  I had my first experience last year at my niece's.  It is sickeningly warm and humid.  It's like the hottest day in July but you're surrounded by hundreds of strangers.  Yes, strangers.  In a confined space.  The floors are slimy.  Everything you touch is slimy.  And people brush their wet, sticky bodies up against you because there is no room to move.  

I was at first questioning if I needed to stay.  But, yes, I need to stay.  It's a freaking water park!  I'm not leaving my eight year old to fend for himself at a water park.  Then I thought maybe I don't need to wear a swimsuit.  What am I thinking???  Of course I need to wear a swimsuit.  My kid is a selective mute.  He has severe anxiety in crowds.  There's no way in hell he's going to go off with his friends without me.  Nope!  There I'll be sitting in a 100 degree room with 90 percent humidity with a lanky, gangly eight year old strewn across me refusing to leave my lap.  Damn, where the fuck did I put my bathing suit?

[SKIP AHEAD TO MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, CAN'T SLEEP, EMOTIONALLY WRECKED]

I began this post early on Friday, November 21st and at that time my biggest worry was that frickin' waterpark and finding my bathing suit.  It turns out that waterpark was the best part of my day, after the horrendous drive there.  This place, traffic-free, is probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes from my house, but an hour later fighting with Turnpike and 295 traffic and the DAMN NEW JERSEY JUGHANDLES (I made so many loops, cursing Friday nights and New Jersey and my husband for not cleaning his windshield and I'm sure adding to my son's anxiety which will probably tack on a few extra therapy sessions) we finally made it. 

Before I recount the night's events, let's back up a bit to parent conferences.  Report cards came out last Friday.  Wednesday I took the boys for their flu shots and happened to mention to the office staff there that Eli was having bathroom issues at school and despite my efforts, i.e. pleading with the teacher to ensure his use of the bathroom, he was still not going.  He was embarrassed and afraid to ask her or say that he had to go.  They said they'd have the doctor write a note and it'd be ready the next day.  That night I get a call from the doctor himself telling me to get the kid in the office to be tested for a urinary tract infection because, you know, he's got that alien kidney and all.  My husband and I joked that if she didn't start making sure he went to the bathroom, we'd pull the kidney card, but we never actually thought it'd hurt him.  I don't know why I didn't think the situation would hurt him.  His kidney has never been a serious threat and we've finally gotten to the point of putting it out of our minds and moving past it.  Thanks to this teacher who refused to say, "You must go and try to use the bathroom," my son who has made it this far with no problems is at risk. 

OK, so we meet with the principal before our conference with her about that issue first and foremost, but also because the child continues to have behavior issues and we continue to get no communication from her aside from a bunch of stars on a piece of paper, or no stars, given the day, and the kid is thoroughly confused because she also has a behavior ladder and some days when he gets no stars he's at the middle of the ladder on "blue" and other days he gets a whole bunch of stars and will be low on the ladder on "yellow" or "orange".  And not only is he publicly ridiculed on this ladder, but she decided to mark down his participation grade in all subjects because of this so-called behavior and it actually prevented him from getting an "Outstanding" in reading.

The meeting with the principal went well and we thought maybe there could be some progress made...AND then we met with her.  She, who had told me Eli was reading at an advanced level and would bring in chapter books and enrichment material for him, turned around and said she doesn't see that he's reading above grade level.  She's the one who told me!  She condescendingly praised his behavior that day, but couldn't tell us what color he was on.  We turned around to find him on "yellow" because she failed to move him up the ladder as his behavior improved.  She said she was inconsistent because the half days were throwing her off.  This isn't the first time she's made an excuse for her inconsistency with the chart. 

As the conference continued, we were upset but really holding it together and she suddenly makes the statement that she wants to help and support our child but she can't do that when she feels under "attack."  Uh-huh?  OK...I'm trying to support these multiple behavior charts.  I hadn't yet presented her with the doctor's note about him using the bathroom.  How am I attacking her?  Homework.  That was it.  Homework.  Every Monday night every teacher in grades K through second grade gives the spelling words to copy over two or three times each.  Eli knows all of the spelling words every week, first night.  He does not need to rote memorize words he already knows.  I politely wrote her a note saying that I reviewed the words with him, he knew them all, and had him do some more challenging work in a phonics workbook.  I had told her previously that I work with him in these workbooks because they really help bolster his skills and confidence.  I explained to her that I did it last year when he was struggling with paragraph writing.  He was being pushed too hard and didn't have the skills to be confident in attempting to write paragraphs.  He was only five.  His kindergarten teacher at first was skeptical, but she was supportive of it.  By the end of the year, she even said that Eli had made great progress and that backing off was just the thing he needed.  I told ALL of this to his teacher this year.  She initially seemed impressed by it, so I was clearly surprised when she referred to it as an attack.  Seriously, if I wanted to be insubordinate, I would have written a note saying "Homework sucks and is pointless.  We're not doing it!"  (By the way, that's how I feel as an educator and rarely gave homework.  Practice what you preach, right?)

The conversation moved onto him doing the new "challenge" that comes with copying out the words twice:  students can write a story using the spelling words.  I love it!  It's meaningful, creative, and appropriately challenging.  The first night it came home, Eli jumped on it.  The second week, he was completely frustrated.  Tears were streaming down his face.  I stopped him, and said it was OK.  We did four workbook pages in its place.  I wrote a note to her saying he was frustrated and we did extra work in its place and if she wanted to see the workbook, I'd be happy to bring it in for her.  At the conference, she questioned why I wouldn't force him to do the challenge which is an optional challenge for all the students.  I told her--again--that he easily gets frustrated with writing and pushing him just makes it worse.  She said that he's going to continue to struggle if he's not pushed into doing it.  Say what?!?!  Yeah, and then he's going to be sitting in ninth grade hating his teacher before he already knows her because she's going to make him write and then she's left with the task of undoing all the damage you caused at six years old.  Been there!  I told her I refused, REFUSED, to have tears over writing in my house.  He will NOT have negative feelings towards the task. 

She said more stuff after that, but I was done.  I stopped listening and then I realized, so had he.  He was tuning her out.  He was tuning out her inconsistencies, her condescension, her ridicule.  He was going into his little world inside that with Eli always plays itself out in the real world and there was the behavior.  He doesn't have ADD.  He's surviving in a hostile environment. I walked up to the office and said he will NOT be setting foot in her class again...ever. 

So yeah, yada yada yada, the principal couldn't see me then and I'm to meet with him on Monday first thing.  But, there's no other option and he knows it. 

I was left feeling wrecked.  I was completely "that parent" who every teacher dreads.  Being a mom is ten times harder than teaching ever was, because no matter how much you want to support educators, your child, your baby, comes first.  And then it was time for me to face the waterpark.

We get to the waterpark and there was no. one. there.  The party-goers were there, but other than that the place was relatively empty.  Sal's friends came running up to him and suddenly my kid had friends.  Lots of friends and he ran off and I didn't see him the rest of the night.  Do you know how monumental that is?  I'm sitting here in tears as I type.  He was a normal little boy with all these nice little friends.  Yeah, he was the quiet one, but he talked to them.  He played with them.  It was everything I have always hoped for him.   I have never felt such joy.

While I sat there taking in my little boy's accomplishments, I sat with a mom who was at a funeral today.  The town over lost a fireman.  He was thirty-eight with an eight year old little boy and a four year old little girl.  Sal's baseball team played this guy's son's team a couple years ago.  He was their coach.  He had gone off duty and a few hours later his wife found him dead.  Aneurism?   Probably a heart attack?  At thirty eight.  We're thirty eight.  I think of my husband, overweight, over-stressed, a wife that makes him go out for Taco Bell.  None of that other stuff matters.  All the anxiety my kids feel at school shouldn't be because all that stuff, yeah, it's good to know, but it doesn't matter.  Their friends matter.  Family matters.  Fun matters.  Taking it all in before it's all gone.  That's what matters. 

So, yeah, that's why I'm up in the middle of the night.   

Reality Bites

Now, I'm not saying scrapbooking has magical powers or anything, but this past week I haven't been able to sit and work on pages at all and let's just say I've been hit hard with that awful thing called reality.  Nothing particularly bad happened; it's just that I've been faced quite glaringly with our circumstances and I don't like them.  It's hard to remain positive and remember your blessings, and I do have many, when life is right there smacking you in the face.

The week began with me chaperoning Sal's field trip to the zoo.  It was a beautiful day.  I had four great kids in my group who I immensely enjoyed spending the day with.  They were vibrant and inquisitive and they asked questioned and listened to everything that was said.  But through all of this, I was faced with the painful disorder that is called selective mutism.  Sal has made leaps and bounds in the past few months with his speaking, but here he was in a small group with his mom and barely spoke ten words the entire day.  You see, we had a little girl in our group who is pretty much the polar opposite of Sal.  She's loud and peppy and outgoing and touchy-feely and at one point I thought Sal was going to implode from all that is her.  He has a rating system through the SMart Center to chart his level of anxiety, 0 being no anxiety and 3 being very, very hard.  He gave spending the day with this girl a 10.  And she doesn't deserve a 10.  She's a sweet, caring little girl.  But, I was struck by how out of place he is at this school.  Aside from his interaction with her, I was able to observe him for about an hour in the classroom while waiting for the buses to arrive.  There are so many distractions this teacher must deal with on a daily basis.  Sal has one of the nicer groups of kids in his school, and his class in particular this year, is quite nice, but there are still behaviors that I'm sure simply set him on edge and are out of the teacher's power to stop and consume a lot of her energy to keep in check.  She's been amazing at helping him, but I can imagine that the help is limited.  Sal isn't even aware of it, but I see a little boy with "friends" that aren't truly friends, but rather kids that are nice and he likes.

On top of that, Eli is continuing to struggle behaviorally in school.  He has "good" days and "bad" days and had another accident again this week.  I'm getting the little sheet of paper with some stars on it here and there, but no real feedback as to his actions.  His group of kids is more questionable.  They have a much darker side, some just because they are more imaginative, but others because of their lack of preservation of innocence in their upbringing.  My husband is concerned the child has ADHD, but I'm convinced his lack of attention is the lack of the teacher's ability to engage him.  Plus, how can she compete with the stories the other kids are telling?

It's a terrible feeling to have that sense of not belonging.  We have all experienced it, and it's not a new feeling for me in any way.  I remember sitting for years at dance class, friendless and awkward, and clearly not "a dancer".  I didn't belong, but stayed because despite all of that, I enjoyed the dancing.  But it was a temporary feeling.  For a few hours each week I sat awkward and alone, but the rest of life seemed to fall into place.  I had belonging in school activities and a strong little group of friends.  In this little town, I'm constantly on the outskirts of community, as is my entire family.  I can see relationships being formed and a strong sense of community, but not one that I am truly apart of.  And it's clearly affecting my boys, Sal especially.  Everyone is busy and play dates are difficult to arrange, but I see the other boys striking up friendships that will last a long time.  I see families hanging out together and kids having sleepovers and after school video game fests.  And no matter how many times I open my doors to them, they never open their doors to me.  Now at the age of eight, there are no such things as "play dates".  They are too contrived.  The kids go to friends' houses to hang out, but for us, we're still arranging and planning and scheduling.

[A little side story here.  I had a couple brothers over this summer to play with Sal and Eli.  I really like their mom.  She's a lot like me and our younger boys are like kindred spirits.  Anyway, she invited us to their block party.  Here was an opportunity for us to be social, and I completely forgot about it.  She said she'd send me an Evite, but I'm pretty sure she forgot.  My mother raked me over the coals for forgetting, admonishing me for all my "whining and complaining" about not having any friends and then forgetting to go. Feeling guilty and a social reject, I get on Facebook and see that at said block party there was a drunk guy there who has some sexual predator issues and was following the kids around and making lewd comments to them.  This mom I like told him he needed to leave so he came back with a gun (a pellet gun that he made over to look like a real gun, but still) and pointed it at her head.  Maybe there was a reason I forgot this party.  Maybe I was never meant to be there in the first place.  I know after I told my mom that she got off me for not going.]

But maybe that's just it.  Maybe I was never meant to be apart of this community in the first place.  Maybe I'm meant to be in my home and with my neighbors, but not really apart of this little town.  Maybe there is something different for us.  And that brings me to our evening last night.  I signed up to go to an open house at a Friends school just ten minutes up the road from us.  A Friends school is based on the Quaker religion. They cherish peace and simplicity.

Here is also a little bit of reality hitting me as I make arrangements to visit a school with a $11,000 per year tuition:  we hit such a financial crisis this fall what with the dog's vet bills, accruing credit debt, and a depletion of both our paychecks that we have tapped into our boys' savings what little there was.  I swore I never would touch their savings, but at one point we needed to pay our mortgage and at another point, it seemed ridiculous to be spending thousands of dollars in interest on our credit cards when there was this money sitting there that could potentially save us.  We made the decision to use their savings to help us get out of credit debt.  I'm hoping that in a few years time, it will have been the right decision and have the outcome of helping our overall circumstances and enrich their experiences.  But still....

So we visit this school.  When I made the appointment, my husband said he wouldn't be going and would stay home with all the boys.  He said there didn't seem to be any point in visiting a school that wasn't an option for us.  But, I needed to see it.  I'm sick of feeling resigned, settling for mediocre.  Both older boys were very excited to attend, and surprisingly as 5 o'clock rolled around there was my husband ready to go without a single snarky comment to be made.

Sending my children had never been even a consideration when we became parents.  I'm sorry to say it, but I stereotyped private school kids and families: rich snobs.  How could I not being a strong proponent of a public school education when I was a public school educator?  But, here we were last night at this school and guess what?  There were a lot of rich people there.  Our tour guide was a parent of two boys at the school.  She was Indian and didn't work, so I can only assume what her husband did for a living.  I mean, let's just jump right into the stereotypes, right?  When you expect to find something, you often do, but as we toured from classroom to classroom, it suddenly struck me that what I initially read as her being fake and trying to make a sale, was complete sincerity of her love for this school.  It wasn't until we went into the fourth grade classroom (potentially Sal's classroom next year) and met the fourth grade teacher that suddenly I, too, found myself falling in love with this place.  The teacher who was in her late 60's, maybe early 70's, was animatedly talking about her freedom to explore the world around them.  No burn out.  Just a love, a genuine love, for this school.  She had been a student there, a teacher there, and a parent there.  And as my two little ones started getting antsy and running around, she put her hand on my arm and said to just let them be and explore, there was nothing they could hurt in her room.  And I believed her!

And here's the truly miraculous part!  By the end of the night, Sal was freely talking in front of our tour guide and our two student guides.  He willingly said good-bye and thank you upon leaving and expressed how much he liked the school.  Turns out he was listening the entire time and easily picked up on the small class sizes and all the extras the school had to offer.  Not only did I see Sal reach a comfort level in less than two hours with complete strangers, but my Mr. Negative husband said how calm the school made him feel.  He said that it was so warm and inviting and everyone there seemed to have open arms.

Could this be the answer?  I realize no place is perfect, but... How could this be the answer when we have no way to pay for tuition?  Did I make a mistake in visiting?  In seeing something I have no hopes of having? Is there a hope?  Do I have the energy to make it happen?  Will the fates be in my favor of rewarding my energy when it seems so much of my already spent energy has been in vain?

And that's where I am this Friday morning, faced with these realities and not really sure about how to handle them.  I'm trying to figure out a way to blend my fantasy life (which is really just a slightly more comfortable life than I have right now, not with private jets or mansions, but the ability to send my kids to a school that could allow them to blossom and maybe a new pair of boots every now and then) and my real life of living paycheck to paycheck and coming up short every now and then on the mortgage or groceries.

November Challenge A Go! (in spite of my mother)

Last night I caught up on my number of scrapbook pages and this morning already completed today's layouts.  I'll probably work ahead today because I only have two layouts to complete and then Eli's baby book will be finished...six years later.  This challenge has given to me what I anticipated all of my challenges to have given me, a pleasant distraction, and we're not even half way through the month.  I will actually be sad to pack it all up December 1st, but it will be necessary to have some sort of order in the house for that month.

Last night I shared with my mother and my husband how far along I've come in the pages and how much I've been enjoying myself.  From both I get the cursory, "Um-hum", and though I can't see my mother over the phone, I sense she, too, is giving the eye roll like my husband.  My mother and husband are complete opposites when in comes to cleanliness standards save for one point--the dining room table covered in albums, papers, pictures, and a lot of, well, scraps.  It drives them crazy, and I suppose to a non-scrapbooker, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and seems a rather trivial hobby.  Ironically, the rest of my house has been straightened and cleaned and ordered to a much greater extent than it has been in months.  I suppose the freedom to make a mess on the dining room table has somehow inspired me to order the rest of the house.

So until December 1st, when it will need to put away to make room for parties and special dinners and breakfasts, I will bask in the mess that is scrapbooking.  

One Thing New Jersey is Good For

The first week in November marks New Jersey Education Association's teacher convention, and school is cancelled throughout the state on Thursday and Friday of that week.  So for two days I get all my boys home with no holiday to plan for or trips to take or parties to go to.  This I love.  I love not having to fight over homework or getting them out the door or even getting dressed.  We had another rainy day, i.e. our second jammie day in under a week.  Tomorrow we're visiting Longwood Gardens, which is a former DuPont residence that has turned horticultural center about an hour from us.  It is frequented by older garden enthusiasts, a lot of Asians, young lovers, and my three boys.  While most people are shuffling their kids off to amusement parks or boardwalk attractions or science centers, we go to the gardens.  Don't get me wrong, we go to all of those places, too, but at those places we're on edge.  We're keeping track and counting kids and running from one ride to the next.  Longwood Gardens brings a certain amount of freedom to our family.  For one, it's a giant garden with sprawling lawns and giant, ancient trees, wooded trails and meadows.  No matter how many people are there, they could never begin to fill the space this place encompasses.  My boys run and with them so does their imaginations as they climb tree houses and explore topiary gardens and race through giant fountains.

I don't know if this is something with all kids or something I've observed with just mine, but when Sal was about two or three years old we realized a transformation came over him in two different places.  A sense of peace would overtake him and he was suddenly perfectly content.  He belonged.  There was no whining on his part or yelling on ours.  Those two places for Sal are the beach and farms.  My husband and I have since said that we need to buy a huge property on the northern shores of the Outerbanks so he could have the best of both worlds.  Eli's place of belonging we realized this summer at Longwood Gardens.  We went on one of the hottest, muggiest days of the year.  Sal was whining about the heat, but Eli was suddenly at home.  Eli has always had a touch of fairy about him.  In fact, call me crazy, but he even has a crook in his one ear that makes it appear just a tad elfish.   Longwood Gardens is practically a fairyland come to life and all the while we are there Eli is trapped in his imagination, darting in and out of bushes and secret paths crossing trails with the wee folk he is kin to.

It is very appropriate that this weekend we visit there again in an attempt to celebrate Eli's magic.  School continues to be a struggle.  I met with his teacher a couple of weeks ago who hadn't a positive thing to say about his behavior.  She described him as a total mess and I sat there dumbfounded because I didn't have a response for her.  This is all new to me.  She hinted more directly at his inability to control himself, which translated means she thinks he has ADHD.  I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure ADHD doesn't spontaneously appear.  I picked my jaw up off the floor after her ten minute tirade to question if he's this bad and this out of control, how in the world is he possibly coming home with A's on everything??  Apparently the child is reading at quite an advanced level.  He's reading above the reading program's highest reader.  She, of course, mentioned that his behavior during tests is atrocious.  She reads the test questions to the students about three times each and students are given time to read the choices and circle the answer.  Eli will have nothing done halfway through the test.  She'll give him a reminder that the test is nearing completion and the child will go back on his own, read all the questions and answers himself, and get an A.  Clearly he's bored.  She claimed she would bring in enrichment material, but has yet to do so claiming his behavior hasn't improved enough for this.  The material is suppose to deter the behavior, isn't it?

She continued to not update me on his behavior, almost like he was a lost cause; thus, preventing any intervention or rewards system I attempted at home.  I did speak to the principal about this and now just this week he comes home daily with a little sheet of paper tracking his behavior through the day's activities.  But, it doesn't make sense.  He received a "star" for reading (he apparently was one of the first ones finished with his reading test), but when I spoke to her about another matter that day, she could only say that he was a problem during the test because he was standing and couldn't sit.  Well, why did he get a star?  And what's the big deal if he was standing?  Was he running around the room?  Was he touching others?  Was he distracting others?  Or, was he simply standing beside his desk focusing on a test and it bothered her?

What was the other matter, you ask?  Even more concerning is that he's been having bathroom accidents several times in the course of a week.  I brought this to her attention shortly after the conference, but nothing seemed to changed.  And this past week on the day he came home with only two stars and wound up on "red", he had a pretty bad accident and sat in his pee for most of the day.  This went unnoticed by her, but not by several of his friends.  I talked to him that night and he opened up about having some bathroom insecurities.  He is embarrassed to let others know he's going to the bathroom, and if he's embarrassed to say it, I'm pretty sure he's embarrassed to go around his friends.  There were some issues last year where a couple of students were invading his personal space which greatly upset him.  He's also afraid he'll be left behind in the bathroom and won't be there when the class leaves for special: art, library, music, etc.  Do you know what happens when you have to pee really, really badly?  You can't concentrate, and you certainly can't sit still.  I wrote a short email to her about this, asking her to please make sure he uses the bathroom.

She hadn't responded to the email that next day, so I wanted to see if she got it and if the day had gone better.  She gave me this weird back and forth head tilt, like it was some far fetched theory, and said she didn't know if she should talk to him about it.  Huh?  Um, yes!  She said she asked him several times if he needed to go to the bathroom but he said "No" every time.  It wasn't until the end of the day that she told him he needed to try and go.  I told her to please feel free to tell him he must use the bathroom.  She retorted, "You know I can't force him to go."  Duh!  But, you can tell him he must try and he will listen to you.  She then said, "Well, thank you for your feedback and we'll just keep working on his behavior."  Feedback!  My child is wetting his pants, something he has NEVER done, on an almost daily basis and has expressed fear of using the bathroom.  This isn't feedback!  As a long time first grade teacher, I find it hard to believe this is something she has never dealt with!

Finally, finally, my husband is angry.  Finally he is going to speak to this woman.  We're even discussing switching teachers, which isn't going to be easy.  She has four students less in her class than all the other first grade teachers.  (Tell me why that is!)  But, for now, we're home.  Today Eli has spent the entire day playing with about six Beanie Babies collected during my college years.  Six Beanie Babies has contented this child for hours.  And tomorrow he can play with the fairies.

I've been continuing to scrapbook, Eli's baby book in fact, and it has helped me to refocus my attention on something other than that school.  Somehow I fell behind a day, but I'll get caught up this weekend.  I had forgotten how absorbing scrapbooking can be.  I also got my hair cut and this morning while coloring it myself, I gave myself a pedicure and foot and leg massage.  Quite nice!

And finally, even more exciting is that I'm currently rereading two of my favorite series.  About a year and a half ago I got a deal on Scholastic for the entire paperback collection of The Magic Treehouse series, all forty-five of them, for my boys.  They are short chapter books, about ten chapters a piece, that follow brother and sister, Jack and Annie, as they find a magic treehouse in the woods that takes them on magical adventures to different times and lands.  It's brilliant.  I bought up to #45 and then we found #46 through #48 newly released in paperback in the last six months and we've been reading them every week taking trips from Shakespeare's England to the Jurassic Period to ancient China and India and even visited Abraham Lincoln.  But, it was time to take a little break since the rest of the series we can only get from the library.  This was the perfect excuse to start something I have been waiting to share with them since they were born and they are finally ready...Harry Potter!  They've seen the first movie, but like all movies, it just doesn't hold the same magic as the books.  They are fighting me a bit, I think because, let's face it, Harry Potter has become something of a cliche.  But, stripping away all the movies and theme parks and Legos, we are still left with an amazing piece of literature that they need to know.  We've only made it through the first two chapters, and I'm almost glad they are fighting me because once I finally get them to settle down and snuggle in bed, a hush falls over the room as the power of Potter takes over.  Daddy has Legos, but I have books.

I also began rereading my favorite modern series The Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini starting with The Quilter's Apprentice.  I found this book about fifteen years ago and it tells the story of Sarah, an out-of-work accountant who has recently relocated to a small Pennsylvania college town for her husband's new landscaping job.  His job brings her into the company of Sylvia Compson, owner of Bergstrom Manor. Mrs. Compson has re-inhabited her dilapidated childhood estate after the passing of her estranged sister and has hired Sarah to help straighten up the place and get ready for sale.  In addition to a small salary, Sarah makes a deal with Mrs. Compson, a master quilter, to learn how to quilt.  As their lessons progress, Mrs. Compson shares her sad and tragic past with Sarah and a friendship blooms.  In addition, Sarah befriends a group of quilters at a local quilt shop finally finding her place in the world.  The series continues on as the Bergstrom Manor is transformed into a retreat for quilters and we are told stories of the women who are touched by this property both in the present and those of the past through Sylvia's stories.  Can you tell why I'm in love with this series?  Crafting, friendships, sweeping Pennsylvania farmland.

I actually had the opportunity to go to a luncheon and author reading with Jennifer Chiaverini.  My best friend, Jennifer, and myself were the only women in the room under the age of fifty.  As we sat in a sea of white heads, the women at our table leaned over to my friend and me and asked if we were quilters, because clearly every woman in the room with their hand-quilted purses was.  We said, "No, we're readers."

So that, too, is how I'm beginning my November.  My goal is to surround myself with all that is warm and simple and good.  Visiting memories of my baby's infancy, celebrating his uniqueness and magic personality, reading books that whisk me away to a life I can only dream of having, both imaginary and real.  Hopefully the power of Potter and scrapbooking and gardens and quilting can drown out all the other elements of my life that right now I can't change, but must somehow endure.

Ahhh, November

Isn't November just the loveliest month?  This November 1st we were treated to a wonderfully rainy day which left all soccer practices and games cancelled.  We stayed inside in our jammies all day and played video games and board games and even did a craft.  It was a perfect day.  And Thanksgiving is coming!  The older I get the more I love Thanksgiving.  Why?  Because it is virtually no work.  Yes, there's the cooking, but it's cooking.  You have to cook that day no matter what, so why not have a feast?  It's the simplest of holidays, and when you have three little boys, simple is so very good.

I'm sad to say I did not complete my October challenges, but I do plan on carrying them into November and find a few more ways to pamper myself.  After all, it is a much less stressful month.  Our weekly Nature Cove escapades ends next week.  There's only two weeks left of soccer.  I can take a little bit of time for myself.  

But, to get to the very exciting part, I'm already ahead of myself for my November challenge.  When I first moved in with my husband, he encouraged me to find a hobby that would allow me to bond with his sister and sister-in-law; thus, I picked up scrapbooking.  I might as well have picked up a cigarette because it's just as expensive and addictive and carries just as much guilt with it as any nicotine habit.  Here's the deal with scrapbooking.  When you're child-less, you have basically all the time and money in the world to support a scrapbook habit, but you have very little worth scrapbooking.  This kids come along leaving you with thousands of pictures and no time or money to put them all in books, and you're left feeling guilt-ridden, especially with the younger ones, who you haven't finished or even started their scrapbooks.

Such is my case.  And not only do I not have the time or money to support the habit, I no longer have the space.  There are amazing scrapbook/craft room designs on Pinterest.  My "scrapbook room" is my dining room.  I'm a very organized, Type-A person, but even the very term "scrap"booking suggests mess.  And that is what I have right now...a mess!

The challenge is to complete one scrapbook page for each day in the month of November.  A few months ago my BFF unloaded all her old scrapbooking materials on me, so I am good to go and shouldn't have to drop more than a few dollars, if any at all, to complete the challenge.  At first I was going to complete one page, start to finish, each day, but upon beginning my first page, I realized this was going to be a challenge.  With scrapbooking you have the layout involving all the pictures and paper.  Then you have the embellishments: stickers, ribbons, buttons, stamps, etc.  This means twice the amount of materials out at a given time.  So, I decided approach the challenge a bit differently.  For the first fifteen days, I'm going to layout fifteen pages, pictures and paper.  That will give me thirty pages, one for each day of the month.  For the remainder of the month, I'll bring out my embellishments and go to work on decorating and journal on each page.  I already have four page layouts complete thanks to Pinterest.

And I feel no pressure.  I did a little bit at first, but once I made the adjustment and kept my embellishments tucked away, I really just absorbed myself in looking through old pictures of my babies.  My focus is Eli's and Milo's baby books, not yet complete.  My husband even sat with me for a few minutes to look through the pictures.  It was so very nice.

Needless to say, November has been off to a wonderful start.  And this morning, a little something extra happened that kind of made my day, a little bit.  Two years ago I was struggling with the fact that I really had very little friends here.  I decided to go to a Mom's Club new members event at a park.  For those of you who don't know, a Mom's Club is a support/social/network group for moms.  I was the only mom there who had three children.  Most only had one new baby and a few had a toddler and a new baby.  Then there was me, juggling three.  Okay, fine.

Well, the vice-president of the club was there with her son, and she happened to be the only other resident of the town where I lived.  Her main topic of conversation was how they were leaving and moving to a four-bedroom house in a much better school district and what would they ever do with four-bedrooms and maybe they'd have another baby since they did now have four bedrooms.  Up comes my little Eli for lunch and sweet as can be sits at the table and bites into a peanut butter sandwich.  Only it wasn't his peanut butter sandwich; it was the kid who has four bedroom's peanut butter sandwich.  My knee-jerk reaction was to gasp and shout, "That's not yours!" leaving my own little boy in tears.  Now, here was an opportunity for her to be human and forgiving and maybe even a bit concerned that a child she doesn't know who may or may not have a severe peanut allergy just bit into the peanut butter sandwich she left laying on the table.  Nope! She took the sandwich and threw it away.  I of course offered my profuse apologies and, even though I didn't expect her to accept, offered to give her the sandwich I had packed as a gesture.  She coldly said, "It's fine," turned her back, and proceeded to give me the cold shoulder for the remainder of the event.  I felt miserable and embarrassed, and left feeling even more alone than when I arrived.

I never attended another event, oddly not because of the incident, but because their events were for moms and babies, not moms with kids.  Everything took place during drop off and pick up times for my older boys' schools.  I took it as a sign that maybe yet another social outlet was not for me.

Skip ahead two years, and I find myself at the Nature Cove with you-know-who.  She has made no effort to acknowledge she knows me, but given the energy, I am pretty sure she remembers.  Maybe not?  My husband always accuses me of remembering "insignificant" events.  Could it be that she found it "insignificant" and no longer remembers me?  She surely didn't treat it as insignificant and my embarrassment was not easily gotten over given her reaction.

So there we were standing  looking at this giant brush pile and learning about what types of animals might choose to hibernate there.  Milo, for some unexplained reason, was very attentive and very interested in the possible weasels, snakes, and groundhogs that could be inhabiting the pile of branches.  Suddenly, he and I were hit from behind with a giant branch.  Milo was hit in the head.  The sun was shining very brightly and when I turned to see what happened it appeared the branch came from nowhere, but suddenly there she was grasping her son's arm who was crying, forcing him into an apology.  Apparently, he had come up behind us and kicked the stick at us, probably unintentionally hitting us.  But, dear me, did her son make a mistake?  A mistake all little boys make?  Was it possible?  It felt just a little bit good that she stood there embarrassed.  Her kid was a monster that day, pushing other kids and being fairly unruly as opposed to Eli on that day in the park who made an honest mistake.

Does it make me a bad person that I felt just a bit giddy on the inside?  We don't see karma in action all too often, and her treatment of me that day at, of all places, a new member welcoming event, stung.  I am not a mom who has it all together.  I don't pretend to be, and though I am self-conscious of myself as a mother, I still don't put on to be anyone other than that crazy lady with three boys who loses it more often than she'd like. Maybe it makes me a bad person, maybe it doesn't, but I'm not perfect and, damn, neither is she!  Ha! Ha!

I love November!       

The Busiest Time of the Year

It has never failed that the end of October has always been the busiest time of the year, and this year is certainly no exception.  We're busy all the time, but the end of October has a frantic feel to me, always has, even as a child.  I guess it's that time of the year when all the fall activities not only have resumed, but are in full-speed-ahead motion.  As a child, it was dancing, band, and chorus.  As a mom, it's soccer, scouts, soccer, and scouts.  On top of it all is Halloween parades and parties and costumes and pumpkins culminating in a giant bowl of candy to ease the hysteria.

I kind of, sort of forgot about this when planning this challenge of "me" time.  I did make my hair appointment, but it's not until the 4th.  Close enough.  I think I can fit in the pedicure on Friday morning, but that still leaves me with three more pampering ideas to complete my challenge.  I simply cannot think about it tonight.

What am I thinking about?  For the first time in weeks, my husband and I will be able to enjoy a dinner alone while watching three of our favorite shows.  And, I'm excited to be finishing my book.  After Jane Eyre, in celebration of the season, I picked up L.M. Montgomery's collection of short stories Among the Shadows.  The stories all show a bit of a darker side of my favorite author, ranging from ghost stories to tales of loss, revenge, and failure.

And this is probably all you'll hear from me until November as I'll be diving into a Pampered Chef show (I'm a faltering consultant, but what the hell, let me do a show right before Halloween), craft supplies, pumpkin carvings, costume readying, etc., etc.  Happy Halloween!

Well, This Challenge Isn't Going All Too Great

Here I am awake in the early morning hours of my birthday.  I've found lately that if I don't take a mild sleeping agent, and something wakes me up in the middle of the night (i.e. cat, plus in this case the baby fell out of bed) it is virtually impossible to go back to sleep.  It's when all the anxieties of the day rush in and there is nothing to busy myself to keep them at bay.  Not only is it my birthday, but it's exactly six days away from the end of October, which means I have something like seven challenges to complete in the way of pampering myself.  What the hell was I thinking trying to pamper myself?  We're not even making enough money to cover our monthly bills!  There is literally not a penny to spend on any act of pampering.

That said, here's what I've accomplished so far:

1.  I've worn make up pretty much every day for the month of October (and my skin has never looked better as a result).

2.  I've attempted to wear cute outfits every day as well, though some days have been a flop, and it wasn't even like I didn't care on those days.  Things I thought would look cute turned out very stodgy. My fashion mojo just isn't what it was, but this month has been all about getting it back, so I'm going to ease up on myself for those days.

3.  Metamucil.  Yep, been drinking that pretty much every day and I don't need to go into any more detail there.

4.  I haven't made the appointment yet, but my mom gave me money for a haircut.  On my birthday, sometime today, I will call and make the appointment.  And I have a box of color, so I'll do that after the cut.

5.  All right, this one is a bit far fetched, but I'm going to include it.  There is a theme I have been coming across quite regularly the past few years.  I'm pretty sure there are several quotes in the Bible regarding it, and Ghandi even has a quote that circulates pretty frequently as well as Thoreau.  The basic principle is that the path to true happiness is stepping outside of yourself, giving yourself to others.  It is when you turn your attention to the needs of the world, and not on yourself, that is when happiness will come to you.  I realize that the entire theme of this months's challenges is centered around selfish acts, but in all actuality, though I do give an awful lot of myself to my family, I give very little to the world just for the sake of giving.  Everything I give up for my husband and children is to make their lives better, which in turn makes my life better, so what if I did something that was completely for someone else and really had no bearing on my life whatsoever?

Two weeks ago my friend called me up and told me the pastor of her church was coming over to teach her how to make plastic mats for the homeless.  Yeah, sure.  Why not?  It's a crochet project that involves taking plastic grocery bags--nine hundred of them!--cutting them into loops, tying the loops together to make "plarn", and then crocheting the yarn into mats.  It wasn't until I met with the pastor that day and got the logistics of how much these mats are appreciated that I realized how important is was to be apart of the project.  The mats are twenty-eight inches across and six feet long with a little folded over pocket at the top.  People can stuff clothing in there to make a pillow, or use it to stow their belongings.  The plastic is two-fold, it is both an insulator (try wrapping yourself up in plastic and see how hot you get) and a not-quite-waterproof mat.  A lot of water will come up through the tiny holes, but overall it will protect from a damp ground.  Apparently the homeless go nuts over them.  Well, I don't really know if that's the best terminology, but they like them a lot.  Puts things in perspective, right?

So that's halfway to my mark.  The mat won't be done by the end of October, not even close, but I've been cutting bags every day and there is something therapeutic in the monotony of "plarning".

6.  My toes are in desperate need of some TLC, and since I can't afford a professional pedicure, I guess I'll try my hand at an amateur one.  I'm OK at this, but it's not as comfortable balancing on the ledge of my bathtub scrubbing my own feet, as those big, cushy salon chairs, but my feet feel and look good in the end.

7.  And today, we are going to a pumpkin patch.  We're taking a hayride and letting the boys pick out some pumpkins.  This hardly sounds like an act of pampering, but I have found that excursions like this are when we are all at our best.  It is very hard for me to separate myself from all the chores and worries my house affords me, and while I do try to spend quality time with my kids, I am best at it away from home.  It's always a great day and makes me feel like a good, 100 percent in-the-moment mom.

As for 8, 9, and 10, I'm completely stumped.  I guess I'll head over to Pinterest and see if any new innovative ideas have popped up.  And though that isn't the most profound ending of a post, it is nonetheless my ending.  I have preoccupied my mind enough that I am again tired, so I'm going to try sleep again.

Bear (or is it Bare?) With Me

You're just going to have to bear with me on this one.  I'm on my second dirty martini.  I haven't had a dirty martini in almost three years, for reasons I'm too embarrassed to disclosed, but today it has come to that.  Apparently, Mercury is in retrograde, or something, whatever the hell that means, and supposedly this means tensions are running high and electronics are on the fritz.  Ha!  The two year old somehow cut power from the remote to the television leaving us to watch Disney XD for the rest of our liiiiivvvveees.  My work has taken twice the amount of time to complete seeing as how I cannot have multiple documents of Word, and multiple pages of Chrome functioning simultaneously.  AND, I've found myself crafting long emails to my sons' teachers and the superintendent of the district, which again is taking twice the amount of time as it normally should, making it twice the amount of stress.

I am very supportive of public education, which of course means that I picked one of the shittiest public school districts in the state of New Jersey to live in.  I mean, it's the bottom of the barrel if you don't count Camden, Newark, and Trenton.  We're small and we're stupid, apparently, and being an educator myself who primarily worked with the dregs of the society, it frustrates me to no end how mismanaged and misinformed the district is.  People are moving out of town at an alarming rate just to avoid the dreaded high school, and here I am, too broke to move and too broke to afford private school, trying to "affect change" so my children can get the same quality education as the elitist school district two minutes from my house.  NO. ONE. IS. LISTENING!  I cannot bear to go into the details once more, but in short, I taught state testing classes for six years and had a pass rate that exceeded the district's pass rate by 30 percent.  I kinda know what I'm talking about, and I've been blown off by the principal and superintendent with educator jargon and buzz words that's meant to sound good and appease me, but sorry douche bags, I can read right on through it.  Your test scores are failing year after year, you have no idea how to read your data, and your shooting blind.

On top of this, Eli is having some behavioral issues in the first grade.  This in no way comes as a surprise to me; however, the teacher is being completely unhelpful.  The kid made it to "red" last week, which to my understanding means a referral to the office or at least some communication home.  You know how I know he was on "red"?  He told me.  Nothing from the teacher.  Nothing.  I emailed her yesterday to say that I was concerned about his behavior and that I was setting up a rewards system for him.  Today, he didn't know what color he was on and when I asked her, neither did she.  Hmmm.....  She said she yelled at him, but refused to let me know if he was on an acceptable "color".  Ugh!  Did he, or did he not have a good day??  I just emailed you yesterday that I have a frickin' sticker chart, but it's not effective if you don't know what damn color the kid was on!    I get the feeling that she's hinting at him having ADHD because the only feedback that I get from her is that he's not focused.  Yet, the kid is excelling in all subject areas.  From what I can tell, all the behavior issues are during unstructured or transitional times of the day. Though of course I can't be sure of this because the only detailed feedback I'm getting is from the six year old.

Oh, and did I mention that my vet is refusing to give my dog her vaccinations unless I schedule a separate office visit after my follow up with the ophthalmologist, which will cost me about a hundred bucks more??  Did I?  Did I mention that?  Yep, and when I asked to speak to the vet we see for regular visits, they didn't want to give him the message.  After three requests, they finally said they would let him know to call me, but failed to mention that he'd be out of town for the week.  <giant deep breath>

Fuck you, Mercury!!!

I did, however, wear a cute outfit today, that only a few people saw over at the school.  Jeans and all.

God is Working in My Life...Not Exactly How I Thought, But Working Nonetheless

Little did I know when I posted my constipation/Metamucil post that God was working in my life.  I got the results of my MRI a couple days ago only to find out that my kidneys are fine (two benign cysts), but I have gallstones.  Gallstones!  So I crochet, I drink Metamucil, and I have gallstones.  Yep!  I am definitely on old lady.  Here I thought I was being all kinds of cute and funny and original deciding to pamper myself by drinking Metamucil every day, but it was really God saying, "You need a good flushing, honey!"  

Have you ever googled gallstones?  I don't recommend it unless it's absolutely necessary.  My objective in researching it was to find out about diet changes I might need to make and any home remedies I could apply.  I have no symptoms, so I'd like to take care of this before I would require surgery.  Instead my brain was bombarded with images of black, green, and yellow balls of gunk.  They looked like a Play-doh concoction my boys came up with, and try as I might, I could not get the vision of these disgusting things sitting inside of me out of my head.  And that was when I had my first gallbladder attack.  I think it was more a combination of my imagination running wild with my anxiety and creating a pain in my side that never existed before.  I only get the pain when I think about having the stones.  

Thus, I am simultaneously trying to go into denial about having them at all and alter my diet to get rid of them. I already have an unhealthy amount of guilt over the food I eat in the course of a week, but now I get to think about the Play-doh sitting in my stomach every time I look at a potato chip.  Reading about diets for medical conditions on the internet is a complete waste of time.  In the course of a half hour, I was advised to avoid gluten, but increase my fiber content with whole grains, such as whole wheat.  It specifically said that--whole wheat.  One article said to reduce fiber content.  Most of them said to reduce cholesterol and fat intake and have a vegetarian lifestyle.  And I can't eat full-fat cheese or salty foods.  Just check me into the old folks home now and check off "bland mush" at the cafeteria.  

I am trying.  I am really, really trying to live a healthy life, and compared to so many others, I do.  I try not to buy a lot of processed food, and if it is processed, I try to make it as minimally processed and natural as I can find it.  We don't eat a lot of fast food, but yes, I take my kids to McDonald's.  Let's be real here.  McDonald's might as well be magic beans.  Every time I go there my kids are well-behaved, eat all their dinner, and like apples.  All of them!  I can't cut it out altogether!  I need to have a place where we look like a normal, happy family, and I'm sad to say it, but McDonald's is that place!  Once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, I will go to McDonald's.  And this only happens like once a year, but sometimes I will buy a creamy wedge of brie at Wegman's, a French baguette, and eat it--all--in the course of  twenty-four hours.  And I don't do it because I'm depressed or trying to fill a void in my life.  I do it because it's Just. That. Good.

And that is where I stand right now.  I haven't thought of a fourth way to pamper myself this week.  I'm just trying to enjoy not having cancer and trying not to obsess over the cheesesteak pizza sitting there at the pizzeria, covered in steak, bacon, and American cheese calling me to come and partake, and we'll forever be united as it sits in a little cholesterol deposit in my gall bladder.

TMI

This past weekend I took to researching some ways to pamper myself.  Most of what I found was DIY spa treatments.  I'm reluctant to use these as I have rosacea and, as with moth people who suffer from the condition, extremely sensitive skin.  I think I'll leave that to the experts, which I can't afford right now, so....Anyway, I came across a few lists along the lines of " (Insert random number) Ways to Pamper Yourself" most of which were for free or low cost.  What did I find?  Do yoga.  Journal.  Read a good book. Yeah, thanks!  I got that!  Some said to read a book to a child and go for a walk in the woods.

I guess pampering yourself is a relative business.  That, or, I'm living the life!  I always find it funny to come across a person who has to make it purposeful to pick up and read a book.  It's such a matter of habit for me.  Most nights I can't even fall asleep unless I've read something.  My boys come home with reading logs every year from school.  I hate them!  No one who reads for enjoyment charts how many minutes she's read.  If that's how we read, we'd all hate it.  No one would read.  And yet, the schools shove them down our kids' throats year after year with the same results...non-readers.  I have yet to meet a grown up who enjoys reading say that doing reading logs changed their minds about reading.  For me personally, it wasn't until I got into high school, where reading logs are pretty much abandoned, that I really began reading for pleasure.  So, yes, at the risk of sounding snobbish, I suppose I regularly pamper my mind/intellect.

OK, great.  The lists have left me feeling good about at least one part of my life.  But, I still need to treat myself to seven more activities.  I have been very good about wearing makeup every day and actual outfits. So this weekend, as I was sitting bloated after a cheesesteak pizza night, pampering idea #3 came to me.

During my first pregnancy I experienced terrible constipation.  There!  I said it.  I repeatedly told my doctors at every visit and the reply was always the same, "Every woman does.  That's part of pregnancy."  But, just because everyone else experiences while pregnant, doesn't mean that I have ever experienced it before.  I had no idea how to treat it other than eat fiber, but I was so sick, I wasn't eating much of anything.  Then one day I came home from work, ran to the bathroom with terrible pains and I couldn't go.  Nothing.  Nada.  My husband forgot his cell phone at home and I was left to rely on my neighbors to take me in pain and smelling like a sewage plant to the doctors office.  The one doctor in the group I hadn't yet seen couldn't believe how constipated I actually was and asked why I hadn't been drinking Metamucil.  I had no idea what Metamucil was except that it was orange and my Nana drank it every day with her lunch.  I certainly didn't think it'd be appropriate to drink while pregnant.  That isn't covered in the book.

I drank a glass of it every day while pregnant after that, and it made me feel great.  It even relieved some of my morning sickness.  Sal was born and I abandoned the practice as I could then return to a more fiber-filled diet.  Pregnancy Two was OK, and then the constipation struck again during Pregnancy Three.  I had heard from a nurse practitioner about a tea that relieves constipation, so I thought I'd try that.  You know what the tea is called?  You won't believe me when I tell you, but I swear I'm not lying--Smooth Move.  Truth!  I swear.  Well, let's just say it's a very ambitious tea and does its job very well, so have your reading material stocked.  I returned to old faithful Metamucil and once again abandoned it after Milo was born.

Since I'm nearly thirty-eight, I now realize why my Nana drank the Metamucil after eating a bowl of bran flakes.  After Milo, my body just didn't bounce back like it did before no matter what I ate.  As you get older, you need a little help in that department.  <sigh>  So there you have it.  Way 3 is to drink a glass of Metamucil once a day.  I started it Friday night and I've already got more spring to my step.  It's not the most orthodox pampering method, but it does make me feel good and it's 60 seconds of my day that I purposefully set aside to do something just for me.

Sorry for the detail.  I'll try to make Ways 4-10 a little more pleasant to the reader's ear.

Happy Birthday Month to Me!

I have to keep reminding myself that we are only on Day 2 of October because for some strange reason it feels like the month has dragged on and I have accomplished nothing in spite of it.  Lucky for me, we are only on Day 2 and I have the whole month ahead of me to make good on my October challenge.

First, let me get you all caught up a bit on the events of the past two days.  The dog, two and a half weeks, three vet appointments, and $750 later is suffering from dry eye.  Her blood work came back perfectly normal and we've switched eye drops resulting in a near 99% improvement in her eyes.  

I had blood work done on Tuesday in preparation for my MRI on my kidney, and that, too, came back perfectly normal which has allowed me to stop obsessing somewhat.  I actually straightened up a few rooms today and went grocery shopping.

And lastly, Sal's cast came off today.  We're still a little weary that he doesn't re-injure his wrist in the course of his ninja training moves, but overall that situation is moving forward nicely.  And that is where we are at the moment.  My MRI is tomorrow, and praying all is okay there, we can then move forward from that.

I realized today in the shower that the month of September was pretty rotten, not horrible or tragic, but just filled with crap.  I'm a bit amazed at myself for having taken this long to come to this realization.  Yeah, I was having bad days, but I didn't really think about being in a rut.  Typically, when things are going rough I'll say something to the effect of, "I just have to get through to the end of the month," or "As soon as x,y, or z happens, then life will start looking brighter."  I didn't say that once this month.  This week I said it because I am anxious to get this MRI finished, but overall, I took most of these life challenges in stride, ticking items off my to-do list one at a time, adding on items as needed, ticking those off in stride.  I haven't really had any groundbreaking epiphany on the meaning of life or finding happiness, but I did manage to get through the month with...can I even say it?...grace?  Not Jackie O. grace, but no major meltdown, pity-me, my life sucks sort of episodes.  I guess I can say the September challenge was a success.

Sadly, I did find myself in tears today.  It was work related, so I don't want to go into too much detail, but let's just say my job which when it switched owners seemed so full of promise and potential at actually allowing me to be somewhat creative as an educator has proven to just be what it has always been.  I created something really good.  Something that would allow our parents and students to get to know us as educators and gave resources for them to foster a cooperative working relationship with me.  I had run it by my bosses and even copied everyone on the finished product, and it had received no response.  No response in this business is the norm, and typically if there is no response, I have carried on as planned.  It's funny and irksome to me that all my emails prior to today regarding this idea, an idea that could have been adopted as company policy, couldn't receive a response, but not thirty minutes after sending it out to my first parent, I got a phone call from one of my bosses telling me not to use it for reasons, quite frankly, that make no sense to me, and if I could say more, I would, but you will all just have to trust me that my work was done well and in excellent judgment and is similar to what classroom teachers across the country use in their own communication with parents.  

Most educators want to be a force for good in their students' lives, and that just doesn't happen very often in virtual education.  Today I was stifled in accomplishing that.  I was condescended to and treated not as a person with an education and trained skill set, but more like a fast food worker who assembled the toppings of the burger in the wrong order even though maybe the burger would be that much tastier.  (And now I'm craving a cheeseburger....Figures!)

I did confide in my mom about my frustrations, and she put it as I needed to hear it:  It's a job, and until something better comes along, you give them what they pay you for and no more.  So, yup, that's about it.  It's a job.

And since I'm not allowed to give something of myself to my job, this birthday month I'm giving something back to me.  October is all about me and these first two days I'm off to a great, monumental start (many stay-at-home moms will feel me on this):  I wore jeans two days in a row and I put on foundation both days.  I wanted to come up with ten ways in which to pamper myself for the month of October.  Ways 1 and 2 are as follows:

1.  Put on at least foundation, possibly some eye makeup and lip gloss, every day for the month of October.  I developed rosacea during my first pregnancy and it never really cleared up after that.  I've never had great skin, but the rosacea has proven very challenging as it is painful and has caused many comments from others.  Most makeups I tried exacerbated the problem, but my salon gave me samples of their product a couple of years ago and it was amazing the difference.  It actually helped the condition.  So there is absolutely no good reason other than the fact that I was just too lazy about myself to put it on in the morning.  

2.  I'm not going to dress like a bum every day.  I have accumulated enough basic wardrobe pieces that are comfortable, yet fashionable that I can wear throughout the week.  I might need one or two more pairs of pants, but in general, I should be able to look somewhat put together and not wear stained sweatpants that are six years old and look more like twenty.

I haven't quite figured out Ways 3 through 10.  I definitely want to do something for my hair, so that will work it's way in there somehow.  I haven't had a haircut in over a year.  I'm so ashamed!  My salon recently sent out their October specials, so I'm hoping to also put something in place in terms of a massage or manicure or pedicure.  For the rest I will have to do some research.  Money is very tight, so I'm going to need to be creative.  

There you go!  I'll put my creativity to someone who would appreciate it and needs it desperately--ME! 

  

September's End

So, my first month's challenge came to a close today.  My nights have been consumed in deep prayer as I face this MRI of my kidney.  I googled stuff.  It was a mistake.  The word cancer came up quite a bit.  My mind has gone to some pretty awful scenes.  I'm trying not to worry about it until there's something to worry about.  It hasn't been going well.  And then I start worrying that I'm worrying and could potentially create negative energy in my body which could cause something that might not be anything into something.  I don't really understand it either, but my thoughts have been consumed.

I read that twenty-one days of something causes it to be a habit, so I guess I'm in the habit of praying and yoga.  Sadly, I did not do yoga today.  I was kind of a bum today and I feel guilty over not doing it because, you know, it was part of my 30 day challenge.  But, I'm going to get over it and keep on doing yoga throughout the next month.

Tomorrow the dog goes back to the vet, and I hope to regroup with whatever that fate may be.  For now, I'm heading to bed, saying my prayers, and getting through another night.

New-found Inspiration

Yesterday I had my MRI of my lower back and x-rays of my hips.  The good news is that my hips are fine.  No disease that involves my hip sockets being too small.  The semi-bad news is that I do have permanent damage to a couple vertebrae of my back and a slightly bulging disk that is putting pressure on my spine.  It's irreversible, but with weight-loss and exercise, I can manage the pain.  The weird news, which I have been instructed by my chiropractor not to worry about in any way, is that the MRI picked up a spot on my kidney.  Because the test focused in on my spine, this spot could be anything, but it is there nonetheless; thus leaving me with yet another MRI to endure.  Like I said, I was instructed not in way to worry about this because like half of his patients have to have the test redone and they always come back as nothing, and then he launched into a story about a woman who had a routine MRI on a fairly common hip injury only to show she had advanced bone cancer and was dead five weeks later.  Yeah, I'm not worrying at all!

So, while I was lying in the tube for the MRI, I spent my time worrying about my dog.  Her eye yesterday morning was clearly worse and someone on Facebook asked if they had ruled out diabetes.  She has lost some weight, so I began obsessing.  Whenever I start to obsess, I always try to find something to move the situation forward.  When I got home, I called the vet and asked to bring her in for blood work as they are probably going to order it next Wednesday anyway, and this way the results will be in by the follow up appointment allowing us to proceed forward even earlier.  This eased my mind.

Now I call my parents every day, and I realized yesterday afternoon that I hadn't yet called them.  I am a complete and total idiot and pretty much have reached a stage in my life where I feel comfortable sharing most anything, not everything, but most anything with my mom.  Fool that I am, I told her about both the kidney MRI and dog's blood test.  She basically launched into her sob story of how she was awake at two in the morning already worrying about the dog and why do I need to tell her all this stuff and she doesn't want to know about any of it, blah, blah, blah.  My mother is a worrier, too, and while I am sympathetic to her emotions and that she is still a mother, her choice of words was just way too selfish to endure as it is MY kidney and MY dog and these are MY struggles.

I tried to point out to her that there are people in my life who we don't share things with because their lack of sympathy, understanding, and support is too much to bear.  I didn't want to, but if I needed to move her into that category of people, I would, and if I can't share things with my mom, who can I share things with?  Isn't this what we as mothers want?  A child who still feels comfortable confiding in us and seeks us out for solace?  I, of course, was accused of "yelling" at her and stressing her out even more and "why do you do this to me?"  Like I devised this wonderful collection of illnesses within my family just to screw with her sleep.  I told her that maybe she needs to manage her stress a little better, and while this is going to sound coarse, I can assure you I said it as kindly as possible, and I told her that maybe she needs to do something other than popping a Xanax (and this I didn't say, but thought, or fixing a gin and tonic).  A walk or some yoga stretches might do her some good.

I suppose at this point I should tell you that both my parents struggle with alcoholism.  My father is a Vietnam veteran who suffers from PTSD and had a pretty significant, fall-down-drunk problem for a good fifteen years after the war.  His drinking is now completely in check, but he still struggles with depression and anger. My mother is at least a second, maybe third or even fourth, generation alcoholic.  It's a very long soap opera-y story, but basically while my mother was at college, my grandfather attempted to make my grandmother think she was crazy and have her committed and locked away permanently so he could live a life of drinking and petty crime with his mistress/grandmother's best friend.  This kind of wrecked my mom, and I give her a lot of credit because she is really very well put together in most aspects of her life.  But, at night the alcohol usually comes out and she'll have a stiff drink or two.  What she does is actually very well accepted by society and most people wouldn't consider her to have a problem, but anyone who knows alcoholism knows that it has many faces, and when it enters a person's life as a coping mechanism, well, you've got a problem.

My dad got on me this morning because of how I treated her last night.  Let's forget the fact that I am the one who is actually going through all these things.  I let him talk and then told him what I said and how I said it, which of course he didn't hear and she didn't tell him.  He said he'd talk to her, and then launched into how he saw the doctor for a common cold, got an antibiotic, which he doesn't need and overuses, and then said the doctor prescribed some sort of pill to relax him.  Now, this isn't meant to be a commentary on anti-depressants or Xanax or anything because I am not an expert on that, but I am kind of an expert on my parents and I can tell you that I think their quality of life would greatly improve with some exercise and diet. When they turned sixty-five, they declared themselves "old" and pretty much stopped all extraneous activity.  My dad is fully retired and my mom works three days a week and they don't even take walks anymore.

The conversation ended with my dad telling me he wasn't come down next Wednesday to watch Milo while I'm at the veterinary ophthalmologist because he has to drive to the Poconos on Monday and they are leaving for their cruise the following Saturday and, well, that's just one thing too much.  I'm sure the cruise trip is really stressful.  So, I'm stuck.  It's not that I can't take the two year old with me.  It's that I would kind of like to focus my attention on one thing.  I'm not really sure what the vet is going to tell me that day.

Compared to some, my parents are very supportive and I'm very thankful for their support.  But, compared to others, damn!  I fight for that support.  Sometimes I even beg for it.  Sometimes I call them up on the phone in tears having a meltdown pleading for a little bit of help.  And I plead only because I know they are capable of giving it.  Just once, I'd like to not have to beg.  Just once I'd like for a family member to say, "I got this.  Do what you have to do.  Take your time.  Take care of what you need to."  Not once.

So last night I went to bed early.  I read a chapter in Jane Eyre, did some deep breathing, and sprayed some lavender linen spray on my pillow.  I gave thanks for the blessings in my life and I went to sleep.  I woke up early this morning and did my AM yoga routine with a little eight year old boy in tow who was gassing while I was attempting to do downward facing dog.  I ended my day yesterday with a clear mind and I began today with a fresh mind.  Am I worrying?  Well, yeah!  You don't get rid of thirty-eight years of conditioning and how many generations of anxiety in one month, but I'm managing.  I am drug free, prescription and otherwise, and though I do enjoy a nice glass of wine or a crisp dirty martini, I can freely say I am not an alcoholic...yet.

And with that in mind, while there was a piece of me who was thinking maybe to give up on this blog crap and I hadn't been really very good at sticking to the yoga and all that in the past week, I have some reminders of who I'd like not to completely become.