come visit me!

Today I'm posting over at Momalom!  Jen and Sarah have quite the site and following.  It was their Five for Ten series that motivated me into this blogging world.  Now I have the honor of posting for their MomMamaMommy! series.  I owe them lots for this wonderful community I've discovered.

Head on over and see what I have to say about the dynamics of three.  While you're there, check out their writing in the archives, subscribe to their feed and add them to your Twitter list.  Enjoy!

stifled

My heart is here but my head isn't.  Words and ideas swirl in my head like the dead leaves outside on a brisk fall day.  They click as they rustle never seeming to settle down.

I am disconnected, outside looking in.  Lurking.  I sit on the periphery engaging only sporadically.  Unfortunately in both the real and virtual worlds.

I am not living up to the title of this blog.  I am not saying all I want to say.  I've written before about how I cannot wear a veil.  I can make excuses but mostly I am stifled.  It appears that if I cannot write with honesty about things that matter, then I cannot write at all.  It feels false and unworthy of my time.

I need to find a balance though because I miss the community.  I miss the engagement at a time when I need it the most.   Of course my real-world friends are here for me but there's something to be said for the online world.  It is always "on" with no need to coordinate schedules, drive anywhere or find babysitters.  You can reach out and find people to connect with regardless of, maybe even because of, your idiosyncrasies.  At any given time you can find someone.  And it's good to have someone even if there are words left unspoken.

My Pink Network

Christine over at Coffees and Commutes wrote about her Pink Network and inspired me to write about mine.  

I've always considered myself to be "one of the guys" and valued that classification.   It was difficult for me to make friends with girls.  Their interests were not my own; their games repulsive at times.  But I've always had a few girl friends - and a few good ones at that.  So few that I can recount everyone of them since elementary school. 

Of course my first girl friend was my sister.  Growing up we had this love-hate relationship but if either of us was in trouble, we had each other's back - no questions asked. 

And then there was Laura.  We played Barbie dolls forever, took rides around the block, got stung by bees and swam all summer long.  Brenda and I stole cigarettes from our mothers' packs and hid out by the barn, coughing and hacking away.  Iris was there as we hung out and did science projects together.  We fell out of touch but as weird things go, we ended up renting rooms in the same house our senior year in college.  Freaky. 

High school was such a miserable time in my life.  I hated it.  I hated the girls.  I hated the popularity contest.  I didn't fit in with any click even though it was a school of 1,600+.  But there were a few shiny pinks in the midst - Ellen with her gorgeous hair - dark auburn with this natural curl you could never fake with a bottle of perming solution.  Michelle, Kathy, Heather - those were my girls - and thanks to Facebook we had a bit of a reunion a few summers ago.  I don't keep in touch as much as I'd like, but I still feel close to them.

College was a small but awesome pink experience.  There were really only two friends for me - Rebecca and Kim.  All three of us RAs.  You know, Resident Assistants, those pesky annoying people who made you follow the rules in your dorm.  We were all very different then, and yet not so much.  We shared less than ideal childhoods and we all took that damn job because we needed it to get through school.  Interestingly enough, we all got degrees in education.  I've lost touch with Rebecca even though we still exchange Christmas cards.  But, I know if I picked up the phone and we both (miraculously) had a spare minute to talk, we'd be right back in the thick of it.

Kim I'm a little more connected with courtesy of Facebook.  Here is another freaky story.  Kim is still back in Connecticut and she married her high school sweetheart, Tim.  Tim has a brother Jonathan.  Jonathan lives in California.  One day I got a note from Kim saying that her brother-in-law moved to my town.  Not only did he move to my town, but he moved to about a mile away and now Kim's sister-in-law is one of my trusted friends, and part of my pink network.  Small world, huh?  Kim also was my first real pink experience.  She is a survivor - going on 10 years now.

And my pink network - we are a grounded set of girls.  I have friends like Cheryl (who married my ex-boyfriend - I know another freaky), LouAnne, Dee and Kim who have been friends for life - at least my life in California.   They have seen me at my worst and they have seen me at my best.   I have Leslie, Shawn and Erin - pool teammates I'm out with every Wednesday.  It's my one night out a week whether I need it or not.  Then there are Andrea, Jules, Brooke, Sonia, Larra and Barbara - the local girls always ready for a cosmo and a conversation.  And last I mention are the women who have bumped me up professionally.  Lucy, Susan (also a survivor) and Alisa, Valerie, Hope and Megan, most recently Barb.   These are the girls in my life and I would like them to stay here.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Do something.  For me, I support Susan G. Komen For The Cure.  Be aware.  Be generous.  Be true to your pink. 

today i am

Today I am the mother of two teenagers.  TWO.  Oh my gosh.  Help me now.  Question of the day:  how many gray hairs will I have when I'm done with this batch of three?

Many bloggers write notes either to or about their children on their birthdays.  My first was just this summer - one about my oldest.  It seemed to go okay so I thought I'd do another for my boy who just entered teenage wasteland.

I want to start this post with the story of how he was so, so close to not reaching this milestone.  It is categorized as the worst parenting experience of my life.  It was the day he almost died.  For real.

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I went back to work about three months after he was born.  I used the same childcare provider that watched my older boy as a baby.  She is loving and kind; a nice Persian woman who cooked the best food.  Her house was only two blocks from my office and she had no issues with me popping over at lunch to go nurse my sweet boys.  Sometimes she even fed me. Bonus!

My childcare provider was, however, a bit dramatic about illness.  Or maybe I was too cavalier.  Or too worried about keeping my job.  Or doing my job well.  Whatever it was, it always seemed like she was calling me telling me my child was sick and I needed to come pick him up.  My definition of sick and her definition didn't match and it was often a source of irritation with me. 

So one January day, when Danny was about four months old, she called.  She has a thick accent and was talking very quickly telling me I had to take my child to the doctor.   Slightly irritated with yet another call, I found it difficult to make sense of what she was saying.  Between her accent and English as a second language, she was talking too quickly for me to understand her.  She just kept repeating that I had to come now and take my son to the doctor.   I asked her what was wrong and she said that she had to do CPR.  That didn't make sense, or perhaps I didn't want to believe. She again repeated that she had to do CPR and I had to come right away.

My heart started racing.  From this point forward, everything is a blur.  I told her I'd be right there, hung up the phone, babbled something to someone on the way out of the office that I had to go because my childcare provider had to do CPR.  I didn't know what to think.  Clearly she must be mistaken or exaggerating.  But I flew like the wind anyway.

I ran up to her door and knocked furiously.  I will never forget the sight when that door swung open.  There, in my childcare provider's arms, was my dear sweet baby boy.  Purple hands, purple feet, purple lips.  He kept trying to pick his head up off her shoulder but it kept flopping right back down.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I grabbed him out of her arms and into mine and started asking questions.  Question number one - did you call 9-1-1?  She had not.  I think I yelled at her, asked her why not and yelled at her to do it NOW!  Call 9-1-1 NOW!  And she did.

Waiting that interminable wait for the ambulance, my sweet baby's head flopping up and down on my shoulder, only then did I see how distressed was my childcare provider.  Yet another knock that this is real.  We talked.  I got more of the story - my baby had been napping and she just felt like checking on him.  She opened the door to find him blue and unresponsive.  She did what she was trained to do and called me. 

First the fire truck arrived, then shortly thereafter the ambulance.  I could tell by how the paramedics were acting that they knew the situation was serious.  More reality check - this is real.  We went off by ambulance to the hospital - well I know he went.  I honestly cannot recall if I was in the ambulance or not.  I have no idea.

I know I called my husband at some point but he was all the way in San Francisco and it would take him some time to arrive.  I was alone and scared and then I remembered.  One of my first friends after moving to California is a trauma nurse - she works in the ER.  I inquired and she was working that day.   She came to me. She held my hand and would not leave me alone.  She gave me real information.  Information that helped me think logically.  Information that calmed me down. 

We made it past the crisis and spent the next five days in the hospital.  They ran every test imaginable with no conclusive results.  Finally the pediatrician said the only thing they would say was that if Danny had died it would be classified as a SIDS death.

There is so much more to this story - the following months, monitors, nursing gone awry, relationships with childcare providers - for now, though, this is enough.

This is enough for me to know every single day that I am so damn lucky to have Danny here.  How things could have turned out so differently if not for the happenstance check my childcare provider did at that critical moment.

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He is my boy, who at the age of four, cried many nights because he didn't want to grow up. He is easy-going with a (more) quiet nature than my other two, but at times will flash with anger.  He is affectionate, loving and curious. He is so different than either of my other boys, but of course that is to be expected, I think.

I've always described him as my boy who skips through life. Happy birthday Danny.

one long weekend

You'd think with a title like that something good will follow.  Well, that is not the case.  My husband is out of town to meet up with friends and watch a college football game back in Tennessee.  This means that I have three children and all their activities to coordinate.  It means relying on help from neighbors which I hate.  I like to be self-sufficient.

But my weekend was long not because of the endless tasks needing to be accomplished (which I did by the way!).  It was long because of the seemingly endless sadness.  I think it's a conspiracy.

Saturday, after the soccer game and crew practice, but before the birthday party, I was catching up on some blog reading and watching tweets as they popped up.  One from Kristen at Motherese caught my eye.  It was a link to a post on Listen To Your Mother.  A post for Anna See.  A beautiful post, exquisite really, about the journey of grief and the idea that no one is alone and yet there are times when we are.  I've walked the path of grief and I know this to be true. 

I've found myself to be quite emotional over the past few weeks and finally made the connection.  I am a sensitive soul.  I feel what others feel and can sense it even if they don't speak it.  All the chatter and stories about 9/11 were affecting me.  Are affecting me.  I personally knew no one affected on that terrible day but it doesn't matter for me.  Even without television in my home, just the few catches of conversations on the radio, the town sign about the remembrance on Sunday, the brief glimpses while catching up on the news on the internet - all of it was bringing back those feelings.  Feelings of uncertainty.  Feelings of insecurity.  Feelings of fear.  Feeling that something had changed forever.

Saturday when I got home from the birthday party, my teen came out to tell me that Aunt Amy called - his aunt, my husband's sister.  She called to let us know that my husband's uncle passed away that morning, suddenly from a heart attack.  This is the second uncle in less than a year.

And this evening, just as I was sitting down with my three lovely boys for dinner, my phone rang.  It was a friend and former co-worker.  In tears.  She called to let me know that another friend and former co-worker passed away yesterday morning.  He was 38 years old and went out for a run.  A cyclist found him collapsed on the side of the road, the paramedics came, but he didn't make it.  A friend, a co-worker, a husband and father to two beautiful young children.  To think about these beautiful children, children we talked about throughout the day.  Children whose pictures I saw regularly on Facebook.  Children who no longer have a dad.  It breaks my heart.

And what I am going to take from all of this is perspective.  After dinner I went into my son's room on my way to give him a bath and saw the bright blue marker all over the cream-colored carpet and it didn't matter.  It's just carpet. 

pretend

How much do you pretend?

Life is good - that's an easy out.

I pretend that tears are not streaming down my face.

I pretend that my life isn't falling apart in one piece.

I pretend that my life isn't falling apart at all.

I pretend there is nothing wrong.

I pretend life is normal.

I pretend that the the decaying and leaking gutters don't have any symbolism in my life;
nor chipped paint on the exterior of my house;
nor the drip, drip, drip of the kitchen faucet;
nor the flaky television in the bedroom;
nor the mattress that doesn't provide support;
nor the towels that are thread-bare and thin.

The symbolism is disturbing. 

I pretend.  Do you?

should i let them sleep (revisited)?

It's back-to-school time again and I've been thinking about this topic I wrote and shared last year.  It is appropriate for me again so here it is re-posted, with a few edits.
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 These past seven days or so have been busy with all those back-to-school tasks. Go through clothing and toss that which no longer fits or simply is not presentable, throw out old markers run dry through use or time and, of course, get new stuff for the new year.

These tasks and to-do's as a parent are so easy and clear. There's no questioning, no debate. However, there's been this one back-to-school item that's been nagging at me for a few weeks now and that's the schedule and being on a schedule.

As an aside, any parent out there can tell you all the advice they rain down on you about getting your kid on a schedule. I am a very scheduled person. I like schedules. I like knowing what to expect and when to expect it. The concept, while appealing, doesn't necessarily hold true for all kids, but there was a time in my kids' lives where we were pretty darned scheduled. While it was good when they complied, it was nerve-racking when they didn't. No one ever told you what to do when your kid wouldn't stick to the schedule.

Anyway, now that my kids are getting older, they are naturally staying up later. No more 8:00 pm bedtimes. Even the six-seven-year-old has been staying up late, well past 10:00 11:00 pm almost regularly. That's what you get with the third kid. And who cares? He can sleep as late as he wants. I like that. I like that a lot because that means on weekends, I get to sleep late. Win-win if you ask me.

But that all needs to change, starting tonight. And hence my dilemma for the past week. I kept saying, the kids need to go to bed earlier and get up earlier so the start of school is not a shock. My husband and I agreed, but secretly I struggled. I mean, hey, it's their summer vacation. Shouldn't they be allowed to stay up late and sleep in late, especially the teenager? It is particularly difficult for me because I remember being that age and I remember sleeping until noon, until my mom came in and made some wisecrack about sleeping the day away. It was wonderful and I still enjoy long mornings snuggled under the covers.

And so I've waffled and been indecisive. And husband was no help. He doesn't care. And guess what? The kids really haven't been going to be earlier. Well, I've had them shutdown the computers and stop the TV and get in bed. But the sleep-time is still basically the same - way late, especially when I think that school starts tomorrow.

So last night, as I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I convinced myself that I needed to wake the boys up before I left for work. Wake them up at roughly the same time they need to be up tomorrow, so it isn't such a shock. But then as I was going through my motions in the morning, I somehow convinced myself that they didn't need to wake up. That depriving them of sleep for an additional day in the week would only make them more tired tomorrow. After all, the adrenaline of the first day of school will take care of any residual tiredness, right? And I let them sleep.  Nah, I made them get their butts out of bed!  And now you know they call me mean old mom.