-Got everyone into clean, matching clothes with decent shoes and sparkling faces, loaded them and lasagna with oven mitts and serving things and this and that into the van, put Rock and Learn Spanish on the van's dvd player. Yes, we ended up with one of THOSE vans O_o There was no other way to get the "Skyview ceiling". But I figure I'll just only use it for educational purposes like this when they're stuck on errand running. Anyway, halfway up the highway into Miami a whole load of branches and underbrush blew out of a pickup truck bed and onto the minivan in front of me, causing the truck to swerve wildly in panic and the minivan to come to a screeching blinded halt. I went from 75 mph to dead stopped on the middle of the Turnpike with the other minivan sideways about 5 feet in front of me and the pickup truck facing backwards, next to us, in the median - with what looked like a tree that's been fed through a shredder all over the place. That was crazy. I credit my quick reflexes and our saved lives only to the fully caffeinated frappuccino I had just finished, and let me tell you internet, I haven't had a non-decaf one in YEARS and did not realize how very different they taste. The first sip took me back to Jacksonville Beach with a pretty freaky intensity. I told Grant that I think decaf frappuccinos are like sex with a condom, but I'll spare you the many sacriligeous metaphors I went into from there.
-5 1/2 hours of continuous work culminated in 5 presentable, polite children smiling and waving at all of Grant's enchanted co-workers for the first time, while I presented our still-hot entry to their contest. And HELL YES my lasagna won that throwdown, I got the call on the way back home. We also listened to Spanish music and talked about all the highway signs together the whole way back, it was really good. I also credit my euphoric mood at this point to that caffeine, I mean really, I almost never have any caffeine but I got like 3 hours of sleep last night due to a killer head cold.
-The kids and I decided it would rock to have a buffet lunch. We got various lunch meats, several varieties of berries, corn nuts, pickles, olives and cheese bread fresh from the deli, along with lemonade and chocolate milk, with whole fruit popsicles for afterwards on the deck. That store trip was great, Publix's Apron Strings program is so awesome, and I found two little plastic chairs to go with our kids' table for $1.50 each. An older lady accidentally knocked over a huge basket display of dozens of little soaps, and I immediately said to my "out of cart" kids (Annie, Aaron and Isaac) that they should go help her - they rushed over and did almost all of it, quickly, and she seemed so touched, and they came back beaming and raving about teamwork. I felt extremely good about homeschooling in that moment. Took it all to the new house, called Laura to invite her too.
-and had a really great cell conversation with Dama until we started eating. WHY DON'T WE TALK ON THE PHONE ALL THE TIME?!
-Food was good, Brian is crazy, Annie did some Abeka spelling work. Robbie came over and he took Aaron around the block, on scooter and bike. Time flew. Laura got to see crazy old Al the Lawn Guy and a Lowe's rebate came in the mail.
-I have THE COOLEST IDEA EVER for a bag, based on this crazy "Sea Song" yarn I have here that is partially kelp .
I've stopped updating this a couple of times now becase it was too pressing to eat some of our lasagna, and to pray with the kids, and to get a face massage. I have no idea why that feels so good, but wow. The first time it ever happened, G and I were in childbirth class while I was pregnant with Jake and Shari told all the men to try it on the women, and I was all about it. But especially when I've had a low grade sinus headache for about 24 hours, like today.
I have to admit that however foolish or naive some people may think it is, I truly just credit God with her recovery. I'm sure the therapies and the breastmilk and all that helped some, but I mean she went from being scheduled for transfer and hooked up to everything in the world to being discharged in like 36 hours O_O And there are other things that influence my thoughts on that, but I don't want to get into it right now (and have said most of it here before). A LOT of people were praying for her, and my devotional journal got way more than just "uncanny", I'll leave it at that.
ELISE, though. My baby. She is saying:
Mama
Dada
Aa-ee (Annie)
Air (Aaron)
I-ack (Isaac)
Akey (Jakey)
Opa
Ra-ra (Robbie)
Hi
Hey
wawa (water)
fow-wa (flower)
buh (bird)
different kind of buh (book)
puh (poop)
beh (belly)
eye
Typical interchanges between us go:
Elise: *Pointing and hooting like a crazy baby, tap dancing with excitement*
Me: What, what do you see?
Elise: *pointing more* Buh! Buh!
Me: *looking* Oh! You see that bird.
Elise: *nods* Buh!
or
*Jake and Elise bang heads together playing on the floor*
Elise: *comes to me with sad lip out, pointing to Jake and babbling angry sounding gibberish*
Me: Aww, did you get hurt?
Elise: *nods, points at Jake*
Me: Jakey hurt you - where's the owie?
Elise: *touches head, leans forward*
Me: *kisses it*
Elise: smiles and runs away happy
or
Elise: *signs change*
Me: You need a new diaper?
Elise: *nods*
Me: Are you poopy?
Elise: *nods or shakes head no, and I believe it because she's really consistently right about it*
Me: Hang on Baby, just a minute while I get a diaper and a rag...
Elise: *waits patiently and points up at diaper cream on counter when I'm back, then runs and lays down on carpet waiting for me*
Me: *starting to change her, hand her a 2nd rag that she dabs at herself with*
Elise: puh! ...Beh! *pointing*
Me: Yes, you pooped...and that is your belly...
The other day she was begging me to pick her up, but we'd just spent 30 solid minutes snuggling on the couch together and I needed a minute. She kept fussing and fussing about it, though, while I'd talk to her here or there or placate her with some of my water or whatever, until she abruptly stopped crying, ran out to the dining room, climbed on the table, and stood there yelling Mama. I came out and picked her up off the table immediately as I always do if I see her up there, except this time instead of getting mad like she usually does, she grinned and patted me like she won O_O
She sits and looks at books on her own sometimes. I can tell her things like, "Would you give this to Annie?" or "Go see what Daddy's doing in the office!" or "Here, can you put this paper in the trash? The garbage, right over there?", and she totally gets it and acts accordingly. She can point to her hair, nose, eye or belly consistently. She gives five, waves, and runs to the door expectantly if she hears anyone pick up keys or sees anyone put on shoes.
I think her favorite things right now, outside of G and I, are birds of all types (inside, outside, pictures on the computer, anything), playing with Jake, Laura coming over, and olives. Oh, she says olives, too, I forgot that, and baba and appa (banana, apple).
She just acts really aware and complex...there's nothing "slow" about her at all. She knows all about chasing other kids, running from other kids, hiding and popping out, the thrill of "about to be tickled", teasing me by holding something out and then snatching it back at the last second, only to run away laughing wildly...she wraps herself up in her special blanket (she fell in love with it in BJ's and it was only FOUR DOLLARS so I got it for her), and covers herself with it laying on the couch, looking at you expectantly knowing you won't be able to resist saying "Aww!"
And there are some things she does that none of my other kids have ever done. Like if she steps in any kind of wetness at all (mopped floor, spilled water, drips from a recent towel-wrapped bather, someone's accident...) as she's walking along, she immediately freezes in place and calls for help. Every other kid I've ever had has slipped in liquid of some kind a few different times. She did it once and that was enough. Likewise she sees situations coming in ways that seem impressive to me, like for instance Brian (My nephew) is going through a major violent phase and as soon as she sees him wielding something, or acting angry, or getting tired and irritable, she comes to sit in my lap. And if he does smack her or take her thing, she rushes to Laura and I, pointing and yelling indignantly - very much telling on him and expecting us to help.
Anyway, yeah, she's a cuddly soft wonderful thing. Too fearless, wrestling with her brothers and jumping off of furniture (it's more like walking off of the edge after a pause for a knee-flex, but the result is the same), and her temper can be wicked sometimes...
But wow. What a great baby. She sleeps at night, she takes naps easily during the day, she loves a wide array of healthy foods and is SO. FUNNY. I'm just completely over the moon in love with her :D Three times in the past month or so, when she was really sleepy, I've been able to put her to sleep gradually just by brushing my hand over her face and rubbing her tummy until she's out.
- Music:Jimmy Eats World - The Middle
So yeah, there is still a lot to be done, but it's getting to be really functional for things like spending the afternoons doing school while renovating, and I'm getting really excited. I will probably be making another post like this in a week or two, and then possibly a third one, as new areas get finished. I have to tell you, we are so happy and the kids manage to amuse themselves so easily over there, with such a tiny fraction of the wooden baby toys and musical instruments and art supplies and dress up clothes and blocks of every variety that I've always thought were SO necessary...that when I come home to this cluttered up mess, I just want to tip the whole house on it's side and shake it out over a dumpster. I keep finding myself realizing things like, hey, nobody needs a freaking ACTIVITY TABLE anymore, that is for pre-walkers, or what the heck, nobody has even bothered with PUTTING TOGETHER this sit and spin for 6 months, let alone using it! I don't know, it just seems possible to me lately that perhaps if Jake and Isaac never play with more than 2 Matchbox cars at a time, then perhaps they don't need a drawer with 70 of them in it. You would think this was obvious, but I've always struggled with getting rid of anything of theirs - I have five kids, that are all doing school at home, and it's easy for me to justify just EVERYTHING in the name of either fun or education. At some point, though, when you can't even find a single thing to play with because there's such a piled up surplus to wade through...that should tell you something. I think I'm truly ready to minimize for the first time in my life as a parent.
...Well, mostly.
The only things that are really holding us up from moving in are:
-laying down the wood floors in the master bedroom, A and A's bedroom and the office
-painting the master bedroom and office
-getting the last of the kitchen finished (oven installed, sink installed, backsplash on counter and a windowsill granite slab installed)
-having the water heater bought and installed
There are a million little things we want to do, still, but they are all "finishing touches" that can happen after we're in.
- Music:Weezer
Well, somehow or other, the flood of bills has resumed O_o I'm sure most of you remember how somehow when Elise was having her birthday Florida Medicaid said oh no, actually, we are NOT paying those NICU bills we said we would, and I got that $190,000 bill social workers assured me I would never see when she was 2 weeks old...well then I also got the supplementary $15,000 neonatologist bill. So that's $205,000 I suddenly owe the Brigham SINCE my baby turned 1 year old.
Then I got some $913 radiology thing yesterday? I can't even tell who it's from. I think there's a bandwagon medical people are getting on, where they just all send there bills to me these days. Because today I got another one with a Massachusetts return address, this one from the Department of Newborn Medicine, for $13,325.00 - WTF?!?! The $205,000 didn't cover whatever the hell this bill is for? Phenobarbital is really, REALLY cheap. *sigh*
Anyway, yeah, so much for having cleared debt and better credit, because damned if I can pay any of this crap, let alone all of it. There might be payment arangements for some, or ongoing fights with Medicaid/talking with charitable agencies. I suppose I should have, I don't know, given it another year and THEN started spending the settlement, even though I hadn't gotten a new medical bill since last November? Stupid freaking grumblegrumble....
This author, Elizabeth Kendall, is also acutely aware as a college student at Harvard in the 60s of how some women were choosing to write rather than to get married, and how some poets of the past had described marriage as a prison that held women back, and she wonders how held back her own mother was, and what she is going to do, herself. Frequently I feel nothing but ecstatic gratitude about my own marriage. And my children. Other times I feel very trapped in chosen, loved circumstances that nevertheless keep me from being able to do things I want to do that have nothing to do with my family. It's a paradox that gives me a horrible headache, to know simultaneously that there is no room for me in my own life, and that I wouldn't change anything that makes it that way. Some of the bonding with my mother in law has had to do with her talking to me about the 2 or 3 years she got to spend at home with Grant, when he was born, and how special they were for her. It's very clear listening to her that she thinks of it as an idyllic time, possibly the best time of her life. Even though she cried and yelled to her husband, "How are people supposed to live like this?!" over the sleep deprivation and lack of adult companionship. And I understand. And she reminds me to be grateful, for so many hugs, for lying on the carpet with Isaac talking about what Heaven would be like.
Dinner tonight was awesome: I made risotto, steamed brocoli, sliced tomatoes, a big pan of bite sized chicken pieces and sliced mushrooms in olive oil with seasoned salt, and some from-a-frozen-bag whole wheat rolls with smart balance and honey. We also had a jug of icy cold Welche's White Grape Pomegranate juice to go with it (so good).
Food in general is still really out of control with me, and I'm horrified by my weight, and really eager to devote some therapy time to that. My next appointment is Thursday, a regular one hour one since Grant won't be here and Laura is babysitting. It's like I seem to be doing well, with this whole ptsd thing, but that's within the context of eating almost constantly, often when I'm very uncomfortably full and/or wishing very much that I could stop eating. I'm also shopping
I bought some zinnias for the new house that are deeply satisfying me. I'm going to have to get a whole lot more of them, and more soil, and more of the little flowers I don't know the name of to go in between them and fill the space, but so far I've got 6 of them, with spacers in between, all in a row of cleared land filled with rich black dirt. We're going back tomorrow to do more, while Grant is working. Ananda and Aaron can carry bags of soil if they work together, and they're good at pulling up weeds and moving rocks while I shovel away old mulch and more rocks, and then Jake loves to put the seedlings down in the little holes we make. Elise trying to pick everything is the only obstacle, and that's easy enough to get around...my fingernails are going to be outlined black for a long time, I think. We're lining the whole deck with them, outside, and that's a lot of zinnias.
I really love the way the house is coming together. It makes me happy just to be there. Aside from the zinnias, it's also extremely satisfying to organize the library. I keep thinking of Dama and wishing she was there to see; kids' chapter books here, story books here, collections of stories or poems here, then Christian books there, neurology on this shelf, new fiction by the door, cookbooks near the kitchen - I think all the time about this possible Johnson Family Florida vacation bringing her to my library.
I've ALWAYS wanted to have a library in my house. And at this point, as ridicuously spoiled as this sounds, we really kind of need one: I keep taking over laundry baskets and drawers filled with books, and then bringing them back to refill: more and more and more of them from kitchen cabinets (cooking) and the dining room (educational) and just EVERYWHERE, and I keep having the feeling that I'm just denting it. Grant has at least 10 books on CHESS from years ago, for crying out loud.
I spent an hour or more at a local shop earlier today: The Paradise Tree. Custom framing place with some art for sale. I told the owner, who helped me, that Grant used to be a member of the Homestead Art Club and had been a part of a gallery showing there in the store that they did, and then he wanted to know who I was and other ways we surely knew each other. This is a small town, it's like that old Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. We came up with:
-He had a studio at ArtSouth when I was going there often
-He was fairly close friends with Memo for a year or more in between times I was close to Memo
-Both of us know Alex, and Melissa and Sara
-My mother in law puts his ads in the Newsleader
-both of us wonder if the artist with the last name Vallejo with things for sale in his store is related to the artist with the last name Vallejo who's paintings we've seen at ArtSouth
-we both do all of our book purchasing through Spellbound Books
Other than all that, yeah, total strangers.
I also learned a lot about the care and keeping of oil paintings, types of matts and how incredibly expensive custom framing is. I mean, damn. We laughed and joked about haggling with the prices. It was really good to be out by myself having an adult conversation in an interesting place. I really want to go back and buy this one original thing A LOT, but it's so much, and we're still deciding on a lender and amount for the Home Equity Loan, and at some point we have to stop spending money on everything in the world...right? It's really easy for me to justify supporting a local artist to have original art in my new house, though. I told him I might be back.
( I'm back to this old Robbie tug-o-war inside myself, that I used to deal with all the time )
When I left the counselor's office, I ended up stranded at Wild Oats in the middle of a crazy sudden storm...the power was out, the thunder and lightning were insane, and rain was actually lashing the windows and doors (and coming in when they were open) from out in the parking lot, past the very wide sidewalk and overhang...strangers were lending each other cell phones to call home and there was even a police officer urging people NOT to try to drive, but to wait it out in the dark store. Where a sushi chef offered to share the area under his counter with me, should one of the threatened tornados come right through the store.
Then when I got back to our new house, where Grant was with the kids and various workers, a counter guy's truck had just dissapeared out of our driveway. In the middle of the afternoon. With the house full of people. After about 24 hours wondering if the area is really that theft ridden or there is more to the story, it turns out the repo man had followed him to our place and just waited for a clear shot at towing it away O_o I didn't realize they were so ruthless.
Last night I found a reserve of strength and energy I hadn't known was there, and after G went to bed early (work this morning) I stayed up as late as Jake and Elise needed me to, loving them, glad to feel them there, soaking in all the love and nursing and cuteness. I read to A and A with voices and accents and inflections, even though were way behind schedule, talked and combed hair and bathed people all late when they should have been exhausted and still found them charming - and then got everyone up early today without a hitch.
And had the kind of day I didn't think I could have anymore.
We were all 6 dressed presentably with shoes on our feet and out the door with spare diapers before 9 am, meeting with the counter and wall patching guys at the new place. A and A wrote a thank you letter and did Abeka workbook pages, respectively, I cleaned up, I made necessary phone calls. I invited Teresa/mil to come over and check out my nearly-finished tv room and library, which she did. We left and my babies took a nap, I did next loads of dishes and laundry here at Grant Sr's, and cleared some of the floor with Ananda. We all went to BJ's when they got up and shopped and I found incredible deals...including super soft "Throw" style blankets for each of the kids, each a different color and with a different animal head on one corner to make it like a hooded towel or something, super cute - for $7 each. Stowed away as Christmas presents...We also got a plain white cake from the bakery to make into our flag cake tomorrow, since our oven is broken, and the necessary berries for flagging it up. We hung out with Laura, Frank and Brian at the new place, got to show them all the exciting progress I'm starting to get giddy about, and then when we got home again I figured out what was for dinner, nursed, swept, swiffered, scrubbed the dining table, told Patrice she's invited to come to a parade and a fireworks show and make a cake with us tomorrow (she's thrilled, and so are my kids), vaccumed, and cooked - and it was crazy ridiculous yummy, to where Jake ate two big old bowls and Grant and I nearly injured ourselves with consumption. There was time for brushing everyone's teeth and reading to people and Rock Band on Playstation 3 before G had to even be in bed, Elise and Jake went down easily, and here I am updating my lj at only 12:30, which is my answer to 8 pm.
Possible theories of mine as to how this is possible:
-I am not really as bad off as I was thinking
-I am, but I've managed to bury it away in some new mental gymnastics that will come back to haunt me later
-The two, two hour emdr sessions I've had so far have really helped that much already, combined with the other 4 or 5 single hour regular talk therapy sessions.
-It is really, really helpful to me to get up early with a place to be by a certain time, which rarely happens and starts the day off right when it does
-It is really, really helpful to not be anywhere near a computer for most of the day, so I can't get stuck in some bad posture, refreshing-everything rut that saps the day of "rl".
-Everything really does have balance like I've always said, and it had simply been enough hard, unproductive days that I was just due for a good one and that will happen sometimes
-being at the new house/progress at the new house/knowing all the positive ways our lives will change in the new house are buoying me up
We're really close. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeally close.
Finished:
-replacing broken panels of glass in a couple of windows
-patching a couple of spots on the ceiling and one wall
-getting new carpet installed in the tv room and really large storage closet (aka, my kids' "secret club")
-roof replaced
-termite tenting
-old floors in bedrooms torn out
-hole in bathroom floor seamlessly tiled as it should be
-kitchen appliances, and washer and dryer, bought and delivered
-furniture for tv room and library, and the little boys' beds, delivered
-converting oven connection from gas to electric
-getting AC coils cleaned and thermostat replaced
-replacing one french door handle
In Progress:
-putting in new countertops in kitchen and bathrooms
-raising the double oven up and installing it properly
Still to Do:
-paint office
-install bamboo floors in bedrooms
-get water heater done and over with
-get futon and desk for office
-paint or replace certain bathroom tiles (for changing color, not any real problems with them)
-get fence up
-put together massive amounts of outdoor play equipment (trampoline, swing set, 7-seater jet looking teeter totter...what can I say, Grant bought that last one :p)
-installing HIGH hook and eyes on all the french doors
-phone service
-alarm hook up
-MOVE ALL OUR CRAP, after massive clean-up, clean out and general overall of stuff is finished...I'm trying to do it one small corner of this place at a time. Just today I've thrown away a large pile of stained, holey or hopelessly faded kids' clothes and a whole box of broken pieces of things from their room.
Whatever the case of feeling "back to normal", even if it is for just one day - I'll take it, by golly.
Aside: This is now my new favorite picture of Ananda and Aaron:
...Even with the horrible way grown out mohawk.
( haircuts, birthdays and more! )
- Music:freaking Labrynth music won't get out of my head
-Our roof is done, our termite tenting is done, our countertops are in progress, our appliances are all bought and delivered, our old floors are ripped out, our carpet is getting installed tomorrow, wood flooring materials delivered soon, furniture delivered the day after - basically we're close enough to moving in that I took a few boxes of books over to the new house today and set them up in the library, which was ridiculously satisfying. We're aiming for two weeks from now.
-Aaron's birthday was a big hit, my wonderful Aaron is 7. Seven years old, and he isn't even my oldest, how does this happen? What he wanted more than anything in the world was to go down to Jacob's Aquatic Center with just Grant, so they made a day of it and when they got back we had cake and ice cream and decorations ready. He loved all of his presents, and loved the attention, which stretched out over several days since his birthday was really last Friday and we delayed the "main" celebration until G was off. He got black converse with flames, a new piggy bank since his got broken a couple of months ago, another Shel Silverstein poetry collection, The Lorax, The Dangerous Book for Boys and the boy version of What's Happening to Me?, as well as a soccer ball and some magnetic bug things - and Grant Sr went out and got him an ELECTRIC GUITAR, can you believe that? He's been sleeping with his accoustic guitar every night like it's a teddy bear since he got it for Christmas. He is extremely excited. It's so great watching him with these books, too - The Lorax made him cry, he laughs out loud at the poems, and he's thrilled with the stealth of he and Daddy sneaking off to our room with the door shut to read more of The Dangerous Book for Boys periodically.
-I've just basically had a couple of really, truly good days with little to no ptsd crap ruining everything - the only thing that's still been insistently reminding is the weird, unnerving sensations where I had my spinals - I KNOW they're mental and triggered by things but still it's just overwhelming really often throughout the day, and even moreso when I'm trying to go to sleep. BUT!! I went to a special two hour long therapy session today where she led me through a visualization that I think ended in me having lessened trouble with it and a much easier time getting it to stop when it does start...so I'm very, very almost tearfully grateful about that, because it really makes me nuts lately. She used the whole emdr technique (with a theratapper) while she had me envision myself in some tiny capsule inside my body, going to the spot where it squicks me out and doing a bunch of stuff to fix it up...it's really goofy to take out of context and describe here, but damnitt it works.
-I'm psyched about the 4th of July - we're planning a Key Biscayne parade, the big fireworks show down at the Motorsports complex, and baking our own flag cake, although that is somewhat dependant on the oven here being fixed or the oven at our new place being completely installed. Ok, totally dependant. I am hoping, flag cakes are ridiculously easy and amaze the kids.
Sort of Bad Things:
-We have to hire an electrician to do a TON Of work we weren't planning on, to switch from gas to electric water heater, which is something I don't want to get into.
-The whole HELOC thing is a pain with trying to get all these documents together and call loan officers when they have time and all this other hoohaw, we're just tired of stuff like this.
-The spot I plug a...thing.. into, on my camera, is not working, and so I can't get any of the AWESOME pictures I've taken over the last week off of it for posting. We're going to have to buy a special card reader for the weird tiny card it holds that I never even normally remember is in there at all.
-I can't stop eating ever since this whole ptsd crap started getting bad. Even though I'm having some good days, I'm eating my way through them like a madwoman. Which leads me to...
Sort of good things:
-Stuff I'm REALLY enjoying eating right now: puttanesca sauce on pasta of any sort with a ton of good parmesean cheese; Chachies Key Lime and Garlic Salsa, all cold and perishably fresh, on super salty multigrain Tostitos; lychees, which are in season and available in bright pink, fat, still on the twig splendor at all the local fruit stands; Naturipe Florida blueberries which I swear are bigger and sweeter than any other blueberry hands down; tex-mex crepes from Crepe Maker, which they make right in front of you while you watch and include fresh cilantro, corn, black beans, tomatoes, chicken, monterey jack cheese and general yum; and as per usual, frappuccinos.
-Even though I haven't had any responses yet, I emailed a couple of potential part time nanny type people and a hopeful seeming housekeeper, that I found on Sittercity.com...lots of experience and references and pictures and stuff to look through. I hope I get some promising replies. Just knowing I'm actually realistically looking for some help and will get it sometime is working wonders on my feelings of being completely overwhelmed. I am still harboring the idea that it's not "forever" - but at least while I'm in therapy and we're trying to move, something has got to give...
Very Very Bad Thing:
-I found out tonight that my mother has a 50% blockage in her cerebral artery. It explains a dizzy, blurred vision, weirded out spell she had a couple of weeks ago and is probably related to the small stroke she seems to have had, judging by a calcified spot on her MRI. It makes me wonder if there is a connection with her getting meningitis in December, as that is not usually something that happens to adults with healthy immune systems. They put her on some massive aspirin dose and she has to come in to get it monitored, they're saying there's nothing else that can be done about it. My thoughts have gone in 50 different directions since hearing this news from my sister, some of them involving internet research, but all of them interrupted by my desire to please dear God not fully process this yet. She's 44! She's got a pretty new marriage, she's in college! My brother's 17 and lives at home with her, you know? She's not some old lady having a stroke...she's someone I talk on the phone to almost every single day, who is always there when I need her even if "there" is Boston.
And I can't get ahold of my damn dad and haven't been able to for a couple of weeks and so now I'm worried about him, too.
If that completely overshadows the rest of the entry and casts a major pall on the whole "last couple of days have been better!" - well, I feel the same way :/
an 8x10 fabric block:
a 24x36 oil painting on canvas:
And I have not won, but am bidding on, this:
3 originally painted mermaids on pages of Hamlet (Ophelia! Mermaids!). 5x8 inch paperback pages. Some artist named Cramolini who makes a lot of wild claims about themself did this...I'm really loving it more the more I look. I'll frame them side by side if I win, and I really hope I do...
Also, I bought Ananda an Alice in Wonderland mug for her birthday months ago, right after we went together to that "Alice in Wonderland Tea Ettiquette" thing, at the bookstore. She was thrilled about it, and then last night Aaron (unintentionally) broke it. So I was looking around ebay for similar things thinking maybe I could replace it for her, and found out it was part of this giant collection of Alice in Wonderland dishes and tea things and trays and all sorts of crap, by Paul Cardew. I'm really, really intrigued O_o I mean, who DOESN'T need dessert plates that say, "Alice soon made out that she was in a pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high"? I suddenly have visions of myself as some sort of collector that has eleventy billion pieces of this stuff that get passed down to my children when I die. Like new bits will be what I'm getting for Christmas for the rest of my life, and whenever something gets broken my children go to drastic lengths to hide the evidence or glue things into a ruse.
For now, I have a LOT of cleaning to do and some white bean and chicken chili to make, before Laura arrives in a couple of hours to watch my kids while I go to the therapist.
The termite guy had his Terminex polo's collar turned up, copious oversized gold jewelry on, and was an Italian named Tony. If you can hear the following in his intense Sopranos voice, it will be better:
"Listen, I can't compete with Shield, but we ain't Shield, see? Terminex is Terminex, not Shield, Terminex has been in business since 1920, Terminex is in every state, every city, we're nationwide. Shield wasn't around in 1920. Once that tent comes off, what have you got but a guarantee? We can do a guarantee - " etc.
While he was measuring my house, Al the Lawn Guy pulled in. I'd only previously heard of Al from Grant, so I just pictured him as some generic faceless sort of young guy with a lawn business. Al is actually a retired man with a beer in his hand, a large German Shepard hanging out of the back window of his old car, and his shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button to show his extremely copious silver body hair. He talks in what I'll call "loud going-deaf guy voice", and the first thing he wanted was to know if he could get an advance of $20 or so in cash because he needed gas. When Mr Tony Terminex walked up with the estimate papers filled out and started to talk to me, Al actually got between us and (as is his default) yelled, "Hey, I was here first, you mind waiting for our business to be over here?" He apologized when I quickly stepped in and said Tony was actually there first, but for a second there I thought they were going to scrap on my porch. Apparently the yard work really is done well.
Ananda, Aaron and I sat around in the barren tv-room-to-be after they had gone, hungry, thinking how nice it would be to call room service like at the Westin. The Westin Diplomat, with it's maids, and pools, and beeeeeeeeeeeeds.....
Perk: I was wearing a brand new outfit that I feel good in.
We ended up going through Farm Stores (drive thru convenience store) for lunchables and waters - not exactly the brunch of champions but it was getting desperate - on our way to BJ's.
Where I ran into another, uh, character.
We have this...religious group...down here...that I know through a variety of connections both past and present, that is relocating out of Florida en masse to avoid a statewide, devastating flood that their leader has been predicting for awhile now. I've only heard this second-hand through the aforementioned connections; it's big news in a small town when a major place is going out of business because the owners are fleeing from impending doom. But then today I run into this nice middle aged lady who is a part of that group and I used to see in their business...
"Oh hi! Oh look at you, are these all yours now?! Wow, you look like such a great mom, the kids are so beautiful - they're going to need a good mom to make them smart for this future we're expecting. I hope you're teaching them CPR, and lots of first aid. They're going to need a lot of CPR and first aid."
*blink blink*
"There aren't going to be any ways out of this, I've been dreaming about it. We're trying to get out as soon as we can, it's hard to sell ______ with the economy the way it is now, as soon as we offered it up the market crashed and it could be any day, we're really worried - the dreams, you really need the CPR, these floods are going to be so severe..."
I noticed Ananda starting to look nervous and extricated myself...she was actually yelling after us as we walked off, but there was just no. polite. way to get out of this conversation - I tried. *sigh*
We got a lot of good stuff, including a bonsai to keep on the dining table. I'm tired of flowers dying. And it's good to have a meal plan for the next few days again, so we don't get stuck eating lunchables from Farm Stores. It's really satisfying, shopping at BJ's and getting bulk so it actually lasts a few days, I LOVE how they're starting to stock a lot of Kashi and Nature Valley snacks and more organics (eggs, milk, yogurt and some produce and juice regularly!) We quit shopping there altogether for about a year and a half because we just couldn't buy anything we'd normally buy there. Not so anymore.
So. Treats in the BJ's parking lot (600 lb gorilla ice cream sandwiches between cookies - that brand is incredible all natural stuff, and so tasty, the ice cream sandwiches are even handmade). Came home and all helped unloading and then cleaning out the van, including vaccuming, it was a big job. Kids watched a movie with Patrice and Nadia, who had shown up, and I made shrimp and lobster we had bought scampi style in the oven for the boys and I, while Elise and Ananda devoured oversized packages of blackberries and blueberries. I discovered a new LJ I really like -
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lapsedmodernist. She's more liberal than I am, only one baby, and has (to me) cryptic and uninteresting userinfor, but a LOT is public and her photography is amazing. And we share a certain big business angst, and she is just really interesting all around, with some hilarious comics, good videos, interesting articles, all that jazz. Answered LJ comments, talked on the phone with my sister, got Elise down for a nap, and then - Went to Publix (still in new outfit I feel good about!) for the rest of my grocery list all by myself, while Grant Sr sat with the kids. This is a weird new thing. He doesn't mind at all and actually acts kind of offended that it took me so long to "allow", but I really didn't want to add to the load since he and Teresa always have Mindy's kids. It just seemed like he was doing enough for us without childcare. Though Isaac responds pretty well to him and the rest of them are easy - when I came back he was smoking on the front porch with the door cracked so he could peak through at where they were all playing. There were only minor characters at Publix; free sample ladies hocking wines, all over the store, and my cashier who asked me if I'd remembered to buy water.
"What?"
"Did you remember to buy water, I said?"
"Um, no...Is there a hurricane out there?"
"Oh no! I just always try to remind customers of things they might have forgotten, because I usually forget something."
*speechless*
As soon as I walked back in the door and started putting THOSE groceries away, cue screaming. Ananda let Jake up on her bunk, Isaac got mad and pulled Jake down from the top bunk by his leg, laughed at his misfortune, and then ran out to tell me Jake was hurt with a big grin. *deep breath* This is the third incident I can recall where Isaac has actually intentionally harmed Jake in a way that could have ultimately resulted in death, if not serious injury. The first time he lept onto his belly with an angry face, knees first, when Jake was a little baby. The second time, he fed him about half of a bottle of homeopathics one by one until we found him and flipped. I'm choosing not to count malicious hockey-stick to the head incidences. Jake is alright, you can see some small marks on his lower back but he calmed quickly...but I had to call my mother for moral support and it was one of those times that I had to send Isaac to his bed mainly to get him out of my sight before I beat him senseless. Since then G and I have had "stern talks" with him and are trying to collaborate on some kind of lasting punishment - he still just seems to think it's funny that Jake fell and got hurt, he can't even manage shame at his own actions, let alone empathy :/
Anyway...we packed up a little bag and I put my hair up with my cool scarf and we started walking to Spellbound Books for Open Mic night. Last night was Game Night and I saw my old friend/acquaintance Daniella, who was newly blond and newly Christian and said she was going to be there to sing a song she wrote about God and her daughter. Shaun was supposed to be coming to play, too, and my sister was talking about going. So off we walked, and it was feeling good to walk far even though the sky was half gray...right up until we ended up stranded under the roof of my old OB while a massive thunderstorm raged around us. For half an hour. It's the outdoor roof, the office was closed (Thank God, I so don't want to deal with anyone there). I called Shaun and Laura to see if either was close enough to come pick up my keys from me and drive my van over, but neither were, so we waited for Grant to get there - which wasn't too bad, it was around the time he gets off. They're good at amusing themselves, anyway, and so I took some pictures.
( +8 )
Grant was in no mood for chasing toddlers around a bookstore and I was in no mood for going home, so we went up to Target. Took back some things I needed to and got a couple of things I'd been meaning to. The way there and back was a long conversation about how frustrating it is to know there is no break for me, unless *I* break - if I'm hospitalized for surgery, help will materialize. Otherwise - ? How he feels the same way. If I'm at Publix shopping by myself, that's still an errand I don't even feel like running, with my cell in my purse in case anything happens, and I rush the whole time to get back soon. There is no REAL break, there's no way to simply not be a mother for an hour. How bizarre it is to love each child so much and enjoy being with them so much, and feel so blessed and laugh at their antics and hug them everyday, and still feel like you're drowning in the undertow even as you're sad that it goes by so quickly. Balance, I guess, highs and lows...How are we supposed to raise all of them well, give them everything they deserve, and find time for me, and time for him, and time for us as a couple, and do everything that needs to be done on the house and make all the money that needs to be made, and keep this house clean...it's interesting to me that everything can't happen at once, it's simply impossible, and yet the days continue to pass and we find our way through - it's interesting to analyze and figure out where our priorities lie, and what falls by the wayside. G and I definitely don't sleep enough, it's never clean enough, we're absolutely disgusting about appointments, meetings and coorespondence outside the house. There is always reading and nursing and conversation and patience, there is usually very good food and plenty of affection.
I'm sure I had more to say but it's also almost four am - this is the first time I've seen this time in almost a week, I've been doing really well with going to bed earlier...
- Music:The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You
I went back to the counselor today. A dissociation self test I took and we talked about, combined with my identity crisis and generally fragmented ptsd state of mind have made me feel really psychologically vulnerable. I don't like the idea of being unstable. Grant thinks I will feel much, much better when I'm on the other side of this, and I think he's probably right, but it's also very hard to open myself up to possibility when I know it's going to get worse before it gets better. My next appointment is Monday morning. I came home with emdr information, we're trying to make a list of my traumas, chronologically...I'm afraid of what I'll lose, what I'll gain, what I'll realize, what I'll have to deal with, what I'll feel, what I'll think, I'm afraid that I won't be full of writing ideas anymore or that I'll stop loving sex or who knows what nonsensical thing. The literature on emdr - which is fairly new - that is not critical is almost infomercial intense, making wild claims about very dramatic results in very short periods of time. I'm scared of neurobiological change, I'm scared of raising kids and leading my life while I'm in the middle with my guard down...It's a lot. I find myself getting irritable with this woman about all the things she thinks she needs to bring up and drag in, like, look, I'm here to talk about x. Let's leave y and z out of it.
There are 10 million things to do for the house, that all form a mountain that is somehow exciting in that it is "all" that stands between us and moving in.
I bought Ananda training bras today. She had asked, and I've been thinking it's sort of weird how her little emerging breast buds show a lot in certain shirts so I said sure. I was appalled at how Target sells gel padded, satine underwire bras for girls that are barely getting breast buds. I'm also glad that she agrees that that is ridiculous and is totally happy with little cotton sports bras.
Elise is being especially affectionate with me. Lots of hugs, lots of kisses, lots of sharing and squeezing and nursing and she's yummy.
Our days are packed.
I'm trying to go to bed earlier and to not eat at night anymore, which helps me to go to bed earlier because really, I just can't keep going without the extra fuel. Both things are intended, along with bigger breakfasts and more afternoon snacks, to kickstart my metabolism because the untold story in that mini-vacation post is that I didn't post a single shot of myself below the neck because I was really disgusted with them all. I typically do this starve all morning, pick in the afternoon, big dinner, glut myself all night instead of sleeping cycle that is basically the perfect recipe for a big fat ass.
I've read my friends page very thoroughly and am interested in most everything on it, I just really don't have the time or energy to do a lot of commenting right now.
- Music:Edith Pfiaf
( Read more... )
Before we left, on Monday, I went to the counselor for the first time. I was really thrilled with her. I feel like God put this particular woman in my life. She was a big rebel who switched obs 6 times to get a vbac, back in the day! Can you believe that? I didn't have to tell her who Nancy was, she already knew, and had read the books. It was one of those times when I am really shocked by direct evidence of someone greater than myself out there taking care of me and guiding my life. All we really managed to do in one hour was some paperwork and a brief overview of everything that brought me there - there is so damn much, it's ridiculous - but I left feeling so hopeful about this whole thing...she's willing to talk to Ananda, too, although I'll probably want to get to know her a little better before we do that. She definitely thinks I sound like ptsd. Aaaaand...I'm trying to deal with the idea that this is something I have to learn to live with. Each of the following things is an individual incidence that causes me to feel so irritated and impatient with this whole process, and like I'm ready to please just move on and be done:
-walking through the giant revolving door with sand castles built into it, at the Westin, gave me an inexplicable, sudden headache that I only connected after a couple of minutes...I've only ever seen one other door like that, and it was at the Brigham, and I walked in and out of that door a lot. The thing is, I was excited about heading down to the beach, happy about some purchases and talking with Isaac. Yet I get this shooting stab of pain in my forehead from the door and then figure out what's going on.
-driving through/around certain areas has the same impact. I haven't been up on I-95 near Ft Lauderdale in a long time, we normally take the turnpike when we go out of town. But we drove that way all the time, when I was going to the birth center, and every day, when Jake was in the NICU. So yeah, again, totally happy talking with G, thinking about anything and everything re: home renovating, the Westin, other vacations, when I get either sudden horrible spiking pain in my forehead, or suddenly feel a knot in my throat and a weight on my chest - and it stops me in the middle of a sentence or interrupts my thoughts, and then I realize, Oh, we're by Jackson, or Oh, this is the birth center exit. Why is my body reacting to things I'm not even consciously aware of? HOW is that even possible?
-I can't seem to wear this great wrap dress I just bought a couple of weeks ago, and love on, because the freaking tie is right on the spot where my spinal hematoma was and, well, I get enough phantom tightness and digging there WITHOUT a big hard lump pressing against it throughout the day :/
-even on vacation in a great room with the world's most comfortable bed, after a nice long day...I can't sleep. I found myself pacing around the two rooms, eating crap out of the mini-bar, thinking about stories I could write on the hotel stationery - eventually I ordered some music on the tv and gradually drifted off.
I'm going back to the counselor on Friday, with Laura babysitting...I'm going to try to swing twice a week for the first month or so, if possible.
OUR ROOF IS DONE!! We might actually move into this new house one day. I'm hoping to start painting the office and buying furniture for it this coming Sunday, when Grant is off again, and that he'll be laying down some wood floors/installing the double oven Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully during his next group of work days - next week - we can get the termite tenting done. I've got Terminex and Orkin giving me estimates in the next 48 hours...I think it might almost be time to (gasp) lay down a time frame for when we think we'll be in by! Who would've thought...
-I found the most beautiful roses at Wild Oats yesterday. I looked at them and they were just awesome. They made me want to clean my whole house around them just to showcase them on the dining table. So I thought, well hell, $12 is way cheaper than a housekeeper. Worked nicely.
-THEY STARTED WORK ON THE ROOF. FINALLY!!! I haven't really written about it, in detail, but because our warranty deed hasn't been recorded with the county yet, our house is still technically listed in official records as belonging to the bank that sold it to us. This has held up our permitting process in a variety of irritating ways, as we brought document after document to try and prove ownership. The roof was holding everything else up - you can't fix a ceiling with water damage or put down new wood floors or do termite tenting or all manner of things, until the roof is done! This company claims it only takes 3-5 business days so, WOO!
-Two nights in a row, Jake and Elise have went to sleep at a decent hour and left me to have some time to myself that I need quite a lot right now.
-My sister came over today and hung out with the kids so that I was able to go to the bank solo for all kinds of things - it took about an hour, I had to deposit some checks, get a cashier's check for the roofers, talk about the disputed charges from the identity theft thing a while back, and get more details about what a HELOC would really mean for us.
-Elise is so sweet, so independant, so loaded with personality, so SMART, so beautiful, so close to Jake, who is so sweet to me and mischevious and wild, and the two of them kill me with love and nursing and wrestling tickle matches.
-Isaac was so cute tonight, in this long sleeved, orange pinstriped collared shirt, with his freckles and his smiles and his affection. I am ready to explain to him how he could rule not just our family but the entire world, if he would just harness his cuteness for good and try to catch flies with honey.
-A sign I ordered came in the mail. It says, "This is a classy joint. Act respectable." Every time I see it, I chuckle again.
-I cannot emphasize enough how much I love Grant and how grateful I am for him right now.
-Talked to Nancy on the phone last night, and it's INCREDIBLE how validating and safe that is...if anyone can really understand and appreciate what I'm dealing with lately, it's her. I wish I was in Boston just to have her more accessible.
The Bad:
-I'm fairly certain this is PTSD I'm dealing with, and it is present at all times on some level. During the good times I'm just a little more sensitive than usual and deal with knowing it will kick up again sooner or later. The bad times involve me feeling overwhelmingly angry for no rational reason or intensely frightened in a creepy, horror movie way with no rational reason. Ironically enough, it's reminiscent of labor how I can feel it coming on and then relax as it dissipates. Very spaced out labor, with a couple of long contractions per day. I get really deeply ambivalent about most everything.
-Unexpected expenses continue to pile up around our home renovating. For instance today we found out that the roofers need us to get a plumber up there to inspect and possibly repair the gas vent, which will be anywhere from $250-500. How in the world do people without hundreds of thousands of dollars to burn own homes?!
The Thought Provoking:
-I think Ananda needs counseling, too. I've been gradually working up to the idea with her. It would be nice if she could see the same person I start seeing, assuming she is a good one.
-I'm trying to replace some of the eating in my life with yarn, again, and trying to replace some of the computer time with excercise. Creating and activity both have to be good for me, right?
-I was thinking of soliciting a part time nanny to come in for a few hours 2-4 times per week, to do things like: help with cleaning; sit with everyone for an hour so I can run to the chiropractor, swim at the Y or write in another room, or a little longer so I can see the counselor more often; take the little ones outside while I do school with the big kids and make dinner, or take the big ones out to their activities while I get the little ones down for naps, and make phone calls, and so on...the problem with this, aside from the obvious ones of expense and the struggle to find the right person, is that our schedule is going to be so fragmented and crazy...it will be very hard to fit it in just so, for us and probably thusly also for her. I mean, as it is right now I know A and A will be in VBS for one week and music camp for one week, this summer, and our proposed fall schedule is INSANE with PATH, AWANA, half day preschool, evening sports practices, drama club, church, ballet....I feel like I need to sit down with a protractor, a calculator and a sundial just to figure out when the optimal times for "help" would be. If you know of a better place that PATH and Craigslist to search for this sort of person, let me in on it, please.
-I am sad to say that I'm starting to think I need to dispense with watching Lost. It is really intensely terribly not good for my state of mind :/ They just wrap new babies, pregnancy, and birth up with horror, mystery and conspiracy waaaaaaaaaay too often, especially for night time viewing (spoilers ahead in this section only). I really thought it would get better once Claire had Aaron and that was all wrapped up, but it just keeps coming in different ways - flashbacks to John's preemie days in the NICU and his horrified mom staring through the isolette after screaming through car accident-induced labor, Sun being pregnant and in mortal peril, all that sort of bunk. That freighter? It is KILLING ME. It's worse than anything else on the show. That's how my nightmares feel, like being stuck on that boat with those people in the middle of the ocean. That blood spattered room Desmond and Sayid are in? My skin crawls. It's worse than any other part of the whole series, although the underground, hidden nursery was not too hot either. Jack watching his own apendectomy can bite my ass, too. I was actually considering that I might not have PTSD at all, I might just be watching a really fucked up show. But then, many many people seem to be addicted to Lost WITHOUT it triggering a whole-life upheaval, so...It's getting to where I actually have a horrible, SKULL SPLITTING headache while it's on, so I guess my body is trying to tell me something.
-I pray a lot lately. A lot a lot. I'm back to checking my devotional. I've went to church for the first time in forever and planning on making that a habit...and church was very, very good for me...and praying helps some, sometimes...but I have a very strangely disconnected feeling, with God, that I don't really understand. My sadness, and anger, and fear - my transient lack of motivation - all of it seems so separate from my faith, and I try to connect it, I try to have enough faith to get through it or use my faith to help ease the journey...sometimes I think God doesn't want to give me any crazy ideas that I don't need help, so He isn't helping.
I woke up after not enough sleep from a horrible nightmare, that was really hard to come totally out of. I was so exhausted that I kept drifting back off to sleep and back into the dream, and was trying to resist that and failing, and it was just a really awful feeling, until I finally drug myself out of bed, head hurting, SO tired, but almost panicky claustrophobic scared of being trapped in a nightmare that way.
I felt like a wreck, for hours. Like I didn't know how to get anything accomplished, like I didn't even know where to start. I kept sitting here at this stupid computer, refreshing things, checking things, staring, desperate. It was ridiculous, not even really dressed in real clothes, knowing I should be doing better, my kids deserve better, what is my problem. I was thinking I should have made the first therapy appointment for today, and gotten Laura to babysit somehow, I should stop being frozen and get up and stretch and breathe and pray, but mostly I couldn't hold a train of thought at all. It was like my whole brain was a whirling dervish, a lot of fragments. I was close to tears all morning and most of the afternoon. I nursed Jake and Elise sometimes, answered Isaac's questions and responded to all his whining, told Aaron and Annie, yeah, you can play outside, and got food for them. It felt like some monumental task to put hot dogs on the George Foreman. At one point it occured to me that maybe I should try to read through the archives of my LJ from the time period of gestating and having Jake, maybe facing things I've been blocking out would help, but I couldn't get very far. I felt ashamed of myself, hoping my mother in law wouldn't come over, watching the clock tick away hours as my to-do list loomed. Some people - like Lowe's delivery confirmation and Brigham's billing department - called, and I was glad because it was a very passive way for me to feel like I was accomplishing something official.
More than once I stopped, shocked, in the bathroom, where I'd been washing my hands or peeing or whatever, because my reflection was so off-putting. I look pretty, and normal. Like I always do. Like the whole regular me. I don't know how to explain what I mean, it was just jarring, like...I don't feel normal, or pretty, or regular, or even know who "I" am, right now, so...it's a good thing, that I still have my crazy Cuban hair and the eyes people talk about and my way too big nose, that it's still me with my curves and my skin. It makes me feel for a second like I can fake it til I make it, or something.
Finally Elise got ahold of a box of cereal, probably something Jake got off the counter while I wasn't looking, and poured it all over the carpet. And I pushed myself to just go through the motions and pick up the living room so I could vaccum it all up, throw the box away. I started calling people.
Laura doesn't think she can help me with emergency therapy babysitting because they have some big stuff going on too.
My mom obviously can't just rush down here and leave her job and her husband and the medical tests she's undergoing because I'm having some sort of breakdown.
And then at like, 4? 5? Something like that? I talked to Grant. For a good long time. He had to go when his desk phone rang, probably 3 times, but he called back after he was done each time. The 3 big kids were outside, Jake was napping and Elise was playing, and I was able to just...cry. A lot. And talk to a grown-up, with no facade, and lay it all down. About the mirror, and the nightmare, and the lack of motivation, and the un-done to-do list, and how I'm scared to death about how in the hell I'm supposed to "Deal with my issues" and be a full-time mom to 5 young kids at the same time. About how I'm scared he won't love me anymore if I'm a basketcase or a burden or weak, because I'm always scared he won't love me anymore, and how he will always love me, and how maybe this wasn't the best time for me to be trying not to eat sugar, and how writing really is cathartic for me and I need to do it more, and what we can do for the kids, and...
I felt so much lighter, when I got off the phone. So much better. I still had that shadow, in the back of my mind, but it was simple enough to make a meal plan and grocery list for the next 3 days, to get Jake and Elise dressed and Ananda, Aaron and Isaac's shoes found, for AWANA...It was nice to get dressed and remember the A.MA.ZING. Indian scarf-thing I bought at The Falls last weekend, with Laura, and tie my hair up in it, and the UPS guy was arriving as we backed out, so he handed our package through the van window.
I could just BREATHE, you know? It seemed easy to sing along, to talk with Jake, shopping was simple and then on the way home Grant was getting off the highway in the Prius just as I was driving by that exit with the grcoeries - we went together to get the 3 big ones on the way, and then all met up. I talked to our neighbor Diane in the front yard for 15 minutes, about her grandson Jacob who is the same age as our Jacob but seems to be autistic, and her asthma, and our new house. It was nice. I came in and cooked an absolutely FANTASTIC dinner that was devoured by all, with a prayer, and G and I hung out in the office with Elise as he worked on a computer and layed in bed for awhile before he had to go to sleep, talking, and Elise and Jake went to sleep easily after a brief finger-pinched-in-the-door incident. Read A and A half a chapter of Harry Potter, which Isaac drifted off during, and picked up their room a little.
Left me time to catch 2 episodes of Sex and the City on TBS while knitting, and feel like I got some time to myself in all before 2 am. And for the record this Sex and the City thing is new for me, and I still don't know if I can call myself a "fan" exactly. But it's definitely more intelligently written and better acted than any other late night tv, and there is a sort of train-wreck appeal, because that whole microcosm is SO far removed from anything in my own life. Anyway, yeah. I have a breakfast plan, and need to be over at the new house between 10-12 for a delivery. I have calls to make, lessons to teach, and PATH in the afternoon - one of my favorite PATH moms emailed to say she'd be there, and her daughter is probably Annie's best friend right now. The kids will all be in the adorable new clothes that came today, easy to find and clean like only brand new can be, with them.
....Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm back at this "don't want to go to sleep" point again.
ETAThe whole shadow in the back of my mind, or sense of things as surreal, or more of an effort to keep things together than usual with patience and all - that stuff has been off and on more or less constantly for over a year now. Maybe 2 years. But the way it's encroaching, and taking over, is new. It's been a gradual increase that I first really stepped back and went, "WHOA" about last week, when I couldn't make it to PATH and wanted to give the kids cereal for dinner on the same sad day, and didn't even have the energy to feel guilty. That was the day after I became certain I should be sending them to school because "I can't do this". So yeah...something is definitely going on with me :/ I'm just hoping that with a lot of prayer and deep breaths and however many tearful talks with Grant that I need to have, I can keep it together properly until my appointment Monday and then have a direction to feel I'm moving in, with "healing" as a destination. I tried to research "self treatment" for ptsd today, to find any sort of excercises or thought processes or specific journaling or any-damn-thing that could be useful, but apparently self treating ptsd is pretty much exclusively done with illegal drugs or copious amounts of alcohol O_o
When I first got up I was doing my great torrential hemmorage first period day thing, so I got in the shower. And with some quiet uninterrupted time, after making that big entry the day before, I realized something:
I may have ptsd from the whole emergency c/s, brain injury thing, with Elise.
I may have ptsd from septic shock, small bowel resection and the ICU.
But I DEFINITELY have ptsd from having Jake.
I was looking around doing e-search (can I coin that term? Is it taken? Does it make sense? I like it, by golly) for a long time, night before last, and it seems there are three types of ptsd. There's "avoidant", where you, you know, AVOID thoughts, place or talking about the thing in question, the people connected, etc. There's...uh...ok, give me a minute...RELIVING! That's the second one :p Where you have nightmares, flashbacks, frequently feel back in the situation, etc. And then there's arousal or reactionary or some bs like that, I can't remember what it's called but basically you get super irritable, or have spurts of irrational anger, or both, and things give you heart palpitations and so on.
Well, I spent that whole night (e-searching! haha!) thinking that I see a bajillion symptoms in myself of the second two, but I have no problems with avoiding - I've talked about, thought about and wrote about everything with Elise and the sponge so much!
But then in the shower the next morning I realized how I never talk about or think about Jake. And how it kind of slipped into that entry in a weird way. It was bizarre, I stopped shampooing to feel totally shocked as it all slipped into (very frightening) place.
( Cut for triggering the hell out of me to some ridiculous extent I'm kind of ashamed of, but don't want to have to see on my journal )
I really didn't think it was going to be like that. There are a bunch of other horrible things about that experience that the normal, writing, purging, emotional-exhibitionist part of me wants to go through to justify my feelings, but it's, like...not worth it. Huh.
Alright.
Anyway, the rest of my day was interesting too. And productive. First off, Grant was getting (very understandably) REALLY overwhelmed with the new house...there are just so, so, SO many things to do over there and a lot of it falls to him. I was happy to come up with the idea of walking through the house with him, listing every single thing by room, and then coming home and putting it all in priority order for moving in so that he could say, "Alright. I need to do this, and then I'll move on to that" and check things off systematically. It seems to have worked nicely, since yesterday not a lot happened but today he's over there with an electrician, a plumber, an AC guy and a Lowe's delivery man O_o It was also nice to be there and see things and think about it coming together...the new dishwasher and fridge are installed and working now, and the double oven and toaster oven and microwave are sitting there, albeit on the floor.
Ananda and Aaron did a good chunk of schoolwork. We're doing a lot of intensive spanish right now.
And I focused a LOT of attention on preschool for Isaac, and soccer for Annie...after copious amounts of googling and phone calls, the concensus is:
-Isaac is either not going to go to preschool, or he's going to go to the same private christian preschool I did, but that costs $3200 for the year so it's kind of contingent on several factors. The good public school near me doesn't offer preschool, the ones that do are the worst graded schools in the really dangerous neighborhoods, the freestanding "preschools" are really just daycare that goes up to 4 year olds. Jillene, feel free to stick your tongue out at me, because even the private school vouchers that Florida has readily available in large numbers don't apply until Kindergarden. But this half day program near us is great...they have a snack and play outside, they do art and music and library and computer time, they have bible lessons and they do Abeka all year and come out reading. They have small classes and teachers' aides. It's really nearby, and I went there. Thinking about all this has made me look at all of my kids and think how I will probably send Jake to Preschool and Kindergarden, too. Ananda and Aaron had a lot of weird quirks - she stuttered so badly at Isaac's age, was so shy and self conscious, and yet was totally CRAZILY advanced...Aaron could hardly talk in a "Decipherable to strangers" way at 4, couldn't even listen in a group setting, there was no way. I'm realizing that a whole lot of my intuitively knowing they'd do better at home was about them NOT being "neurotypical". I still think homeschool is the way to go, and that middle school especially is a social disaster in most school settings, but I also think preschool and kindergarden will be great, enriching things for Jake and Isaac that will do them a lot of good. Obviously I don't know yet, with Elise.
-Ananda will start AYSO soccer in the fall, we'll go get her registration done at the Nike Outlet Store in a couple of weeks, and the practice days don't seem to conflict with AWANA. It's only $85 for the season and that includes her uniform, so that's not too bad. I like their "positive coaching" philosophy and their balanced teams and all that. I think it's really interesting how, in studies, the single most important factor in girls waiting longer to have sex as teens, is involvement in sports. Body confidence and good self esteem and all that. Anyway, she's psyched. It was kind of hard for me to let her just let go of ballet after all this time, and we're still sort of considering letting her do it as well, but that might be really difficult...she really wanted soccer more, though, so there it is.
We also watched Brian for 2.5 hour for Laura and Frank, which is sort of a revolution for them - they, like, NEVER leave him anywhere. I watched Brian for an hour once one other time, and that is it.
I've done a whole lot of other crap while typing this, now it's time to get everyone ready and go drop them off at the new house with G and all these experts, so I can go to my ENT appt...I really, really want my ears to be all better. They feel a lot better, and I finished my antibiotics yesterday, so here's hoping, anyway.
Geez, I really have to rush out the door now and didn't even realize this was still open! I made an appt, though...with a therapist, I mean. She's "only" a LCSW, but she's been practicing for 20 years, specializes in ptsd, and is certified for emdr. Mostly, she looks and sounds a lot like Nancy, and I think that's a lot of what I chose her based on.
rainingkisses when I realized that it's because I don't feel like I can be honest here anymore. I don't lie. But I don't give the whole story, either; I don't have the same time or energy to give to blogging that I used to and so it usually seems like a lot to get into to tell the rest.
( the rest )
- Mood:
discontent
-Good all encompassing lists of native food crops by region...basically I want to know all of what is good to grow and bad to grow in South Florida, as the national chain stores with garden centers seem to just stock it all indiscriminately. I know some already, of course, but some I'm not sure about and I'm sure some I'm not thinking of at all.
-Guides to getting started with really growing FOOD, not just having a little hobby garden...timing your things to be ready for picking, seasons to get started in, if applicable, how to organize it properly, all of that
-EFFECTIVE organic pest control options, as we have major pest problems down here. I mean this needs to be serious.
And, tell me anything else you think I should know, like why canning maybe isn't as big of a pain as I think it is, what freezes well, and so on.
I am only going to have...I don't know, I guess it will be something like 30'x20' at maximum, depending on how we set it up. But I also have a narrow little side yard that's mostly paved, where we can set things in pots, and a built in window-box garden in the kitchen that I'm already thinking of herbs for...How does one go about drying herbs? Is there any other way to preserve them?
We also have a great mango tree that's currently loaded with fruit, and a couple of banana trees that look like they need some tlc and may also get transplanted based on where the fence is going up O_o
We've been fairly successful with a few tomato plants and basil, if you call letting it all run wild until it goes to seed and dies but being able to go and pick whatever we wanted for a few mon