Entries Tagged 'Panicking' ↓

My kids are being watched this summer by their Dad. And now they look like this.

I could probably end this post here. Yep, with Mohawks to show for it, Dad is in charge all right.

But wait. There’s more.

You see, it has been such a 180 for this household. After being home with my boys for 8 years, suddenly I’m the one working all day and my husband has taken on the boys. He’s a college coach and, while he still has to go into work during the summer, he can set them loose in the indoor gym or drop them at swimming lessons on campus. It’s not perfect, he’s pulling his hair out trying to balance everything, but he’s doing it.

And the boys are better off for it.

I read this article the other day about how good roughhousing is for kids. And I see the logic, I do. But I don’t “get it”. When my kids wrestle and yell and pile-drive one another in the carpet, I freak. They laugh and scream and consider it sport while I holler at them to JUST QUIT IT. I look at them like they are insane. I tell them to get ahold of themselves, to CALM DOWN for crying out loud, to get outside IMMEDIATELY. “What is WRONG with you?” I ask. And I probably have a look of such disgust on my face while I shuffle them in a giggling pile out the door. And then I turn around and sigh at the destruction left in their wake. What. The. Hell.

So, now that my husband is home, what does HE do when the pile-driving commences? Usually, he ignores it. Or laughs. Or joins in. Or, if they interrupt him too much, he tells them to get outside too. But he never looks at them like they are wild, unnatural beasts… like I do.

When I come home in the evenings, I find everyone getting along. One pack of boys in three sizes. They are quietly laughing about silly things and seem relaxed into the evening. And (unlike myself at 5:30 pm after a full day of boy-dom), my husband doesn’t seem all that harried. I suspect the majority of their crazies have probably already been expelled. But no more mess than the usual upheaval betrays the madness that probably occurred in my living room only hours before.

So, we must ask. With three boys and then… me… which one of these things is not like the others?

I don’t GET rough-housing. But maybe if I did, maybe if I stopped worrying who was going to crash into the coffee table and split their head open, maybe if I moved with the insanity more often than fight it — it would actually be easier on all of us? A “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” kind of thing?

Still. I don’t get it. But they do. And they truly seem better off for it, with Dad at the helm setting an example for whatever male-ness they hope to be.

And what do I do? Duck and cover and ask that they NOT jump on the bed while I paint my toes.

And hand out smooshy, lovey hugs when the days is done and they are weary from thrusting out their bony chests and verging on whatever it is they will become.

Parenting lesson learned. Yep, another one.

Somehow, while he waited for his Garbage Can sundae at Applebees tonight (his restaurant choice entirely) - he was still. My birthday boy turned five today, and (ask anyone) this child is never still. But he was. For a quick moment. Leaning up against his dad. Staring out the window at the cars passing by. Considering something. He was still.

Five. So much older than four.

…And I WON’T let that blow my mind.

Because I remember saying once a long while back that when my youngest turned five, I would have deserpate, heartbroken empty nest issues and THAT would be when my babies were officially not babies and a enormous part of my parenting world would shift permanently off its axis and change course forever.

But it’s happened. And here I sit, unscathed and at peace about it, really. I’m just not going there. Nope. Why be glum, after all? There’s too much to look forward to. Plenty of chaotic, uncharted parenting moments ahead. So much to finally be able to do together. All kinds of growing and learning and being a little boy still left in him.

We have sundaes coming, after all.

So, here he is. Very still. Very wonderful. And five.

I take it back. It’s not working very well at ALL.

Well. The job is working out, as gratefully noted in my last post, but… everything else? Gah.

The laundry in heaps that we pull outfits from everyday sure aren’t working.

The load of dishes I just emptied out of the dishwasher that hadn’t actually been washed yet isn’t working.

The list of “to dos” for birthday celebrations - cupcakes at school, parties on weekends, for both children and then one husband – kind of work sometimes and then get completely  forgotten or  half-assed other times. What do you mean goody bags? Oh, give the school notice about cupcakes? Who didn’t get an invite? And other stuff about my husband’s birthday that I keep forgetting too because he isn’t a little kid holding his breath for cupcakes (I think). Yeah… I wouldn’t say these birthdays are working out very smoothly, at all.

The end of school year projects and school year performances that I am not sure how to get to during my lunch break and scrapbook pages requested and various emails that I am too overwhelmed too open are sure as hell not working out.

The tests yesterday, today and tomorrow. The tests that I make my kid study the wrong chapter for… those aren’t working out.

The un-ironed clothes, the clothes that need dry-cleaning, the lint-roller I keep forgetting to buy so I use scotch tape on my pants every morning – not really working.

The neighbor across the street who wants our kids to play and I literally won’t let step inside my front door because my house is trashed – well, now that’s impolite AND not working.

And the wonderful in laws from my brother’s family who visited this weekend FROM AUSTRALIA and had to sit on my boy-stained couches amongst dust bunnies and happy meal toys poking out from between cushions and then those same in laws having to make cups of tea around the unwashed dishes in my sink. Oh my. NOT working.

The crap in my garage that I just can’t get cleaned OUT. The oil change my car needs so desperately. The late to work because my husband’s retreat started early and I had to drop the kids and then my gas tank was empty. The never taking anything out of the frig to defrost, ever. The “how the HELL is it 7pm and the kid’s haven’t eaten dinner yet? OR studied for their test? Or even washed half the playground off their faces?”

It’s not working very well.

But it IS still kind of, squint one eye and maybe it looks like it is, and who the hell cares just call it a day… working. Kind of. If I cut the dramatics (as oh so dramatically noted above), and took a deep breath, and remembered that my kids DID get fed tonight. And birthday parties ARE happening, however half-assed. And everyone does leave fully clothed each morning. That is technically working.

And (*glaring at self as a mother would her child*) who do I think I am? This is the kind of crap every working mother on every corner of the earth deals with every fricking day. What makes it any more special or more difficult for me, huh?

So *straightening up and getting a new perspective* ….I’ll take it. It is working. In it’s own little funky, unfolded, piled in the sink, dumped in a corner kind of way.

New expectations of myself, new transitions for everyone, new levels of “clean enough”.

I’m just working it all out, I guess.

Once you have children, going back to work is not simply just a choice. It requires a pinwheeling, interconnected number of mechanisms to all turn and spin in exactly the right direction before any parent can simply just step away from their children and go back to work.

These gears, large and small, each slotted into the other, turning in one impossible synchronized motion, have somehow come to life, and churned into motion for me. And left me impossibly grateful.

It takes so many people, at various times of the day, to make sure this entire process just somehow… goes.

It takes my children to agree to these changes, to gladly step into line and try a new, much longer, much busier routine.

It takes my husband to slide in, where I’ve stepped out, and maintain the momentum of parenting before and after I come home.

It takes random friends who help without warning, for no apparent reason, for nothing really other than simply loving my kids. The friends who bring my son home and let him watch cartoons on their couch. And the friends who find my son at school and hug him out of the blue.

It also takes new office mates. Who patiently train me and confidently slip new responsibilities over the desk to me and laugh with me and somehow, without saying a word, convince me that I am ok without my children. These people make me want to come back to work – and not run out of there, scoop up my children, and hustle back home where we were so safely before.

All of these pieces are in motion, carefully clicking and spinning through each day. And each day I come home, kick off my new heels, wrap myself around my children and think: it’s working.

Because before I had children, the only motion I had to worry about was mine. But when I had them, I could not fathom how I could make it all work again. It required too many people, too many possibilities, too much time not being with my boys. They were part of my machine, I was responsible for making them go. No one else.

But you see, as time goes on, and lives grow, and my children become more complex beings – their lives are not my life. Theirs is their own motion. And while it might be up to me to keep all all these gears in play – they run on their own accord, thank you very much. They have their lives and, it seems, I have mine.

So there you have it. This is working. Slowly. The gears slip now and then. I have to kick the rust off certain spots. And make sure the speed of each runs just so. But it is running itself. As my children, and the people they affect, fuel their own motion without my help.

Ok then. Once again. I am being reminded that I am simply along for the ride in this parenting business. And maybe I was being rediculous about worrying in the first place when mothers everywhere do this without the luxury of waiting to jump back in. I probably should have known better.

Regardless. I am truly besides myself, gasping and grateful, that this impossible mechanism of daily life for four individuals is working. It’s working! Really working, afterall.

Written in haste during my lunch break:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can drive out hate: only love can do that.”–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ve seen that post up on Facebook a lot recently. And it feels about right. Because I’m not sure what I think about Osama’s death right now.

Yes, of course, I’m glad he can’t carry out any further injustices. What he did to our country isn’t forgivable. And I understand that his death was inevitable.

But I’m not sure where it leaves us.

His death doesn’t bring back the thousands of lives lost. However, his death symbolizes some sort of victory, some sort of exacted revenge that we apparently deserve in exchange for those lives. Whether he’s been an active Al Qaeda leader recently or not. He was the big boss then. So he needed to go.

That said, whether or not he’s been an active Al Qaeda leader recently or not, his death is most likely equally symbolic to that faction. And his death could mean that we deserve some sort of revenge for taking his life too.

This evil man. Who may or may not have had any power over the last few years. Whose been hanging out in some suburb in Pakistan. Who we blew away for committing horrendous acts a decade ago. His death may or may not signal the start of something new and equally horrendous.

Symbolic gesture for symbolic gesture.

So now what.

When Obama announced his death, he looked grave and focused. He wasn’t in the same partying mood those outside the White House gates were.

I get why those people were partying. I do.

But I just don’t feel like partying. I don’t feel much better about 9/11 either. And I don’t feel any real resolution. I just feel kind of grave and focused too.

Because. Now what.

Back to remaining vigilant I guess.

Which, like freedom, is kind of a permanent American state of mind now I suppose.

This post should really be some sappy homage to new beginnings. Because both my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister are expecting babies right now. As in this moment. (One is partly dilated and the other is in surgery for a C-section.) So exciting. So much to hold on to and celebrate about BABIES and Spring and new things and… oh yeah, me going back to work next week.

But I need to stay grounded. My wits must be kept carefully in check. I have lots to do and just getting super weepy and going via my usual route of over-thought, over-wrought utterly “enough already” will get me no where right now.

Still. My sister in law, the one who is partly dilated but not in actual active labor, is sitting home right now. And bored. She is a working mom in a pretty “wow” executive position. She is used to going constantly, on weekends too, in heels and suits with blackberry abuzz. But, thanks to a child now wedged in her birth canal, she’s had to make the decision to stay home and wait for him. It’s a big change for her.

Meanwhile, I am scrambling to get my ducks in a row to go back to work. No, I can’t pick any time for a parent teacher conference. No, I can’t pick up my child on early release day. No, I can’t offer any more volunteer hours at my son’s school. But maybe my husband can once things slow down for him?

My sister in law and I are swapping lifestyles – we are staring wide-eyed at the other and asking “how do you do it?” (Please, please, please – share some of that executive know-how and calm confidence if you could.)

But again. Let’s be cool. Let’s not get all melancholy. That helps nothing. I have all kinds of odds and ends to tie up still and only a few days to do it.

There is absolutely NO point in obsessing over the fact that my four year old has gotten into some kind of crying fit skirmish on both days of his first full week at school so far.

And nothing will come over wringing my hands about how much more clingy my seven year has become since he was sick, launching himself into my arms whenever he sees me, sneaking into my bed at night.

Nope. Let’s just not go there.

Let’s stay organized, get those last articles in, make those last couple appointments, organize my black hole of a closet, and feverishly cheer two new babies into the world…

I need to be cool. I can’t be allowing myself to feel the kind of throat clutching, heart wrenching emotion I absolutely could feel. (Because, oh my goodness, it’s right THERE.) That does nothing.

So, really. Hooray for new beginnings. This spring has many. There is so much to be grateful for! Because don’t misunderstand me. I am extraordinarily grateful. When other moms look at me like I am NUTS for going back to work, I look at them like they are nuts for not thinking I am super lucky to have this chance to GO back to work.

Me = jackpot.

But, if you know me, you know I have all kinds of writer’s mushiness hovering just under the surface. HOWEVER. If you were expecting my usual, emotional, super-drama posts oozing with sentimentality about my boys and our days together and all that we’ve had… if you were expecting that today, right now? Well.

There’s nothing to see here.

Back to my check list.

(And really, truly, I am so SO frigging excited, HOORAY for babies!)

I’m writing a post that thousands and thousands of women could probably write at some point in their lives. It’s nothing new and certainly nothing particularly unique. But I know that this very emotional, fairly overwhelming however extraordinarily exciting phase in my life is one I can share with so many mothers everywhere.

I am going back to work full time.

It all happened rather quickly. I wasn’t planning to go back to work until both kids were in school full time next fall. But when I saw the job posting I knew I had to give it a shot. While I won’t go into too many details (I have this thing about keeping work stuff separate from blog stuff), I will say that it involves writing, blogs and social media.

Yeah, exactly.

So while my son battled the flu in the hospital last week, I was dipping out to interview for this position. And then I got it.

*blink*

I got it!

OK then.

So back to work I go. And here’s the part that I think any working mother could write. We could all step into this roller coaster together, strap ourselves in, look at each other nervously and retell the same dips, highs and overwhelming loops our emotions take while making a decision such as this one.

Gratitude.

I have managed to stay home with my children for 8 years. EIGHT. YEARS. While we haven’t had any much of a financial reserve, I have felt like the richest woman in the world for having had this time with them. For the hours and days and weeks and years of constant and connected little boy time, I am grateful beyond words. And rather weepy.

Exhiliaration.

I get to use my brain all day without any interruption? I get to talk to grown-ups and feel like an active, productive, useful member of society? I get to find real success doing something I like to do? *Cheering!* And weepy.

Guilt.

Not counting weekends and evenings, my time off with my children will now be limited to a certain number of hours per year. I am going to have to rely on school, aftercare, summer camps, various babysitters and my husband to pick up where I am leaving off. After eight years of putting them first and foremost in my day every day, I will have to step back. This is hard. This is life-changing. This is an enormous battle in my heart, in every mother’s heart. And this, of course, makes me very very weepy.

Hope.

Parents everywhere struggle to make the balance happen. They hope they know when to put work first and then family first. I hope I can do it right. I hope I have a steady inner scale regulating my gut to push more one way or another. I hope I know when to say no and when to say it will be fine if I’m not there. Neither will be done perfectly. I hope I can come to terms with this. And do right by everyone involved. Less weepy, more resolute.

My Turn.

Eight years of making two little boys the be all and end all of everyday can, well, kind of wear you down. It can make you forget who you are. It can erode your own self-esteem and make you wonder if you can do anything else other than skillfully hide carrots in meat sauce and do fun voices when you read stories. It’s easy to forget that you should sometimes come first. It’s hard to fathom that if you feel good about yourself, you can actually be a better mother. So I am heeding the advice of so many working mothers I know. I am prioritizing “me time”, because allowing myself a place to put my interests first WILL make me a better person and mother. (…right? RIGHT??)

Not weepy. Not at all. In fact I’m kind of relieved. And, yep, happy about that. Plus my kids are far from weepy too. They actually cheered when they found out they are going to aftercare now – you know, with all the cool kids.

“Mommy is going to work just like Daddy! JUST like a grown-up!”

Exactly. It’s time to be a grown-up.

And many thanks to my children who, as I tried to compose my “I accept” email yesterday, decided to have an all out toy-throwing, kicking and screaming, “he started it!” brawl that took two paragraphs a half hour to write. It made my decision that much easier to make. Thanks for that, boys. What would I do without you? We’ll have to see I guess.

So here we go. In a little over a week I will change my title from “Stay At Home Mom” to “Working Mom”. It will be OK though, right? (Tell me I’m right, tell me I’m right, tell me I’m right…)

Because it’s my turn.

On Monday, my son began his Spring Break at the beach.

Today, Friday, he is spending his fourth night in the hospital.

While I now know what caused all of this, I know I’ve hardly processed any of it yet (hence this here blog post). Because the kind of trauma his lungs have experienced may as well have resulted from being hit by a car. It was almost as severe and just as unexpected.

But he wasn’t hit by a car. He got the flu.

In a matter of hours, my son went from coughing the kind of cough any common cold would bring on to lying on the couch, panting for breath. By the time we got to the Doctor’s office an hour later, he had a fever. After 24 hours, many anti-biotic shots, endless nebulizer treatments and finally one chest x-ray – he had to be admitted to the hospital.

These past few days have seemed far from real life. We were told he might not get through the first night without being transferred to the ICU. There were conversations about a severe collapsed lung, tubes being shoved into his chest cavity and pneumonia. He fought his mask but, without full coverage, his oxygen levels plummeted. He whimpered constantly. He hardly moved. His color was wrong. His eyes were blood shot. His fever spiked to 103. Respiratory therapists, nurses and doctors hovered, watched, switched IV lines, upped oxygen, answered alarms, updated his charts and waited.

I took pictures but I can’t bring myself to post more than what I have here.

Yesterday, the doctor walked in with the CT scan and blood results. Yes, he had a pneumothorax which had caused his lung to collapse slightly. But he also had pneumonia and the flu.

“The flu caused all of this.” he told me.

The flu. I knew it could be serious but I never knew it would be this serious for MY children.

No, I didn’t get my boys their flu shots either. I have good reason too. And the doctors agreed with my decision.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t go ahead and get one, especially if you’ve never had an allergic reaction to it. Because a needle prick is a whole lot less horrible than all of these days and nights fighting to breathe - which is just the flu.

Mind-blowing.

The good news is that he has been fighting hard and impressing everyone with his marked improvement. While I refused to accept Dr. Google’s “life-threatening” warnings from day one, I know – I KNOW – it could have been much worse.

And you can bet I’ve been drawing parallels with this stay and my fear of the pulsox machine to his first 11 days of life in the NICU. Both times I spent my time staring at his oxygen levels. Both times I was jarred back to reality by the oximeter’s alarm. Both times I wondered how this could have happened.

But just like his first 11 days of life, my sweet boy is battling back. We WILL be released eventually, maybe even soon. This isn’t forever. This is a story I will tell someday, this is only a memory in his future about that time he was in the hospital.

And then I watch mothers follow their bald babies toddling up the hallway in balloon printed dressing gowns with IV lines in tow. I see families who know this place and greet their nurses arriving to their shifts like family members coming home. I know we could have been dealt a much harder hand.

He’s asleep now. His oxygen cannula has been turned off, his IV is only on for meds, and his pulsox is blessedly quiet. I am grateful for his improvement. I am grateful for the care he’s received. I am grateful for the fight within this very quiet, careful boy. And I am breathlessly, forever grateful that I have my son. I have him. I can unplug him and take him home and make him eat his carrots and love love love him. Life will go on and (so many silent prayers of gratitude) so will my son.

The most exciting part of my day should have been news of my early morning job interview. But it may surprise you as much as it has me that this news is not what has me utterly bowled over right now at 1am on a Tuesday night Wednesday morning. Unfortunately it was admitting my 7yo for a pneumothorax, otherwise explained to me as a slightly collapsed lung and now possible pneumonia.

For real. I know.

I’m writing this from a far too slippery fold out couch bed while my son whimpers asleep in the bed next to me. I don’t know what caused it but within 24 hours he went from a kid playing on the beach to one too weak to keep his oxygen levels up.

So somehow here we are. In the dead of night. With tubes and cords and hissing and the threat of desatting.

He has been fighting his mask.

Did you know that steroid treatments can make a kid get ragey too? In and out of sleep, mine is pissed this annoying rhino faced contraption keeps blowing hot 02 into his lungs.

Steroids or not, I don’t blame him.

He’s also feverish. And very sore from panting and panting and panting and coughing all day.

And just so sick.

I know he’s sick but the looks on all the doctors and nurses faces tell me that too.

Why am I up.

Well. He keeps knocking off his mask. That’s why.

Maybe it’s time for another trip to the nurses station for Chips Ahoy and a carton of milk. The dinner of champions.

Or to adjust his mask again before he desats.

Hissing, beeping, whispering, waiting.

How did this happen.

I got this form in my preschooler’s backpack yesterday.

And when I pulled it out of my son’s bag, this exact thought shot through my head like some breaking news report scrolling across my heart:

“Time needs to stop RIGHT NOW. RIGHT. NOW! How. HOW CAN I MAKE IT STOP. HELP!!! This is insanity. He was in a little infant bucket seat two days ago. He learned to walk yesterday. HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING????”

My heart raced. I literally panicked.

Before children, time made plenty of sense. It moved along, one second at a time. Click. Another moment went by. Click. And another. All moments streamed along in the same increments of seconds and minutes. It was rather orderly and predictable and comforting.

But then we fools have children. And time launches into some other worldly kind of flipped out time warp zone.

It’s astounding;
Time is fleeting;
Madness takes its toll...
I’ve got to keep control.

At first time stands still. Perfectly still. At 3am with a squalling baby in your arms and no way to calm him. Hours seem to pass, there is no way he’ll ever get sleep. There’s no way you’ll ever get sleep.  You are all alone, there is no rhyme or reason to anything and when you think it must be morning any minute now, you look over at the clock. And it’s only 3:01 am.

Time screeches to a painfully torturous crawl in those wee hours. Or on those early evenings when your child skipped a nap and can not STOP tantruming. The days run together, nothing changes, no time passes, stuck.

And then when you assume your life has been frozen into one tantruming, blown out diaper, up all night teething vortex in time… it passes. And passes fast. Like a bolt. ZIP. That tantruming child with a blown out diaper is suddenly reading you a book, putting on his own pants and brushing his own teeth.

But this is nothing. I’ve been warned it only gets worse. Time tears your children from you faster and faster. They wobble their bikes up and down your sidewalk and then they are gone, speeding over to a friends house to play video games and then pulling out of the driveway in a beater Honda that they bought with their own money.

I know this preschool graduation form is only the smallest example of parental tick tock trickery. Only the most mind-blowing stretches of lost moments have yet to come.

Nothing goes by in any predictable, manageable order.

It’s either frozen or a blur, once stuck in hell and then whizzing by. At first on their way out the door for preschool graduation but arriving a half hour later dressed, recently shaved and ready for High School graduation.

And *poof* gone.

With a bit of a mind flip
You’re into the time slip.
And nothing can ever be the same.
You’re spaced out on sensation.
Like you’re under sedation.
Let’s do the time-warp again.

I know what this form means. It means time will not stop for me. It will only crank up its speed another notch and whip my little boy further down the path of his childhood.

Oh and while time is at it, it also happens to be speeding up my life without any warning. How am I two years away from 40??? I was in my very late twenties when I got pregnant??

Time, that evil bastard. He has totally played me. He said I had forever with my kids but I never knew “forever” would be on his terms. Slow this mother ship down. RIGHT NOW.

*staring at the form on the table*

Ok. So it’s just a form. Yes, I’d like to order a graduation tassel. Won’t that be cute? And it’s a good thing he’s out of diapers. And 40 isn’t so bad really anyway. If you can’t beat him, join him… right?

Well I was walking down the street
just a-having a think
When a snake of a guy gave me an
evil wink.
He shook-a me up, he took me by surprise.
He had a pickup truck, and the
devil’s eyes.
He stared at me and I felt a change.
Time meant nothing, never would again.

Let’s do the Time Warp again.