Is This Thing On?!

Testing. Testing. Is this thing on?!

Did you miss me? I’ve missed you, Dear Reader. But my scattered brain has been keeping me away. Every time I would get a writing idea in my squirrelly little brain, it would magically disappear, much like my sanity over the past 6 years, before I could get it down on virtual paper.

My apologies for the extended hiatus. I promise it won’t happen again. I mean I won’t pinky promise or anything, but I’ll loosely promise. This is all riding on my brain, and–don’t tell it I said so–but I don’t trust it so much.

I’ve got so much to tell you! School is almost out, I’ve been doing yoga, work is JUST AMAZING right now, and we’ve got a chaotic, fun filled summer ahead of us. So sit down, buckle up, and get ready to read (and share!) what’s ahead. Oh, I’m also ready to tell you the story about how I tried THIS:

Because now the PTSD has nearly resolved.

I love you. Thanks for your patience. (Well, some of you were patient). Thanks to those of you who weren’t so patient as well. (Yeah, you know who you are).

Namaste.

(That means “I’m back, bitches.”)

Guest Post on 1 Crafty Lane…

Check out today’s guest post on my friend Spiceblogger’s blog “1 Crafty Lane” written by Zohrstruly.  Be sure to subscribe to her blog.

Thanks!

What Not to Say to Your Children (According to “Experts”)

There is no shortage of “How To” parenting articles.  The world’s foremost experts spend all of their time researching what happens to kids when they grow up under the care of less-than-perfect parents.  They give seething advice on the topic.  Their words sting most of the time, because none of us are perfect.  None of us do it right EVERYDAY.  Here’s an article I found about 9 things you shouldn’t say to your children.  Read it if you want.  But it’s very depressing.  Just read this instead, so that I can make you feel better.

No. 1:  “Leave me alone!”  Yeah.  I said it.  And I meant it.  I am not at your beck and call.  I am not here to cater to your every whim.  I’m your mother.  But I’m also a human being, with my own needs.  So bug off, kid.  Scram.  Mama needs to finish watching this episode of Real Housewives real quick.  We’ll talk about your friend Evan’s new haircut in twenty.  Got it?

No. 2:  “You’re so…”  Yeah.  I said it.  Granted, I didn’t say what the article warns about.  I didn’t say “You’re so worthless.”  Outloud.  To the kid.  I said, “You’re so lazy.”  And I meant it.  I meant that when I say “Hey, go take out the garbage please.” I meant ALL of the garbage.  Not half of it.  And not halfway TO the garbage cans.  I meant take all of the garbage ALL THE WAY to the garbage cans.  I’ve also been guilty of saying, “You’re so cute.”  I meant that part too.

No. 3: “Don’t cry.”  Wha?!  Why the hell should I tell my kid NOT to cry?  I mean, I’m not a monster.  If she bashes her toe into the wall on accident, I’m not going to ask her to suck it up.  On the other hand, if she asks me for a 16th brownie, and I deny her request, I’d better not see an ounce of saline fall out of her face.  Better.  Not.  And she knows this.  So why not reinforce this knowledge just after her face scrunches up?  That’s my job. I’m her mother.

No. 4:  “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”  Seriously.  I don’t even have this problem.  My children are pretty much flawed in their right equally.  On the other hand, their strengths and weakneses do seem to compliment one another, which is a definite PLUS to having four kids.  You people with only one are pretty much screwed.  One of my kids really sucks at spelling. Another is really good at spelling.  It’s not necessary for me to call the first out and say demeaning things to him about his lack of spelling prowess as compared to the other. When he asks me how to spell, for example, “WHITE”, I just say, “Go ask B.”  Little B spells the word for his brother.  If having your 6 year old brother spell a word that you, a Junior in high school can’t spell, isn’t a motivator to do better, then I don’t think insults will do much good either.  [True story, by the way.]

No. 5: “You know better than that!”  The article says that maybe the child DIDN’T know better.  I think that it’s much more damaging to assume that your kid is stupid than to assume that he’s made a mistake that he should have known better than to do.  For example, Little A should have known better than pour a LARGE glass of milk, and then dance around in the living room while holding said glass.  The result should have been obvious.  She is familiar with gravity.  She knows that without the protection of the glass, the milk would be on the floor.  She knows that jumping up and down will remove a large portion of the milk from the protection of the glass, and thereby will end up on the floor.  She’s not stupid.  She knew better.  Period.  And yes, I said it.

No. 6: “Stop or I’ll give you something to cry about!”  Please see No. 3.  I don’t think that many people use this as a threat to stop doing something other than crying for no reason.  Because yeah, that’d be bullying.  I prefer, “A, do you really WANT me to spank you?”  That’s how that goes down.

No. 7:  “Wait till daddy gets home!”  Yeah, I said it.  And I’m certainly aware that it’s not the best parenting and/or discipline strategy.  This sentence is born out of sheer desperation.  On days when I’ve been pushed to the brink.  When–even though my eyes have already physically come out of my head and the vein in my neck has bulged to the point of near explosion no less than 5 times–and yet, I’m still being blatantly ignored.  As a rule of thumb, I try not to say this unless their daddy is actually on his way home.  But as another rule of thumb, rules of thumb don’t really go very far in my house.

No. 8:  “Hurry up!”  Nomygoodness.  You can’t be serious parenting.com.  I mean, come ON.  When it’s 7:55 a.m., and I still have drop the ankle biters off at school and drive 10 minutes to work and I’m supposed to be there at 8 a.m., I think it’s okay to stress to my children who are bickering about what order you are supposed to put your socks on, that it’s actually pretty important that they HURRY THE HELL UP, by saying, “Hurry up!”  I can think of no less than 14,000 other examples where it’s okay to say this.

No. 9:  “Great job!” or “Good girl!”  Okay.  Let me break this down for you:  In a world where uttering the words “Great job!” is a mark of a bad parent, then let’s be honest people, I’m officially the world’s worst mother.

Okay, no. There are worse moms out there.

Get a grip, parenting.com.  Fire your writers.  That’s crazy talk.

 

I Take It Back…

I take it back.  I take it ALL back.  I spent the better part of the week after Christmas bitching and moaning about how my kids needed to go back to school.  How SICK and TIRED I was of cleaning sticky unidentified substances off of the floor, buying an unlimited supply of food stuffs, wiping things off of walls that I cannot explain, listening to inane arguments about NOTHING, and so on and so forth.  All of that distracted me and made me forget how much I hate school.  I didn’t hate school this much when I was IN school.  But I hate it now. 

This morning, the crater set in to my face very early, and so remained until I was T-30 seconds from work.  I had to remind myself aloud that I was ruining my face, and then smooth the wrinkle out manually while repeating relaxation mantras over and over.  “It’s okay, now.  I’m almost to work.  That’s where the normal people are.  They will act in a reasonably logical manner and won’t whine and bicker and ignore me…It’s okay, now.  I’m almost to work.  That’s where the normal people are…”

Moving on.

At least when school is in session the arguments at my house get a little more interesting.

The Y, where Little A and Little B go after school, is located across the street from Big E’s High School.  In the middle of dinner last night, Little B said “Hey, Mom.  Guess what I saw today?  It was Bubba.  [Big E].  He was riding on top of a truck while someone was DRIVING IT.”   Big E countered with, “Oh, yeah.  Because you know how much I love to ride on top of trucks.”

I couldn’t let this one go.

Z: “What’s that, B?  What did you see?”

B: “Bubba.  On top of a truck.  While it was moving down the road.”

Z: “When did you see this?”

B: “When I got to the Y.”

Z: “Hmmm.  That’s weird.  Because when you get to the Y, your brother has already been home for like an hour and a half.”

B: “Well, it was him.  And I saw him.”

Here’s where it got interesting.

E: “Oh, yeah, well I saw you, too.  You were climbing the fence and then you punched a kid in the face.”

B:  “What?!  No I didn’t!”

E: “Yeah.  You did.  Because I totally saw you do it.”

B: “Well, it must have been someone else, who looks like me.”

Now we all got involved.

ZH: “B!  Why’d you punch that kid in the face?!”

B:  “I didn’t punch ANYBODY in the face!  I didn’t!”

ZH: “You must have, your brother saw you do it!”

C:  “B, do you think that maybe you saw someone who looks like Bubba on a truck?”

B: “No.  And besides, he already admitted that it was him.”

ZH: “No he didn’t.”

B: “Yes he did.  When I first told you about it, he said that he loves to ride on top of trucks.”

E: “Well, I happen to know for a FACT that you like to climb fences…”

C: “AND punch kids in the face.”

B: “I.  DIDN’T.  PUNCH.  ANYONE. IN.  THE.  FACE!”

I was starting to get concerned.  Maybe this was going too far.

Then Little A chimed in for the first time, hinting at her highly unrecognized intelligence.

A:  “Dad, I didn’t see Bubba do anything.”

The table, save for Little B, erupted in laughter.  Little A clearly recognizes the “rat on me, I’ll rat on you” regime between her siblings and herself. 

B: “How long is Bubba going to be punished for doing something so dangerous and unsafe?”

ZH: “The same amount of time that you will be punished for climbing that fence and punching that kid in the face.”

B:  “AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

He leapt from his chair at the dinner table and took off down the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, trying hard not to cry in front of anyone.  I followed him.  I gave them ALL a dirty look, but I secretely felt guilty for laughing.  B can’t tell when someone is being sarcastic, usually.  Especially when it’s done with a straight face, which Big E, like his mother, is very good at. 

I found him in the laundry room, sobbing.  I told him that they were all joking with him.  He wasn’t in trouble.  We knew he didn’t punch anyone in the face.  We were picking. Then he told me that he wasn’t lying about Big E.  He really was riding on the truck.  I tried to explain to him that it couldn’t have been his brother, but had to be someone who looked like him, because E had been home for over an hour when B got to the Y.  He wasn’t buying it.  At.  All.  In the end, I had to agree to punish Big E for doing something so dangerous.  E agreed to accept his punishment. And Little B went to bed happy. 

I hope that E’s doppelganger doesn’t do that again. 

Evil Twins. Beware.

Happy Birthday To Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday Dear Zohrbak, Happy Birthday to Me

In case you didn’t know, (and HOW COULD YOU?) today is my birthday.  So, I decided to send myself a birthday letter/card this year. 

 Narcissistic Much?  I know, right?

Whatever.  Here it goes:

Dear Zohrbak,

Happy Birthday! You’re another year older, wiser and achier.  But let’s focus on the WISER, okay?  No, not wise ass, wise ass!  WisER. 

Anyway, you make things so difficult. 

Have a great day.  And a great year. 

Love,

Me.  I mean you.  No, no.  Me. 

 Thanks for all the birthday wishes that you will surely post below in the “Comments” box. 

🙂

Zohrbak’s Blog 2011 In Review~Thanks for Reading

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Don’t Mourn for Us

Read this, about Jim Sinclair.

Then, read this:

Don’t Mourn For Us, by Jim Sinclair

Very moving.  No?

Then know this about me:  I do have a tendency to mourn.  However, I am not mourning for a son that never came.  I’m simply mourning for the life I thought we’d live.  I’m mourning for the hardships that my son faces every single day of his life because things overwhelm him in very inexplicable ways.  I’m also mourning for the fact that I’m mourning, and I’m feeling guilty as hell about it all. 

I want to qualify the above statements by saying this:  I’m not dissatisfied with my life, or my children, or my family, or anything that’s touched by any of those things.  But I can’t lie and say that it’s not hard, or that I sometimes think I’m not strong enough to shoulder the responsibilities that I’ve been given by God.  And then I realize that to feel that way does my son and my family and my friends and myself a great disservice.  And I try to cheer up and get over myself.  But sometimes that’s harder to do than other times.  We are nearing the start of a fresh, new year.  And while I want to stay positive and think that it’ll be better and happier and easier and all that, I am at best a realist.  And I know that there will always be struggles.  We all have struggles.  All of us.  I’m no better or worse off than you.  Our struggles are all relative.  I’ve got mine, and you’ve got yours.  I pray that we each find our way in the coming year to feel strong and confident and powerful and in control.  Because there will always be struggles, in one form or another. 

Maybe Oprah can show us how to be all these things on her new show. 

Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne

I’ll buy my cup.  I might even buy you one.  Here’s to the end of a pretty fantastical year, all in all.  And my wish for me, and for you and yours is for an even better 2012.   

I hope to spend more time writing in the coming new year.  I also am resolving to get up off my lazy rear end and start exercising.  I know, this is very out of character for me.  But if I can pull off a spur of the moment decision to become a vegetarian, I can probably do this.  Probably.  I also am going to try desperately to have a better attitude.  (problem). 

But I will still hate Oprah.  She’s got a new show coming on her network this year.  So that’ll give me tons of ammunition. 

Go on, Steven Tyler. Push her. You're RIGHT there.

While I’ve got you here, “Like” my Facebook page if you haven’t already….by clicking the handy dandy link in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Wallowing

I’ve spent an awful lot of time thinking this weekend.  Sunday morning, after Little B had a meltdown at church, and we had to leave, the first episode of self-pity struck.  This fell on the heels of  being told during a completely unrelated argument with a close friend that I prefer to have people wallow with me, instead of offering encouragement, and it hit me hard, right in the gut. 

Before Little B was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, and even just after, I spent hours on the internet looking for answers.  Everything I read was either very clinical, or very flowery.  The sites that listed symptoms all listed the same things, over and over, and it was very difficult to paint a picture of an actual child from those lists.  The sites that were dedicated to “awareness” or whatever had smiley happy photos of parents and kids.  It was very confusing to me.  I was lost.  I was alone.  I couldn’t understand how that laundry list of symptoms affected an actual child.  How often did it affect them?  Was it constant?  How did the parents know anything was wrong?  Where did they go for answers?  How did they get people to understand?

There’s a lot that I’ve learned since that time.  I’ve learned that there are plenty of people out there in the same boat I am.  And was.  There are people who are looking for answers about their children.  They are likely confused and feel isolated.  At the other end of the “spectrum”, there are people who feel confident that they know all there is to know about their child’s condition, how best to handle the outbursts, the meltdowns, and their own emotional reactions to them.  There are people who have come to terms with the idea that their child cannot be “fixed”, because he or she isn’t broken.  They accept that.  They are strong and determined to make their child’s life the best it can be.  They build on their strengths instead of lamenting about their weaknesses. 

But not all of us are there yet.  There’s a process to this thing, I’ve learned.  There’s confusion.  There’s pain.  There’s grief.  There’s acceptance.  There’s community.  There’s support.  There’s power in numbers. 

But there’s always fear.  There’s always uncertainty. 

I have not chosen to share this journey that my family is on with all of you because I am holding true to my tendency to “overshare”.  It’s true.  I tend to be a person that just straight up tells you what’s going on in my head.  It’s not always a pretty picture.  But it is my truth.  Sharing that with my friends and my family helps me work the kinks out.  To take my truth and meld it into what the reality is. 

No, I’ve consciously made a decision to share this journey with you because there are others like me out there.  They likely feel alone.  They likely feel like they are the only people on the planet who have challenges with their child who has this diagnosis.  They have days when they find it just too hard to accept things for what they are, and they wish for something else.  They find it very unfair that their child has to have such challenges in exchange for the benefits of their disorder, no matter how wonderful they are.   They feel guilty about these feelings.  They know that they have been given a gift.  But that doesn’t make them perfect.  But it does make them human.  Maybe reading what I’ve written in these words makes them feel better, if even for a moment. 

I’ve also consciously made the decision to share because it helps me sort things out in my head.  I told a close friend the other day that it’s so easy to forget how bad things can get.  Little B has been on medication for about 4 months now.  There are definite benefits to this.  But it’s easy to forget, when you go a whole week without a meltdown, how bad the meltdowns are.  It’s easy to think that all of a sudden he no longer has a problem with certain situations.  And then, out of nowhere, it hits.  And you think that it’s worse than it’s ever been.  But I have this blog that I can go back to any time in the past one and a half years, and see how far he’s come.  How far WE’VE come.  Together.  And it gives me a sense of hope.  And hope is everything.  Even Little B knows that. 

I can see now very clearly that one of the biggest keys to Little B’s success is whether I can control my emotional response to his meltdowns.  I know that, logically, in my head.  I have seen the power of my remaining calm, and giving him a barometer against which to measure his own emotions.  If chaos begets chaos, then there is no end to it.  But this is hard for me.  It’s very hard.  But I am trying.  And I am getting better at it.  And so is he. 

I am blessed beyond belief.  And there are days that I recognize that and am so grateful.  There are also bad days, when I have trouble seeing past the immediate emergency.  To express that weakness to you doesn’t make me a “wallower”.  It makes me human.  And I hope that it makes you feel more human too. 

I hold no ill will toward the person who said that to me.  We have a strong history, she and I.  We’ve been friends for over 20 years.  She simply can’t understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes.  What it’s like to live this journey every day.  And because I love her, I am thankful that she doesn’t have to.  

 

The Elf on the Shelf

Sorry for the hiatus, Dear Readers.  I’ve been busy.  And pretty crazy.  Like crazy crazy.  The kind of crazy that no one should really be exposed to at length.  It might be catching.  

Anywhatevertheheck.  Moving on. 

You know this “Elf on the Shelf” thing?  Have you heard of it?  Do you know the story?  Let me ‘splain it to you.  That’s what I’m here for. There’s this Elf, see?  And you bring it home and you put it in a prominent location in your home, like, say, oh I don’t  know, a shelf, and you sit your children down and you tell them that Santa sent this Elf to help him out by keeping an eye on them by day, and then flying up to the North Pole to report back to Santa every night about whether or not they were “naughty” or “nice”.  Cute, right?  Don’t worry, dear reader, this is not the part where I admonish you for lying to your poor, naive children.  Quite the contrary.  I believe that lying, when done for the right reasons, and done with style, is a  parenting tool that is WIDELY underutilized and often misunderstood.  I am a proponent of this. But that’s not what this post is about.  It’s about the damn Elf.  So let’s get back to that.

I have noticed a couple of my Facebook friends’ status updates about the Elf on the Shelf…and bragging about how stealthy they’ve been, and chuckling about how they were almost caught when moving the Elf, and so forth and so on, and it struck me:  I do not have a typical family.  I know I’ve had this realization before, but it really never ceases to amaze me how ATYPICAL my family is. 

Much like you probably have a very difficult time imagining what my life must be like, I am increasingly finding it more and more difficult to imagine what YOUR lives must be like.  I mean, I can’t even imagine what I would do with myself if my kids were so calm and obedient that I could purchase a toy-like object, tell my children a fantastic, magical story about it, and then put it on a shelf and leave the room, where it would remain untouched.  I mean, really?  How does THAT work?  I suppose you people can do things like go ahead and start wrapping your gifts and putting them under your tree, and you can keep a couple of spare rolls of toilet paper in your bathrooms? (Ha! I bet you’ve been taking that one for granted.)   

They should invent another product for families like mine.  It’d be called:

This Elf comes along with a magical story, which even my children love, but not with the expectations that the children will leave it alone. In other words, it’s not a pretty little package of disappointment–a constant reminder throughout the month of December at how terrible your children behave. Why can’t the Elf watch the children for Santa while being thrown into a moving ceiling fan and smashed against the wall?  Or stuffed in a baby-doll sized back pack and shoved in the bottom of the toy box?  Or left in the yard overnight?  Or in the ice bin in the refrigerator?  (Yeah, don’t ask.) 

The answer is this:  He can.  As long as we are ALL lying to our kids, I can just make up my own story and make up my own rules, which I do all the time anyway.   For that matter, I can just appoint our tiny puppy, Zero as Santa’s secret spy.  Guess how much that little lie will cost me?  Zero dollars.   Plus, it will freak my other dog out, big time.