Unfit Mother

Precious Moments

Just when I sat down to try and get some good ole blogging time in, this is what I find my children playing with outside:

one piece of broken glass bottle, four rusty nails and and a screw driver.

It came back with the rain. The draining in the clouds washed away the knot in my frontal lobe. At least that’s where it felt like it was. I am not a medical doctor not do I even have basic first aid training. Maybe it was simply being able to read again. Because I couldn’t do that for a couple of months either. Usually I read voraciously, binging like a bulimic. All I have been able to read from start to finish in two months is Rose of No Man’s Land by Michele Tea and No one Belongs Here more than you by Miranda July. I haven’t even been able to commit to any television shows unless you count the feigned interest in Gray’s Anatomy for the benefit of our foreign resident house guest. The only movie I watched with any attention is Juno. Once in the theater and again on Sunday from a pirated copy burned by the husband of someone I know. It starts without any menu selections or the ability to pause with commitment. So I had to watch it. But Michelle, Diablo and Miranda ministered over me and eased the veil. Last week, I couldn’t even write 10 sentences about my day. Given, these sentences had to be in Japanese, but I couldn’t even form the ideas for them in my own language first.

I still have a headache, but at least my husband is home and I have time to do something in the evenings now other than fall asleep. My absent partner in parenting has been gone 5 out of the last 8 weeks. I feel for single moms, I have to say. I did not sign on for single parenthood and am inspired to secure more life insurance.

But the cleansing rain is not supposed to last. According to the mortal wonder of weather forecasting, we will be cursing our 100 year old home and consider air-conditioning in paint sealed windows come Thursday. Even as I write, the sun approaches. But I have a beautiful new yard to enjoy at the expense of hard labor. I still have to finish planting the snack bar (blueberries, strawberries and grapes) but it is a veritable oasis.

Slipping

Not blogging reminds me of gaining weight. It is a slow and gradual process and I try not to look at the scale that reminds me the numbers are increasing (or decreasing as the case may be). Out of sight; out of mind. Denial. My head feels like its gripped in a vice, pinched in a concussive shroud. Exhaustion is a formidable deterrent.

Paralyzed in the night by anxiety, I wrote myself a permission slip to take a break from blogging. And just when I thought this cloud of “bloggers block” would not lift, I had a breakthrough: I need hot water in order to think clearly.

I was at the gym, sitting in the Jacuzzi when the ache subsided slightly and a sliver of clarity emerged bobbing to the surface. I actually do have a medical condition that may be contributing to my blog-absence, but I really believe I have reached some sort of maximum thinking capacity. My brain is over saturated. For which there are many contributing factors that will sounds like rationalized excuses here. But, I am truly overwhelmed.

Sometime before daybreak this morning while I was wedged in fetal position at the end of my bed, pinned by flailing limbs and the heavy absence of my business class husband hurdling through the air on a Boeing 727, I resolved to try and get something posted today. Anything. And then I wondered if I should apologize. But would these words emit a tinny echo reverberating only against my keyboard? Because to whom do I owe an apology? (Bear with my rhetorical rant – There… there you are! It does feel like I am talking to someone after all.)

But for a few moments I wondered. Does anyone care if an unfit mother moans against a chorus of endless monotony? (You know, a variation on the ole proverbial tree in the forest... .)

My point is I vowed to keep a blog for myself. And along the way I began to care if anyone read it and the pressure to perform contributed to this anxiety that whacks me in the head and causes this pressure and pain. But I don't write just for an audience.

It was in the early 90’s while reading Milan Kundera’s, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, that I was ironically inspired by the concept of graphomania and began to keep a journal. Almost daily for over ten years. I have these tomes stored in boxes in a bench on the landing to the second floor and can feel the breath of all those years sigh as I pass. They pulse like my head and whisper back the repeated threats to read through and edit them for someone else to read. I often think if I never get to them before I die, I want my daughters to have them. (But in the event of an untimely demise, not until they are 18. The escapades of my youth are not even “PG” fare.)

So I am apologizing to myself.

Self, I am sorry. I am sorry I have been ignoring something to which I committed.

And if it entertains anyone else along the way, then join me. But this time I set aside to write is for me. A gift.

And I never want to think of this sanctuary as a burden so if I am sloppy and tired and let the days slip by again, know that this promise to myself is stronger than me at times.

And you would not believe what I have accomplished by NOT blogging.

Black Holes

I have fallen into one on the blogosphere. And I am: uninspired, gardening, doing Japanese homework, getting ready for new exchange intern, overwhelmed with Tavi's therapy, involved with school volunteering, bemoaning pet peeves at the gym, socializing with friends, sewing, spring cleaning... . Shall I go on?

Margaret Cho tomorrow night. And oh yeah, I broke my toe.

BACK SOON!

What I Already Know (just nice to hear someone else say it...)

No Foolin'

I wondered when it would happen. This morning when I leaned in for a tight squeeze and a smothering smooch on the cheek, she stiffened with humiliation. "Mom!" Ivy protested. A parenting blunder. Hugs and kisses in the first grade hallway are now strictly verbotten.

*sigh*

My computer should be back next week with new logic on board. Short missives in the meantime...

R*I*P

My computer died. Back soon.

No Sh*t, Sherlock.

This is why I will not be condoning an abstinence only sex education policy with my daughters.

Quirky

I have to admit it. As I lay in an execution pose, my arms strapped to a "T", mired in a groggy surgery haze, I met Tavi three minutes before her twin. One look at my newborn daughter and I thought: THAT is a mean baby. I had a difficult time bonding with her because she was so irritable. And after already digesting my dog-eared copy of the Sear’s Fussy Baby Book after the birth of my oldest child, Ivy, I fought that exasperated here-we-go-again feeling. It isn’t that Tavi is mean, she just seemed uncomfortable from the minute she was born. Granted, the kid was forcibly ripped from my sloughing womb by her ankles and then thrust naked beneath interrogation-grade lights and multiple probing, blue, latex hands in a frigid room. (And people wonder why they have alien abduction flashbacks – take a look at your birth experience!) But it seemed more than colic or a fussy disposition.

My little chubby cherub was always stoic, but cuddly and cute beyond a mother’s measure. And she shied from strangers and fretted and slept fitfully. By the time she was a year old, I started suspecting her differences were more than the explicable comparisons to her twin and older sisters. No one wants to think their child is not the most brilliant perfect Harvard-bound future doctor/ lawyer; it is hard to swallow the frightening possibility that something is amiss.

When Ivy was 9 months old and taking tentative steps, cruising along the furniture, threatening not to crawl, a well meaning relative warned that skipping the crawling stage was a sign of a horrible learning disability. This suggestion was offered as if I could force Ivy down on all fours and make her crawl. Like intervention would forgo a future diagnosis. But maybe intervention is the key to the allusive behavior I witness shrouded in Tavi’s tantrums.

Our doctor recommended the book, The Highly Sensitive Child , but it left me wanting more substantial conclusions, something more definitive. With a legacy of learning disabilities and social oddities, I became suspicious that the tomes of inherited eccentricies documented in my family mythology were in fact diagnosable and even treatable problems. I asked a good friend finishing her masters in child development for a recommendation about how to seek help. She referred me to the Multnomah Early Childhood Program (MECP). Apparently, every state has an early intervention program that services the same population as their public school system. I was astounded when after submitting a mere one page application, I had an appointment for an assessment less than a week later.

Last Tuesday, two women came to our home, scribbled volumes in their encrypted notebooks and “hmmm"-ed after all of my answers to their discerning questions. I was skeptical that they would see what I might be imagining. But Tavi preformed for them throwing not one, but three enormous tantrums for her captive audience. She ignored invitations to picture pointing exercises when distracted by a delicate wind-up toy whose operation she figured out within seconds of scrutinizing it's mechanics. These women nodded sympathetically and assured me I was not imaging things. I felt both vindicated and terrified.

“She’s quirky.”  They stated upon departure.
Is that an official diagnosis?
They left me on my front porch with empathetic smiles, my palm still warm from their consoling handshakes. I felt raw. One of the women called a couple of days later with little more information but an indication that we are facing a sensory integration disorder. The internet can be a hindrance and a blessing, arming me with too much unverified information and even more questions.

But I am not shouldering this confirmation with personal defensiveness. I am relieved in a way and more curious about the value this information will have on our family. Tavi will begin occupational therapy in the next couple of weeks. This journey has weighed heavily on my mind and distracted me from all other obligations. And as for leaving March an empty slot in my monthly archive, I apologize for my absence.

Theme Song in Celebration of 100th Post

Gym Math

I have been working out like a mad woman at the gym since turning a new leaf with everyone else in ought eight. To date, I have GAINED 5.5 pounds and LOST 5.5 inches. My caloric output exceeds my caloric intake. What gives?! I'm all for measuring my progress in ways other than by the scale, but seriously, watching those numbers rise really messes with my head. And fogs the success of melting 5 and a half inches of butterfat from my thighs, butt, arms and neck.