Parenting sucks giant ostrich eggs...

As my 2 year old would say..."Now what?"
If only she knew what terror those words strike in my heart!  It is a bad day for me to write, or maybe one of the better ones.
My oldest two kids will be home in about an hour...talk about striking fear...

Really, I love my kids, honestly, I do.  But...what have I gotten myself into?  It is a dark place of parenting right now.  Tantrums, whining, fighting, kicking, hitting...I had to carry my 7 year old son onto the bus yesterday morning.  Literally, kicking and screaming...ugh.  Maybe not so much screaming as grunting as he head butts me under the chin "let go of me," because, yes, I sat on the bus seat with my arms wrapped around my sweet boy in a vice hug of ultimate parental humiliation.  Ok, that part wasn't as bad as stepping off the bus to the surprise of the other parents at the next stop.

Seriously, we have become "that family" with the cancelling of get togethers, no playdates, no friends over for dinner.  The paranoia sets in with the imagined (or not) whispers of "her kid is out of control, can't she do something?" I can barely enjoy an hour or two out as the Au Pair watches the kids for bedtime.  After several attempts at having friends with kids over for dinner or just a visit, and the constant threat of a Nuclear Meltdown amidst the constant bickering, fighting, and tattling of my sweet littles, we have drawn a line in the sand.  Nothing, nobody happens until Halloween.  And y,es, I have considered cancelling Halloween...fortunately, we are not there yet.

Yes, I know, poor you with the extra help...blah, blah, blah...however, this not the place I expected to be in when my oldest are 7 and 5.  I am probably overly concerned, however, at least I am concerned.  Every time I think I have failed as a parent I can at least remember that.  I care, so much in fact that it might be my fatal parental flaw.  That I wring my hands and search for better answers, try new things, actually talk about the problems and out myself as the deeply flawed parent I am, these are at least attempts at resolution, however unsuccessful they may be right now.

My challenge.  My first, my complex, cerebral, sweet boy...I love you, you make we want to be a better mom. As I watch how your behavior modeling trickles down to your younger sisters' behavior,  how I dread the teenage years...
Time to get shit together, fill up the parenting tool box, buck up, sit tight, hold on for dear life, and perhaps...even pray...that the road ahead, bumpy as it may be,
(as a dear friend pointed out to me today)
will be okay.  It will all be OK, it just needs a little more than duct tape...

So if you are one of the many friends who has gotten the, "sorry, we are not available until November" message, it is not you, it is us.  We must get the house in order, and then perhaps visiting with us will be enjoyable once again.

Until next time...

Good to be back....

I keep meaning to just sit and write.  Seriously, I do...  Let's just say that I am just as lazy, and just as big of a procrastinator as I always have been.  Good to know some things never change.  I need to do this during the day.  I used to do it late at night, but now my nights are for sleeping.  I am officially old.  I am literally in bed, asleep by 930pm almost every night.  Tonight being the exception to that rule..call it the joys of responsible parenting, or the "I get no respect" problem, or the "welcome back to your life where you are the teacher in Charlie Brown" syndrome.  Ugh, sometimes life is easier with your eyes closed...
The last few months have been incredible!  I have really gotten back into the "swing" of my life.  Running around, dropping kids here and there, getting to the gym, going to the market, doing laundry, cleaning up, etc.  Camp has begun, schedules are getting hectic, carpooling, working in the nap for the little one, and, yes...I still have help.  Aura is with us and a huge help with balancing what I need to get done with what I want to get done.
I  am sometimes able to get to the gym 5 times a week.  And let me tell you, the 35 pounds I have put on since the stroke are not coming off any other way!  I am half way to my goal weight, and have discovered the joy (and pain) of kickboxing!  Great workout!  I have also discovered the pain of being almost 40...lower back has gone out twice in the last month...OLD.  Am having problems with fatigue, and wondering how much is stroke recovery or vacation recovery, how much is working out/not working out, how much is eyes, and how much is just plain "I don't want to."  Not that I tend to overthink things...in the least bit.
It has been almost 9 months since my stroke, and wow, how different things are.  I go to a stroke survivor group once a month and together with my fellow survivors and our caregivers I learn to move forward every day and push myself to strive for goals that for me are my "Mt. Everest" to climb, but for most people are taken for granted.
One of our members put on a presentation last session that was so strikingly well done, I am back to blogging!  But seriously, this is a man who was in the prime of his life, had a great career, family, goals, plans, and got hit with a devastating stroke.  He he had to learn to do the basics that I was fortunate enough to have intact...walking, talking, etc.  He had to start all over again with learning the same things I am teaching my children to do now: tying shoes, math, reading, spelling, everything. 
Talk about putting your problems in perspective.   And yet, all problems are relative.  How much respect are you really going to get after coming back from something like this?  Sure, the first few months are the "amazing recovery" and the continual support, but then...life happens again, and you are back to the place you were before the rug got ripped out from under you.  You can be the "bad cop" parent again, and the feelings of self-doubt about your role as a parent when you feel you are totally on your own in some things come back full-force and the stroke was just something that happened...a long time ago...and finally plays no part in the day to day humdrum of life.  At least in your eyes...
Until next time...

My new normal...continued

Of all the comments and questions I have gotten in the past few months, the one I have spent the most time thinking about is "didn't this just piss you off?" Well, yes, more than most people know. Having a stroke, dealing with the physical problems it left behind, and trying desperately to "insert myself back into my life" is totally off-putting...to say the least. So, did this make me angry? You bet. However, if there is one thing I have learned it is that there are more important things to focus on than the anger. Acknowledge it, accept it, and move the hell on. I know too many people stuck in the anger part of recovery to think that it is a healthy place to be.

Here's the thing I don't spend a lot of time thinking about...I almost died. Do not pass GO, do not collect the watching of the children and my marriage grow, push up the daisies, become one with the universe...I could write a lot of other witty euphamisms for this fact, but again, I would be dodging the true impact of the statement. A little more bleeding, a millimeter left or right and BLAMO--death or coma. I did not need the MRI to show me what could've been, although, that did make quite an impact.

What made the biggest impact, you ask? I make assumptions that you ask this.

I DIDN'T die!

Yes, my eyes lived in their own little world of a bad acid trip (again, assumptions), and I have had to work very hard to exercise and train them to make them go where I want them to, and when. They are slow, and seeing in general does not come naturally to me anymore. It has just become something I have to work at. I have to make them look, focus, track, and search. It is a conscious activity now, not something I take for granted anymore.

The double vision, well, that is another story...that sucks! I am now playing the "waiting game." Basically, my vision situation is this...the images from each of my eyes do not match up. One image is straight up and down (left eye) and the other is twisted a little (right eye). How do we fix it? That is the kicker. Scotch tape for now. The tape is so that only one image comes to me at a time. I switch the tape between the right and left lenses of my glasses so that both eyes are still being stimulated and working. Wouldn't want one to get lazy and stop working...at least not yet. The twist is caused by an eye muscle that is paralyzed, kind of like the stroke survivors you have seen with a paralysis of the limbs, my paralysis is on the inside. Leave it to me to find the most obscure deficit. There are competing ideas as to what the real problem is eyes/brain/both. So, the simple answer is that we don't know. We just wait and see what the rest of the healing process will produce. The good news is that I can get my two images to overlap, but not fuse togethere to make one image. Imaging trying to fit a puzzle piece in, but you have the piece turned counter-clockwise just enough not to fit into the space.

Welcome to my world. Maybe I should by stock in 3M or whoever makes the kind of tape I'm using.

Until next time...

My new normal

So at least I am just as consistent with my blog writing as I always was with my journal/diary keeping when I was a kid...

It has been a while, and it has been a ride.

But, as it is with the rest of my life, it is with the blog. It is time to get back to the world, to accept and embrace my "new normal" as transient as it may be. The past 4 months have been brutal, confusing, maddening, and in the grand scheme of things...totally unfair. I mean, seriously, who has a stroke at 37? According to the MRI, not many like mine make it out, so I have a ton to be thankful for. But really, a mid-brain hemorrage...for no apparent reason...awesome. (Enter sarcasm...)

But now, recovery has come to a point very close to where I was before the stroke, at least physically. My vision will never be the same, but I can now get my eyes (and brain) to work well enough together to do most of the things I did before. I can drive a little, run errands, watch my kids play sports and activities, clean, and participate in the everyday humdrum of my life without dealing with the world spinning like I'm on a Tilt-O-Whirl. Always hated that ride.

As my daughter Danielle points out... "You can do laundry!" Believe it or not, that was one of my first big accomplishments! It was one of the first things I did when I became able to not have to nap after every awake period, and when I could get my eyes to focus for more than a few moments. I sat on the floor and scanned for, found, folded, and stacked clean clothes for my family. It was awesome! Sounds silly, I know, but talk about taking the small things for granted! Never in my life have I been more aware of how much about my body and mind I took for granted, than after the stroke. For instance, catching a ball, or other small projectile coming my direction, not pretty to watch. Much like watching a drunk, I can SEE it coming just not great at gauging exactly where it is.

Bigger objects, no problem. Well, much prettier to watch anyway.

Writing about this whole experience is a work in progress. I plan to work backwards a little, focusing on the now, but I will start from the beginning...eventually.

Until next time...