Category Archives: Life

Obligatory End of Year Post

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I’m finishing the year must as I started it at the moment—nursing Miles and spending time with family.

2013 was a huge, huge year. It started with surgical recovery and the addition of a family member, in the middle it was hard and everything was in transition constantly, and in the end, we had to fix our house a lot and struggled to get to a new normal which is not yet settled.

Forevermore, I will associate the new year with my son. He turns two on Thursday, which is crazytalk, but tomorrow we will fill our living room with two year olds (four of them should do the trick) and they will eat cupcakes and it will be low key and fine.

 

I’ve been struggling with depression. The battle to get respite and to get health care coverage has been demoralizing at best. One of my coping mechanisms, which only parents of violent children will understand, is to know that I have a choice, that if it gets too bad she can live somewhere else. I could think about that choice because foster care through DDS is a very different creature from foster care through CPS, the training is different, it is voluntary, etc. etc. But the same issue that prevents us from getting respite paid for also prevents her from entering that system, so really the ONLY option that would get her out of the house if she really injures someone is basically calling CPS, and that’s not an option for a kid like Shiny. Putting her in therapeutic foster care is one thing, but tossing a medically complex kiddo into “the system” is not happening on my watch.

Feeling trapped is one of my worst, worst triggers for depression. “Acute situational depression” is still situational and acute even when the situation is chronic. The cure is to fix the situation, I just feel like we’ve been slogging against it for so long.

My parents are paying for a couple days of respite this week, one day next week. We’ll get through it. When I can’t use my usual coping methods, we default to “things change, it will be different later.”

That and video games. I treated myself to the second chapter of Starcraft, which actually passes the bechdel test, but has kind of an annoying “heroine”. The game play is fun though, even if the story is (by necessity of the game design) aggravating. When you design a game where you have three factions and you play all three factions, kind of everyone has to suck at some level, and you have to sort of hate everyone. So I am playing the zerg mother and bash smash swarm it’s a decent outlet.

I don’t do new years resolutions. Coincidentally I will be starting my elimination process next week whereby I figure out which foods I tolerate and which I don’t. It is not a “diet” per se for weight loss, but an attempt to figure out if I can feel better by changing my diet. We shall see.

Riding the respite roller coaster

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So I’ve been drowning a lot. And a local disability advocacy worker threw me a lifeline by suggesting Shiny be enrolled in a camp that does inclusion for special needs kids. I looked into it, they offered to do a scholarship for the first week, it looked like such a good idea that I paid out of pocket for a second week.

Shiny was excited. Great. It involved swimming and dancing and a lot of free play.

First day was fine, exhausting for me because I ended up doing a meat sort, but that was okay, I had 10 days of respite lined up, 9 hours a day.

The second day was wonderful up to a point… I ended up taking a long nap with Miles, getting things done. Hubby came home to a happy wife and a cooked meal and Shiny was tired but that’s okay.  The point at which it wasn’t wonderful was when her second week of camp (different camp) called and said Shiny would not be able to go because the camp was wide open and outdoors and there would be no way of keeping her safe in that environment. I was sad but wanted to enjoy the rest of the week.

Third day, I had an appointment in the morning that fractured our nap, the appointment was a dud anyway as we were going to have a plug installed near our fireplace and they couldn’t do it for under $800… But I was going to have a nap in the afternoon with Miles anyway and make a nice dinner… and then Camp called.

Shiny was refusing to wipe her own butt, and “their staff isn’t trained for that”. She was acting tired and didn’t want to participate, so I needed to come get her, she wouldn’t be allowed back.

That 10 days of respite.. had turned into 2 1/2. And was done.  Over.

I flipped my shit when I got off the phone. My mother went and got Shiny, and advocated for Shiny to return the next day for a shorter period of time. I called crisis services for the local county office of developmental disability services (DDS). There were a lot of phone calls and a lot of messages and I cried a lot.

Then I got a magical call back from the regional crisis intervention coordinator.

Shiny will qualify, possibly as soon as next week, for $1000 per month in respite funds.

In 3-6 months, because Shiny is currently “at risk” for losing her placement (i.e. if we can’t figure out lasting solutions that make it possible for us to care for her in the home without her damaging us, we will have to look at therapeutic foster care, I am THAT done), a new state program called the “K-plan” will kick in, and Shiny can be considered a family of one for purposes of applying for aid, such as SSI and Medicaid. Remember, we currently pay 1500 per month for insurance, which will drop almost by half January 1, but we have NEVER been able to have dental and vision coverage for Shiny, which has meant many thousands out of pocket.  We may also be able to get housekeeping help for the “extra” burdens that Shiny’s conditions create on the level of mess here. (Me taking time when I’m not keeping an eye on the living room often results in Shiny creating a poop disaster. Then I spend an hour or two cleaning up a poop disaster. So her effect on the house is twofold–without a break from her, nothing gets clean, ever, unless I do it after bed, and I don’t often have the energy to do it then because I’ve been dealing with her all day).

I got plenty of sleep and a break from Shiny over the weekend, two days in a row. By the end of the weekend, my co-host for the co-op saw me and was blown away by how much better I looked than the last 20 times she’d seen me. By Tuesday I looked in the mirror and said, “Oh, there you are!” to a person I hadn’t seen in years. I was starting to feel human. The level of devastation at having my two weeks turned into two days? I don’t have enough words to describe it.

But… with $1000 per month, Shiny can go to after-school care every day… at the special needs center where they presumably know how to wipe butts. No-school days will be covered. And there will be enough left over to allow some respite time on weekends as well, so hubby and I can actually spend some time together.

I am enraged at the shitty implementation of “inclusion” at the city program. But it got things going and helped grease the gears at DDS… normally there is a 3 month wait list, but they are expediting us. I could just about hear steam come out of the coordinator’s ears when I said that no one had referred us there, and I had learned of them by chance just this spring.

How very different her toddler years might have been.

Having just Miles around is a dream. He is so *easy*, and we get into a rhythm so nicely with each other.  I was so looking forward to having that…  And we will, it will just be a few weeks.

It’s like there’s still a rhinoceros sitting on my chest, but at least I know it will be leaving soon. And without us having to put Shiny into foster care.

It was something I hated contemplating, but I just didn’t know what else to do. She is abusive and violent and she will likely always be abusive and violent and my responsibility, and I don’t want my son to grow up bullied, and the fact that when she comes near I cringe and say “don’t hit me” is just sad. If she’s out of the house from the time she wakes up until dinnertime, we only have to deal with 2-3 hours per day and that I can do.  I can be the parent I want to be for her, if I”m not having to defend myself from her all the time. If I’m not pouring everything into just trying to minimize the amount of destruction she wreaks.

The morning of the day they sent her home, as I was getting her ready to go, she said, “Camping time. Oh boy. Can’t wait.”

I am still so angry with them.

This wouldn’t hurt so much if it didn’t hurt so much

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Kailea moved out today. I’m so proud of her–she took the bull by the horns and got herself a decent first job and a place to live.

The part that hurts is that I’m super, duper painfully sick right now–sore throat, fever, chills, ear ache, did too much sick.

Cas is moving out on Tuesday morning, early.

To say that I am overwhelmed is an understatement. Both are making positive steps forward in their lives, figuring out how to be grownups, doing the things you do when you’re 19 and 20 and starting out in the world.

But oh my heart I will miss them. K is 15 minutes away in light traffic, half an hour in heavy. I will likely see her once or twice a week. Cas… I don’t know when we’ll see Cas again, off into the wilds she goes, first Nebraska and then Montana.

This means that starting Tuesday it is my job to get Shiny to school, watch Miles all day, pick Shiny up again, cook dinner with two kids and no buffer. Sounds like less than many of you guys deal with, but on top of that I’m sick, plus there’s also the background of fibro and hypermobility and pretty much always being in pain if I’m up and doing. I’ve been so lucky to have the time I’ve had with backup, but I’m going to be flying solo and that would be a lot less scary if I didn’t feel like ass.

Today I got an award lauding my organizational skills. I had to work hard not to laugh hysterically. I’m good at inspiring people. I’m good at systems. I’m lousy at maintenance and I wonder if they’ll still like me if it all comes crumbling down once I don’t have help.

Miles is also feverish and sick, limp and listless, we were at the park and he just stayed quiet on my back and spent some time nursing–he’s been a ball of energy for months, it was almost scary.

Tomorrow my husband celebrates his “birthday observed”… long story. But I will be primary with the kids. Mothers day they will let me sleep, thank god.

Allie is back at Hyperbole and a half. Every few months I worried about her, wondered how things were going. Sounds like I was right to worry, but I’m glad if she’s found her way out of the morass that depression is. I’m doing my best right now to fight it, but it feels like I”m fighting vampires with marshmallows.

If I wasn’t in such pain right now, I might be able to have a better attitude about things. But my skin burns, I feel every fiber of my clothing, my throat is full of knives and moving is hard.

I know I can do this, mostly because I won’t have any choice. If I come out the other side, it will be as a stronger, more capable human being. Which sounds like a good thing, but also too exhausting.

Little things… our hang tag expired, and I’m not getting a new one. Bye, easy parking. We’ll see how long I can go without–I could get another without trying very hard, but I”d like to see if i can manage without.

Our food budget is going to be cut almost in half. And this makes me so sad.

We have new people moving in. New people. Yay. But they’re not family. Maybe they’ll be family. Maybe they’ll just be tenants.

I hired a housecleaner. She is fast and competent and worth every penny.

I bought new bras. Only to discover that the primary reason the old ones fit was because they were stretched out. I can close them, they’ll have to do (same size and make as the old ones, super cheap price, but right now I feel every thread.)

 

My leather jacket

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When I was 19, I lived in a mediocre part of southeast Portland. I was attending classes downtown and taking the bus home at night. I was young, pretty, and had a number of scary moments when strange men would follow me off the bus. I always went to the store and called home for a roommate to come walk with me when that happened, but it got old really fast.

I did four things. I bought a nerve gas keychain (like Mace). I started wearing combat boots. I took Tai Kwon Do classes from the most chauvinist jerk on the planet. (“You ladies can do this move while holding a baby or putting on lipstick!”). And I spent way too much money on a real, honest to god leather motorcycle jacket. It was heavy. And felt like armor.

Changing what I was wearing and carrying was huge… suddenly the problems just went away. I felt protected, I felt badass, and I felt like if anyone gave me any shit I would have zero trouble defending myself.

I did not leave my house without my biker jacket all winter. Then it warmed up, and I walked out the front door wearing birkenstocks and a t-shirt and jeans, leaving the armor at home.

I went all of a block and a half to the store. In that time two separate cars slowed down and the young men inside harassed me. I thought about it while I shopped, and before I left the store, I mentally “put on” that leather jacket, the combat boots. I wasn’t actually wearing them, but I was wearing the attitude I had when I had worn them before.

No one bothered me on the way home. So every time I left the house, I put on my jacket, mentally, whether I actually put it on or no.

And never had another problem being harassed or followed.

I tell this story to the young women I know… the story that the actual fabric of what you wear, the cut of your clothes is less important than the attitude you put on.

Men can be pretty shitty about vulnerable looking girls. That doesn’t mean we are responsible for their shitty behavior. Wearing a dress or a t-shirt or even a bikini is not “asking” for anything. But predators are looking for prey. And putting on my armor kept me from scanning as “prey”. And made it a hell of a lot less scary to leave the house.

In a similar vein… when I was 9 years old, my parents were moving us across the country. My dad needed to drive the car from Michigan to Oregon, and put out a classified ad to find someone to drive with him. We went to meet someone who answered that ad, and as we walked up the front path, I remember seeing this huge German Shepherd dog being held by the collar by a tall, thin woman. I didn’t like the look of the dog, so I stepped back, afraid.

He broke loose from his owner, and lunged at me, bounding down the steps, across the front yard and leaping toward my face. My mother’s fist hit the dog, knocking him to the ground, at the same moment as his tooth laid open a cut on my face. Had she not hit him, I would have been maimed.

You might think that I would have been afraid of dogs after that… And I will say that I’m not wild about German Shepherds to this day. But the real lesson I learned was not to be afraid of dogs…but that showing my fear was the worst thing I could do. I’ve never failed to stand my ground with a dog since.

Sometimes self defense is as much about knowing that you have a right and the ability to defend yourself as it is about any external factor.

That same summer (lousy, lousy summer), I was picking plums in the alley behind our rental house, when a man came into the alley. He saw me and started unzipping his pants. I was alarmed (9 years old, remember?) and started to walk back to my house, which meant I had to pass him to get out of the alley. He reached out and grabbed my crotch as I passed, and I jerked away from him. He said, “What, can’t I touch you?”

I yelled, “No!” and ran for my apartment.

This was training at work. Stranger danger was a big thing, and this kind of attack was exactly what I’d been trained by Girl Scouts and my Mama Bear mother to deal with. I said no. I ran. I didn’t show my fear to the dog. I didn’t let my fear paralyze me (and fear can, in fact, literally paralyze people).

There is a knack to reacting to crisis situations. To thinking on your feet. To hiding your fear and doing what needs to be done. To putting on your metaphorical leather jacket and going out to kick ass and take names. Even if it’s just a role you play in your head… role play is training for the real thing.

7 years ago my middle child choked on a taco chip. I did what needed to be done until that chip was off her trachea and she was pinking up and no longer limp and blue in my arms. I fell apart later, when it was safe.

Fear is only useful if it motivates you to find a way to be strong and take care of business. If it paralyzes you, you have to learn another way of doing, another way of being.

Put on your leather jacket. You’ve got this.

Toddle.

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I have a toddler. How the heck did this happen? He TODDLES. Like, he mostly doesn’t crawl anymore. And he says things. Not a lot of things, and not very well, but he’s able to sign yes and say no, can ask for boob or monkey noises, can say “diaper” and sign it… and he is loving imitating things, like using a fork, or my keyboard. TODDLING WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE.

Oh, and he also climbs. And puts things inside other things. And on other things. And knows that if he can get people to let him pick up their shirts, they all have bellybuttons. Which are fun to stick fingers in.

Cas managed to teach Miles to make dolphin noises, like he needed any help.

2012 was too big to sum up in a single post

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Or maybe at all. Huge year. Huge. Full of all sorts of completely life altering things.

In other news, going to the doctor=right call, I feel almost “fine” except for the part where I have to sleep 10-14 hours per day and can’t lift things. I’m off of everything but Piroxicam, and have minimal pain. But much tired. Wonder how much better I would have felt this past week if I’d figured the bladder infection out sooner.

Miles, like Shiny and Laura before him, took his first “run” between the arm of the couch and the gate. He’s done 1-2 steps before, this was closer to 4. He’s getting very stable at just standing without holding onto anything. I walked him in to show off to Daddy… at which point he was so excited about walking that he started bouncing up and down and couldn’t stay on his feet. Goofnut.

We saw The Hobbit. Someone could tell me all the stuff I didn’t recognize was from the Silmarillion and I’d have to believe them because I totally fell asleep reading the Silmarillion before Brooke even wrote a song about it, when I had insomnia even. It was ridiculously dull. I’m just going to tell myself they pulled out the interesting bits and glued them into the Hobbit for funsies. And if anyone bitches at me about spoiling the movie, it’s a book that has been out way longer than I’ve been alive, if you haven’t read it already it’s not my fault.

The movie was worth seeing. It was not worth seeing in Imax, and it was not worth how sore my butt was afterwards. Probably worth seeing on the big screen, but oy, 3 movies, really? They really should have made six out of the LotR, it is sort of bizarre to get 3 out of The Hobbit.