Category: Keeping It Real

Upside Down

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I spent the morning yesterday in a hospital waiting room. My husband was there for same-day, minor surgery. I drank a lot of coffee, prayed the Rosary, and tried to ignore the overly-loud, overly-large TVs. I was nervous, of course, but not very worried, because we’d been told so many times that it was ” probably nothing.”

I should have known that my uncharacteristic optimism was misplaced.

I kept thinking to myself that it would be No Big Deal, all the while in denial of just how easily No Big Deal can turn into a Very Big Deal Indeed. Minor can go to major in less time than it takes to spell my last name. And your whole world turns upside down as the surgeon says those 3 words nobody wants to hear.

As we try to let it all sink in, as we think of how to find the words to make the kids understand, we simultaneously scribble down specialists’ phone numbers on Post-It notes and assemble folders full of referrals, test results and form after form after form after form.

It is all these details, I think, that will make me crazy and at the same time keep me from going crazy. If I concentrate on the details, I won’t have to think about the big picture. I don’t want to see the forest for the trees.

We will have to wait more than a week before the next step can be taken, before all the results are in and appointments can be made with just the right doctors. And all those other minor-league problems we’ve been dealing with? We’re not feeling the need to deal with those just now. Can we please just put that stuff on the back burner for a while?

One thing at a time, Lord. It’s hard to turn this over when I want to take the ball myself and run with it. I’m a ball-hog in that regard, just as much as some of the hotshots on Little Brother’s soccer team. It’s hard to turn it over because if I abandon it, if I relinquish the control I try to hard to maintain, I might just go to pieces when it is least convenient.

Mom doesn’t get to fall apart, you know. That’s a rule. And if nothing else, I’m a rule-follower.

Even–perhaps especially–when our world has just been turned upside down.

Pray for my husband, if you would; for his doctors; for the kids and for me as we negotiate this new and scary road.

And thank you to Barbara for the beautiful Rosary!

Book Review: WorkShift

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It’s a book that came along at just the right time for me: the beginning of a new school year is always a great time to put things into perspective and get a handle on a new routine. Add to that a HUGE increase in the writing projects I’ve got going, and there’s potential for a just-as-huge increase in unscheduled craziness, fatigue and resentment.

(As background, because I don’t talk about this here much: I do social-media work for a local video-production company, am a shopping content editor for Internet Brands, and do other freelance writing and SEO projects as well as my commitment to Catholicmom.com’s Tech Talk column and 4 hours per week volunteer service in Little Brother’s school library. The writing work is part-time, on my schedule, and the money’s not huge but it works for my family’s situation at this time.)

On the day I started reading WorkShift, I was elbow-deep in a to-do list with no energy (or motivation) to get any of it done. I figured that time spent with this book would be time well-spent. The many, many real-life examples inspired me. There were moms with infants, moms with kids in grade school, moms in many lines of work.

Of course, no situation completely matched mine, but that’s not really the point. It’s good to know that there are plenty of families out there who are making it work–finding ways to keep moms at home for their families yet enabling them to contribute to the family budget, stay active professionally, and work creatively.

Five years ago today I wouldn’t have dreamed that I’d actually be earning money by writing–without even having to leave my own home to do it. Of course, there are some projects that are more fun than others, but as my husband always says, “They call it work for a reason.”

What I need to remember is that no work project is worth resenting a twice-a-week soccer-practice schedule (though I do reserve the right to be exasperated when Coach keeps the kids on the field after it’s too dark to see each other, the ball, the goal or the coach).

As I read this book, I found myself grabbing Post-It notes and index cards so I could scribble down ideas for how to set up a work schedule this year that leaves room for family, flexibility, and even a little fun. And then I reached the final chapter, where author Anne Bogel has listed plenty of resources (both print and online) to help do just that. The additional structure that I’m going to try to plug into my workday should benefit me, my family and my employers.

Are you interested in reading WorkShift? You can purchase it through ejunkie or Amazon. It’s available in ebook format for Kindle or as a PDF you can read at your computer (or even print out). It sells for $8.

The fine print: I received an ebook copy of WorkShift and if you purchase the book through ejunkie I will receive a small commission. I did not receive any other compensation for this review, and the opinions are mine alone.

Works in Progress

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Things my kids have learned this summer: How to make Jambalaya. Algebra. Acting. Making tuna salad and muffin pizza.

Things my kids have not learned this summer: Turning lights and tv off when they leave a room. Closing drawers and doors to cabinets and closets. Eating with silverware (still to be mastered by one child)

So they can cook, compute and emote, but they still act like they were raised by wolves.

There is much work yet to be done.

Fat Police

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This morning, Little Brother and I went grocery shopping. Everything went well for the first 3/4 of the trip. We got nectarines, cucumbers, melon, bananas, celery, Cheerios, peanut butter, cookies (I had a coupon) and EVOO. Then we got to the dairy aisle, and that’s where things got ugly.

I reached for a gallon of milk, the kind with the red top that screams, “Full fat!” at the casual observer, and my skinny 10-year-old took me to task.

It’s got to be the propaganda that’s behind it. First of all, the kid doesn’t even drink milk–hasn’t in more than 8 years. I am the main consumer of that weekly gallon of milk, and I like my milk whole, thankyouverymuch. But boy, was I in trouble. “Why don’t you buy 2%, Mom?”

“Because I don’t like 2%. I like Real Milk.” We went along this way for a while, as I wheeled the cart along and picked up a pound of Real Butter and 18 Real Eggs and then headed toward the Coffee Nirvana section, where I once again bemoaned the fact that ShopRite never has quarts of light cream anymore.

“Half-and-half is just as good, Mom,” said my young Food Policeman.

“No, believe me, half-and-half is not just as good,” I sighed as I placed a quart of half-and-half in the cart sadly.

“Mom, I agree with that governor of New York about this,” he commented. (I think he meant “mayor,” but whatever. I was arguing for my Real Milk, not accuracy regarding government officials.)

Kid, I’m all for healthy, which is why I bought nectarines, cucumbers, melon, bananas, celery, Cheerios and peanut butter, and also the EVOO. But when it comes to dairy, I’m a full-fat kind of girl. And no one, not any governor or mayor or president or surgeon general or doctor on TV is going to tell me not to have my nice big glass of milk with dinner every night.

Real milk. With the red top. Ice cold. It’s the only way. I’m willing to sit down with the Fat Police over a cold one and discuss this, and I will not back down.

Of Goodbyes, Long and Short, and Birthdays

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Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. Three years ago it stopped being a happy occasion.

On his birthday three years ago, we stood next to each other, all lined up in fancy clothes, alongside his father’s casket. Pop had passed away two days before after a short and unexpected illness. Some of the people at the wake remembered that it was my husband’s birthday and awkwardly wished him a happy birthday along with offering their condolences.

It was weird, and a pretty crummy way to have to spend a birthday.

The other day we gathered with my mother-in-law, as well as my husband’s sister-in-law and 3 nieces, to attend a Mass for Pop. After that we got some pizza. No one made sure there was a cake, or candles. No one even sang or suggested the idea of it. You don’t commemorate the anniversary of a death with a birthday cake and a rousing chorus of “Sto Lat*.”

My mother-in-law did not call her son yesterday to wish him a happy birthday. I don’t know if she remembers that his birthday was Sunday; during the past couple of years it has become apparent that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s. On Friday evening, after we got home, my husband confided that it’s really hard for him to see his mom like this.

Hard as it was to lose Pop, his illness was mercifully short. In early August of that year, we were arguing with him that he should see a doctor because of a few symptoms he was having. By the 24th he was gone. In between those two points were a horrible couple of weeks in which my husband spent his time shuttling between his job and his parents so that his mom could get to see Pop in the hospital. There was no time to think about what might happen, what it would be like with Pop gone. There was no time to think about anything.

Now, all he has is time. He knows that he is losing a little bit of his mom with each passing day. It’s just a question of how many days will pass before a family agreement must be made, because the time will come (sooner rather than later) when she cannot continue to live on her own. In many ways, already, she is no longer “on her own,” depending on my husband and his sister-in-law for things like errands, food shopping, paying the bills, doctor visits and filling her medication organizer.

This is an awful way to lose someone.

Right now, what is lost is the short-term memory stuff: the “where did I put my keys” and the taking medicine as scheduled and the writing out of checks to pay bills. But we know what’s coming. And the hardest loss of all, I think, will be the loss of the relationship: the time when she no longer remembers her son, when she cannot recognize her grandchildren.

One way (out of many) in which my husband and I are opposite is that he is a relationship person and I am a logistics person. It’s something that I admire and am frustrated by, sometimes in the same minute. But while I worry about his mom largely in terms of the logistics, he is grieving, in advance, the loss of the relationship with his mother, even as he must deal with the logistics of her physical needs.

And that is a pretty crummy way to spend a bithday.

*”Sto Lat” is a Polish happy-occasion song. The lyrics, loosely translated, mean “May you live 100 years.” In my husband’s family, it is always sung at birthdays.

 

A Rose by Any Other Name

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So I was sitting at Little Brother’s soccer practice last night when the leaves of the tree next to me caught my eye. Because of the heavy underbrush, I couldn’t see the tree trunk, but the leaves were interesting. I have an app for my phone called Leafsnap that lets you take a photo of a leaf and then it analyzes it, offering a few possibilities for leafy identification.

My kids found the leaf on the kitchen table tonight (I had to set the leaf on a white surface or the app doesn’t work) and they think they don’t need an app to know that the leaf is probably marijuana.

NOT.

It looks quite a bit like it, but according to the app and several websites, what we’ve got here is a sweetgum tree.

I had no idea those grew north of the Mason-Dixon Line; something about the name “sweetgum tree” just screams “Deep South” to me. Must have been mentioned in a book once.

My kids, however, are standing by their story and offering me assistance with recovery of a whole other sort than I’ve been working on for the past few months.

Hoarders, the Digital Edition

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I’m a digital packrat of the most incurable kind.  That whole “I might need this someday” thing rears its ugly head; I still have 5 1/4″ floppy disks with my college senior thesis on them.  Not that I have any software that can access the files, and it’s been at least 5 years since there was a computer in this house that accommodated ANY floppy disks, but I’ve got those disks…

I use gmail for most of my email, but I have it forwarded through some complicated electronic system or other so I can read it in Outlook on my computer.  Therefore, I never go to gmail’s site unless I need to check the spam folder for something that was misfiled.

I had 67,000 messages in my gmail inbox yesterday.  Years and years and years of messages.  And I deleted them all.

And it didn’t kill me or cause bad things to happen to my family. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

But I’m still not ready to dump those floppy disks.

Fashion Emergency, Little Brother Style

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Little Brother (pointing at the shirt he’s wearing now, which is, not surprisingly, dirty):  Mom, can you wash this shirt tonight?
Me:  No.  I don’t do laundry on Sundays.
(commence pouting by Little Brother)
Big Brother:  What’s his problem?
Me:  He just remembered he has a dress-down day tomorrow and he wants to wear THAT SHIRT that he wears all the time.
Big Brother:  Did you wear that to the last dress-down day?  Then find something else to wear tomorrow.
Little Brother:  No!
Middle Sister:  You can’t wear that if you wore it last time.  Never repeat an outfit!
TheDad:  Boys don’t wear “outfits.”

No-Win

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Last night before she went to bed, Middle Sister told me that she needed to wake up at 6 this morning. “I set my alarm, but come in and make sure I get up,” she said. “Don’t let me stay asleep. I HAVE to get up.”

So at 6 this morning I knocked on her door and got a mumbled response. Opening it a crack, I reminded her that she wanted me to wake her at 6.

“I was up too late last night trying to get my mascara off,” she replied sleepily.

“you told me to make sure you got up at 6,” I said.

“No.”

“You also told me not to take no for an answer.”

“Well, I’m saying no,” she shot back. At that point I figured that I’m going to lose either way, so I closed her door and went downstairs to enjoy my coffee before she gave me trouble for waking/not waking her–whichever she considered the greater offense at the time.

Power parenting

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So Little Brother is in the backyard, playing soccer with two of the Street Urchins (boys his age who live down the block.). I’m listening with half an ear to the goings-on, since twice already this week that soccer ball has scored a direct hit on the pool filter, disconnecting the hose.

And my mom had dinner all ready, so she headed out the back door to call Little Brother in. When he didn’t follow, I called him out the window and that’s when my mom told me that one of the boys was telling Little Brother to stay outside.

I’ve found this child ignoring his own mother more than once when she’s come to tell him it’s time to go. He has flat-out refused to leave with his older sisters one day when they were sent to get him.

In a few short weeks it’ll be summertime, and all the Street Urchins will want to swim in my pool. I hate being the Bad Cop all the time, but somebody has to. With a pool in the yard, there are safety issues. You have to supervise and know who’s there and who’s in the water. You have to make sure they play and swim safely. (And you have to require kids who live on your block to bring their OWN towels.)

I think, before summer, I need to come up with a game plan. Suggestions are welcome.

UPDATE:  Thanks to some GENIUS suggestions in the comments and from a neighbor, I’ve worked up this template.  Sharing it here for other families in my spot–and I’ll amend this as necessary.  But kids will have to leave one with me before they swim here.