November 2009 Archives

I always thought my parenting style was a bit laid back, despite my oldest insisting that I'm "strict". I tend to do things that I consider to be common sense - an enforced bedtime to allow them to have enough hours of sleep to do well in school, restricted TV time, even more restricted video game time, and even more restricted access to "junk" foods. We don't keep snacky cakes or candy in the house, and fast food is the devil, so it's a rare event for the kids to have any. But despite the fact my kid had a friend that NEVER had Chef Boyardee and a friend that NEVER had an Icee, I'M the strict one. Hahaha! (It's my plan to move them completely off the processed crap..slowly but surely.)
When people tend to ask "is it alright if I give them [fill in the blank for whatever candy or treat]", I usually shrug and say it's alright cause I know they're not getting an excessive of it at home. Moderation is fine with me. Plus, they have no major allergies, so there's nothing for me to freak out about.
Ah..but with my dog...that's another story.
Bella has had many trips to the vet since we adopted her. We've switched vets once after the vet tech pissed me off and are ready to switch vets yet again (more for a cost/location issue). The poor dog has allergies - food and possibly inhalant. She gets itchy skin and chronic ear infections. As a result, she's on a few meds and has to adhere to a restricted diet -- and by the way, administering meds to a dog on a restricted diet is much fun considering we can't use cheese, peanut butter or any of those tricks. (Grape jelly does the trick, as we learned after weeks of trying to get her to swallow pills.)
Being on the restricted diet means approved dog food and that's it. No Snausages, or Beggin Strips, or leftovers. Of course, Bella doesn't understand this and begs all the same. We have to barricade the kitchen when we go out so she can't sneak in there and dig through the garbage for tossed out food. She's eaten entire loaves of bread in record breaking time out of desperation for "people food". I can deal with preventing her from having the potentially allergy-inducing food. It's when there's other people around that I become a crazy "parent". The amount of times I hear myself yelling "Don't give her that! She's allergic!" is ridiculous. I become crazy-protective, eyeballing her every interaction with people in case I see forbidden food approaching my dog. It makes me relieved that neither of my kids have any major allergies, as I would be a complete mental case about it.

I saw this on BoingBoing and couldn't contain my glee. A Christian rap group and a song about the Christian "side hug".

Now, there are a few things I'm a bit hazy on. First, when did a normal hug become pornographic and "impure", unless the normal hug involves humpage of sorts (and how often does that happen amongst friends?) I can see how perhaps large breasts could interfere in the hug, but if you got a problem with something like that possibly leading you to the so-called "dark side", you need more help than a Christian side hug could provide. What gets me the most about the song is that it's universal whether men are hugging each other or a man/woman combo (no mention of woman on woman, but something tells me the guys rapping wouldn't have a problem with that). If I'm understanding their thought process correctly, guys need to side hug so the chances of their dicks touching is non-existent. Because dicks touching could turn them gay....??? Wha??
Second, I don't really understand why Christian rap exists. Being a ruff ryder with Christ's love seems completely contradictory, but hell, what do I know? One day in another post, I'll expand on my run-in with the Christian music scene.
Third, what the hell is a side hug anyway? Is that like the shoulders touch opposite shoulders horizontally? I almost am tempted to sneak back into the non-denom labyrinth (again, will be explained in a future post) just to experience the side hug for myself. Only, to make it better, I throw in a side hug with an ass grab. YEAH! Didn't think your little side hug plan completely out, did ya??
Fourth- does George Lucas know these assclowns are raping the Imperial March? How the hell does that tie in with the whole Jesus theme?

Watching the video, it really confirms something for me. I've always realized to really get the crowd pumping, all one has to do is walk out and yell "AWWW YEAH! [insert current year here]!" Works every time.

I'm not referring to the complete "win" of a moment last week where I managed to completely forget parent/teacher conferences. I have plenty of excuses for that one. Actually, this has nothing to do with me cause I'm such a *cough cough* perfect parent and all. No, really, the forgetting of the conferences was SUCH a fluke.

Yeah, I don't buy that either.

Yesterday morning, I took over sick child watch to let my husband get some sleep. Our youngest was struck with a nasty stomach bug off and on during the weekend and had it come back "on" Sunday night right after we decided to go to bed. My kids have radar like that to detect when is the opportune time to get sick all over the place.
Anyway, after that lovely night, I stumbled out of bed and into the living room, where my son had been up ALL night watching a variety of cartoons and kids movies. As I drifted in and out of early morning consciousness, he turned on "Dennis the Menace" on from Netflix. I know at some point in my lifetime I have seen this movie, but my mind likes to block it out. I never really cared much for the comic strip (which, by the way, 58 years old..sheesh!) or the movie, and as I lay there blinking at the tv, it occurred to me why: Dennis's parents really suck at the whole parenting thing. Now I get that Mr.Wilson actually likes Dennis deep down, but think about the whole situation. What parent in their right mind would allow their 7 year old child run amuck throughout the neighborhood and terrorize a poor retiree? Sure, Dennis may "mean well" with his antics and such, but the relationship dynamic between Mr. Wilson and Dennis is still odd, to put it lightly. Now, granted, I don't know if the dynamic is significantly different between an old dude and a girl vs old dude and boy, but I don't remember being too friendly with the Mr. Wilson-esque characters in my neighborhood growing up. There were actually two of them. First was Ralph, the blatantly racist war veteran whose main fear rotated between someone walking in his yard and someone of the "wrong" skin color moving in the neighborhood. On a side note, I always thought his name was "Rowlf"..like the muppet.

not Ralph the neighbor



The other was Bob. Bob who laughed like a hyena and was always wearing short shorts and a safari hat, meticulously taking care of his lawn. He was the type to laugh at you if you fell on your bike, and then ask if his yard was ok. Good for a few jokes. I think at one point Bob and Not-Rowlf had a blowing up of sorts, but I don't remember much about it. Probably a difference in lawn care opinions.
Anyway, while we were cordial-ish to each other, I sure the hell didn't go traipsing about in their respective houses or knock on their door incessantly. That would be weird, sorta like my neighbors who always seemed to be leering at us through the bushes. (Totally different ones than Bob and Not-Rowlf.) Sure, my mom was always excessively paranoid about adults, perhaps rightly so, but she would have grounded me if I disappeared into their houses for even a second.
Which brings me to Henry and Alice Mitchell. Really? It's "okay" for your son to have a weird relationship with an older man? You're okay with him barging in the house and bothering the poor guy when all Mr. Wilson wants is to enjoy the few good years of his life in peace and quiet before he is forced to put on Depends or starts developing dementia. Tell your damn kid to bother people his own age for crying out loud instead of shrugging it off like "Oh, you know how Dennis is. *wink wink*" Wake up, you damn fools!

Okay, I feel better having really stuck it too the fictional comic strip parents! Yeah! In your face, fake parents!

It does nothing to help the case for one's mental sanity to be standing outside an elementary school and accusing a cat of stalking you.
I mean, what are the kids supposed to think when they see a grown woman telling a cat that he can't be following her around like this anymore and it has to stop?

Not that I did this or anything....

But for the record, it was a case of mistaken identity. (Having two black cats jump out at me in the course of twelve hours a few miles apart was a little odd, yes.)

I realize I rarely mention my kids, but I decided to mix it up tonight. Although I started this site in Feb 2004, I don't remember mentioning the pregnancy and birth of my youngest in those early conceptions. (Ha..conceptions..pregnancy..sigh) To sum it up, I was pregnant and gave birth. It was fun. Especially the "Omen" marathons in the hospital, thanks to having a baby close to Halloween.
Anyway, on that last day of the hospital stay, I woke up from a brief nap after the resident pediatrician came in the room. Without much of a pause, he hit me with a relative brick wall of information that my post-pregnancy, hormone raging self found difficult to process: my son lacked a soft spot in his head. Now, honestly, I had no idea what the implication would be of this lacking soft spot. So naturally, I asked. I'm a curious person after all. The pediatrician told me in a matter-of-fact manner "Well, it could mean his skull is prematurely fused, which means he'll need to see a neurosurgeon and have surgery." And with that, he left the room. I was floored, trying to grasp what he had told me. "Newborn" and "surgery" did not mesh well in my head. "Neurosurgeon"? Really? I did the only thing I COULD do; I broke into sobs. At that point, the nurse walked into the room, clearly alarmed that she had a postpartum sobbing woman on her hands. I explained to her why I was crying and what the pediatrician had said to her. She got quiet and said "Oh...he wasn't supposed to tell you like that." I picked up on the context there: clearly, they had known about the issue before side-swiping me with it. The nurse told me that yes, they did know. But since my son had been "salad-spooned" (i.e., they used the forceps), they were unable to tell if he had a fused skull or if it was merely misshapen due to the spoon action. The only thing I could do was wait to see his primary care doctor the following day. That day came slowly for me, but our doctor was really on the ball with things. He sent us for an initial xray to determine if there was in fact a closure. I wanted to cling onto the hope that it was just the salad spoons' fault, but there was an actual closure in the skull. The condition is called craniosynostosis, and my son had two types: sagittal and metopic. After the xray, we were referred to a neurosurgeon, who sent us for the more thorough CT scan. Lovely thing about getting a CT scan for a child -- you can't feed them before hand. Oh yeah, and he was an infant, and we all know all they do is eat, poop, and sleep. Take one away and that makes for a VERY irritable infant. And of course, being that the CT scan was taking place at a hospital, the wait was horrendous. So I sat there with an increasingly irritable infant, fielding all sorts of looks from fellow parents. The best is when one of them would say "He sounds hungry", as if I was able to fix this. I got to the point where I was ready to explode and say "No shit he's hungry!" when we were finally called back for the scan. Now with a CT scan on an infant, they need to knock the child out to run the test properly. The staff produced a lovely pacifier dipped in anesthesia, which my son gobbled at ferociously. Unfortunately, once he realized it was most definitely NOT food, he was more upset than ever. The nurses told us it would take a few minutes to kick in. Not my child. Not when he was hungry. This tiny infant FOUGHT OFF the anesthesia. Just as his head would start to tip in that infant-hapless fashion, he'd snap back up, eyes wide. I'm not talking for a few minutes, but for a good amount of time, shocking us and the nurses. He finally had to give in to it, and was whisked off to the CT machine. There was something surreal about seeing his tiny unconscious body in the belly of this gigantic, unfeeling machine. It was overwhelming and, at the time, the most difficult site I had to deal with. The scan results confirmed the extent of the fusion in his skull, but it also uncovered another surprise - a tiny cyst on his tear duct called a nasolacrimal duct cyst. It was blocking his breathing, causing his blood oxygen levels to drop. I had to sit next to his recovery bed with an oxygen mask pointed in the general direction of his face. And as much as he fought the anesthesia, he was slow to come out of it, so he was kept overnight in the hospital.
After his release, we met up with an ENT specialist. Before the surgery on his head was done, the cyst needed to come out to prevent any potential complications. This surgery would be a fairly easy one. They would remove the cyst, and place a very tiny tubing in the tear duct to keep it open. The tubing would then be removed a few months down the road. That surgery took place prior to Thanksgiving of that year. His head surgery was scheduled for the first week in December. Being the type of person I am, I needed to read as much as possible about the surgery. I don't know if it gives me some semblance of control of the situation, but I feel better knowing what I'm getting into. Of course, the disadvantage was that I KNEW what was involved in the surgery and I was incredibly freaked out and shaken over it. (I don't handle blood well. At least, not other people's.)
In the midst of all these constant doctor appointments, I was still trying to grapple with a deluge of emotions. I remember looking at the major parenting/pregnancy sites, hoping someone else out there would be going through or had gone through this. There had to be SOMEONE. It's not a ridiculously rare condition. And yet, I couldn't find anyone on those sites mentioning this condition. The one emotion that constantly flooded me was guilt. No matter what the doctor told me, I felt responsible for this condition. I thought surely I had done something wrong or failed to do something in the pregnancy to cause this, as neither me or my husband had any history of this in our families.
After the tear duct removal surgery, the head surgery was just a matter of weeks. When that morning arrived, I had to try really hard to keep it together. Handing him over to the nurses was so incredibly difficult. It was putting up a brick wall in front of that maternal instinct to protect him. For the next several hours, I was going to be out of the equation and there was nothing I could do about that.
Sitting in the waiting room, time crawled by. I wanted to know my son was ok. I wanted to SEE he was ok. Finally, we got paged to the consult room, where we were told the surgery went well and, as soon as he was moved into a room, we could see him. More waiting, thankfully not as long though.
When I walked into his room, I realized no amount of researching could prep me for that image. His tiny 5-week old self was laying peacefully on a hospital bed, but the head had a turban-like bandaged wrapped around in and there were so many tubes going every which way. We were given an overnight room as he was in the ICU area for one night. My husband and I took turns that night: one of us would sit in the chair next to his bed, while the other attempted to sleep in the overnight room. (Although, my husband had no issues sleeping thanks to his 3rd shift schedule. I, on the other hand, had actually pulled an ab muscle during delivery, and laying down in a bed was a tremendous source of pain.) After ICU, he was moved up to a room on the neurology floor for a few days and then was finally able to go home.
Over the next two years, we would have followup appointments with the neurosurgeon to check on his head. While my son had 2 types of closures, the surgery was only to open one. The logic was that the sagittal was more critical and opening it up would cause the metopic closure to open up as well. But for two years, that theory was tested. We would go to an appointment and hear it was fine, but return three months later and hear he may need the second surgery after all. The last appointment in that bunch, we were told that it looked good for the time being and to come back in three years. I remember laughing as I made the appointment -- mainly, because they asked me if a certain time on a date THREE YEARS in the future would be good for me -- but also because it seemed so far away.
A few days ago, that three year appointment arrived. I wanted to remain hopeful, but couldn't shake the dread in my stomach that we would be told he would need another surgery after all. My mind raced with scenarios of trying to explain this to him (see previous post about how I'm crazy), but I tried to think positive. When the doctor walked into the room and looked at my son, he said "If I had no knowledge of you beforehand and you came in the office today, I would have no idea why you were here." He finished the quick exam, letting us know everything was good and that we did not need another appointment. EVER.
The surge of relief I felt after hearing that was gigantic. For years, I had in the back of my mind that until we get that sign-off, it was not all ok. I finally feel like we can step away from that episode in our lives.
There are some things that will serve as a reminder, like the scar he sports on his head, which we keep covered by his beautiful curly hair. I worry about having another baby, if this would happen again--we're told that there is no increase in probability that it would, but I think it's only natural to have that thought. And while there may not be an increased chance that a future child of mine could have this issue, there is the chance that my son's children could. I've wondered if one day I'll be a grandmother telling my son that it'll be ok. It seems really silly to have those thoughts (again, see previous post about me being crazy). Even so, I can take a few odd thoughts versus the unknowing if we could put all this behind us finally.

As I mentioned in my previous post, October was a rough month for me, health-wise. I'm still getting over my latest sickness, but already feeling hopefully that November is going to be different. I made a major change in October. As much as I joke about how "crazy" I am, the truth is I'm an eccentric person. My mind goes off in complicated tangents and sometimes I lack a certain filter in what I say or how I act, but this is all normal me. Dancing when I get excited and getting distracted by shiny objects? Normal me. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a very non-normal me for a few months -- a very decidedly crazy me. Crazy me worries about scenarios that would never actually happen. Crazy me is unable to do simple tasks like make phone calls because of the aforementioned scenarios in my head. Crazy me is unable to sleep and wonders if scrubbing the walls down at 2 am is a bad thing or not. I had to tell crazy me to go to hell, as it was really interfering with my life. It felt like nothing was getting done cause of the time and energy I was wasting on, well, being crazy. I tried to "control" my anxiety issues on my own, but there was no amount of yoga to stop the internal jittering in my head. On my brother's advice, I decided to get actual help for my "issues". Of course, then I had to deal with the anxiety of telling someone that I'm crazy and the anxiety of taking a medicine to stop the anxiety. Ha!
Well, I started last in October, which may have coincided with the peak of my insomnia. But this past Sunday, something wonderful happened. I was actually tired at a reasonable hour. TIRED. This happened the following day, and the following. IN YOUR FACE, INSOMNIA!
I've also noticed that I feel less on edge than before, which is nice. I still feel a little jittery, but nowhere near what I was dealing with. Plus, I'm beginning to feel that I have a certain control over my life again. Perhaps it's looking on the really positive side of things, but it feels like I'll be able to focus again and get a lot more accomplished now. WOO!