childhood

Drowning, my fears – 911, poison control, and other parenting mishaps

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I, myself, have never been afraid of drowning. Maybe I would’ve been if my brother drowned that warm spring day.

It is a topic of conversation that never goes away. Why did my mom let my dad talk her into leaving the 6 year old me in charge of watching my 3 younger brothers alone in the water? Was I always the protector or did I become that way? 

A few weeks ago, my brother told me that he has nightmares of me watching him drown. How can he remember? He just turned two. I remember everything that happened that day. I stood on the dock paralyzed with fear watching my brother gulping water and gasping for air. As he flailed his arms, my 3 year old brother exclaimed excitedly over and over that he was swimming. My autistic 5 year old brother stood in the shallow water flapping his hands oblivious to the surrounding peril. 

I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t seem to move. My mom came back to check on us and saved my brother. I knew that I failed because I couldn’t protect him.

I never was afraid of drowning. I was afraid of watching others drown.

Fast forward another 6 years to when I was 12. I watched my baby cousin in their swimming pool while her mom was at work. She was sitting in the water on a pool chair. She fell off the chair backwards into the water. I grabbed her leg and pulled her out. I was so happy that I didn’t panic and let her drown. But everyone else seemed so angry. My uncle got scolded from his wife for letting me watch my cousin in the pool. No one seems to remember that I protected her, that I didn’t let her drown.

Fast forward another decade after I had children of my own. We were told as new parents to never leave your baby unattended even for a few seconds in the bathtub. If the phone is ringing in the other room, let it ring. I suppose this is not a problem anymore for the new generation of parents.

Then my kids got older to the age where I didn’t need to sit and watch them bathe. I could go in every few minutes and check on them. One day I checked on Arabella in the bathtub after there was an unusual period of silence. I opened the tub door to find her floating in the water fast asleep. For a brief minute, as I gazed at her motionless body, I was terrified that she drowned. It was the most horrible anxiety ever. I thought that I failed to protect her.

After that happened, I worried that my children would drown. I never liked my kids taking showers when I was gone or asleep. I mean, they could slip on a bar of soap, hit their head, and drown. I don’t let them go swimming alone. I feel the need to keep an eye on them when they are swimming in water.

Even having my 3 kids swim together at the beach in front of me in shallow water wasn’t enough. I looked away for a minute and then there were 2 kids. My youngest wandered off from her siblings and couldn’t be found. It was a large beach with a lot of people. In just a few seconds they got distracted and separated. I ran up and down the beach combing the water until she was found safe. Another terrifying moment. 

So I worry. Worry makes me feel like I have some control, that I will be prepared for the worst that could happen. I worry about the things I can’t control. I feel like I am responsible for everything that happens. I am the protector. Sometimes I even try to control when I need to let go. It leaves me a nervous wreck. 

Within this last month, my daughter became an adult. My son turned 16 and got his driver’s license. Sometimes I can’t even tell anymore if my worries are rational or irrational. I don’t know anymore. 

People that don’t worry tell me not to worry, to worry about things I can control, and that I need to trust God more. Believe me, I wish I was a carefree person. I have an extreme fear of failing to be a protector. When something goes wrong, I blame myself.

I want to relax. I want to let go. 

But sometimes the worry drowns me.

Broken snow globes – 911, poison control, and other parenting mishaps

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Back when Angel was a very little girl, perhaps before her siblings were born, I started a snow globe collection for her. Beautiful dancers and assorted wildlife swirled in the glistening snow. I put her collection safe up high on a ledge that she, for sure, couldn’t reach. She could gaze at them during nap time.

Ah, nap time. Well, what was supposed to be nap time.

When I entered her room that afternoon, there was a carnage of broken creatures that escaped their forever winter out of shattered glass. All of the snow globes were broken and Angel had glitter coming out of her mouth.

I called poison control that day.

What do you suspect is in snow globe water? Not drinking water, I’m sure.

Is eating globs of globe glitter harmful?

God forbid, did she swallow any of the glass??

Somehow she managed to survive until adulthood.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Even if I had the snow globes suspended from the ceiling, they wouldn’t be high enough to keep out of the hands of a curious toddler.

Not long after that, I put the number for poison control on speed dial.

 

Eye blinks

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I took the day off of work and spent half of it at the mall. 

It is out of character for me. I HATE shopping! I hate spending money. Mall clothes are absolutely boring. 

I, myself, prefer the 60’s bohemian style of attire. Flowers galore, even in my hair. Long flowing dresses. Gaudy rings. I would even have a hippie van if I could with lava lamps and beaded curtains. I decorate my house with floral patterns but don’t have what it takes to make a flower grow.

Or I prefer the punk look. Edgy, studs on my pants, dark eye shadow, lots of earings. Band t-shirts, jeans that are ripped. 

But mainly I wear athletic clothes. 

I am very picky about the clothes I buy, especially clothes shopping in the mall. Racks of clothes with nothing exciting to wear. But today that is where I ended up. I bought a deck of Pink Floyd playing cards and a floral hair band for myself. The rest of the items in my cart belonged to Angel.

My daughter Angel turned 18 today. I am now the parent of an adult child. Every time I think of that for some reason I think of AA. Crazy how my mind works…

We awoke this morning to storms with strong winds that brought area trees down. It was nothing like the sunny day that I gave birth to my first child. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, when I opened them she was gone. Eye blinks! I tell sleepless parents of newborns that they grow up fast. I never thought that I would be like one of those parents. I never imagined this day would come so fast when I held my little baby in my arms for the first time 18 years ago.

Angel, my mom, and I went to the spa this morning. The distant thunder relaxed me more than the soothing music did. Then we went out to eat. Afterwards, we went to the mall to start buying Angel some items for college. Shopping is so boring that it tries my patience. After awhile I just wanted to run out of there screaming. There is so much to see, my senses overwhelm me. I felt tired and needed to rest. I have more energy running a marathon than I do for shopping. Okay, okay…Half marathon.. Let’s just say that I have a low tolerance for malls. 

I really wish there was such a thing as a blog when my kids were really little. Maybe I could’ve vented about potty training or temper tantrums. I always told myself that I would keep up with writing a diary all through my kids early years, but I only wrote an entry or two total. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day. A lot of the day to day memories are gone already. Forgotten.

With that being said, I have decided to write a very short series entitled 911, poison control, and other parenting mishaps to write about the most comical things that have happened over the years. Not only will it be funny, but I will be able to write the stories down to remember forever. 

Happy 18th birthday to my adult child, Angel! I am excited to see what the future holds as she holds the pen to write the very first chapter of her adult life. 

XOXXO

Weak end

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I sat alone by the lake close to the spot where my brother almost drowned. “Why didn’t you try to save me?” I heard him ask. Because I was only six. He told me that he still has nightmares about drowning. How can that be? He was only two. Sometimes when I am all alone the memories scratch my mind. 

I was hoping that my weekend up north would be peaceful and relaxing. For the first time all summer, I had a weekend without plans. I decided to go up north with my two daughters to prepare for Angel’s graduation party next weekend. I cleaned the cabin and hid the clutter. My parents still have boxes with my middle school books in them. 

Saturday morning I received a call from my son. He said that the car wouldn’t start. As I sit here typing, my car is broke down in the front lawn awaiting repair. There has already been fighting over the use of vehicles since Alex got his license almost 2 weeks ago. This is the start to the busiest week so far this summer. My youngest is in summer school and needs a ride. Angel got asked to babysit and provide transportation for 3 different families this week. Plus she took on Arabella’s pet sitting job while she is in summer school. We need a car! I had to find a ride to work and back. 

I ended up letting Alex drive my car this past weekend while I was gone. He was asked to pick up the mother of his girlfriend’s best friend who was too drunk to drive. Great! He was happy because she bought him food at the drive thru. I don’t even know this woman! It is not too uncommon for new driver’s to be the designated driver. That’s real life in the drinking state. I know people that have their kids pick them up from the bar almost every weekend. I suppose it is better than driving drunk. What kind of life is that for a teen? 

With all the driving around that my kids are doing, I should put an Uber sticker on the car. Maybe they can make enough money to pay for the gas.

The whole rest of the weekend my daughters fought something terrible. It even carried over into today. Arabella brought a friend up north. She made rules for her friend that she was not allowed to talk about how awesome her sister Angel is or spend time with her. The rules didn’t work out too well. Her friend didn’t like being bossed around. Arabella didn’t want to play the games that she wanted to play whereas her sister did. We tried playing badminton, Arabella would only be on the team with her friend. She didn’t want to play by the rules and got mad at her sister when our team was winning. Then she chased her sister around the yard with the racquet. 

They screamed at each other. Arabella accused Angel of stealing her friends. Her friend was crying because she liked both of them and just wanted them to get along. It was absolutely miserable. I just wanted to pull out my hair. I have never seen Arabella so jealous and angry at her sister before. She even told me that she was afraid that the dog she was pet sitting would like Angel more. It is hard because Angel is older and has better people skills. Last weekend her cousins told her that they liked Angel but not her. Then she tries to force them to like her and it doesn’t work. 

I spent the weekend worried about problems. I was irritated by the constant fighting when we could be having a fun time. Then I thought about memories that made me feel sad. 

I wish I could just do the whole weekend over. 

The purge

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I was always a writer. I started scribbling in diaries before I could write. Now those old letters seem strangely reminiscent of hieroglyphics found in a dark cave. It doesn’t make sense to me anymore. It is not even me anymore.

I wrote my first book in grade school. I wrote for hours and hours a fictional story about a girls orphanage. It was a childhood dream of mine to give lonely little girls a home. I wrote a story about their struggles and how I saved them. Then my middle school self thought that it was stupid and threw it out. Then I began to write my story.

Almost 5 years ago, I became friends with my ex-boyfriend Brad on Facebook. I asked him for my old pictures back. He sent me a big stack of my pictures to my home address. These were childhood pictures too old to be on digital print. He wanted one thing in return, his diary back. When I was going out with Brad he was in the military and kept a diary while he was on a Navy ship.

I searched through my stack of old journals. I found the diary and started to read it. I was hoping to find a riveting piece of historical non-fiction. But instead found a romantic novel obsessing about me. It contained page after page of personal biography about my life, my family, and my struggles. There was no way I was going to give that back, so I threw it out. We were both happily married to other people. I thought it would be forgotten, but I thought wrong.

It was also at that time that I threw out all of my high school notes written back and forth between friends. My childhood wasn’t the happiest part of my life. I was afraid that my children (my oldest at the time was 13) would find them. I didn’t want them to see me. I didn’t want them to be like the teen me.

Those were hard days. It seemed like I was always searching for that glimmer of hope. I spent a long time in the dark grasping for light before I got out. Now it lingers behind me in another dimension like an abyss or black hole. I feel if I go back it will trap me and I will never be able to leave again. This weekend I felt a lot of sorrow where there should’ve been nostalgia. My demons were restless. 

So I purged away the old high school notes and Brad’s diary forever. Unfortunately, at the same time, I think I accidently threw out all of the letters that my mom sent me when she was in the hospital with my brother Matt. I feel very sad about that. But I don’t feel bad about Brad’s diary. Thankfully I kept all of my diaries.

There was a time (after I was dating a guy named Mac) when the words I wrote were powerful enough to almost destroy me. Mac found my diaries. Unbeknownst to me, he read them and tore out a few pages. He later tried to blackmail me with my own words. He threatened to send pages of my diary to my family members unless I took him back. It was terrifying, but I didn’t go back. Eventually he mailed the missing pages back to me. I certainly didn’t want something like that to happen again. I thought that Brad would move on with his life and forget all about it.

Then something happened, Brad’s wife passed away. Brad started contacting my mom asking if I was happy in my marriage because he still has feelings for me. It freaked my mom out and she warned me. A couple of months after that, I expressed sadness over the unexpected death of my neighbor. Brad sent me a message saying that he would be a shoulder to lean on.  

Then a month ago, Brad sent me a message asking for the diary back. I told him that I threw it out. I sent him a nice message saying how I hope that someday he will be happy again and how that has nothing to do with me. His future is not in the past. We haven’t dated since the early 1990’s when I was still in high school. 

Then this weekend my dad said that he received a long email from Brad stating that he was upset and hurt that I threw out the diary. He still has feelings for me. My dad said that his message was a little “off”. WTH?? I haven’t even seen him for over 20 years. Twenty years!! Two decades!! Why the hell is he bugging my parents about a stupid diary he wrote about me in 1992?? 

This is so insane that I can’t even believe that I am writing about this. Why does this craziness happen to me? Seriously, I wasn’t that great of a girlfriend. I am not even the same girl that I used to be. 

Getting my feet wet

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I survived freshman college orientation today without being too much of an embarrassment. Well, except when I straightened my daughter’s hair for her ID picture. Seriously, I was doing her a favor. Who wants an ackward picture with hair sticking out wrong for the next four years?

Being absolutely serious now, the hardest transition for me right now as a parent is viewing my daughter as an adult. For the last 18 years, I held her hand and made decisions about her life for her. Not anymore. 

It is like having a red car for a really long time, then painting it blue. It still is the same car, but different. Everytime you try to find your car in the parking lot, you look for a red car. It is an adjustment. It requires a change of thought. It is a little scary. Things aren’t the way they used to be and I can’t change it back.

Angel can’t wait for college to start. I don’t even think that she will be homesick. It will be different not having her home every night. In fact, she will be far enough away that she will only come home over college break. 

I am going to spend as much time as I can with her before she leaves home in two months. 

With that being said, we just arrived at the waterpark this evening. I think it’s time to dry my eyes and get my feet wet!

Monday’s dirty laundry

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I started the week off by having to buy a new washing machine. The last couple of weeks it sounded like a gun range in my house every time I threw in a load of laundry. Bang, bang, pop, pop, pop. Then this morning it almost started on fire. Good thing I didn’t throw in a load and leave for work. Stinky smoke billowed out of our utility room. I sure hope this is not an indicator of how the rest of the week will go. Lol. 

Yesterday my mom came over for supper. We spoke about my mother’s childhood years. She said that as the second oldest girl, without older brothers, it was her job to assist her dad in his work. His job was very labor intensive. She spent the summers picking cucumbers to sell to help support her family. She had to help her mother wash clothes, including cloth diapers every day, in a basin with bleach. They did not have a washer or dryer. It sure makes me appreciate my broken washer, or should I say being able to afford to buy a nice new front loader. 

I wish that my mom would write down her stories so I could understand her life more. Just like I hope someday my kids will read my writing and understand me more.
Then we talked about Matt and parenting an autistic child in the late 70’s. She said that she was thinking about writing down everything that happened to help herself heal. At times like this, I am so tempted to tell her about my blog but didn’t. She said that she is helping herself heal by helping others that are struggling. She has more compassion than anyone. She said that she wouldn’t have been able to make it through without her faith in God.

We spoke about the abuse that Matt suffered at the hands of the school. She said that she only saw Matt cry twice in his life. He cried when he spoke of what happened at school. It was absolutely barbaric. The teacher had him sit underneath her desk while she sat at her desk. If Matt touched her, she would kick him. One teacher held him face down on the floor while the other sat on his back. He couldn’t breathe. That is the story he cried about. There was a disabled child that died that year from a teacher that used the same discipline method.

We spoke about my mom’s church friends. I was not aware of this, she said one time when Matt swore in church her friend hit him. Another friend told my mom that they needed to beat it out of him. Oh, my dad did try to beat it out of him. It didn’t work. My mom spoke of when my dad kept hitting Matt over and over trying to beat it out of him. I told her that I remember that day clearly because it was my first childhood memory. I remember the screaming of my dad and Matt. I remember the plunking noise of Matt being knocked back and forth against the cupboards in the kitchen.

My mom said that Matt crawled around on the floor like an animal. He spent a lot of time screaming after he quit talking. 

Later on he became fixated on hurting little girls and I just happened to be the only little girl around. My mom said that she felt terrible that I had to suffer. She spoke of the birth of her first grandchild, my daughter Angel. She said that she was excited and filled with joy the day Angel was born. But her second feeling was horror because she knew what that might mean.

Matt did hurt Angel. What I didn’t tell you was that the two years leading up to the attack, Matt became obsessed with the thought of hurting Angel. He ruminated about it. He asked questions about what it would be like if he pulled her hair, twisted her arm, hit her, or held her head underwater when we were together. My mom and I were worried. I had to take a step back from Matt.

When Matt hurt Angel on her 4th birthday, my mom went in the other room and cried. She was so upset that she didn’t talk and was inconsolable. Luke took Matt home and the whole time it was like he was possessed. He laughed. The voices in his head were whispering over and over out loud. I almost forgot about his maniacal laughter after hurting someone. I could only describe it as evil or demonic.

My mom was at her breaking point. We had to part ways. She quit going to church for the next 3 years. She was angry at God for allowing this to happen. 

We have forgiven Matt for all of the things that happened. But it has been a long road and painful process.

Tomorrow I am going to start another autism series. I have a copy of Matt’s clinical diagnosis report from the early 80’s. I have been holding on to it for the last 20 years. I am going to share it with you along with my feelings about what was written.

Life times 

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I had every intention of writing yesterday, but things don’t always go as planned. After today, I am done with my spring cleaning. Now we are just waiting for spring. Usually in the middle of April, spring turns on like a light switch. I plan ahead to have my spring cleaning over and done with before it is nice out. 

It has been cold this past week with more days of snow than without. Some patchy snow remains on the ground with another inch of snow and sleet expected this afternoon. Friday afternoon thick snow flakes fell to the ground. Please don’t tell anyone else in WI that I am saying this, but it was very beautiful. Saturday morning the sun glistened making the snow sparkle like diamonds. But now it is bleak and cloudy. All of the babies cried in church. They seemed to take all of our repressed feelings towards winter and let them spring forth like the wailing of the wind that cries out to us today.

Yesterday, I went to the bowels of Hades into our little crawl space to peer into all of the bins and boxes. I was hoping to find the letters my mom wrote to me the summer that she spent out of state in the hospital with Matt. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m afraid that I may have accidently thrown them out with all of the high school notes that I found. My old school texting! LOL. You know, the notes that I didn’t want my parents to find and now I wouldn’t want my kids to find. LOL. It makes me sad, but maybe they will turn up somewhere yet.  

Also, I was looking for pictures to display for my daughter’s high school graduation next month. Since more than half of my childrens childhood was before the digital camera era, I have 4 big bins and multiple boxes of unorganized pictures and memorabilia. I started to feel stressed that my display of her life would suck. I hate to be unorganized with this since organization is a strength of mine. So I decided to make a display of pictures from all of the shows my daughter performed in along with a couple baby pictures. Then next winter, instead of working puzzles, I am planning on going through all of the pictures. I am going to work with my mom to take all of the old family pictures and back them up online. After my kids are settled as adults, I am going to gift them with a bin of their most precious childhood moments. 

Yesterday we had my parents and Matt over for supper last minute. We spent several hours watching the old family videos that we had uploaded to a hard drive. It was so strange seeing my brothers, cousins, and myself as young children. Then we watched my kids as young children. It was so strange seeing the progression of time all in one day. Time sure flies. Enjoy every moment while you can.

Mouse house

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I remember as a little girl whenever someone in my family got a big box, they brought it over for me to play in. My grandma called the box a mouse house. I colored my little house and grandma would cut holes in the box to make windows and doors to peak out of. For a brief period in my adult life, I had a real life mouse house.

Last month my son participated in his first science fair at the high school. He presented a project on the different types of bombs. You might think that this would be an interesting project, but it wasn’t. I mean, he couldn’t make a project and test it at the school like other kids did. His project consisted of magazine picture cut outs and a lot of writing. Other kids had projects that included experiments with sound waves, catapults, ice cream made out of different ingredients, the effects of caffeine on sport performance, etc..

On a side note, my personal favorite this year was the one that tested the effectiveness of acid reflux products on reducing stomach acid. The girl said that the least effective products were harmless and that the most effective were harmful. She said that the most effective products cause organ failure. She said that if you suffer from acid reflux, it will kill you. Great! Another thing to worry about. I never imagined that my stomach acid would get me in the end. Lol. I really hope that girl doesn’t decide to become a doctor.

The science fair brought back memories of Angel’s first couple of science fairs. For her second year, Angel did an experiment on 3 white mice. She started to bring her mice home on weekends. She didn’t want them to end up being snake food after the science fair. She wanted to keep them as pets.

Now the science classroom housed the mice and one more animal, a 3 legged cat. One weekend the door to the room that contained the mice was not shut tight. By Monday, there was an all out mouse massacre. Angel’s mice were the only mice to survive for the science fair since she brought them home. After the science fair was over, she convinced us to keep the mice. She was going to keep them in a cage in her room so our cat would not get them.

I would like to say that she never had a mouse in her room before, but she did. A few years previous there was a tear on the bottom of our screen door. When another dog came into our yard, our dog totally tore through our screen door leaving a big gap. If we left the sliding door open, we had ourselves a redneck pet door. It worked well for awhile with the pets letting themselves in and out as they pleased, until the day our cat brought a live mouse in our house. We screamed as our cat ran with the mouse into the girls bedroom and dropped it there. Eventually Paul was able to catch and release the mouse outdoors. That was the end of our pet door.

Right after Angel brought the mice home, two of them died. The last mouse lived a couple more months. I called him Roady which was short for rodent. He didn’t care for me that much at first. He bit my finger a couple of times until I decided that I was going to try to win him over. I started hand feeding him wax worms and other little delicacies to the point that he was happy to see me.

We ended up buying him a little hamster ball so he could explore the house. He did escape his cage a couple of times. We found him bundled up in Angel’s basket of yarn. He liked the yarn so much that we put it near his cage so he could pull it in and make a little nest. That little mouse made a sweet pet. It really changed my viewpoint on the less desirable creatures of creation.