Motherhood

Act your age! Wait, how old are you anyway?

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

It has come to my attention lately that strangers think my children are all the same age.

We recently got dental insurance for the first time. As you can imagine, it is very expensive to pay out of pocket for the dental needs of a family of 5. Especially last year with a crown and wisdom teeth extraction. The change required us to go to a different dentist.

When it came time for us to go in for our first appointment, my daughter Angel who is 17 was taken to the pediatric section in error. They told her to look at the silly animal characters on the wall if she was feeling frightened. They spoke to her in a high pitch sing song voice that you would use with small children. My 12 year old daughter was taken into the adult section.

I understand your confusion, I really do. Even Angel’s boyfriend calls her the 12 year old granny. Since she got her hair cut with bangs, she looks like she is 12. Plus, she doesn’t look like the stereotypical theater person. She never dyed her hair, wears normal (if not boring) clothes, and hardly ever wears makeup. Her boyfriend calls her granny because she is always knitting or crocheting. She is almost an adult but looks like a child. She looks almost exactly like I did as a child and has my body shape. She also has a similar personality to mine.

My son Alex is 15. He looks his age. For the longest time, he was a small and thin boy until finally he grew. Now he towers over me, muscular and lean. His personality is also similar to mine. He looks like his dad and has my body shape.

Arabella is 12, but she looks like an adult. Her personality is very different from mine. She looks like her dad and has his body type. This past Christmas, Arabella became the topic of conversation with my aunt through marriage. She loudly said, “I see that Arabella has joined the club.” “What club??” “Oh, that is right, you wouldn’t know. Did you ever consider breast reduction surgery?” She is 12. “She is going to have back issues.” She is 12!! She looks so much older that other people (myself included) expect her to act like she is an adult. It doesn’t seem right or fair. 

And so it is. Two weeks ago we were all back at the dentist’s office. After I had my fillings worked on, I came out to the waiting area to find Alex and Arabella arguing. I told them that if I heard one more word from them that I would take away their electronics. Alex quit the fight, but Arabella argued on. I told her to hand over her electronics. She come over to me and said, “Yeah, try to make me.” She has over 30 lbs on me. She towered over me while I cowered underneath her. This has made parenting challenging for me. Then Alex stood behind me and demanded she hand over her electronics. This started sibling battle number 2. Even though Alex tried to back me up, I told him that this was between Arabella and I.

I have been parenting for a long time now. I have noticed three stages of struggle with all of my children. The first stage everyone has heard of, the terrible two’s. This is their first struggle for independence. The second stage happened around 5 years, right around the time that they went to school full-time. This is another time of asserting independence. The third stage is during preadolescence, the middle school age.

The middle school years have been fraught with the biggest struggle for independence that I have seen so far, plus add in new hormonal changes. All of my kids were moody, argumentative, easily irritated, knew everything, and would often talk back. At this age, the kids treated us like we were totally stupid. Paul and I would walk around the house with our hands in the air saying “what do I know?” Anything that we would say they would argue against. I think that this is very normal although we were shocked by it with our first child. They are starting to find their identity and make their way in life without us.

The teenage years are wonderful. I am not kidding, there is hope. For the first time, you will be able to reason with your child like an adult. For example, a few months back Angel wanted to go on a weekend skiing trip with her boyfriend. A group of college students were going to rent a lodge for the weekend without parents around. But my daughter was 17. I told her that she wasn’t going to be allowed to go. She was disappointed and sad. Later, after the initial anger wore off, my daughter came up to me and told me that she understood my decision and the reasoning behind it. I was floored. It was so hard to not let her go when she agreed with me. If she would have thrown a big fit and screamed how much she hated me, I sure would have had an easier time saying no.

I think that by the time my youngest child leaves, I’ll finally have this parenting thing figured out. Until then, don’t give my 17 year old daughter a kids menu. And don’t even think about offering my 12 year old a drink from the bar.

After the snow melts

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

After the snow melted, I thought I saw a little blue baby boy sock out in my yard. I wondered where it came from. I don’t even remember the last time I had a baby at my house. My baby boy is almost fully grown.

It made me long for the days when my son was a baby. Alex was my easiest baby. He was always content. He was happy to sit and study his surroundings quietly for hours. He slept through the night. He kept a very structured eating and sleeping schedule that I could set my clock by. He was easy to potty train. He was the cutest little guy. He had thick curly brown ringlets, whereas his sisters got the straight hair. He was such a mama’s boy. We would sit together and read books often.

Now I wish I could tell you that things haven’t changed much after Alex entered his teen years, but I can’t. Things haven’t been that easy as of late. My husband said that with him it is always two steps forward and one step back. This will be the last weekend that he is grounded from his friends. There is one friend that has been a horrible influence on him and other neighborhood kids. Alex is not allowed to hang out with him anymore. Last week two police cars were at this boy’s house. Trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes. I am hoping that since this friendship has been severed, things will get better.

Alex has been struggling with his grades, with making new friends, and has been angry about his grandma’s cancer diagnosis. Paul and I had a long talk with the principal who suggested signing him up for a spring sport. Alex opted to join track. At his very first track meet on his very first event, he injured his leg. It was so frustrating. Alex was upset as well. He was angry that some of his friends weren’t watching his event. He said that if he never came back to school, no one would miss him. I didn’t like to hear him talk like that, but at least he was talking to me. I told him that no matter what his friends do, I would be there for him.

That night after the meet, I went to look at the baby sock in my yard. But it wasn’t a sock. It was a blue piece of paper flapping in the wind.

So it is day after day, sometimes my son and I get along great. We talk about his future. We joke and laugh. He can always sense when I am feeling down even when I try to hide it. He told me not to worry about the past because my life is happy now when I feel sad after writing about difficult things. He encourages others when they are feeling down. He is gentle, caring, and kind.

Then the next minute, he is moody and disrespectful. He says mean things. He wants to have nothing to do with me. He talks about moving out. I suppose that is what raising teenagers is all about. Right now my son is 65% adult and 35% child. Sometimes he is so much like a man that I feel shocked at his maturity and logic. Then the next minute the child comes out and I am shocked by his immaturity. I think that we are heading in the right direction with Alex. He just takes a little more work then our first born.

The next time I glanced out the window, I tried to see if the blue paper still looked like a baby sock. I thought that my perception would change after I realized it was just a piece of paper. But the next time I looked, it was gone.

Competing events

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Today all of my kids competed. I felt just as nervous as if I was competing.

Not only were all three of my kids competing in solo and ensemble, but my youngest daughter Arabella had an additional altogether different competition at a different school. This week I attended the mandatory parent meeting for Arabella’s competition. The leader told the group that anyone with a failing grade would not be able to compete. It was at this point that I leaned over to my daughter’s coach (one of my best friends) and said good thing they weren’t talking about my child. They were talking about my daughter! WTH??  I raced home to find out that she was failing choir (really, choir???!?) because she didn’t turn in an assignment when she was out of school getting her braces on. So I never did sign up that night to help out.

A couple days later I received a nasty call because I never signed up to volunteer at the event. The leader wanted me to help with concessions between 10 and 11. I said no. Between my kids, they were signed up for 11 S&E events. I was not even going to be able to be there for Arabella’s competition because my other two kids were competing at similar times. Paul was going to go. I was not going to drop seeing my kids events because someone was stupid enough to double schedule this event with S&E. She told me that if I didn’t help out that they were not going to do this in the future. I reiterated that I was not going to help from 10 to 11, mentioned all the times I did my fair share, and offered to help clean up after the award ceremony.

Then later this week right before S&E, Arabella told me that she broke her instrument. Ok, sure. What next? It was already crazy enough having to be at two different places at the same time!

Last night I set my alarm for 5:40 AM to get up in time for the show. I have never been so thankful for waking up early on a Saturday morning before. Especially since I accidently set the alarm for 5:40 PM. That could have been disasterous!

Arabella performed her two pieces first so she could leave for her other competition. Her band duet was horrible. Apparently her friend was playing french horn out of a trumpet book and the instruments were in 2 different keys. So it sounded like they were playing two different clashing songs. They took a 2nd on their class C. She also took a 2nd on her choir piece. Not too bad for as bad as the band piece sounded. Alex took a 2nd on his band piece as well.

As usual, Angelique stole the show. All 8 of her choir pieces made it to state. I can usually tell it’s good if the worst comment the judges make is on where to take breaths. She better be good since she wants to go into vocal performance as a career! Last year all of her pieces made it to state. She took all firsts at state and received an exemplary award. One of the best things a judge said was that her happy attitude was contagious.

Then I made it back to Arabella’s competition just in time for the award ceremony. Her team did not make it to state this year. Oh well, they had fun anyway. Then I stayed after to clean up. I came home tonight pretty exhausted. Almost like I ran a marathon. Lol.   

All in all, the day ended on a good note.

Making a pact

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

This past weekend something happened that made me rather upset.

Last minute, Paul and I had our friends Cindy and Jack over. Jack wanted to make plans with Paul to go on a fly fishing trip over Easter break. The place that they want to fish is 5 hours away, very close to Cindy’s parents. Cindy and Jack were having a hard time finding a babysitter for their 5 year old son and we couldn’t help. That seemed like a no brainer fix to me. I suggested that they drop their son off with Cindy’s parents. Cindy said that her parents wouldn’t do that for them. They were still complaining about the time that they had to watch him for 2 hours. Really? That made me angry.

Then I told Cindy that my aunt wanted my daughter to sing in her only child’s wedding. She told me that my younger two children weren’t going to be invited to the wedding. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal except that the wedding is a couple of hours away. Being a part of the wedding would require a hotel room a couple of nights for the rehearsal and wedding. Another relative said that I should leave my other kids with some friends or my in-laws. My in-laws? They didn’t help out with the kids much before my mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. How can people ask a favor and be so insensitive?? Paul offered to stay home with the youngest kids so I could take Angel to sing in the wedding. But it makes me angry!

Then it took me back to a time in my life when I needed help but found myself alone. On Angel’s 4th birthday, Matt attacked her. It took my brother and husband to pull him off of her. This event caused a chain reaction of hurt that lasted years after the actual attack took place. I decided that I didn’t want my children victimized by my brother like I was. Things were different, when my brother hurt me he was a child. When he hurt Angel, he was a grown man and she was just a little girl. For years there was a time where there was very minimal contact between Matt and my children. Because of this, my mom lost her number one caregiver, me. We also lost our number one helper, my mom.

Less than a year after Matt attacked Angel, I gave birth to my third child. I scheduled the C-section for a Friday because I didn’t have anyone to help watch the kids during the week while Paul worked. My mom stayed over the night before, then dropped the kids off at the hospital the morning that I had my third child because Matt had a doctor’s appointment. Paul and I never had the celebratory meal together. After I got home from the hospital, my mother-in-law helped for one day then I was on my own less than a week after having major surgery with my three little kids.

In response to everything that happened, I decided to solve my problems by starting up a babysitting co-op. It worked great. We exchanged points for child care instead of money. We had monthly play groups. I developed close friends that for some reason or other found it hard to get the support that they needed as a parent.

I wish that there was a flow chart with parenting solutions sometimes. If your child does this, you do that. Every parenting class that I have ever attended was always filled with controversy. To spank or not to spank? Work or stay at home? Breast or bottle? Private, public, or home school? One child wins or everybody wins? Vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Yada, yada, yada… I am sure it wouldn’t take too long to find a blog where someone is fighting over these issues. Nobody seems to have the answers. 
Having your first child is such a major shock. I find it funny when women seem worried about childbirth. I was the same way. Seriously, you should be more worried about the next 18 years! Suddenly you are thrown into parenting without any idea what you are doing. Having a second child is also a shock. Yes, I was one of those people that thought it wouldn’t change my life at all. I also thought that my kids wouldn’t fight. That expectation got shattered pretty fast. I also thought that if I did the best job that I could possibly do that my kids wouldn’t rebel or make the wrong choices. Boy am I still learning! Having a third child was no adjustment at all. Wait, did I have a third child? I think so, except I did not document the first time she started to crawl, the first word she said, or the first time she spit up like I did with my first child.

Grandparents, why does our culture sometimes treat you like you are outdated and worthless? What a lie! You are a wealth of knowledge. You have the experience that some of us are learning through trial and error at the expense of our children. For all of the grandparents out there who are helping out their children some way or another, thank you. God bless you for making this world a better place. You are needed. You are appreciated. Parents, if you have parents that are wonderful grandparents, show them your gratitude. I know many parents that would do almost anything to have a little guidance.

This past weekend Paul suggested that we (Paul, Cindy, Jack, and I) make a pact to be good grandparents. The four of us promised that we would be there for our children when they have children of their own. We promised to be supportive, offer advice if asked, and to take our grandchildren for a few days to give their parents a break. We will take the wrongs and make them right.

This is our pact.

Autism’s sibling, journal 2, part 4

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment

I was my mother’s best friend. Before I was a teenager, I knew about every problem in the house. I helped solve them. I heard about financial concerns, marital problems, parenting issues, and autism galore. My advice was sought. I fixed things. After my dad checked out emotionally, it was like I became the other parent. I was never allowed to be the child. My mom had a hard time making and keeping friends because Matt’s violent behavior scared them away. He scared away many of my friends too, so I really couldn’t blame her.

So I deliberately planned that when I became a parent, I would allow my children to be children. They were never going to hear about my adult problems or issues. In fact, I haven’t told my children much about my childhood at all. I only told my oldest daughter about this blog since she is almost an adult and is old enough to know. Maybe someday when I am ready and they are old enough, my other children will be told.

My mom had a really hard time without the support of my dad and a few close friends. She often times would cry while listening to Christian music as she was driving. Sometimes she would do this while I had friends in the car. It embarrassed me to the point that I really disliked Christian music or relaxing piano music that would cause an eruption of tears from my mother.

Once my mother took my brothers and I to a Christian concert when we were little. She cried almost the whole time. We were bored and screwed around to the point that she had to leave the concert early. She was so angry and upset with us that she cried most of the way home. I wish she had some friends that she could have enjoyed the night away with.

Now I like some music that I wouldn’t want my kids to listen too. Music that is angry, dark, or downright nasty. Music that modern day teens might like and not an old lady like me. Sometimes my kids will test me. Bet you don’t know that song. Yes, it is Eminem singing ‘Till I Collapse (good running song by the way). Wow, I am such a cool mom. With the bass cranking out of my window, you would think that my daughter would be happy with me dropping her off right outside of the middle school. But, alas, I am an embarrassment. Sometimes I even embarrass myself.

How can I sleep??

/ Outrunning my demons / 6 Comments

Noise! Sometimes I would give anything to be able to sleep.

When my kids were little, I would have given anything to sleep until 8. Now as teens they sleep in past eight. But I still wake up at 6. I try to sleep in, but I can’t. 

Last night my oldest daughter Angelique was talking to her boyfriend on speaker phone while skyping him, sending stories on snap chat, checking her facebook feed, making bracelets, and catching up on her favorite netflix shows. How can I sleep?

My son Alex is the incessant gamer. I hear the taps of the keyboard, the clicks of the mouse, his TV that shows highlights of some gaming competition. He yells into his gaming mike, “No, no, no, what are you doing? I can’t believe you just did that. Are you a newb?” How can I sleep??

My youngest daughter Arabella just got braces this week. She had a sleepover last night with her best friend who also has braces. They spent the evening laughing, giggling, and screaming while slurring through mouths full of metal. How can I sleep???

Paul asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him at 8:00. Sure, why not? Ten minutes into the movie, I am asleep! ARRGgggg! How could I sleep??

Travel woes, just trying to get there

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

You may or may not have noticed that I took a week off from my travel series. I took time off from writing about traveling to actually travel. We decided to take one last family vacation to Florida before my oldest child graduates this year. The trip down to Florida and what happened at the end of the trip was so horrible that I am still upset about it. I decided to vent about my woes with you today and then write about the trip (which went great) in another post.  

Last week my mom, husband, 3 kids, and I flew out of Milwaukee with Delta to meet up with my brother Luke and his family in Orlando. We were not able to get a direct flight to Orlando and had an hour layover in Detroit. Our flight ended up being delayed in Milwaukee because someone over fueled the plane which caused us to exceed our weight limit. Eleven people needed to give up their seats due to this. They also had to get a large hose to remove some of the fuel. When we were finally able to board they still needed to de-ice the plane which took a long time because they ran out of de-icer. It took an hour before we were finally able to leave. At this point, the flight attendant assured us that if we had a connecting flight they were aware of our situation and would most likely wait for us.

We ended up landing a few minutes before our next flight was scheduled to depart. We ran across the airport as fast as we could and got to our gate two minutes after our flight was supposed to leave. We arrived to the gate just as our plane was leaving. They could not wait for us for 2 minutes!! Then we were herded into a long line of passengers from our plane. At least 20 people that were sitting near us missed their connecting flights. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we were able to talk to an agent that barely spoke English. He said that the only way he would be able to get all six of us to Orlando together was if we took a connecting flight to Boston. At this point, I was extremely angry. He wanted to direct us into Boston right around the time that the east coast was supposed to be hit by a blizzard. I pictured my family being stuck in the weather that we were trying to escape from. You didn’t want to hear the words that seeped out of my lips.

He booked us on the flight to Boston which we cancelled. Then he tried to get us all on the earliest flight available closest to Orlando. He had a few seats available but by the time he tried to type all of our names in the seats were gone. The best he could do was get an 8 PM flight to Tampa for my mom and Paul. He was able to get the kids and I on an 8 PM flight to Jacksonville. I would arrive in Jacksonville at 11 PM then have to somehow find a rental car to drive 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the night with 3 kids on roads I’ve never driven on to get to the house that we rented. You would think that they would agree to pay for the extra rental car to get us there. Nope, they told us that the flight was delayed due to weather and that they would not cover that additional cost. The delay was NOT weather related.

We noticed a half an hour later that another flight was leaving for Orlando. We decided to run across the airport to try to be on stand by for that flight. When we got there, they made the announcement that they were overbooked and were looking for volunteers to take another flight. That wasn’t going to work. We saw another flight leaving for Tampa in 30 minutes all the way across the airport. So once again, Paul and I ran as fast as we could with 3 children and a senior citizen with all of our carry on bags across the airport. When we got there, the Tampa flight was boarding. They told us that we needed to talk to customer service to be added to the stand by list. We went where they directed us to go and no one was there. When we found where we needed to go, we had to wait in line for 10 minutes to speak to someone. When we explained our situation, the woman told us that she needed to leave for her lunch break and directed us to talk to someone on the phone. While Paul was speaking to someone on the phone, my daughter called me in a panic to say that the flight was about ready to leave. We missed the opportunity to catch that flight.

Then we went across the airport again to get on stand by for the next flight to Orlando at 5:30 PM. It was at this time that I switched the Orlando rental car that I booked over to Tampa. I made several other troubleshooting and problem solving calls. I was so angry that I wanted to take my carry on backpack and slam it into the garbage bins to knock them over. I don’t think that I ever swore so much in my entire life. I don’t know what it is about yanking around people’s schedules (while feeling a total lack of control) that can turn reasonably sane people into raging bulls, but it does.

I will be totally honest with you right now, I am terrified of flying. Every little bit of turbulence, I agonize that the plane is crashing. I usually pop a couple of anxiety pills and sleep most of the flight arriving in a comatose state. Paul usually has to make sure that I get to wherever I need to be safely. I read everything that I could about flying to try to get over my fear. I read that planes don’t crash due to turbulence. Most planes crash during take off or landing. Thanks, now that scares the hell out of me too. I am afraid of dying. The thought of falling terrifies me. I feel trapped with a total loss of control while flying. My life is in the hands of some pilot that I don’t even know. You say that flying is safer than driving? Well, that scares me too. I spent a good deal of my life struggling with driving anxiety. I told Paul that I didn’t think that I could handle flying and then driving 2 1/2 hours after being awake 20 hours. He did everything that he could to make sure that the kids and I were on that next flight to Orlando. At the very last second, the person at the desk was able to get the kids and I on the flight. I told Paul to make sure that if they couldn’t get my luggage on that they would send it to Tampa. I had to fly totally alert and unmedicated ridden with anxiety.

Once we landed, I got the message that Paul and my mom were able to get an earlier flight to Tampa. They said that my luggage was in Orlando. My youngest two kids were fighting and touching the luggage carousel. I was just about going crazy, but I was there. My luggage never came out and I panicked. It turns out that they set some of the luggage to the side. Then, due to miscommunication, my brother did not know that he had to pick us up at the airport. We sat at the airport another hour waiting for him. Finally we got to our rental house after 10 PM. My mom and Paul ended up getting there at 11:30 PM.

It was a rough start to our vacation. I am glad that we were able to get there the same day. All of the stress could have been avoided if some idiot did not over fuel our plane. I don’t think I would have been quite as angry if we didn’t watch our connecting flight leave two minutes after the scheduled departure time without us.  Running back and forth across the airport with 3 kids and my mom was extremely stressful as well. I am thinking about writing Delta a letter. Unfortunately, our arrival back home was just as horrible and that had nothing to do with Delta. I will tell you about that next, this post is long enough already.

 

The travel diaries, Virginia Beach

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

The trip to Virginia Beach was the first vacation that I took as an adult with kids. I probably shouldn’t have gone. I was probably only invited as a nice gesture, but I took the opportunity and ran with it. I was invited by my mom who was going on the trip with Luke and his future wife Emily. I think that they seriously thought that I wouldn’t go. Paul couldn’t take a week off of work as he was a one man show back when his business was in its infancy. People thought that I was crazy for going because I decided to go with a newly turned two year old and a newborn. We loaded up a rental van and headed across the country on an over 2,000 mile round trip road trip.

We didn’t make any reservations in advance, we just looked at a map and drove as far as we could in a day. Our goal was to see the ocean. The trip in and of itself was pretty uneventful until we got closer to the ocean. What I really liked was that we decided to eat at a restaurant at the top of a hill in West Virginia. It was a winding drive to get to the top of the hill. It was exciting because WI is pretty flat. Another thing I noticed, in WI we have about 2 bars for every church. Bar, bar, Lutheran church. Bar, bar, Catholic church. But when we went to WV it was church, church, church, church, and bar that was shut down. What different cultures depending on where you are in our big country.

When we were almost to the ocean, I think we were touring a fort or something when I ended up feeling sick. I laid down on the grass while everyone took the tour. The long body jostling miles 2 months after having a C-section, the sleepless nights of being up with a newborn, and keeping up with an energetic 2 year old finally took its toll on me. The day we planned to go to the ocean, I ended up in the ER. I had a foreign doctor with a southern accent that I needed a nurse translator to understand. He wanted to hospitalize me. I got hooked up to an IV and they put a catheter in me. He wanted me to go on some heavy duty antibiotics that I would have to stop nursing my baby with. I refused. I told him that I only had a bladder infection and that being hundreds of miles from home that I couldn’t just stop nursing as I had in no way prepared to buy bottles and sanitize them on the road. Plus we were going to see the ocean TODAY! I got some regular antibiotics and we were on our way.

We finally got to the ocean in the afternoon. The doctor said that I could not swim so I walked in the ocean for the first time up to my knees. I remember hearing a mother screaming up and down the beach because she lost her child and was afraid he might have drowned. Someone was kind and offered me their canopy when they were leaving as I didn’t have an umbrella to protect my baby from the sun. We stayed at the beach for 2 hours and then had to leave to meet up with a friend of mine. So our long trip to the ocean was again cut very short because of me.

The next day we did some touring of the area. I remember going to tour a president’s plantation house in the afternoon. We got there right before the last tour of the day. My mom and I were going to take turns with the kids. We planned to go on separate tours but since it was the last tour of the day we couldn’t do that. Once the tour group of about 20 people got inside, they locked us in. With a 2 year old and a newborn this incited some terror within me. Sure enough while the tour guide was explaining about the original antique rug that we were standing on, my son spit up all over it. My 2 year old had a tantrum at the end of the tour. It was great being locked in while she was screaming and crying. Oh, and the dirty looks. I can laugh now because I will never have to go through that again. Phew. On the way out, we walked through a pet cemetery. I guess that really was a thing.

After that we drove through the night to get back home. I crossed going to the ocean with little kids off my bucket list. What a trip!

Wrestling with the school

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment

My son Alex used to be involved in almost every sport offered in the area, but not anymore. He started wrestling when he was in kindergarten. He was competitive, aggressive, and not afraid to get hurt. To be completely honest with you, I loved being a wrestling mom. I even loved getting up early on a Saturday morning to sit for hours in a loud stinky gym for those few minutes of anxious excitement. Most of the moms didn’t like the sport very much because they were afraid that their children would end up hurt. Most of the kids would leave the meets bumped and bruised and at almost every tournament someone would leave the gym on a stretcher.

The sport required a high tolerance of boredom and anxiety. I have seen almost everything over the 8 years that I was a wrestling mom. I have seen kids puking into garbage cans and heading back to the mat. Or more common, kids with bloody noses. Little kids running off crying after losing a match. Siblings would sit bored for hours playing their video games. Babies cried. Parents would coach from the sidelines losing their voices like they spent the night at a bar. I have seen kids worry over a couple of extra ounces when they were trying to make weight sucking on Jolly Ranchers and spitting into water bottles. I never liked that part. I have seen parents escorted out of the building for fighting with refs over calls. Some kids would win, others would lose. Pictures at the podium. Pins for your hat. Then we would pack it all up and head back home until the next weekend.

Alex was a B+ wrestler. When he was in 6th grade, he tried to make it to state. Only the first and second place in the weight bracket would make it to state. If I remember right, there were 8 kids in the weight bracket and Alex took third. However, another district had only one child in the weight bracket so they called Alex up to state. For the next two weeks before state, Alex wrestled twice as much and twice as hard. On the drive to state, Alex fell asleep and woke up with a kink in his neck. He pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle. We tried everything we could think of but Alex could not hold his head upright without extreme pain. We watched his teammates wrestle while Alex had to forfeit every game. We were so angry. He worked so hard. It was such a fluke thing that he made it to state and then he couldn’t even wrestle. So we resolved to do everything possible to help get Alex back to state the following year.

Alex went to summer wrestling camps and we signed him up for very intense wrestling training 2 months before the wrestling season started. This involved an extra expense and 2 hours of driving every time he went. He was very motivated and worked hard. He became an A- wrestler. In school, he was second in his weight class under an A wrestler. With all of the extra training, he could beat the A wrestler 1 out of 3 times. This is where things went incredibly wrong for him. He took on the alpha. This is a boy whose dad was a wrestler that graduated from that same school.  He was friends with a lot of other boys whose dads were wrestlers that graduated from the small town school. He got a lot of the other kids to turn against my son. A couple other kids were getting bullied as well. Some of the boys were being pushed around and had their wrestling shoes thrown in the toilet.  We talked to the coach, but he didn’t do anything.  One day my husband couldn’t take it anymore. He took Alex with him to confront the boys that were bullying him and to talk to their parents. Things got better for awhile.

Then a few weeks before trying to make state, my son came down with the flu. He missed a week of school and when he came back he didn’t wrestle as good. He still tried hard but then hurt his neck again in the same place as before. He spent a week in a lot of pain. He never made it back to state and quit wrestling altogether. Even though we tried to help him become a better wrestler, in hindsight I am not sure it was worth it. Being better jostled the system that was in place, the hierarchy. Since then my son has been ostracized from the jock group, he quit all sports, his grades dropped, and he has a negative attitude about school. He hangs out with other kids that aren’t accepted. Kids that have been known to steal things, do drugs, and run away from home.

My son begs us to take him to another school which has been tempting since he has two really good friends that stay out of trouble in the neighboring school district.  But would that teach him that he can run away from his problems? That he doesn’t need to change negative things about himself in order to get along with people better? Or would it give him a better attitude about learning and opportunities to grow socially and academically?

We have a lot to think about before the next school year.

Ending the holiday season

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I didn’t tell anybody this earlier, but I started the new year off on the wrong foot. We had a couple of friends over for New Year’s Eve. Everything went well and the last people left at 1:30 AM. Paul and I finally made our way to bed around 2. At 6 AM, a noise woke me up. Somewhere between 2 and 6 AM, our furnace went out. The house temp was under 50 degrees. We ended up having someone come out at the crack of dawn on new year’s day receiving holiday pay to fix it. It was a rough start. 

Today we took down our Christmas tree. I put all of the decorations back in the crawl space and dug out all of my old journals. I don’t know how quick I will go through them to be honest with you. I always have a rough time this time of year with the lack of sunlight. Even though I take massive doses of vitamin D, my thoughts and emotions tend to be dark. Just thinking about the past can bring me down on the sunniest of days….so this month might be light and fluffy like the winter snow. Talking about the winter snow, Paul and I were able to get out and cross country ski for the first time on the skis that we bought last winter. What a workout! Sure made me feel out of shape, especially since we saw a friend of ours there and he did two laps to our one. 

Yesterday I told you that we were going to one last Christmas party at my uncle’s who happens to be a clean freak. Well, I am embarassed to say that it was me this year that made a mess. That’s right. After being at the party for about a half an hour, I cracked open a bottle of beer. I took 3 sips and proceeded to spill most of the bottle everywhere. It went down my shirt with a majority of it landing on my pants and their off white carpet. I greeted relatives coming to the party looking like I peed my pants. My uncle said I could leave behind some money for the carpet cleaning. I am glad he was just kidding. Or was he? He didn’t freak out though like the story I heard of when my cousins accidently knocked over his fish tank. Other than looking like a complete idiot, the party went well.

Our staff party a couple weeks ago went great too. We took our employees to a painting class. It was so much fun. And I didn’t suck at painting. I was happy to be average. Out of the four of us that went, not one single person between the ages of 30 and 52 ever painted on a canvas before. Checked that off my bucket list and would love to do it again. 

Other than that, I have been trying to upload a video of my daughter and I singing. I haven’t been successful at that. I will probably figure it out by July. Geez. We sang our Christmas songs at the party yesterday. Every year my aunt insists that we sing. My daughter moves people to tears with her singing. She wants to spend the summer singing and performing on tour. She is auditioning to do that next month. When my cousin heard that, she was bummed out because she wanted Angel to sing at her wedding this summer. Angel just sang at my brother’s wedding a few months back. Angel and I have very similar voices, except that hers is well trained and mine is not. I used to be the one asked to sing at weddings, now it is her. When did she become better than me??? She used to ask me for advice and now she tells me what to do. I listen to her because she is right, but can’t help but feel hurt that I am no longer wanted. I am happy that she has had so many opportunities that I didn’t.

Sometimes it is hard for me to accept this whole aging thing.