Parenting

My soles are worn thin

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It seems I haven’t gotten too far on my travel series yet. Maybe tomorrow..

This past weekend I shared with you a dream that I had about having to run a marathon I am not ready for. I think the marathon symbolizes the second half of my life. I looked down to see that my soles on my shoes were totally worn out. The reality is that the first half of my life is over. Then I noticed that at the beginning of this marathon I was wearing shoes that fit but they were on the wrong foot. I don’t want to start the second half of my life on the wrong foot. I request a new pair of shoes, this time they fit but they are uneven. I won’t be able to run the race very long wearing these shoes. I think this is symbolic of parenting. My children will start leaving the house in a few months, things won’t be the same (uneven), and soon I will be actively taking these shoes off. The last shoe brought out is the most comfortable but it doesn’t fit yet. Ah, retirement and living without the stress of working and actively parenting. But it is going to be a long time before this shoe fits me.

I took comfort early on in the dream marathon that Gu and broccoli were at the beginning of the race. I chose to go down the path of exercise and healthy living. Not only does being an exercise fanatic ward off my depression, anxiety, and stress. It makes me think that I will live longer and healthier. Because if I really think about it, which is something that I try to avoid doing, I am terrified of death. We are not going to exist forever like we do now. Even though I have a firm faith in God, I am still absolutely terrified of my own demise. What if I am wrong? What if there is nothing out there? Forget the physical pain of taking your last breathe. What if there is only an empty void? A void like the one before our existence. I just can’t bear the emptiness of that. I want to think that I am going to see my loved ones again, even if I am wrong.

When I started this dream marathon, I saw people wander off the path before it began. I went to sleep that night worried that my neighbor in her mid 40’s was not going to make it. She did pass away during the night. She was one of the people that left the race early before it really even began for her. Another thing that I noticed was that the path looked straight and the weather was fine. I seemed to have the tools I needed to run the race but I couldn’t see very far ahead of me. I needed to figure out what shoes to wear, what my role is going to be in the second half of my life. I wanted to wait to start the marathon before I figured that out, but I ran out of time.

I suppose at this point it is pretty obvious that I was a psychology major in college. LOL

 

 

Wrestling with the school

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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

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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. 

Letting go of the present

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I think that my focus this new year is going to be letting go. Now before you start to get any ideas, I am not planning on letting myself go. I just finished an 18 mile run. Well, I think that it was 18 miles anyway. Twice during my run I accidentally hit the emergency stop button on my treadmill which upset me because I did not know my exact mileage at the time. The second time I almost got propelled into my TV. Nothing like being thrown into a crime show. LOL

Not only do I want to start the process of letting go of my past instead of outrunning it, but I am also faced with something that I never thought would happen. I am not needed as much anymore. My kids are growing up. My oldest will be graduating from high school this year. If everything works out as she has planned, she will be leaving our house in 5 months. She will become an adult. Gulp. Yesterday my middle child drove a car for the first time. He got his temps this week. Last night my youngest child babysat so someone else could go out for New Year’s Eve. I don’t even need a babysitter anymore for my youngest child.

When this whole process started, I never pictured in my mind that someday my babies would grow up. Some days I wished for it after sleepless nights with a newborn, toddler temper tantrums, potty training, math homework, etc.. When did time change from wanting them to grow up to wanting time to stand still for a little longer? In five years, I will be done with this job. I’m doing the best that I can so I don’t look back with regret. Despite some relatively minor teenage issues in comparison, the burden of responsibility is starting to lift. I will finally have time for the first time in my life to do what I want to do.

It’s time to start letting go…

A few minor Christmas detours

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I tend to be a black and white thinker. So I usually go into situations with really low expectations or very high expectations. When I go in with low expectations, I tend to have more of a negative attitude. This has earned me the title of pessimist, which I would argue that I am not. I tend to describe myself as a realist which is false for all practical purposes too because my expectations are not realistic. Most of the times it turns out in between. Some good, some bad. Which is still polar and I am back to thinking black and white again. I tried.

I placed Christmas within the high expectation category which can be disappointing if it is not perfect and what ever is? My daughter and I sang the duet O Holy Night for both Christmas Eve services. That went well. Christmas with the kids went really well the next day. Then Saturday morning we headed across the state to have Christmas at my brother Luke’s house. Expectations were high, I was in a good mood. Well, until we found ourselves on a country back road with the bridge out. There weren’t any detour signs or anything. Plus there was no cell reception at all to navigate or call for directions. We ended up on an icy gravel road that looked inviting to people seeking a place to hide a corpse. That should have been the first indication right there.

Despite sitting several hours in the car, all three kids got along great. Until we pulled into the driveway, that is. Then there was some bickering. We entered the house just in time for lunch despite the 20 minute detour. The kids weren’t terribly interested in helping unload the car. Paul ended up taking Alex’s cell phone away as he didn’t want to help after he unloaded his items. Alex got upset and locked himself in the bathroom. He refused to eat with us. Then it was time to open gifts, but Alex still refused to come out. Who would’ve thought? Then Alex felt too embarassed to come out, but eventually did. My 6 year old niece asked loudly why Alex was so upset over and over when he finally came out. This all happened while my brother Mark opened a gift that was a talking Darth Vader figurine that was bigger then my niece. His new wife exclaimed, “Where the hell are we going to put that?” My mom said that she had another one at home for them that she couldn’t fit in her car.

Other than a few snags, everything went really well. We had a lot of great food and played games all night. Mark got pretty drunk. For the most part everyone got along. No one got any sleep. Then we woke up and made our long journey back home. Only one more Christmas party to go before we can call this season a wrap.

Disabled family cohesion

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Yesterday was my daughter’s last high school holiday choir concert. My mom went and some close friends. You can really tell how close your friends are if they offer to go to see your child perform. I really appreciate that. Our family is a little more sketchy. My mom makes it out to 99.9% of my kids events. My mother-in-law says she is going to 50% of things and usually would cancel out last minute and make it to 20% of things. I think that not showing up at all is better than saying you are going and not showing up or giving a lame excuse not to go. My dad and brothers are very sporadic about showing up to events.

My kids all have late spring/summer birthdays, so year after year I would throw a family party for them all at one time. A couple of years back I decided to cancel the family birthday party due to lack of interest. I felt very frustrated and angry about the whole thing.

Then a couple of days ago I really started to examine the reason why there is this lack of cohesion within my family. Then I remembered every time that we went on family vacations together, all of the times that we went out to eat as a family, the hugs, the laughter, the times that my whole family came out to see my concerts, my graduation. Then I realized that none of that happened. No family vacations, I can’t remember ever going out to eat as a family when I was young. Those things didn’t happen.

This is what REALLY happened. My mom had to find someone to take care of my brother Matt to come to my events. Lots of times my dad would stay home with him. Matt has autism and Tourettes. Taking him out in public to an event such as a concert or graduation was nearly impossible when he was younger. He would often have a melt down in public. He was hyper with a lot of anxiety that he would have a melt down. His anxiety caused his tics to be worse. Tics included hand flapping, eye twitching, and throat clearing. At the very worst, he would injure himself or others and had so much anxiety that after going to an event he would be nervous and throw up for two days afterwards. People were a lot less sympathetic towards those behaviors back when I was young.

So my brothers and I grew up living separate lives. We went to separate schools. We did not support each other. We never learned how. Luke didn’t go to my college graduation or party that followed it because he chose to be with his friends instead. When Luke graduated from college, I went but had my husband stay home to help take care of Matt. When Mark graduated from high school, I didn’t go and went to work that evening instead. Mark never went on to school and I missed his only graduation. It was only later that I learned that family events are important but I can’t go back.

But I can move forward. I can show my children how important it is to support their siblings. I can encourage them to attend their events. I tolerate them saying that they are bored. When is it going to be over? Is it almost done? I am trying to teach them this lesson now so they won’t have to learn it the hard way like I did.

It took me a long time to get over the hurt, depression, and worry involved in extended family events. I can finally say that I get along with my parent and brothers the best that I have ever gotten along with them. I do see my brothers, especially Luke, making more effort to have a relationship. Matt has an easier time going out to events. Things are finally coming together in my story.

 

 

The great parenting paradox

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This is something that I have thought about for a long time and it is still a mystery to me. When I was a child, it was such an emotionally crushing time of my life. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault and I am not trying to place blame. It was just the circumstances of my life and really Paul’s too. We both grew up in very difficult situations. So much so that we would do almost anything to give our children the “perfect” childhood. The childhood that we never had.

There were times that I didn’t think I was going to be strong enough to make it through my childhood. I emerged as a healthy adult, but not without battle scars and wounds. I don’t think that I will ever be able to outrun my demons. We have worked incredibly hard to provide an ideal childhood for our children.

However, surviving through difficult times has made me the strong person that I am today. It has given me the courage, the determination, and the grit. I am not a superficial person. I am raising children that I did everything I could to make their life like mine wasn’t. Parents always seem to want things for their children that they never had. I am raising children who have sharing a room with their sibling as their biggest hardship. I have no sympathy for that. I am happy that I feel successful in giving them a great childhood. Yet at the same time I feel resentful. Am I raising healthy kids or spoiled brats?

I sometimes wonder if I am like a parent who grew up hungry overindulging their children with food. Or a parent who grew up poor overindulging their children with vast material wealth without them having to work for it. Is too much of a good thing a bad thing? Will shielding my kids from stress and pain allow them to handle it better when they grow up?

So the question still remains in my mind. Am I doing the right thing? Would I be a better person if my childhood environment was ideal? Would I be able to appreciate the good things in life without experiencing the bad? Sometimes with parenting, there are more questions then answers..

To my daughter’s stalker

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I have never met you and hope that I never do. I can understand why you would be obsessed with my daughter. She is that bright light in a dim lit room. Along with butterflies, even the darkest of souls are attracted to her warm glowing light. Sinking ships try to reach that light in this dark world.

I can understand why you said that you would make my daughter love you the way you love her. She is very beautiful. Her stage presence, her angelic singing voice alone has caused the most callous of hearts to open. You noticed that when you met her a year and a half ago on a school choir trip. Even though she told you that she had a boyfriend, that she just wanted to be friends, you thought you could change her mind.

After the trip, you texted, snapchatted, social mediaed, and called her all the time. It got to the point that she told you to stop, but you didn’t. Her boyfriend told you to stop and then you started harassing him. You told him that you were going to kill him at school performances that you knew they would be at and terrorized them in general. Then this summer you hacked my daughter’s facebook account.

We didn’t hear from you too much after that. Although I was disappointed that you decided to go to the same college as my daughter’s boyfriend. I thought that after you got into college and started meeting a lot of girls that maybe you would give up the whole idea that she would love you. She has had the same boyfriend for over two years now, a man I would be happy to call my son-in-law someday.

Then I heard you recognized my daughter’s boyfriend at college from facebook pictures. You punched him in the face. Even though my daughter’s boyfriend didn’t want us to know about what you did, we found out. But this week was the last straw. You hacked into my daughter’s boyfriends facebook account. You posed as him and broke up with my daughter. When she found out it was you, you told her that you loved her and would force her to love you. You said that you were going to find her and rape her. This time you went too far. My husband called you after this. He told you that you are never to talk to our daughter or her boyfriend again. He is not a man to be messed with, so I hope you got the message.

If you ever talk to them again, we will get a restraining order. That is if you are lucky.

Snow tires

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In our school district, we have a late bus that drops kids off at various locations after after school activities. The late bus has been a good experience, well except for that one time. What can I say? Snow tires!

When my son was in middle school, he took the late bus to the drop off spot after wrestling practice. One dark, cold, winter Friday night I went to pick him up and had a little adventure. I attempted to make a Y turn and slid on the ice into a snow bank. So here I was with the back end of my car hanging out sideways on the road. My headlights were buried in the snow and I was afraid that oncoming cars would not be able to see me. Yeah, right about that time I had the image in my mind of getting hit by the bus. I called my husband in freak out panic mode. He was in the middle of making supper and couldn’t get there right away. 

Right after I called home two men, that were strangers to me and each other, showed up and pushed my car out of the snow bank. I really appreciated their kindness. Immediately after that, my son showed up on the late bus. He got in the car and exclaimed that he forgot his homework and wrestling gear on the bus. Big problem because the wrestling meet was the next morning. So here I am trying to flag down a school bus in the dark. The first stop I tried to send my son to get his stuff but the driver didn’t see him and left. So here I am driving along side of the bus waving and honking trying not to hit kids wandering around in the dark. Finally my son got his things off the bus. 

In the meantime, my husband set aside supper to help get me out of the snow bank. Except, I was no longer there. He was getting really worried that perhaps by snow bank I meant ditch. Or something really bad happened, like the bus driving around with my car in its front grill. I tried calling him in the process, but he already left. Thankfully, we all made it home safely that night. This winter I will be sure to have good snow tires.  

Pierced with anxiety

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This morning started out really rough, as Monday mornings sometimes do. My son got up late and missed the bus. Which technically wasn’t a big deal because he rode to school with my oldest daughter Angelique who drives to school. Angelique refuses to take him to school due to his tardiness, so he has to take the bus. As a result, Angel got into the shower late which disrupted the whole schedule which trickled down into a bad Monday morning for me.

I went to Alex’s room and confronted him for getting up late and missing the bus, which happened despite all my nagging. Well, I should say that I only walked two feet into his room because after that is an abyss I might not escape from without twisted ankles and broken legs due to laundry piles and missing assignments. Probably a couple of rats and definitely spiders. Paul and I told him that he is going to have to go to bed at 9 PM all week as a consequence for missing the bus. This prompted the response of “I hate you” several times to spew out of his mouth. I know, we are the worst parents because you can’t get your butt out of bed.

Angel got into and out of the shower late. She ran out of time to get gas in the morning and needed to borrow my credit card all day since she didn’t have time to run it back home. Oh, and did I tell you that while she was running late, she lost the car keys?? Mad scramble around the house looking for keys. By the time they left, I was shaking!

I figured that it would be the perfect time to change my ear cartilage piercing for the first time in over a year. The last time I changed it, I put in a crappy nickel earring and then left for the overnight sail and ended up with a red, sore ear that doubled in size. This caused a lot of anxiety, so much anxiety that even the thought of changing it again caused some panic within me.

It’s not as if I didn’t end up in the ER before due to an ear piercing. I got my ears pierced at age 6, my ears double pierced at 30, my doubles pierced again in my upper 30’s (they tend to close up if I don’t wear earrings in them for over a week), and my cartilage piercing at 40. But I didn’t end up going to the ER, Arabella did. After having issues with caring for my piercings at age 6, I told my daughters they could have piercings at age 10. Arabella wore the same earrings for so long that the back of her earring ended up getting embedded in her ear. So off to the ER with her for that feeling like a bad parent. It wasn’t her first trip to the ER and it wasn’t the last. Now she doesn’t even wear earrings and her piercing probably closed up. Geez. That was one expensive piercing too with the ER trip.

This morning I scoured my hands with special care. I’m sure an obsessive compulsive hand washer would be proud. I won’t tell them that last night I volunteered to do a dirty cleaning project. At times while cleaning, I broke through my latex gloves without knowing it. I imagined deadly germs seeping under my fingernails just looking for an entry spot like a cartilage piercing perhaps. I cleaned my earrings. The first earring I tried went right in, but it did not fit right. Then I tried a hoop earring. I could not get it in for anything. I tried until my ear started bleeding and figured it wouldn’t work. Since I got it pierced with a stud, I think that maybe trying to get a hoop in is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Or maybe because my hands were still shaking.

Finally, I got the third earring in with no problem and all is well. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to change my earring on a Monday, just in case I needed to go to the doctor with a deadly ear cartilage piercing infection. It is very practical to think that going to the doctor is a heck of a lot easier, not to mention more affordable, on a Monday morning than going to the ER on Friday night. Ah, life with an active imagination…