Life in progress

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JusJoJan 26 – Asking for Help

I’m my own worst enemy in a few different ways, but none more than the fact that I have a hard time asking for help. Actually, let me be a little more specific: I’m okay asking for small favours, but if I think I might put anyone else out of their way, I usually do whatever it is that needs to be done myself.

I think this is a common problem with many people. For some it’s because they wish to be independent, and there’s nothing wrong with that – unless it gets to the point where they are stretching themselves too thin. Then there are the jobs to be done that are so complicated that it takes longer to explain how to do them than to do it ourselves. That, too, is an understandable reason not to ask for help.

Then there are people who are already stretched too thin, like me. When I think about asking someone else to help me, I tend to put myself in their shoes, which makes me ask myself, what if they were asking me to do this task? Being over-worked and overwhelmed already, I might think it a burden to be asked to do more. Consequently, many times I don’t ask for help.

I’m learning though. Since the father of my kids moved away, I’ve had an average of only one weekend out of every three without the kids. I do, however, have a very good friend who constantly offers to help me out, and most of the time I say yes. Although he says he doesn’t feel taken for granted, I still feel bad for not doing more for him in return. Again, there’s the ‘stretched-too-thin’ thing pulling me mentally if not physically in every direction.

I’d like to say a very public ‘thank you’ here to him, for all that he does for me. Thank you, John. I truly don’t know what I’d do without you. I know you say I should feel free to ask when I need help … know that I’m doing my best. And next time I stomp down the stairs in a very bitchy mood, know it’s only my own shortcomings – it’s not you, it’s me.

Back to addressing the rest of the people reading this.

I’m sure there are other people out there with problems asking for help. Do you try to overcome it? Have you succeeded? If so, how? I’d love some feedback on this.

Thanks.

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JusJoJan 16 – Sometimes I Have the Strangest Conversations

Yesterday I had to take my son, Alex, to the doctor to get a note for school. It wasn’t for a high-risk field trip; it wasn’t because of some strange sort of disease the school needed to be assured he was free from – nothing like that.

I needed a note to say that he was allowed to eat. The first conversation on the phone with the doctor’s secretary went something like this:

Me: Hi. I need an appointment to get a doctor’s note.

Secretary: Okay, what is it for?

Me: Well, you see, the nurse at his school won’t let him eat until he has an all-clear from the doctor.

Secretary: Soooo, when was the last time he went to school?

Me: Today.

Secretary: How long has it been since the school didn’t allow him to eat.

Me: It’s been about a week.

Secretary: ….

Me: So can I get an appointment soon? Or…

Secretary: I don’t understand.

Me: Neither do I.

All of this, of course, came about because he aspirated (inhaled and had lodged in his right lung) a piece of food on Christmas Eve. For the most part he is tube fed, but the school wants to make sure it’s safe for him to eat before they’ll let him do so.

So today I went to the doctor. That conversation went as follows:

Doctor: Sooo… what do you want me to write?

Me: Just say he can eat. OH, and drink. I don’t want to have to bother you again in case they decide that’s against the rules as well.

Doctor: And he’s been fine when he eats at home, right?

Me: As fine as he’s ever been.

Doctor: Oookay.

(She starts typing.)

Me: I guess this isn’t something you write a note for every day, eh?

Doctor: Err, no.

Today, Alex went to school with the note in his backpack. After not being allowed to eat with the other kids for a week, he’s a happy camper.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 9 – Power Outage Paranoia

It was 5:37pm last night. I had just finished my dinner and settled Alex in front of the computer. I breezed into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of wine (because that’s how I move about my house – if I’m not breezing, I’m flitting. Unless I’m tired, in which case I trudge) when the lights flickered and …poof!

I said a bad word. Then I put my wine glass down on the counter and went back to get a screaming Alex out of the computer room. (Yes, I have a computer room. It used to be a bedroom, but six bedrooms seemed to be overkill.)

After I felt around for the barbecue lighter in the cupboard, and lit a couple of candles, I checked out my front window. Exactly what I thought: no rain, no snow, no wind … no reason for a power outage. But there I was on a dark street but for the soft glow shining through my neighbour’s curtains – they too had lit candles.

When I looked out my back window on the other hand, my back door neighbour’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree. I could see them looking out of their back window and I could imagine them saying, Oh look, that entire street is out of power! Then they probably poured themselves a nice steaming cup of coffee from their electrically charged coffeemaker and proceeded to laugh at my powerless plight.

Meanwhile, Alex was getting restless. You should have played a game with him! you’re all saying to yourselves. But I had other fish to fry. Or would have, had my stove been working. My cell phone was fully functional however. My next door neighbour seemed to be in a panic, texting me things like OMG and The power’s out! I asked her if she was okay, and if she’d like to come over but she assured me she was fine. Oddly enough, she texted me for the entire hour and a half that the power was out and then abandoned me to other pursuits as soon as it came back on. (If you’re reading this, Nancy, you’re the best neighbour I’ve ever had! Let’s do coffee soon!)

Forgotten by Nancy, I found my other son, Chris emerging from his room where had surely been shivering under the covers – he hates the dark. He announced that although the lights were back on, he would forgo his shower and take it in the morning instead.

You never know when the power’s going to go out, after all.

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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.

3. Write anything!

4. Have fun!


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JusJoJan 6 – Vacations Are Fun

I’m at a crossroads, of sorts, in regards to my son, Alex, and his behaviour. Keeping in mind that it’s 5:46am and I’ve had two hours of sleep all night, I’m writing this here as both a way to get it in black and white so I can see the problem from a different perspective, and to put the conundrum out there in hopes that someone else has gone through something similar. My hopes aren’t too high.

First, the history: To say that Alex has a hard time making decisions is a gross understatement. When trying to choose, for instance, between staying home to play a game or come with me to the grocery store, he’ll change his mind at least a dozen times. He’ll get dressed and then completely undressed; he’ll whine, cry, scratch his head a lot – it’s utter torture. I have, however, reduced it from a half hour ordeal to, “I’m leaving, if you want to come with me, be ready before I walk out the door.” As a result the process now only takes five minutes.

He also suffers with the occasional insomnia, and for the past week he’s been combining the lack of decision-making skills with lack of sleep. The fact that there are two single beds in his room has never been a problem before. When my mother comes to visit on the weekends, she sleeps in his room and he’s quite happy with that deal. Only for a week now he can’t decide which bed he wants to sleep in. At approximately 2:30 every morning since before New Year’s Eve, he’s been doing the whining, crying, head-scratching routine. It’s torture for both of us, and it goes on for a couple of hours each night. I tried hanging a calendar in his room and striking up a deal with him that he sleeps one month in one bed and the next in the other. That worked for one night – coincidentally it was the same night he didn’t have a choice because Nanny was in the other bed.

So. I’m faced with a dilemma. Do I go to all the trouble of taking the extra bed out of his room?

On the surface it seems to be the logical thing to do.

Except: there is still the communication barrier thing going on. Not being completely fluent in my own son’s language – American Sign Language – I never really completely know if he understands the consequences of his actions before they happen. It’s always that one word I’m missing: “If you don’t get ready now, I’m leaving without you.” I will temporarily lose from my addled brain the sign for ‘without.’ Or, “If you don’t stay in one bed all night, I’m going to move the other bed out.” Is he getting that I’m going to move the bed? Or does he think I’m going to let him sleep in another room? Even if I turn the sentence around and keep it positive, I have the same problem. Aside from sleeping in his room, which is exactly what he wants me to do and will ensure that I’ll never sleep in my own bed again, I can’t keep him in bed at night. In the past I’ve been able to demonstrate what I mean. Like during the period when he decided to turn the television on in his room at 2am. I tried to explain to him that if he didn’t leave it off I’d take it out of the room, and when that didn’t work, I took it out of the room. He got it after that. Moving a bed, box spring and mattress down four flights of stairs is a rather more difficult undertaking.

So, my next thought was, tip the bed on its side and leave it where it is. Only that would be an all new brand of hell for my little darling and his OCD.

I know I need to ask his school for help. At this point his teacher is already practically living my life for me in regards to making sure he does as he’s told at home. They, unlike me, know how to explain things to him in no uncertain terms. It’s easy to see how vacations from school become nightmares at home.

Before you ask, there is no support for hearing parents to learn sign language for their Deaf children in the area.

Oh, and I just found out there’s no school today because of flash freezing. Oh joy.

Any suggestions, hugs, or paid-in-full Caribbean vacations can be left in the comment box and will be gratefully received.

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JusJoJan 5 – Keeping It Together

I can always tell when my youngest son, Alex, is ready to go back to school after having time off – his behaviour is intolerable. Right now I’m trying to ignore him while he plays a game on his Wii U and screams and claps louder than one would think is humanly possible. The alternative is to shut him in his room until tomorrow morning, in which case he won’t get the nutrition he needs because he’ll unplug his feeding pump.

If tomorrow is a snow day I may just kill something.

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JusJoJan 4 – I Spy

“I spy with my little eye…”

It started out with colours, when I was a small child and progressed to “…something that begins with…” a letter of the alphabet when I was old enough to spell. It was a great way to pass the time on long drives.

I have since graduated from that delightful little game however. Sure, I played it with the kids when they were little. But around the time when my eldest son was born, my ex and I started playing another game in the car. The first one to guess the name of the band playing the song on the radio got a point. The game would start when we got in the car and wouldn’t end until we arrived at our destination. New trip, new game.

Since then I’ve started playing it with my eldest. At nineteen years of age, he’s almost able to beat me, especially when the music is of the newer variety. It’s taught him to appreciate the music that is the same age as he is and older, which is great as far as I’m concerned. I thank heaven to this day he’s never been interested in rap – possibly because of years of listening to his dad and I play “The Game.” It’s amazing how far a little competition can go.

When was the last time you played a silly game with your family and/or friends, and what was it? Let’s have some fun today, and teach each other a game or two!

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EDDD 24 – All I Want – Giving

For the seventh and final edition of “All I Want,” I decided to save the best for last. Giving, after all, is what the season is all about. Interesting how circumstance would have me posting this on Christmas Eve, instead of Sunday.

Christmas Eve is special to many people. For myself, it’s a time to finish wrapping presents, to stuff stockings, and to enjoy the anticipation of my children as they climb off to bed with thoughts of what they will wake to in the morning. A little glass of Baileys always goes down well, also. 🙂

But if I could give anything at all to the ones I love, it would be to give my children perfect health. To Chris I would give complete access to that brilliant mind of his – to unlock it from the constraints that autism places on his abilities to process his thoughts. And to Alex I would give the gift of music – a revelation to his deaf ears; the chance to fill his taste buds with the wonder of flavours, where now he eats through a tube; and finally I would give him a perfect heart, to replace the one he was born with, that beats precariously in his chest.

So, finally, I ask you, my readers. If you could give anything at all to the ones you love, what would it be? Dream big, my friends.

Happy Christmas Eve.

 

 

 Blog post of December 24th, in honour of Every Damn Day December.


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The Trust of a Child

I read once, when my kids were very young, that a baby who laughs when it is startled is a baby who trusts his or her mother. It’s something that I found followed through to their toddler years and beyond. I joked with my kids that I was going to do horrible things with them; cook them and eat them for dinner for instance. They’d laugh, knowing I would never do such a thing, because they trusted me.

There was one instance that I will never forget and I try not to regret for the simple reason that it taught me something.

I was leaving the pool where Alex was, at the time, doing physiotherapy. He wasn’t walking yet at the time, so he must have been less than five years old. I carried him out of the building, loaded with purse, swimming clothes and Alex all in my arms. I remember it was cold. I put him down on the curb in front of the car but to the side where I could see him, so I could wrestle my car keys out of my coat pocket. Had a car come, I was prepared to stand in front of it to prevent him being hurt. I proceeded open the doors and put the bags in. Then I waved goodbye to him and pretended to get into the car, expecting him to laugh. He knew I would never leave him there by myself. But instead of laughing, he smiled at me and waved back.

Whether he didn’t understand the joke or not, the vision of that tiny little boy sitting bundled against the cold, waving goodbye to me with a trusting smile on his beautiful, innocent face, still brings a tear to my eye.

Our children live in the world we construct for them. Whether they are healthy or sick, they can learn to be happy from us as parents because they trust what they see – the example we set. Alex spent the first eight months of his life in the hospital. All he has ever known, from birth, is pain. To this day he wakes up almost every morning with reflux, trying to vomit past an operation he had at six months of age called a fundoplication – basically, a knot was tied in his esophagus to prevent anything coming up. And yet he is the happiest child I’ve ever met. Other people observe this and ask me if he’s ever unhappy. It’s all he’s ever known. He sees me deal with his morning time retching with ease and he is reassured that it’s normal.

One day I know he will find out that it’s not. Will he stop trusting me at that point? I have no idea. It’s for sure that I’ll have the task of assuring him that even if it’s not something everyone experiences, it’s just the way he is, and that’s okay.

The point I’m trying to make I suppose, is that our children are our sponges. They take from us what we show them, and whatever that is, they trust it, because from the very beginning, we are all they know. I hope, for my own part, to preserve that for as long as their personal experiences away from me will allow. And that they will continue to laugh all their lives.


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Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty

noun \ˌser-ən-ˈdi-pə-tē\

: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for

:  the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also :  an instance of this
The above is according to Merriam-Webster online.

The most notable instance of serendipity in my life was the meeting, for the second time, of my children’s father.

Luc and I first met when we worked together in Aurora, a small town just north of Toronto. He came into my workplace and asked for my boss. The first time I laid eyes on him I remember thinking to myself, “And what the fuck do you want?” It had been a hectic day, or so I tell myself twenty-eight years hence. I was, hours later, to find out that he was my new manager, and I thanked the heavens above that I hadn’t said out loud what I was thinking. We’ve laughed about it many times since.

Months passed, and he and I got along well. He’s a nice guy. Then he was transferred. A few weeks later I found out that he’d broken up with his girlfriend. I, too, had broken up with my boyfriend and was looking for a roommate. I offered, he refused. Shortly after he decided to go back to Montreal, to be close to family and we lost touch completely.

Seven years down the road found me living close to Ottawa. I’d been there for a couple of months and was heading back home to see my mom near Aurora and I stopped for gas. Luc was there, working at the pumps. It was serendipity – fate, if you will. A year later we moved into our own house and I was pregnant with our first son.

Three kids plus a few years later another seemingly serendipitous event occurred in my life. As it turned out, it wasn’t so lucky and my relationship with Luc ended. Perhaps it was fate, but if it was, I haven’t seen many benefits from it. I am single, yet again.

This all comes to mind because I met someone online, a couple of days ago, with whom I have a great deal in common. Whether it will continue into a lasting friendship or fizzle into nothing as these things sometimes do, remains to be seen. But for now it feels like fate.

We never know what fate will drop in our laps in the next instant. We can only hope to have great serendipitous events, that brighten our outlook, that give us hope for the future, and that help us to believe that maybe there is such a thing as good luck.

Serendipity can take us to important periods of our lives, which may seem to have been fated to happen. On the other hand it could be some little thing, like losing and then finding a piece of jewelry. Just about everything leads to something, right?

What is your best serendipitous event? I’d love to hear about it. If it’s really wonderful, why don’t you blog about it? Just please be sure to put a link in the comments here, so I don’t miss it.


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If Only, part deux

real

I find myself saying ‘If I could only just…’ a lot.

If I could only just find more time to write…

If I could only just have more money…

If I could only just find true love…

It goes on, ad infinitum. But all these things denote that I’m not content, when for the most part, I am. I have my children here with me, we have a roof over our heads, the air inside is warmer than outside, and there is food in the fridge. And I’m keeping up with my writing quite well, although sometimes it’s a struggle to do anything else.

So what is it which makes me wish for more?  Is it simply the human condition to keep striving? It’s hard, for me at least, to keep my mind from going, from wandering, and from wondering what it would be like if I had just a little more.

ghost

Now if only I could consume nothing but coffee and chocolate and wine and cheese …. then I’d be happy.

What would make you happy?