Demons

I have three amazing boys.  I love them unconditionally regardless of what they do. 

My boys are 15, 4, and almost 10 months.  There is a reason the first two are 11 years apart.

My oldest is a good boy with an amazing heart.  He also has Absant Seizures and ADHD.  Absant Seizures are seizures of the brain.  Meaning that my son didn't have physical signs of the seizures since it was just his brain that was seizing for many, many years.  So for years, we had no idea that there were physical causes for my son's behavior.  He was impulsive, angry, energetic, and had trouble in social settings or while under the care of anyone outside of our house hold.  He required structure and if anything in his little world changed we braced ourselves for the fall out.

Over the years numerous day cares and schools worked closely with us to try and figure out what was driving these issues.  I am thankful to each of these places for not giving up on him.  My husband and I worked day and night to try to teach him the steps to making better decisions, control his impulsivity, and be a better self manager.  And he made great progress.  But when he had an episode it was horrible.  I remember sitting on the edge of my bed crying my eyes out and telling my husband "We can't have any more children because we fucked this one up so bad!".  That may sound irrational to many but when it's YOUR kid and you just can't figure it out, YOU take the blame.  YOU shoulder the guilt and burden of each thing he does.

I need to clarify that he wasn't a monster child.  I would say to people that 90% of the time he was the most amazing, funny, happy, loving kid you would meet.  It was just the 10% that people never forgot.  I think that's what caught people off guard when he'd act up.  They just couldn't understand where it was coming from.  This wasn't the sweet boy they knew.

Well many tears, lots of doctor's appointments, a couple of therapy sessions, and a whole lot of tests later we got closer to taming the beast when he was diagnosed with the seizures.  At the time of diagnosis he was enduring upwards of 20 seizures a day and who knows how many at night.  That must have been exhausting for him.  He got to the point, at about age 8, where when he had a seizure his eyes would slant shut and he'd just check out for a minute.  He'd been doing this for years, in a subtler form, and we just thought he was shooting us dirty looks.  We called them the snake eyes.  Once we got his seizures diagnosed and he was on steady medication for that, the behavior greatly improved and we exhaled thinking this was what was causing him to act up all those years!  But while the behavior got better, he still had a few severe episodes and was ultimately diagnosed with ADHD as well. 

The two conditions had been fighting each other for years.  For years I cried thinking I had done something wrong.  For years I carried the burden of believing I was a horrible mother. For years I felt the eyes of the people around me as they judged my child.  For years my poor son probably couldn't understand why he couldn't just act right.  So now that we had answers we could fix it. 

For several years now my son has been on the right medications to control both issues and is finally the kid he is meant to be.  I am happy for him.  But I still carry the demons.  I still feel the effects of the years of judgement and the feelings of inadequacy as a parent.  I still hold my breath and wait for that phone call that he's hurt someone or himself.  I wonder if our other two boys will suffer the same fate.  Most of the time I can talk myself down and know that we are great parents who trudged through the muck of parenthood and came out the other side.  That he is a good kid going through normal kid stuff now.  But then there are the other times.  When he has a bad day and gets angry or moody.  I question him, me, the meds, his hormones.  I go into that old problem solving mode where there's a reason for this and I need to fix it before it's too late and he ruins his life.  I have a hard time differentiating between an ADHD episode and a regular old teen mood swing. 

This is my scar.  I am a different kind of mother because of what we have gone through.  I don't have the luxury of saying "He's just a boy." or "You know teenagers." No.  I have to wonder if everyone around me is looking at me like I have failed him.  I have to hope and pray that he will be a good person and a successful adult despite the things he had gone through.  I carry the blame despite the cause.  This is what mothers do.  And until you have been in these shoes, you don't really know just how much it hurts. 

I don't know if I will carry these demons forever or just until he turns 18.  I don't know if these demons will continue to make me question myself until all of my children are grown.  But I know that they are here each day.  

IS seeing believing?

January 23rd we lost my husband's father tragically & unexpectedly. This is challenging in so many aspects but when you have children the task of explaining the sudden death of someone they love, it's even more challenging. As our children are 11 years apart in age, we had to deliver the news in two separate ways.

For our 13 year old, we were honest about what happened and let him know that his grandpa (or Papa Simon as we called him) loved him very much and will continue to love him. We explained the details of how he died and what it meant to the family. It was a heartbreaking task. Having him collapse into my arms with the almost expected question over and over again "Why? Why? Why?" was almost too much for my heart to take. Luckily we had a different situation with our 3 year old. His level of comprehension being different, we simply explained that Papa Simon lives with the angels and Jesus now. An explanation that flew effortlessly over my little boy's head.

I think that on some level we all believe that when a loved one leaves us that they are still with us. Watching over us. Being our angels. But do we need to see it to believe it?

Then there is the process of healing my husband. It's been a mixed bag of emotions as we deal with his father's death and the impending birth of our third child. He has good days and bad days. As much is to be expected. On one of his harder days he had secretly asked his father to give him a sign if he is still here watching over us. Anything to know he was still close.

A few weeks ago while reading bed time stories, our 3 year old said to my husband that there is a ghost in his room but it's not a monster. 3 year olds have very active imaginations so we shrugged it off. Then a few days later as they were playing play dough at the kitchen table our son announces, "Dad, I live here".
My husband replies, "Yes you do".
"Yeah. This is my house and I live here"
"Yes you do. You live here, and mommy lives here, and brother and me".
Then it came.
"Yep. I live here. You live here. And Papa Simon lives here now".
This simple statement, delivered as if it were nothing, hit my husband like a ton of bricks. He called me at work right away and we wept together. We truly believe that children can see angels because they don't know that they can't. My husband had asked his dad to let him know if he was with us and his father responded. I know he is here. Watching over us and caring for us and our unborn baby. Though my husband and I haven't seen him, we believe. And that is enough to start to fill the hole that his death left in our hearts. Belief is a powerful thing. Whether you see it or feel it.

So how'd I get here? I had been thinking about starting a blog for quite a while. But between raising a 13 year old & a 3 year old (both boys), working more than full time (I heart salary pay), being the perfect wife, and trying desperately to keep up with the amazing friends that keep me sane....when do I find the time? Well be careful what you wish for!
In January my husband and I found out that (much to our surprise) we had actually found time at some point in the weeks prior to concieve our third child. I am high risk when I am pregnant due to a history of personal and family miscarraiges. I joke that we have teflon uteruses in our family. So we raced into the OB and got our orders ASAP. Progesterone Supplements 3 times a day and mom is only to work and then come home and sit for the first tri-mester. Rest, rest, and more rest. The mission is to keep that baby in! We finally got to week 12 and we all exhaled. We even told a few people.
Then it happened. I was at work and I started hemmoraging. A looooooooong trip to the ER and 2 ultra sounds later we found out I have Placenta Previa (placenta attaches on top of the civix instead of the top of the uterus) and there was a clot growing on my placenta (thus the bleeding). Baby is fine- that's the good news! The best news! The not so great news is that the only treatment for this condition is complete, utter, imobilizing, brain melting, butt widening, soul crushing bed rest.
I'll delight you more soon with my thoughts, feelings, and remedies for the busy mom on bed rest. But to answer the question at the top of the story, I now have the time. Lots, and lots, of time. So here I am blog world. In all my bedded glory! Let's see just how entertaining a really busy mind in a not so busy body can be!