This Old House

My house was built in the 70's.  The carpet is over 10 years old and shows its age quite clearly.  The furniture is... well loved.  The kitchen is outdated and there's a cabinet door missing.  The whole house inside and out could use a new coat of paint.  The landscaping needs attention and the irrigation hasn't worked in years.  The fence proved no match for my dog several months ago which resulted in a 5 day vacation from our yard.  Our windows are single pane aluminum frame and our electric bill reflects their ability to keep heat in and cold out.

There are toys everywhere.  Dishes in the sink.  Laundry to be done.  Always laundry.  My teenager's room smells like a teenagers room.  Chances are if you turn the TV on it's set to Sprout.  When attempting to walk through any part of my house you will most likely trip over a dog, child, toy, or some form of clothing.

I don't have a sparkling clean house.  I don't have the nicest, newest things.  I work two jobs, raise 3 kids, have 3 dogs, and 1 husband.  I drive a mini-van.  Yet I don't want for anything.  There is nothing in my life I'd trade for an upgrade.

The age, condition, and contents of my house are what make it a home.  Shiny and new don't make a home. Clean and sparkling don't make a home.  The coolest gadgets and furniture don't make a home.  My home is lived in.  Anyone can walk through my dirty door and see that there is an abundance of life and love in our home.  


The toys that clutter the ground mean that I am blessed to have my children.  Some are not.


The old windows and broken cabinets afford me the opportunity to work hard and appreciate the replacement when it happens.  Those who do not want, do not appreciate.


The overgrown yard means my weekends are filled with family, friends, and many things to do.  Some don't know the joys of full days.


The dishes in the sink mean that I was blessed to cook for my family.  Some have only themselves.


My pastor always says that life comes in seasons.  Perhaps someday we'll get the new carpet or the new fence.  Maybe someday I'll drive a car that doesn't have three rows of seating.  And we'll see if someday I am able to come home from work and read a book instead of making dinner and picking up the house.  But for now, these things all mean that I have love in my home.  My old, run down, dirty home.

Your mama's no saint kid.

The other day I was yelling at the kids.  No really.  True story.  Take a journey with me if you will.  The 15 year old was fighting with the 4 year old- AGAIN.  This all started when I selfishly stepped into a shower. 

First rule of baby fight club: Always throw the smack down when mom is on the toilet or in the shower.  This makes for optimal fight response.

So I come out of the bathroom still dripping wet (trust me it's not as hot as you think) and mad as Hell.  "What are you fighting about NOW?!"
The answer was the usual "He never listens to me!"
"He was being mean!"
"He looked at me funny!"
"He hurt my feelings!"
Blah,blah,blah.
Followed by me begging them to explain what on Earth two kids 11 years apart in age can possibly have to fight about!  Why can't they just get along?  Do they like fighting?  Why can't they speak kindly to each other? Why?  WHY?  WHYYYYYYYYYY?????
In my defense, this was the morning after the baby's 1st birthday BBQ and I hadn't had coffee yet.  So I was begging.  BEGGING to know why this continued to happen every time I stepped into the shower.

Second rule of baby fight club: No one talks.  The less you say, the more that vein on mom's head throbs.

We're now at the point where neither kid will speak.  That's infuriating!  So I ask the oldest, as he glares at me, "Why are you so mad at him?  He's FOUR!"

Then the response comes.

"I'm not mad at him.  I'm mad at you"
WWWWWWWWTTTTTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFFFFFFF?!?!?!?!?!
"Mad at me?!  WHY?"
"Because you always yell."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Third rule of baby fight club:  Deny.  Deny.  Deny.  It's NEVER your fault.  It's always the parents' fault.  This rule carries into the teen years.

I then launch into the old "I only yell because you don't listen" diatribe.  But later I sat and stewed on this moment.  What on Earth makes our children think that we are these mommy robots who will willingly accept the fight and let them have at it without repercussions because this is what we signed up for.  Are we not allowed to shower?  Are we not allowed to sit alone in a bathroom for 5 minutes to do our business.  Like the title "Mom" erased those rights for us?

Parents aren't perfect.  We don't enter into parenthood perfect and we certainly don't achieve any level of sainthood as we navigate our way through the child rearing process.  But our children are still thrown off when we have human moments like losing it when they fight. 

Moms and Dads make bad decisions, swear, yell, etc. every day.  Because we're people too.  We use the bathroom and we shower too.  So it's about time you get used to that!  We cut you slack all the time so try and give us a bit of slack from time to time too.  We aren't mommy & daddy robots.  We have a history and a story.  We fought with our siblings and made bad choices too.  So we know a thing or two about the business of childhood.

Final rule of baby fight club:  Never underestimate mom and dad.  They have a crazy look in their eye and something tells me they won't go down without a fight.

Sometimes a girl just need a good F$*#!

Somtimes life gets overwhelming. Sometimes you can feel the anxiety building. Sometimes you're just down right pissy and you need a release. Yes, sometimes you just need a good F$*#!

Let me clarify that I'm not talking about what you dirty birdies probably think I'm talking about (although that's kinda great too!). I'm talking about screaming out the F word! You know it feels good ladies. There's something so amazing and cathartic about peppering your sentances with an F-Bomb or two!

"Where are my F-ing keys?!"

"Why is this F-inbg house never clean?!"

"Green means GO F-er!"

"Clean your F-ing room!" (as said to your husband because none of us would ever utilize this foul language with our sweet children)

"Are you F-ing kidding me?!" (My personal fav!)

Yes, that ever versitile word packs a punch that only it can do. It turns a request into a demand. It shows you mean F-ing business. And it provides a form of release that only the F-bomb can do.

There is a time and a place for the F word.  You don't just bust it out anywhere ladies.  You can't just drop it at work, the grocery store, or church.

"Where are my F-ing reports?!"

"Are you guys out of F-ing Cool Whip?"

"A-F-ing-Men"

No.  You need to choose carefully when and where you use this most beloved of words.  It is a gift, a treasure, a delight.

For me personally it's like taking the cap off an emotional bottle.  I keep my cool as long as possible but once I reach F-bomb status we know I've hit a wall.  And at that point the addition of the F bomb to every other sentance is sheer luxury upon my lips!  It eases the intensity of the moment.  It's like tiny moments that ease my tention and provide clarity.

I am most likely to use the F-bomb during a bad day or when I'm in pain.  For either instance the people around me know that once the first F-bomb is dropped it's all business!

So while I don't use it as part of my every day vernacular, I love it so.  It may not be an every day thing but sometimes a girl truly does just need a good F$*#!

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.  

Am I TOO good of a mother?

I have always been proud of who I was as a mother. Part if this comes from the fact that my husband and I have a plan in place. It's to teach our children to be adults. Our plan is that they would be confident and prepared by the time they move out at 18. Therefore our 14yr old already knows how to cook, clean (this one is questionable), sew, do his own laundry, and has his own bank account. For the most part I have been pleased with his progress. Just last night he was researching the cost of car insurance and planning out how many hours after school he would have to work in order to be able to pay for good coverage. I was patting myself on the back!

Then this morning happened. I made breakfast for the family and after my 14yr old had cleaned his plate he decided he wanted two more hash browns. I told him to go ahead and make himself a few more which he successfully did. Then it happened. He brought his plate over to me and asked for me to put the ketchup and hot sauce on because he didn't want to put too much on. Okay. So I start pouring. But as I did, I began to think.

"Why does he need me to do it?"
"What would he have done if I weren't here?"
"Does he lack the self confidence needed to pour his own condiments?"
"HOW WILL HE SURVIVE ON HIS OWN IF I'M NOT THERE TO POUR THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF HOT SAUCE?!?!?!?"

Does this mean that I am a good mother or am I not good enough? Have I not provided him the right amount of guidance and encouragement to make these minor decisions? Or do I take such amazing care of him that no hash brown would be as good unless mom flavored it herself?

AND WHY DO WE MOMS EVEN THINK THESE THINGS?

So now I'm at a cross roads. Now that I've recognized a problem, what do I do moving forward? What do I say the next time he wants me to pour his hot sauce?

No one ever said parenting would be easy. But no one ever warned me about the hot sauce either.