First Day of School-2011

Devon, 14- year 10
Olivia,11- year 7

Senior School!

I see the potential, the possibilities of a world at your feet in this picture and I am torn. Most of me wants to remind them to put their best foot forward (“You mean my left one?” -Devon, 12) and have a good day, while a not so small part wants to pull them into my lap, hold them close and never let them go.

15 years ago, I was 14, and I was pregnant. I often feel as if I am living my life backwards, and as my big kids get bigger my sleepless nights become more frequent and I worry. Both so strong minded and independent, what if they run away, as I did all those years ago? What if they get mixed up with the wrong kids and start drinking or smoking? What if they start having sex?

Seriously, my kitchen is a disaster area.

“I can’t.”

Oh, I can’t even tell you the amount of times I have uttered those two little words in my mind over the last six months or so. I can’t. is what makes me retreat to my bed and curl up under my big fluffy duvet and close my eyes, sometimes sleeping, sometimes crying, sometimes just… laying. Not studying, not writing the assignments that are majorily overdue, not sorting out my kitchen which is still in post move chaos.

I suppose things are not so bleak as previously. I smile and laugh with my children, and enjoy our evening strolls.  I get up early, much as I did before…all this… and the baby and I water the flowers and make breakfast and it is nice. But when the children have gone to school or out to play and the husband is busy and I am faced with the neccessity of working, I freeze up. I can’t. I just can’t.     I make halfhearted efforts to whip the kitchen into shape and congratulate myself when I have cleared some counter space, only to feel dejected when just 12 hours later, it is a mess again. I get out the textbooks and do some reading, but after about 5 pages, realize I have no idea what is being discussed and no understanding of the concepts being explained. I start work on a research report, now 2 months overdue, and freeze 10 words in. I just don’t know what to write, or how to write it.

My doctor told me I had severe depression (what does that even mean?) and that my brain wasn’t working right and I needed to take a break from my studies. I couldn’t bear to do that, so I kept on, and now I’m in a gigantic hole that I can’t seem to climb out of.

This degree means so much to me and I am so dearly afraid it is slipping out of my grasp. At some point after my husband hung my whiteboard over my desk, my kids and my husband wrote messages on it. They say “You can do it!”  “You know you can do it, silly!” “PASS!” and lots of smiley faces.   When I saw that for the first time, my heart leapt. I am so so lucky to have them. They believe in me, and they love me and I don’t want to let them down. Yet, that seems to be the only thing I feel I actually can do at the moment.

I am here. I feel a bit like I’m glued to the seat of the roundabout in my kids favorite park. Just endlessly spinning round and round, dizzy and unable to focus on anything. But, I am here.

And, I have chocolate.

 

 

"If just one person believes in you, deep enough and strong enough..."

I can’t.

If there were ever two words to describe what depression feels like.

– Dooce.com

Oh, the things they say.

Rafe, 5, in the bath-
“Who let the dogs out? Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo!

Olivia, 11, on a screaming match with her 14 year old brother-
“Well, APPARRANTLY, I am a freak, a cirque de freak ANNNNND a JERK!”

Devon, 14, on why he should not have to help with the dishes-
“WHAT? My leg hurts!!”
Me- “That didn’t stop you going to your best friends house for two hours.”
Devon- “Yeh, but it hurts now”
Me- “Tough Bananas, GO.”
Devon- drags himself on his stomach into the kitchen, moaning theatrically the whole way.

Rafe, 5, on birthday presents
“Mommy, I will get you a big trophy! That says “Happy Birthday AND I love you! FROM- TESCO’S!!!”

I’m not sure if he meant it would actually say from Tesco or that it would be purchased from Tesco. You can’t tell with that kid, he has an evil sense of humour.

What it means to be a mother:

It means that

A) When your five year old is joyfully riding his scooter along in the lovely weather after having had a nice long walk with mommy and suddenly hits something unexpected and upends- throwing himself and the scooter full bodied to the ground- you walk, you don’t run. Even though visions of busted teeth and bloodied noses and awkwardly hanging limbs are running through your mind. You gently pull him up and hug him close and whisper “it’s ok” and kiss his scrapes, make silly jokes and carry him and the scooter the rest of the way down the hill. So that five minutes later he asks to go the long way home so he can ride his scooter and 15 minutes later, it is long forgotten as he races inside the house to find an ice pop.

B) When it is 10:00pm and you’ve been up since sometime around 6 and you haven’t stopped all day and you feel like crap and all you want to do is go to bed and your damn bladder is screaming at you- you make hot water bottles because the kids legs hurt, you give the teenager 3 Ibuprofen and two night nurse tablets because his broken leg is aching and he feels awful, then you get halfway up the stairs and kick yourself and go back down to get him the flashlight, leave more pills and a glass of water within easy reach in case he wakes up in pain during the night, then hug and kiss him, say good night and ask three times if he’ll be ok.

C) Then find the liquid ibuprofen for the pre-teen girl who hates taking swallowing pills and dose her up because her not broken leg aches and also her side hurts (no, she doesn’t know what she did to it) even though she took a hot bath and has a hot water bottle. Finally you pee, brush your teeth and then go back down to check on the teenager, back up to check the little one is still asleep, breathing and hasn’t fallen out the window or something then back to the girls room because she needs something or because you spent more time saying good night to another child then you did to her, at which point you make a huge song and dance (literally, people) out of saying good night to her to make her smile, before finally collapsing into bed.

D) Get up five minutes later because there is a cat somewhere that desperately needs to be relocated somewhere else or a child somewhere desperately needs a drink of water or because you desperately need to make sure you checked all the doors for the third time so an axe murderer can’t get in while you sleep.

20/20

My eldest son has what I imagine is about the worst vision possible this side of legal blindness. Nobody knew this until he was about 6. I suppose a lot of his early behaviour issues probably were closely linked, but I was a young first time mother and oscilliated between privately thinking my child was crazy or completely normal. I didn’t know. Oddly enough, I don’t remember the first time it was suggested he may have a vision problem, whether it was before or after his teachers tried to convince me he had ADD and to medicate him, his first vision test, or even his first pair of glasses. I don’t even remember the first time I learned how poor his vision was, perhaps I blocked it out because not a day goes by that I don’t berate myself for unintentionally letting him go through his first years of life like that. Shocking to me is that my child was forcibly taken from me and circumcised while he screamed and I begged them not to, but checking his vision was not a priority for nearly 6 years. (I gather the APA’s priorities are slightly different now, we can but hope.)

My daughter had her vision tested at my firm insistence early on and, thankfully, it was perfect. I have not worried about Rafe’s vision as he has not exhibited any signs of vision trouble, and here in the UK, the health visitors are pretty on top of it. But, it’s been awhile since Rafe has seen a health visitor and rarely needs to go to the doctor and since he is school age, I thought it should be professionally checked. The morning of the appointment, I kicked myself for not insisting it be done when he was much younger, for once again putting my faith in the professionals and I was terrified it was going to be a similar case to my older sons. Thankfully, it was not. I had prepared him for the appointment beforehand and he quite enjoyed wearing all the funny contraptions and telling the eye doctor what the symbols on the wall were. He really wanted to use the letters and not the symbols, but wasn’t quite confident enough in letter names (they teach them the sounds first.)

To be told he had 20/20 vision made me want to cry with happiness. I suppose I wouldn’t go so far as to call my eldest son’s poor vision a disability, but I imagine the relief I felt knowing my younger children will not have to endure the same challenges and pain that he has must be equal to that of any mother, who aches to see one child suffer and rejoices to know their siblings will not.

Rafey

Yes, that is a Santa hat next to him. The fact that he was wearing a Santa hat in August greatly offended the cleaning guy we passed, who felt the need to point out Christmas was 4 months (is that all? Shit- I’m still in 6 months away mode!) away, and then a moment later, having apparently decided he was super annoyed, informed me it was at least 130 days away! (144 days to Christmas, actually. 89 until Halloween and, most important in this house- 227 days until Rafe’s 6th birthday. This kid is on top of his holidays!)

A freaking plus (or my 305th post, according to wordpress, wahoo!, or five years of blogging and 305 posts is all I’ve managed, christ, I really am lazy.)

So, I’m feeling much better on the meds. Functioning even. Yet, after three hours of working on a developmental psychology essay on the developing brain, I have only managed the following 49 words.

“The brain. The brain. The fucking brain is made up of 100000000000 (that’s one hundred billion if you can’t be assed to count all those fucking zeros) neurons that start out life as one big jiggling mass of nothingness, eventually sorting themselves the fuck out. This is cool. It’s called self-organization which is better than anything I can fucking manage. Good job, neurons.”

Yeah. Still not quite got the mojo back, then…

A few of my favorite things

It’s been another long while since I did a post on my current favorites, so I had a good think and this is what I’ve come up with!

Blue Bloods and Mildred Pierce

Donnie Wahlbergs acting leaves much to be desired, as per usual, and I find there is way to much trauma surrounding that family to be realistic but I’m enjoying Tom Selleck and the story lines play out well.

I don’t think Kate Winslet is right for the Mildred Pierce role, but she is a good actress and Evan Rachel Wood and Morgan Turner have been excellent as the daughter, Veda.

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Cherry Tango. We all know how much I like cherry things. Usually I just go with the cheapy cherry-ade, but the cherry tango in the can has been on sale recently so I’ve been treating myself to it, and it is just so nice, my drink is always fizzy and cold, which makes such a difference to the taste. Much better than my usual glass of half flat cherry ade from the 2 liter bottle that takes 4 ice cubes and 10 minutes to chill…

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Chocolate Cream Pie. Yes, well nothing new here either. But, I noticed recently that even though I walk past all the pie shells and such every time we go shopping, I’ve always been to snobby to buy any, preferring to make my own (or not bother, usually). I noticed they also had a lovely chocolate creme patisserie and custard on sale so I bought a shell, the chocolate creme, custard and made a pie. It was surprisingly pleasant. The next week I did the same, but added whipped cream to the top and was undone. Bliss. The next week, the chocolate creme had gone back to its normal, too expensive for us mere mortals, price, so I decided to make my own with double cream, butter and melted chocolate. Double cream isn’t cheap, but by doing it this way I didn’t have to buy the chocolate cream and then more cream for the topping, so it works out. The custard didn’t add anything to write home about so I just left it on the shelf, altogether. The whole thing works out to just slightly more than £2, so I don’t feel guilty about it. It could be argued that what I’m saving in money, I’m losing in additional labour, but I melt the chocolate easily enough over a double burner and my 14 year old son is happy to put his muscles to work whipping the cream, so I’m not to put out. And the result is just as lovely.
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Zombie Farmer, Gelato Mania and Fruit Ninja

I’ve had these i-phone apps for a while now and we love them, addictive, fun and well made. Even the five year old loves them. In fact, he was so busy playing gelato mania the other week that he couldn’t bear to set it down long enough to go to the toilet, so he took it with him. And dropped it in the toilet.

Yes, I had to get a new phone, thank god for insurance that I’ve somehow managed not to default on since buying the phone a year and a half ago.

Britain the Beautiful

I am fairly certain that had I enough money, enough to be comfortable, to have a large house in the country far away from civilisation, I would be quite happy living here in England. That is because England has a truly spectacular beauty, that strikes me dumb every time.

It is the little things I appreciate the most, like this field of Sunflowers just off the road on the way back from the dentist this morning. I have never in my life seen a field of Sunflowers and I instructed my husband to turn around and go back at once.

The field is department of Defence (No! Bad immigrant! They call it the Ministry of Defence here. At least I got the spelling right!) property, so a stroll through the flowers was not an option, but it’s a beautiful day, and the flowers are beautiful, and the heather is beautiful and the poppies and the thistles are beautiful, and the horses and cows in the field down the lane are amazing, and the trees and sky and grass and the occasional large house tucked away behind some trees or in a field is beautiful. And for a moment, as I stand there surveying this strange land I have come to call home, before we drive back down the hill into our own depressing lives, a fleeting thought flickers across my mind that I could be happy here.

Sunflowers and thistles

purty view

Cake bandit

We’ve stayed up until 11:00, watched a film (Knight and Day, for anyone who cares, which is pretty good, considering), and had big pieces of chocolate cake with a decadent sweetened whipped cream and cream cheese frosting. Now to bed. My suggestion that my 14 year old brush his teeth is met with some reticence, there is a bit of back and forth, and an apology with subsequent heart to heart follows.

I make my way upstairs, plop down in front of the computer and check my email for the 10th time today, looking for a reply to an email I sent exactly 24 hours ago. It isn’t there. As I start to close down the computer there is a great *CRASH!* from downstairs. Fucking cats? I think, initially. The boy?!! I think, a millisecond later.  He assures me all is well, but he’s fallen. I race downstairs, to be greeted with darkness.  I switch on the lights, he is in the kitchen(!), he tells me he was on the way to the bathroom, and tripped. He cannot tell me why he didn’t turn on the lights. I cringe as I notice that we did indeed leave the kitchen steps in his path to the bathroom.  I notice he has something on his leg and as I reach out, I think- I know what that is, it’s cake. Why does he have cake on his cast? I then notice a smear of cake on the ground. He tells me that when he started to fall he grabbed the fridge, the door came open, the cake plate flew out and landed on the floor.  I check him, then check the cake, it seems remarkably unharmed, though a feeling that there is possibly less of it, passes over my brain.

Initially his story makes sense. Until I notice a large slice of cake on the floor some feet away, under some clothes that have fallen out of their basket. I only sliced three pieces of cake, and we ate those. And, if he had grabbed the top of the fridge as he started to fall, the entire fridge probably would’ve gone over, it’s not terribly big or heavy, and if it had only tipped over enough for things to fall out of it, why didn’t all my cans of cheapy energy drinks, on the same shelf as the cake fall out? Why is the cake in such good condition if it fell out of the fridge and onto the floor?

Despite knowing better,really, my first instinct is to ALWAYS trust my kids. It never even occurs to me that they might be lying, until I have some good reason to think so. I’m not stupid, when they lie to me I usually pick up on it, and call them out on it. But, it’s important that my kids know that I trust them, and so, in return, trust me. So, I do not consider the possibility of lying unless it’s pretty blatant to me.  They don’t get away with it very often.

On this occasion it takes only a few seconds for me to realize the cake on the floor is a nice thick slice of cake, and to see that he was using the light of the fridge to cut himself some cake, when he slipped or tripped or whatever and went down, with his ill gotten cake and all. I sent him back to bed, cleaned up the mess, and on my way back upstairs I said to him “Karma, you think? Maybe thats what you get for taking cake without asking, when you’re supposed to be in bed.”

Bless him,  (God, I’m going native), he looked straight at me and said “I wasn’t taking any cake!”.

I worry about that kid. Really, I do. He’s got the makings of a great criminal. When presented with your crimes, deny,deny, deny.

His conscience gets him every time though. I let him get away with this fib, because I know that no sooner will I have said good morning to him tomorrow morning, he will say “I’m sorry I took some cake, mom”.

I adore this kid. But, fingers crossed a life of crime is not on the cards.

Idsworth

About seven years ago a friend of mine that I knew online introduced me through MSN messenger to a friend of his that he knew online. I knew my friend through a photography website/forum and he knew his friend through a forum for people with an unhealthy interest in airplanes. (Occasionally known as “anoraks” in this part of the world.) We hit it off and started chatting and emailing. Five months later, we were married and four months after that, my two kids and I got on a plane bound for England with a one-way ticket.

It has not been rainbows and butterflies, in fact it has been a rough road and last year we separated and remained that way for over a year. My husband moved back in a few months ago and a few weeks ago I slipped my wedding ring back on and didn’t take it off. Now we are in a difficult period of readjustment. I could fill a large room with all the reasons why we separated and all the reasons why we got back together, they are many and varied and sometimes even conflicting. What I wanted to share was an image.

Last night I was searching through some old emails and came across hundreds he had sent me in 2005. Every day, all different. They were pictures. Pictures he had taken. He chose the most beautiful, the most interesting, his best. The ones he wanted to share with me.

They are all beautiful images, but my favorite- the one that made me long for England, the one that excited my kids about our move, the one that convinced me that this move was the right thing to do was this one:

Church

Oh, how I fell in love with this church. We talked about getting married there, and it became synonymous with England, with our new life. I’ve been to that church a few times since living here, it is local, but not close enough to walk to. It is as beautiful and quaint and picture perfect as in the image. This is such a beautiful country and if the day ever comes for me to leave, it will be with a sadness in my heart.