Sigh.

Approaching week 34 of this pregnancy and I’m preoccupied with the end game.  I hardly blog anymore, don’t have much to say to anyone, mostly because I’m increasingly feeling sick.  My pubic symphysis dysfunction, OMG.  It hurts.  It was uncomfortable before, but now the baby weighs about 6 lbs and has her head lodged in my pelvic bones, we turned it up to a new level of pain.

I’m doing the minimum housework necessary, with grand ideas of washing floors that never get further than my head.  I figure I can wash the floors all I want after this baby is born and it won’t hurt nearly as much to do it.  Then I find myself whining that it’s not even October yet!  Haven’t I been pregnant for like 3 years? 

I know complaining is unattractive, but I’ve never let a little thing like that stop me before, so I’m letting it all hang out.  The last weeks of pregnancy are fraught with every emotion under the sun and infused with discomfort and downright pain.  All this will climax in of some of the worst pain I’ll experience in my life before my own actual death, pain I’m supposed to conquer with bravery and without drugs.  If I can’t complain now, when would be a good time?

I’ve washed the co-sleeper.  I’ve counted the baby clothes, but have yet to wash and put them away.  The infant car seat is ready.   Here I sit, waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.

It’s the Coffee Making Me Grumpy

It’s more the coffee situation that’s making me grumpy.  It’s funny, well, not really funny, more crappy.  Yeah, that’s it.  It’s crappy. 

I still have nausea to some extent for most of the day, some days are worse than others.  I’m usually not feeling great when I first get up in the morning, and I’m tired enough to fall back asleep on the couch at any given time within a few seconds.  I’m sure any other mom out there knows that having three children 6 years old and younger means that there’s not a whole lot of sympathy present in those first hours of the day, when little tummies are hungry and thirsty and some are in need of changing out of wet clothes and diapers.  Such is the way of the little ones.

This leaves me with coffee as the only thing that can help me maintain a respectable level of consciousness.  The trouble is that the coffee tastes awful to me and makes me want to throw up.  So here I sit, trying to choke down my one (or maybe only a half) cup of coffee of the day.  Something I used to truly enjoy has become the nastiest kind of medicine. 

In the realm of the mundane, day to day operations of life, this sort of thing can really throw a wrench into the machinery.  After a while I’ve found myself dreading the morning routine and feeling negative about starting my day, and that was before I realized what it was that was bothering me.  The coffee, of course!  The very thing I rely on to get me going has become just another hurdle to jump, and when you’re 31 weeks pregnant with symphisis pubis dysfunction, jumping hurdles will generally land you straight on your face.

I have to admit that after years of learning about my own tendency toward depression and the things that trigger it, it’s a relief to know that sometimes it’s just the coffee that’s bumming me out.  This too, just like this pregnancy, shall pass.  And I am so switching to some expensive, yummy brand of coffee after this baby is born.  That, you can count on.

Fagetabout the Boy, What’s a Mom to do?

This has been the pattern since Tommy was about 20 months old.  He was born, he was loved a ridiculous amount by a mom and dad who were so grateful for his life, and then, for reasons confusing to me at the time, he began to change.

This wasn’t the normal sort of changing that all kids go through when their development kicks into high gear and they start to earn the cliche of the terrible twos.  By now I’ve had two other children, and they’ve done nothing so difficult as our first born was known to do.  In fact, after having been through it with Tommy, the other two have seemed nothing less than a constant pleasure to be around.  Tommy was and is a boy that keeps you on the edge.

I’ve spoken to other people with children on the Spectrum, but have yet to have anyone admit to having a child with a personality quite as intense as Tommy’s.  Many have said their children are gentle and quiet, happily entertaining themselves for hours on end with their own particular intense interests.  I don’t know if this is an unwillingness to give others a glimpse into the negative sides of their children, or if I really am alone in this.

Tommy is a smart, cute six year old who is very easy to get along with at school, and who is, by all reports, a very easy child for his teachers, and very respectful.  At home, not so much.  Actually, he is down right unpleasant for the majority of his days.  He seems to be angry, defiant, and ready to fight at every turn.  It is difficult for us to do anything right for Tommy.  He is controlling with his brothers, and when he cannot control them by shouting, he usually ends up pushing, hitting, or squeezing them.  Last week he left bloody fingernail scratches on the arm of my 2 year old, who was only guilty of not understanding what it was that Tommy wanted him to do.

This behavior is not new, it ebbs and flows in its severity for reasons that aren’t clear to me, if there is any reason to be found at all.  When he was small and an only child, I was desperate to keep him from hurting himself, and was worried about his mental health before he was even 2 years old.  What’s wrong with a child, I wondered, who will repeatedly beat his own head, even on concrete, as an expression of his inner frustration?  I was ready, in new mom form, to bring him into the hospital and demand they tell me why he was doing this to himself.  It was alarming then, just as this same intensity taken out on his little brothers, is alarming to me today.

I do not subscribe to the notion that this is a case of boys will be boys.  I also disregard the many anecdotes from well-meaning people that their own brothers were the same way, and some people are just like that.  I think the study of mental-health is too evolved in this nation to allow for such a brushing off of extreme behavior.  In fact my own brother was one of those who was the same way, which gives me even more reason to feel that it is not a way in which I want my own children growing up, and it isn’t a family disruption that I wish to just accept as some variation of normal.  I do not think it is normal or acceptable.  I do not think it was normal or acceptable when my own brother behaved this way*.

That leaves me with wondering what to do about it.  I honestly don’t do much at this point.  I can’t forget that he is a six year old child with a diagnosed developmental disorder.  I admit to threatening him with corporal punishment, a threat I almost never follow through on.  I have spanked, as has my husband, but more out of desperation than out of a well thought out plan for disciplining our child.  I have found that spankings not only do not work, they increase the overall feeling of dysfunction in the family as a whole, so that’s pretty much out as a tool in our arsenal.  This leaves me with sending him to his room to be alone when he has hurt someone, screamed at me, refused to listen to my repeated requests for him to change his behavior, etc.  The result is  a child who goes to his room repeatedly throughout the day, doesn’t seem to connect the dots to it being a consequence of his own behavior, but seems to connect the dots back to me being a hateful monster who likes to send him to his room.  Sigh.

There will come a time, not in the distant future, when he will not go to his room when I tell him to.  He is already getting to this point, and never goes willingly to solitary.  He almost never does anything willingly, from getting dressed, to putting his shoes on, to brushing his teeth, to picking up his toys.  Every inch is a fight, and it’s exhausting.  I do not know what to do.

There is a common complaint, at least in my area of the world, that when your child is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, the very next thing your shown is the door.  Goodbye!  Good luck working that out, now.  It seems ridiculous that there isn’t an option of a more cohesive plan of support for families trying to cope with these circumstances.  I am not an idiot, I can function without constant hand holding, but with the huge amount of people earning their living in this field, why isn’t it easier to get support?  I am lucky, I am the type of person who will go out and read every book I can get my hands on about what it is that my child is dealing with, I’ll join support groups on-line and in real life.  Even having done those things, however, I have to admit it has done little to break down what is the mystery of my young son’s behavior, and what appears to be his misery.

My next step has to be something my husband and I have talked about many times in the past; finding a child psychologist who has some expertise in the field of autism.  It has been difficult for me to take this step because I do not fully trust therapists, and I do not fully trust their ability to get results.  But I’m at the end of my bag of tricks, and honestly find myself more likely to want to hide from Tommy than to try to engage him.  Guess what?  That don’t work.  I have to engage with him, and so does the rest of my family, and I need to find a way to make those engagements more positive for everyone.  Lord help me.

*My own brother was very hard to live with growing up, but has since grown into a wonderful, caring man with a family of his own. 

What’s a boy to do?

My Sean has a problem.  Even though I have two older boys, I have never had the experience of one of them having this issue.  Sean is a chick magnet.

We don’t seem to be able to go anywhere without Sean finding himself with a little girl, usually a few years older than him, sticking herself to him like glue.  The girls look at me and squeal, “he is so cute!”  As if I didn’t know that.  You’re preaching to the choir, ladies.

These girls also cannot keep their hands to themselves.  They want to touch him, they want to get close up to his face, they want to pick him up, and he’s no lightweight baby.  He has what Gene Simmons once referred to as “My Charisma:”

 

Well, looking like this doesn’t hurt either:

It is a burden for him, because he doesn’t necessarily enjoy all of this attention.  It’s cute at first, but when they just won’t leave him alone, like at the park today, neither he nor I really know what to make of it.  Today he came over to me, climbed in my lap, and told me he wanted to go home.  Now, that could’ve happened anyway, but it seemed to have a direct relationship to the amount of touching this girl was doing. 

One thing that might solve the problem?  Better supervision by the parents of these young ladies.  Uh hum.

Week in Review, So Far

Sunday was Ryan’s birthday party.  He’s been talking about this for months (mommy, am I still 3?).  It was Thomas the Train all the way, with balloons, cake, presents, and tie dye t-shirts just for fun. 

Ed and I were a little late to our own party, after staying out late for our concert the night before.  He got up early to mow the lawn, we headed to the store to get the party food, and returned home with what we thought was 10 minutes to spare.  Turns out 1/2 our guests showed up early!  What a day for that to happen.  Lucky for us it was just family, so I think they’ll get over it.

Monday was more party clean-up, too much heat, and general grumpiness from mom.  Tuesday we retreated to the pool at the Y for the hot afternoon, and yesterday headed to my sister’s for the kids to play and swim.  Today is still up in the air–after Tommy gets home we might even head up to the lake, if I’m feeling ambitious.  Anything to escape the afternoon heat and get the kids out of the house.  That way they can’t make a mess!

St. James the Greater

What do you suppose it means, if you have a dream about a saint you know nothing about, and upon researching the saint, you find out that you dreamed about him on his feast day?

That’s what happened to me last weekend.  I had a strange dream, much of which I can’t remember, but it prominently featured St. James the Greater, one of the first apostles of Jesus, and brother of John.  In the dream he was being martyred, but was somehow saved by St. Michael the archangel.  Weird, yes?

Then I looked him up and found out that I had the dream on his feast day, July 25.  Hmm.  Coincidence?

Green Day

Last night I went with my husband to see Green Day in concert.  I think it’s been close to 10 years since the last time I went to see a big name act play live, and I think that was the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The show was actually fun.  I had my reservations about going, mostly because I don’t like loud noise (and never have), and I’m almost in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy.  The baby jumped around a little, but now I’ll get to tell her that she went to her first rock concert before she was even born.

The band was really cute.  They played great and sounded great, and they focused on playing the songs that everyone really likes.  They entertained, imagine that.  The highlights of the show were when they invited kids to come up on the stage.  First it was a really young boy, and later they invited a few more to come up and sing one of their songs.  It was actually charming.  They know their audience is inter-generational, and they play to that–and they really seem to enjoy it.

Big change from when I went to see Nirvana and they made it clear that they weren’t going to speak to their audience, and they basically hated everyone.  I guess that passed for entertainment back in 1993, although I don’t recall enjoying it.

It was a really interesting shift from most of the shows I went to as a teenager.  There were all kinds of people at this show, old and very young.  They all sang along to the lyrics and were having a good time.  When I was a kid, parents just dropped their teens off at these things and ran for the hills.  There was a respectable divide between the generations and what kind of noise they would put up with.  It no longer seems to be so, everyone was having fun, from 6-65. 

You know your getting old when a rock concert becomes a sociological study in the changes of inter-generational relationships.  Snort.

The Infantilization of Mommy

My mother in law uses the big guns to take down my self-confidence.  She helps, perpetually, without being asked, without it being wanted.

I’ve tried to be clear about my boundaries without resorting to out and out meanness, but she asks for harshness when she manipulates situations so that she can be in control.  This time, it’s Ryan’s birthday party scheduled for this weekend.

I invited her.  I sent invitations out to those people she likes to invite, with a request that they RSVP to us, since we are the hosts.  Even the woman who insulted our political leanings in our own home and swore about it in front of my kids.  At a birthday party.  We did not ask for her help.  She asked me if there was anything she could do, and I told her that if it would be convenient she could pick up the cake on her way here.  That was that.  Right?

No.  After I went up stairs to do something with the kids, she arranged with my husband to bring all of the food, too.  Even though she had already asked me what I wanted her to do!  And no one told me about this until two days later!  Wow!  You might think.   That’s super awesome!  Not really.  I know from her pattern of behavior that this is her way of exerting her control over an event hosted by me, at my house.  Last year she “helped” in the same way, bringing cold cuts, but refusing to bring roast beef because it was too expensive, and instead of buying bread or sandwich rolls, she bought tiny dinner rolls that weren’t big enough to make sandwiches on, just to save a few cents. 

She wanted to buy party supplies, but refused to buy the kind that had our party’s theme, because they were too expensive.  But she doesn’t want us to go and buy whatever it is that we want—she wants control over it.  She wants us to have the cheap stuff, because that’s what she’s decided is best, and it BOTHERS HER if we get something else.  So, if it’s a Thomas the Train party, for example, as requested by the birthday boy, she’ll volunteer to get the paper products, but will refuse to buy anything with Thomas the Train on it. 

At least I’ve figure it out, and now I buy my own stuff even if she insists on bringing over 1000 dixie cups for us all to drink out of.

I don’t completely understand her motivation for being like this, mostly because I think it’s completely irrational, leaving nothing to understand.  It’s just the way she is, and I hate it.  It all began a few days after we were engaged, when she bought me a pack of cheap do-it-yourself wedding invitations, without asking me what I wanted, or taking my feelings into consideration.

When I got pregnant with Thomas, she pumped up the volume.  She bought a crappy old crib at a flea market, that didn’t even have all the correct parts.  Without asking me what I wanted (no, we didn’t use it).  She asked me what the nursery theme would be, I told her teddy bears, but she found a bunch of moon and stars things on sale, and bought it all anyway.   She volunteered to buy the mattress for Ryan’s big boy bed, and then informed us she would be giving us the crappy old one that was in her guest room for more than a decade.  When we said, “no thanks,” she sneaked it into our house while we were on vacation. 

For the past two weeks in a row when she comes for her Tuesday visit, she has told me how her neighbor paid so much less for her new roof than we did, and she wonders why we had to pay so much!  She’s already gotten away with that twice, the next time she’s getting told what I think about her repeatedly telling me this information.

I realize she doesn’t think we are capable of making our own decisions, and wants to hit that home to us every chance she gets.  I know she wants us to be eternally, tearfully, grateful to her each and every time we see her, but I think I just might puke instead.  Well, time to reestablish those boundaries!  It’s great when every family event has to be turned into another situation where she has to be put back in her proper place.

Tired

Too tired.  Just want to sleep.  Miles to go, however.

It’s my fault that no one on my blog roll is updating their blogs.  My fatigue has stretched its tentacles across the formerly fruited plains, leaving lolling empty heads searching for their pillows.

Sorry for that.  The bad coffee isn’t helping.

It’s a Mind Game

I had one of those stupid conversations with my husband the other day, fueled by hormones and exhaustion.  I felt stupid even as the words cascaded out of my mouth, but there was no stopping them, they have a life of their own when I’m tired.

It was the age-old complaint of the full-time mom to the full-time working dad:  “You have no idea what it is I do around here!  You can’t imagine what my day is like!”  I know, how cliche.

After I calmed down two days a little later I thought about how useless that statement truly is.  What does it mean to him when I tell him that?  That I doubt his imaginative capacity, his ability to estimate the difficulty of caring for our children all day, every day, alone?  Am I complaining of the work?  The laundry, the dishes, the meals?  If so, so what?  We all have our work to do, and for the most part I enjoy those things.

So I took the time, in a calm moment, to clarify what I meant after realizing what that was.  It’s the very real psychological difficulty of taking care of small children all day, every day, alone.  It’s facing each morning cheerfully, even though you know you’re going to get your first arguments about breakfast before you’re even fully conscious.  It’s the feeling of frustration when your simple requests are blatantly ignored and disobeyed by three different little people, all day long.  It’s the knowledge that even though you want to have your house neat and clean, you won’t be able to tackle a project from start to finish without the nearly constant interruption of the needs, however minor, of the kids.  It’s knowing that when you finally get a chance to start some laundry, the kids will inevitably began screaming for you. 

In other words, it’s a mind game, and you’ve got to stay on top of it or it will get the better of you, which you should be reserving for your family.  I usually can stay on top of it, but when physical difficulties like exhaustion, nausea, and pain from pregnancy play their part in my day it becomes a more difficult task.  I know I’ve lost the battle for the day when I’m yelling unintelligibly into the telephone at my husband.  Or shouting an inordinate amount at the kids. 

It’s tough.  I can’t just stop when I know I’m too tired to be a good parent.  I can’t just take a break.  I can’t call in sick.  There’s no denying this difficulty.  When I tell him he has no idea, it’s that one can’t imagine the mental strength necessary to do this work in the long-term, every day, and for each forseeable day into the future, unless they themselves are in the game.  The only thing I can do is try not to take the falls too seriously, try to get my rest, and work to understand when I am getting to that place where I’m losing the mind game.