Mama Sick

Pretty self explanatory!

…Technorati today.  Santa’s gone, how do we control our kids now?  Please take a look and I would love some comments.  Thanks!

One of my faithful readers and I sometimes exchange emails back and forth.  She is a disabled mom with a four-year-old little boy who has Autism.  We were talking about our mutual tough financial times and she told me that she was not going to have Christmas this year.  No tree, no presents, no nothing.

Any spare money goes to paying doctors, tests, etc. for her illnesses and conditions.  I know how that goes.  My husband and I regularly spend between 15 to 18 thousand dollars a year and we all have health insurance.

The reader said it really wouldn’t matter any way since her son is Autistic, he would not know about Christmas coming and going anyway.

When I read her email, I cried.  I asked her, she did not ask ME, if I could help her. And she has finally allowed me to do it.

Her paypal account is tendaironi@yahoo.com

UPDATE:  She has also, at my suggestion, done a wish list on Amazon, as people have wanted to send gifts.  She is Tendai Phiri.  The list is named Christmas 2010.  She would love some therapeutic things for her son, clothes for him and lastly clothes for her husband and herself.

Christmas may come late for this family, but let’s make it come!

Thank you, my wonderful readers.  Please comment and let me know that you gave so I know how generous people can be.  Even if it’s only five dollars, lots of a little can add up to a lot!

I love our Christmas tree because every ornament is a cat and has been collected over the years.  As many do, every Christmas I remember where I got this ornament or that one, such as two finely dressed cats from our honeymoon in Las Vegas, a couple from a business trip in San Antonio, the kitty lights from Cape May, NJ.

Here are some closeups:

We even have a kitty angel!

We’re so fortunate that Tyler likes the kitty tree too!  Did you know his first words were “kitty cat?”

Is there ever a time of the year that chronically ill moms feel more guilty than the holiday season?

It started for me right before Thanksgiving.  I was attending Tyler’s Thanksgiving party and some of the moms were talking about all they had to do for the holiday.  Go to the supermarket, buy this, make their side dishes a couple of days earlier, the turkey on Thanksgiving day, etc.  I said to my friend who knows of my illness, “I don’t know how you do it” and another mom spoke up and said, “You just do, you’re in survival mode”.

And I felt the tears welling up in my eyes because what they were discussing was impossible for me and I felt so useless in my role as Woman of the Household.  As my husband and I drove home from the party, I let the tears flow.

No matter how much I have simplified my holidays over the last nearly eight years, even the things I have to do exhaust me.  I don’t give gifts to anyone except my child and gifts for the teachers and mailman.  Anyone who doesn’t like that does not have to give me a present.

But with a child there are some things that simply must be done.  Wrapping his gifts, buying a tree, decorating it and making Christmas as amazing as I can for him.

For the first time in two years this year, I did feel well enough to take Tyler to see Santa and have his pictures taken for Christmas cards.  It was also the first time in two years that I am sending Christmas cards out.  Again, if you don’t want to send me a card because I am not giving you one, that’s fine with me.

I did manage to do the above but at what cost to my health and how many days did  I need to recover from it?

For Christmas, my mother and brother and his wife are coming.  I am going to order the dinner.  It still will be an exhausting day and then I even pondered going to church.  I have never been able to take Tyler even though we are raising him as a Catholic.  Going to church would mean dressing Tyler and I up and getting up earlier, getting up instead of going back to sleep to let my pain meds kick in. Opening presents, entertaining…just thinking about is exhausting to me.

I write this post, not just for encouragement, not for that at all, actually, but for all the Moms who read this and say “Me too.  How am I going to get through this”?

And I do thank God that I was able to take Tyler to see Santa and have Christmas cards done. I am aware of all the Moms who are sicker than me who cannot do any of the things I mention and count my blessings this year.

Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got some Christmas cards to write and some wrapping to do. Take it easy.

I was pleased that my contest winner of The Nutcracker, Monica Brand of Paper Bridges, happened to be someone I knew from the former New Jersey Moms Blog:

Grant, Tyler and I before Tyler’s “nap”!

Thanks so much for the pictures, Monica!

I was given tickets to this ballet, of which I am extremely grateful for.

When The Nutcracker ballet began, just the music filled my heart with gladness.  What a great way to forget the stress of getting everything done before Christmas by seeing this perennial favorite.

The Nutcracker at the State Theatre was performed by the American Repertory Ballet in conjunction with the Princeton Ballet School.  There was an excellent live orchestra that performed Tchaikovsky’s beautiful classic score, as well as a cast of 100 magnificent performers.

This particular version was geared to to a younger audience, with lots of children performing in the ballet.  I was so excited to have the opportunity to bring my child to this amazing production, I glanced over at him and he was…sleeping.  Okay so perhaps a four-year-old boy who has been up since before 6:30 was not the most representative of a typical child.

During intermission, I had the opportunity to talk to many children, some as young as three-and-a-half whose parents assured me their children were awake and enjoying the ballet!

The scenery was very cleverly done and the costumes elegant and colorful.

After intermission, Tyler once again joined the captive audience.  I had read him the story of the Nutcracker before-hand so he knew what was going on.  He even noticed that Clara and her Nutcracker prince were sitting on a cake (I had missed that!) and took an inventory of the candy count on the stage.  He did wind up enjoying the second act.

An important thing of note is that although this version is geared to children, any adult will enjoy this ballet without a child in tow.

The State Theatre still has performances scheduled tomorrow, Sunday, at 1:00 and at 4:30 and there are still tickets available.  It is a great way to slow down the craziness that Christmas can be and allow yourself and your children to enjoy this wonderful production.

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

Being uncertain about any of my Christmas gifts being well received, I decided to write about a Christmas gift that scarred me for life.

I was about 13-years-old when the Cabbage Patch Kid phenomenon began.  In August I was at a mall and saw my first one.  She had red hair and green eyes.  I loved her because she was so unique.  I asked my parents if they would buy her for me now and I would pay them back when we got home, but they wouldn’t. Yes, I know I was 13, but Cabbage Patch Kids were special!

And then the craze hit and you literally had to know somebody who knew somebody to get one. Christmas was coming and I wanted one so badly.  Remember the pictures of the parents almost killing each other whenever a store announced that they had them in limited quantities?  My parents were not those type of parents.

Of course since my brother and I no longer believed in Santa Claus, my mother would just wrap the presents as she went and put them under the tree.  There were two fairly big boxes of the same size for my brother and I under the Christmas tree.

My best friend, Jennifer, was fairly certain that she was getting a Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas, as she did have those types of parents.  She tried to encourage me.  “I bet there is one for you in that big box”!  “I don’t know, it looks a little too big”.  “Maybe your parents are trying to fool you by putting it in a bigger box”!

But I did not have those kinds of parents.

On Christmas morning, I had convinced myself that Jennifer was right, my parents knew how badly I had wanted one.  As we opened presents my parents told my brother and I to open the big boxes at the same time.  We opened them and inside were…sleeping bags!  Sleeping bags? For what purpose these would serve and why they thought my brother and I would like them I still have no idea.

Christmas was over, as far as I was concerned.  The phone rang.  It was Jennifer.  “I got one, I got one, did you”?  I told her what I got instead.  As she enthusiastically described her doll with that baby powder smell, tears ran silently down my cheeks.

Of  course, when the craze calmed down, I became obsessed and owned six of them.

See, I told you I was scarred for life!

I wrote in November that Tyler did not want to let go of any of his toys, always finding new ways to play with them.  He even had a heart for the broken ones!

A couple of days ago, as we near Christmas and another toy explosion, Tyler turned to me and said, “Mommy, I want to throw out my baby toys.  I don’t want to play with my baby toys any more.”  It was a minor Christmas miracle!  I said, “Okay, lets look around and see which toys you want to throw away”, and he picked out about five of them, one of which was pretty large! He even agreed to throw away limbless Spider-Man action figures!

I don’t know where he got that term,”baby toys”.  At school?  Most of me is thrilled that we will have a little more order in our living space, but a small part of me is saddened that Tyler has recognized the distinction and is ready to move on.  Ready to move on before Mama is anyway!

I wanted to update you and let you know that we have wrapped up the food stamp battle! The doctor wrote the notes we needed to show that Grant and I are not working due to our disabilities and that we need to have Tyler in pre-K.

After I had corrected the income they thought we made (which was too high), plus needing to have dependent care, we are actually getting more assistance than what we had in the first place!

It feels so good to go into the supermarket and know again that I can buy Tyler fresh fruits and vegetables, the juice he likes, and even little treats without having the sick feeling in my stomach of having to put it on my credit card.

Can’t believe in less than six months I will have to do the same thing over again. Actually I hope that Grant or I will have received our disability and won’t need to.