Mama Sick

Tyler and I started our trek at 11:30 to the mall to see Santa Claus and take holiday pictures.  I felt like I was able to walk so we could go by ourselves.  There was almost no line to see Santa!

Tyler sat on his lap and proceeded to tell Santa his very long wish list.  They looked like they were telling secrets to each other.  It was so cute! Then they snapped a few pictures.  One came out good and then I went crazy as many of us do with pictures and bought $50.00 worth of stuff, including a cute Santa frame.

We started our walk to the department store for his portraits and Tyler said, “I forgot to tell Santa I wanted Wolverine and the Six-Armed Spider-Man DVD”.  (yes, there is such a thing) “It’s okay honey, Santa is magic, he knows your whole list, you’ll get those things.”

As we walked to the portrait studio Tyler began to get more upset and by the time we got there he was near to tears.  Some pictures these are going to be!  I couldn’t believe I was going to do this, but I was going to take him back to see Santa.

So we treked back to see The Big Guy.  This time there was a bit of a line.  I kept checking the time because we were scheduled for pictures at 1:00 p.m.  When it was our turn I explained the issue.  After all, I had just dropped fifty bucks there.  So Tyler sat on Santa’s lap again and mentioned his two last wishes.  Santa nodded and they even shook hands on the deal.

So then we walked back to the portrait studio.  Tyler was so giggly and tired, there weren’t many good pictures to choose from. I ordered Christmas cards, that was it. But now I have buyer’s remorse.  Where was my head?  Where were we?  Now I feel like I should have bought a few pictures instead of just Christmas cards.  How could I not have some more pictures of my darling son? Soon I will go online and further drive myself crazy, trying to choose.

Write a post inspired entirely by one of these words:

1.) Simple.
2.) Angsty.
3.) Excruciating.
4.)Enchanted.
5.) Bold.

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

This week’s assignment was a toughie.  I don’t do well with one word titles.  Since nothing in my life is Simple, I suffer from anxiety so am always pretty much Angsty, I have felt Excruciating Pain (but who wants to hear about that?) and no memories come to mine when it comes to a Bold anecdote, I decided to go for Enchanted.

Americans are still having rough economic times, we are at war and this time of the year is stressful for everyone.  It can be hard not to get depressed when you are buying Christmas presents on your credit cards and have a list as long as your arm, wondering if you will ever be able to pull it off in time.  Are you burnt out on Christmas music yet that has been playing since Thanksgiving?

Since some of the above describes me, I look to my four-year-old son to take me back to that enchanted time when I was a child.  When you tried to stay up as long as you could, hoping to get a peek of Santa and his reindeer.  When you woke your parents up at 4:00 in the morning saying, “Is it time to open presents yet?”  I can remember wishing I could fall asleep from the day after Thanksgiving and wake up on Christmas Day.  Who could be expected to wait that long for that special dolly that you had asked Santa for?

When you loved taking a drive with your family to the houses who were decked out in lights, moving reindeer and Santa Claus.  Even the red and green traffic lights would make me think of Christmas.

And of course, decorating your own tree and feeling both the excitement and peacefulness at the same time for the weeks leading up to Christmas.  When I became a little older, I enjoyed reading by the lights of the Christmas tree.

This year is a big one for my son who is four-years-old.  Tomorrow he is going to see Santa Claus and on Saturday we will get our tree and spend the weekend decorating. Next week we will see The Nutcracker ballet.

We have a Santa wooden Advent calendar where you pull a number out and Santa slides a little further down the chimney, so Tyler can count down to Christmas every night.

I know Tyler is going to go crazy on Christmas Day, like a Tasmanian Devil opening one present after another.

And I will smile, ooing and ahhing over what Santa got him, and thanking God that I have a healthy child who can show me the spirit of Christmas and bring back enchantment to my eyes and joy to my soul.

We have never been 100% successful at getting four-year-old Tyler to sleep in his own bed ever since we made his crib into a toddler bed.

For six months he slept in my bedroom on the floor in a sleeping bag.  His Tourette’s Syndrome would act up at night and he wouldn’t be able to stop coughing to be able to get to sleep.  It was breaking my heart.  I knew he would feel secure with me and be able to calm down if I took him into my room.

Then we tried bribing him about sleeping in his own room.  But it’s not about that for him.  Even in the daytime, Tyler has a terrible fear about being alone in any room. We would stay in his room until he would fall asleep, but at around midnight or 1:00 when he woke up, he would panic and grab his pillow, blanket and Eeyore and sleep on the loveseat, next to the couch where my husband would be sleeping.  (Don’t even ask why my husband sleeps on the sofa, he’s just more comfortable there)

Of course just getting Tyler to fall asleep in his room is a feat in itself.  When bedtime rolls around I’m ready for bed myself, sometimes even earlier than him!  When I try to sit with him, my normally patient self starts to get inpatient due to fatigue.  When Grant tries, he loses patience even more quickly than me.

So for the last month or so we’ve been giving up.  Tyler has been sleeping in my bed. He goes to sleep easily and sleeps the whole night through.

The views on co-sleeping with an older child are all over the map.  Just do a google search and you’ll find articles both positive and negative.

There is a lot of advice out there for getting your child to sleep in his bed all night. But a lot of it won’t work for Tyler due to what I refer to as the time when he was kidnapped.  I truly believe this is the reason for his intense separation anxiety.

On a lighter note, can I make a confession?  I like having Tyler sleep with me. (No offense, Grant) Perhaps it even has something to do with what happened to him, but I feel very comfortable with him in my bed and am amused by his sleeping antics.  I love waking up and watching him sleep, looking as precious as an angel, although most people would say it is wrong to do this.  And deep down I know that he should be sleeping in his own bed.

At this point I would be happy if we could even get him back to the love seat!

If either family, friends or yourself has kids under the age of five, you know about “nap time”. Those magic hours for kids usually being 1:00 to 3:00.  Perhaps you have even scheduled an event around nap time.  A birthday party at 11:00 or a dinner or holiday get together starting around four?

As a chronically ill person, whenever I hear these times, especially in the afternoon, I think, “But what about my nap?”  If you are sick, you are nodding, if you are not, you may be laughing at me.  But the truth is I have a meltdown physically and mentally if I don’t have a nap and my nap time is between 3:30 and 5:30.

I panic when I hear an occasion is going to be a bit after three, after “nap time”. How am I going to get through it?  Usually what will happen when I get home from these events is I am weeping, handing Tyler over to Grant and going to bed for the rest of the night even if it’s six or 7:00.

This weekend it’s a double whammy for me.  Two occasions, no naps.  December is a tough time for us chronic nappers.  It’s hard not to become “over-scheduled” and for a sick person, that doesn’t take much.

As I take my nap later this afternoon, I will make sure to treasure it.

Ah, the days when my son napped with me!

Have you ever had a fight with a long time best friend and never made up? Do you think about her from time to time and think about contacting her? What would you say? What if it didn’t work out? What if it did?

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writers’ Workshop.

Actually I thought of this prompt so I guess I better choose it!

“Jennifer” and I became friends when we were nine-years-old.  Part of me was fascinated by her as she was a child model.  I remember her giving me a birthday gift of which she was on the cover of.  I wasn’t jealous, it was just one of the many things that drew me to her.  She was an only child.  Her father was a merchant marine and he used to come back with gifts from all over the world, sometimes for me too.  Her mom had emigrated from Germany and had a thick accent.  They were both chain smokers.

Jennifer didn’t seem to have any rules.  She was allowed to stay up as long as she wanted to, while I had a strict bed time.

I had brown hair and brown eyes, she was blonde with blue eyes.

As they say opposites attract.  We were inseparable.  I loved sleeping over her house because it was just so different from how I was being raised.  If we weren’t together, we would be on the phone for three to four hours at a time, this was before “call waiting” mind you!

Her parents looked upon me as a second daughter and they took me to a six week trip to Germany and Austria when I was 17.

We even chose the same college so we could stay together and roomed with each other all four years.  We did theatre and choir together, and had the same major.

Jennifer had a very high opinion of herself.  We were both very pretty, but she was mean to guys who would ask her to dance, saying things like, “Keep walking, move on”.  She told it like was.  As critical as she could be was as complementary as she could be.  She was very possessive of me and any new friends I made.  Sometimes people would ask me how I could be friends with her but I knew she cared deeply about me.

After college she moved into New York City to try to become an actress which never happened for her.  I chose not to be a starving actress.  Jennifer started dating only rich, well-off guys. She had over a $20,000. credit card debt (this was about 15-20 years ago!)  and when I asked her how she would ever pay it off she said, “I’m going to marry a rich guy who will pay off all of my debt”.  And she did.

That didn’t sit well with me.  I wanted to make sure I could support myself and my children if  my marriage ever went bad as I think most women do nowadays.  And until I got sick, I could.

At around age 30 she got engaged.  At the time, I was suffering a serious case of unrequited love and I was dangerously depressed.  But she felt my feelings were stupid, that I should move on.

By this time I was sick of the way she was living her life.  I told her I couldn’t be friends with her any more because I felt that even though she thought my feelings about this guy were ridiculous, they weren’t ridiculous to me.  She had become judgmental and non-supportive of me.

I remember her telling me that I had really changed, but isn’t that what we are supposed to do, or do we keep thinking the same way we thought when we were seven-years-old?

My mother and her mother remained friends so I catch a lot of gossip.  When Jennifer found out she was having a boy when she was pregnant she said to her husband at the ultrasound, “We’re having another!” after this one because she had wanted a girl.  I don’t think she ever truly got over her disappointment over not having a daughter.

I have a son too.  Did I want my child around this woman who really wanted a girl?

Now Jennifer has a nice house with a pool and her and her husband travel the world.  I’m not so much jealous, as I am mystified by why things are so good for her and why they are so bad for me.

I have several Face Book suggestions for me to “friend” her and I wonder, would she be different, has she finally matured, and how would she feel about me being chronically ill and living under the poverty line?

Do I want to start something with her only to go through our “break-up” again?

After writing this (and I’m so glad I did!)  I feel like I have my answer.  I guess the holidays make me nostalgic for the way things were growing up, but I think I am going to leave it alone…and be left to wonder.

In better times: I am the one with the long brown hair and she has the long blonde hair

So with almost everyone being uncomfortable with Tyler getting a doll, he doesn’t want one any more!

Yesterday I asked Tyler if he wanted to look at dolls on the computer to see what type he wanted.  So we started looking, and he asked, “Will I sleep with my dolly?” “Sure, honey, if that’s what you want.”

“No! I don’t want to do that, I want to sleep with my Eeyore!”  “Then you don’t have to sleep with your doll.”

He started to cry.  I said, “Tyler, you don’t have to sleep with your doll, you can get a little cradle, that’s a little bed, for her.”

“No, I don’t want a doll any more!”  “Are you sure?” “Yes, I don’t want a doll any more!”

I’m not quite sure what exactly changed his mind.  Maybe he’s thinking his friend’s baby sister is not all she’s cracked up to be.

Anyway, score 1 for Eeyore.

Watching my budget this year, I only bought two outfits from Old Navy, so I could have something a little more dressier for the holidays.  On October 16th, I wore one of the new cardigans and dressy tanks with jeans for a little boy’s birthday party and I have not seen them since!

I have looked under my bed, in my closet, my closet’s floor…How can I lose an entire outfit??? I was on a lot of Cogentin at the time so my brain was even more foggier than usual.  They could be in the freezer for all I know.

I thought I had a clue when I wore the same outfit in different colors and saw the “Hand wash only” instructions.  I thought, well they’ve got to be buried in my laundry basket because I didn’t remember washing them, but they weren’t there.

The outfit wasn’t expensive and I have a gift certificate to the store from where they came from.  Would you buy another outfit?  I am leaning towards doing it, but know as soon as I do the outfit will show up!

What have been some of your most annoying brain fog moments?

Have You Seen These Clothes?

Kidfresh frozen meals was started by a dad with two young children when he looked for convenient, healthy meals for kids and discovered there wasn’t much out there.  Most quick meals for kids are loaded with fat, sugar, sodium and artificial ingredients.  So Matt Cohen, along with a top chef and a pediatric nutritionist, put together a line of frozen meals that are 100%natural, full of hidden veggies and yummy kid favorite recipes!  The containers that Kidfresh comes in are BPA-free and phthalate-free containers and are recyclable as well!

It’s been great working with Kidfresh and now they are working with Save the Children and you can help too!  Kidfresh is donating 10 cents to Save the Children every time they get a new “Like” on Facebook and a new follower on Twitter.

All it takes is a click:

Like Kidfresh on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Kidfreshfoods

Follow Kidfresh on Twitter: http://twitter.com/KidfreshFoods

If we all do it and spread the word, that’s a lot of dimes!

It doesn’t get any easier and I hope you will participate!

This past summer the Silicon Valley Moms Group closed and I missed having the chance to get more people to see my writing.  On my own blog I like to write about my life and experiences, but on a bigger blog I like to write about larger issues that affect many people, or educate people and break down stereotypes about people with Invisible Illnesses.

So I am pleased to announced that I was invited to be a part of Technorati. Originally, as it’s name implies, this was a blog that centered around technical news, but they have recently expanded it to include other “channels” such as Entertainment, Politcs, and a Women’s Channel.  Technorati has over a thousand writers who write for these various channels and rapidly changing content.  It has over 37,000 followers on Twitter.

My first post on Technorati is called From Adopting a Family to Being Adopted and How We Got There. If you are an avid reader of my blog, a lot of my story on there might be familiar to you, but it seeks to show that we are not the average family that you might think of that needs a program like this.

I would love it if you would give it a look and leave a comment!

Describe a memorable Thanksgiving.

This post was inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

I had decided to visit my boyfriend (my husband to be) in Columbus, OH.  How we met is a post in itself but we had a long distance relationship with me living in New Jersey.  This would be the first time I would meet his family.

I flew on Thanksgiving Day with the thought that most people would be flying on Wednesday. It really didn’t matter.  One of Grant’s cousins was a doctor and he had to work on Thanksgiving Day so they were going to hold Thanksgiving on Saturday. Grant was the consummate bachelor, having never turned on his oven or range top in the seven years he had been living in his apartment.  He had NO food.  Grant and I figured there would be some place open that we could have some dinner out on Thanksgiving Day.

After getting settled in his apartment and hanging out for a while, we set off in search of a place to eat.  EVERY restaurant was closed, even the old standby, the Chinese restaurants!  By this time we were starving and we pretty much didn’t care what we ate!

So we ate at the only place we had finally found that was open:  White Castle! Eating teeny cheeseburgers, onion rings, soda and coffee wasn’t exactly our idea of a nice dinner, but it really didn’t matter because we were in love and we were just happy to be together.

That Saturday I met his whole family and they were all nice and welcoming.  I felt very much at home and the dinner was delicious!

That was ten years ago.  Today the two of us plus Tyler are eating at a friend’s home and Tyler will have lots of fun playing with their little boy.

The dinner is certain to be better than a Crave Case of tiny hamburgers!