Our Son and Our Bond

It’s amazing to me how the human body holds memories. Completely separate from my brain my body becomes tense and anxious every year at this time. Eight years ago on this date was the last day I would be pregnant with my first child. I was already a week passed my due date and my obstetrician had finally convinced me that my body was not going to go into labor on its own. I felt a little defeated when I accepted that fact, like my body had let me down. I wanted to play out that scene in every movie featuring pregnancy, where I wake in the middle of the night and announce that it’s “time” and my husband comically runs around in a panic. Which would not have happened anyway, my husband is not one to panic.

Since my labor was planned my grandfather was able to be there, he drove 9 hours at the age of 83 to be there for me and meet his great-grandson. I will always be grateful that he made it to both of my children’s births. He made it into the room when I was in labor with my son just in time for me to projectile vomit from an allergic reaction to one of the induction medications. I seen his cowboy hat out of the corner of my eye enter then immediately exit the room, to which my husband said teasingly “you know how to clear a room honey”.  My allergic reaction was the first of so many unexpected complications, when my water broke we found out that our son had already passed his first bowel movement. Not uncommon with overdue babies, the hospital made the preparations to clear his nose and throat of the sticky substance.

Also unexpected was how big he was, after two hours of pushing, oxygen for me and a dropping heart rate for him the doctor used forceps as the last option before we would have to go for a c-section. The forceps worked and all 10lbs 2oz of our son came into the world. The Boston-born respiratory therapist exclaimed “what a bruisah!” and she worked over him to help him breathe normally. The first few hours after he was born went by quickly and just like a typical birthday should. I was able to hold him for about 20 minutes between doctors and nurses checking oxygen levels and other things, everyone was so positive around me that when six hours after his birth when they told me that his lungs were not drying out as expected I had a hard time understanding/accepting what they were telling me. The pediatrician we chose for him had a stellar reputation and arrived at one in the morning to assess the situation. I will always hold the upmost respect for him for not pulling any punches and saying it was time for my baby to go to a specialty hospital.

 I had been awake for a full day when we boarded the life flight plane, the whole way I watched the nurses take turns squeezing the bag in rhythm, breathing for my sedated son. After arriving at the hospital and dozens of strange machines, wires and tubes attached to my son, no one had time to answer my questions. Like the hospital we came from, everyone was positive and encouraging, they talked a lot yet said nothing. This is when the head nurse from the plane came in and told me unceremoniously and with strange fascination that he had never seen the machines at such high settings, and we would be “lucky” if he made it out of the hospital. At that moment I never wanted to hurt anyone more, if I had any control of my body right then I could have killed him.

As it happened we were lucky, and the nurse was right, those machines had only had to work as hard a few times to bring a baby back from the brink. After three torturous weeks we were able to turn the machines off and hold our son again. A total of five weeks passed between his birthday and the day we were able to bring him home. Five weeks of constant stress, major lows and small victories. In those five weeks my husband and I built a foundation for our marriage that has yet to be shaken. There is nothing that we have gone through since that compares; arguments, stress, the things that would cause other relationships to falter or crumble are small bumps for us. Now every year at this time we get to celebrate the “bruisah’s” birthday and another year of our bond that was born along with him.

Rough Day

My daughter’s nickname is Minnie; she gave it to herself because she had issues saying her name when learning to speak. She is my diva, my dancer, my artist, my light on dark days and the person who drives me to the brink of insanity at least once per day. She doesn’t know that of course, but she is thin skinned, emotional, argumentative, stubborn and draining. In short, she is an extreme version of me. I might have been exactly the same at her age, but I don’t remember.

I am an only child, and no, I was not spoiled. I know, I know, all only children say that as adults; but I have proof: My father was an only child, he was a navy brat and I mean BRAT. Both of his parents dotted on him as if he were king, both he and my grandfather admitted to his level of spoilage. My mother has a brother that is 7 years older than her, my grandmother had many miscarriages in between her two children and had almost given up having a second child when my mother came along. She was spoiled as well, as was told to me by her and all of her side of the family. So, I had no chance as it is apparently impossible to be the spoiler when you have been the spoilee.  As a teenager both of my grandfathers independently apologized to me for spoiling their children, who in turn treated me like the hired help.

As far back as I can remember, my mother and I have never got along. I loved being alone in my room, where she would leave me be for the most part. I have promised, and so far succeeded in not being a parent like mine. Minnie loves spending time with me, and I love it too; but lately she has started being my shadow. The suggestion of playing alone in her room brings an emotional meltdown. She hates being alone. Now I think I need to address the obvious: she is not afraid of anything in her room, she is not attention starved nor is she a brat. She is well behaved, well mannered and knows the meaning of ‘no’.  I do not give in to her when she argues and she does not have me wrapped around her finger.

My family is lucky, I get to stay home to raise our kids and focus on my education, my husband has a sweet schedule that is 3 on/3 off, so he gets to be home half the time. We make a point to spend time together as a family, we are not perfect by any means but there is a lot of love in our home. So, cut to this morning, when we were running a few minutes late; I like to have both kids ready to walk out the door 5 minutes before we have to. This actually happens about 30% of the time. I am the first to admit that I am not a morning person; I am grumpy and impatient for the first hour of the day. The fourth time I asked Minnie to put her socks and shoes on was the exact moment we had to leave, so I yelled for her to “put your damn shoes on so we can go!” Like I said, I’m not perfect.

I have to drive a mile down the road for my kids to catch the bus, one of the cons of living a country life. On the way to the bus stop I hear Minnie crying in the back seat. I told her I was sorry for yelling but she needed to do things the first time I asked so I don’t have to yell about it. She cried harder, so I asked her what was wrong and she said “I just think that you will cut off my head with a knife”. My head spun.  I have never said anything remotely like that to her, or around her. She doesn’t watch violent TV and she doesn’t know violent people. What the fuck is going on?!?!  My son and I had matching jaw-dropped looks of disbelief. After telling her that there was no way that would ever happen I asked her to please stay home from school today and have some girl time with me. She agreed.

After a long talk she told me that she has bad dreams a lot. Not about monsters or other imaginary scary things; she dreams about who she knows doing scary things. Some of the dreams she has are vivid enough that she has a hard time distinguishing what isn’t real. At 5 ½ years old, that is understandable. I have no idea what to do for her, and I feel like a failure because of it. Now I feel extra horrible for asking her to play alone in her room because she was driving me nuts. If I couldn’t separate my real family from the scary psycho family of my dreams I wouldn’t want to be alone either. If she keeps having these dreams I will find her a counselor to talk to. I have worked so hard to give her the loving, spend-time-together-family that I didn't have and she still ends up thinking everyone hates her just like I did? Is the universe that cruel? Well one thing is for sure, I'm not gonna stop looking for ways to help her until I get my carefree diva back.

Hide and Seek

I jogged yesterday. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is to me. I used to love to run, as a kid I ran everywhere all the time. And in a desert that was consistently 115 degrees, you have to run for the love of it. I ran and ran until I turned 12, which is when I developed breasts. By the time I was done with 6th grade I had a solid B cup and I was a skinny kid. It happened so fast, I had no idea how to handle it. My love of running now earned stares, whistles and vulgar comments. Grown men scared the hell out of me, boys my age wanted too much from me and the girls in my school all hated me. I stopped running. One afternoon I was walking to the store and a large truck pulled along side me and a man that did not speak very good english asked me how much I would charge for some company. It took me seemingly forever to figure out what the hell he was talking about, because I wouldn't stop walking and talk to him he figured it out before I did and drove off. When I got to the store I went straight into the bathroom and cried.

My mother was no help during this time, it was the early 90's and thankfully baggy clothes were in but mom didn't like this "gang banger style" so instead bought me clothes that were made primarily of spandex. Then accused me of loving the attention and why don't I stop thinking about boys and act my own age, while wearing the neon spandex she bought me. I had no one to talk to about this, I stopped running or leaving the house unless I had to, so I gained weight. It took me until my mid-twenties to realize that I hid myself with fat. But no matter how much weight I gained, my breasts were still my most prominent feature and by the time I lost my virginity at 15 I wore a D cup.

During high school my self esteem was in the toilet, and after being seen as a sex object since before I knew what sex was, I went with it. When I did say no it was only because he was a friend's boyfriend, old enough to be my father, I heard he had a STD, ect; not because I should say no to save my self respect. So here I am now, at 30 years old, with a husband that loves me and does not see me as a walking pair of tits but I'm still hiding. I am terrified. I am heavier now than I have ever been because I know that my self respect isn't much better than it used to be. The possibility of being seen as a sex object by men other than my husband scares me. I have never had to say no for my own reasons before. I am heavy now because I don't have to try to say no to a question that isn't asked. 

I should be confident in my marriage and myself to know that I can handle....blah, blah, blah. Here's the truth: I too damn old to being hiding like a pussy. I have a daughter that thanks to me and my sister in-law she will never be on the itty bitty titty commitee, I owe it to her to respect myself and be the supportive mother that I didn't have. It's not about me anymore.

Vegan dreams vs. Bacon cheeseburgers

I want to be a vegan. An animal rights aware, B-12 deficient, can't find a restaurant to eat at, immune system of steel, tofurky eatin' mutha fucka. I know the horrible things that go on at factory farms, I know about the mass amounts of hormones and antibiotics being injected into farm animals, I know that many of my health problems will be exponentially better if I give up animal products. I also unfortunately possess the knowledge that bacon cheeseburgers are ridiculously delicious, and the thought of never having one again brings a feeling of mourning.

My immune system sucks. I get every single cold and flu that comes within a mile, and I get to be sicker than most with it. I believe this is because my Mother is a germaphobe and kept me in the house (literally) until I went to kindergarten. Every soap in her house was antibiotic and I was rushed to the doctor after every sneeze. Oh, the screaming fights we got into when I had my own children and did not make every effort to turn my home into a sterilized germ war zone. But my way worked, I took my kids out in public when they were infants (gasp!) and my kids get sick a lot less than I do. So, a logical thought process should lead me to do whatever I need to do to strengthen my own immune system. I stopped using antibiotic hand soap but continue to eat factory farm raised meat. DUH!

A few months ago I gave it all up, all at once. Without planning for it. Without cutting things out one at a time, without figuring out how to cook the enigma that is tofu. Without bracing myself against commercials that feature close ups of bacon cheeseburgers! My first vegan attempt lasted all of two weeks. Everything I cooked was edible, not good but edible. I am a damn good cook. The size of my husband's and my waistlines are testament enough to that, so after two solid weeks of 'meh' food I threw up my hands shouted "fuck this!" and went to buy some goddamn cheeseburgers.

Now that it has been long enough to think it thru, I want to try again. I will cut one thing out every time I go grocery shopping, every two weeks. I will try one vegan recipe per week and ignore my husband when his critique is "needs beef". My culinary ego needs to succeed at this, and my brain needs to win the war against my awful eating habits. Besides, garden burgers with bac-o's are good too.