Daddies

Happy Father's day!  Early!  Because it's that or I'm likely to forget until Christmas!

I'm feeling a little old - too much going on and I always feel a little panicked, like something's been forgotten, like I'm being chased, like tomorrow's The Final and I'll be forgetting my pants.  Again.  Thus the sporadic posting.

Q had a follow-up dental appointment today, which he laughed his way through.  Those crazy people with their glasses and lavender face masks, plus their blue gloves!  Hilarious.  He has a tiny cavity, still.  The spot that was filled last time has been retouched, but the tooth looks great and he won't be keeping them for long.  None loose yet, but it's likely to be soon.

Previous appointments to catch up.  Neurology and rehab.  There's not much new about neuro.  It seems like Q's having stereotypies sometimes.  This is probably no big deal, just a quirk.

The rehab visit was interesting.  That day included x-rays to check out Q's spinal integrity and belly spacing, before the visit with the neurosurgeon to determine viability of a Baclofen pump.  The neurosurgeon provided the dour and pessimistic version of what to expect.  He felt he needed to provide a foil to the Medtronic CME I attended a couple of summers ago.  Heh.  So the downsides are failure or malfunction of the equipment, failure of the surgery, infection, scarring, medication mishaps, and more.  It's a relatively small risk, compared to the prospective benefits, but real, nonetheless.  Five days inpatient time after the procedure.  Training on the remote and troubleshooting of the pump, what to watch for medically if something goes wrong and there's a medicine dump.  And return visits to reload the pump.  Eventual replacement of the equipment.  And more.  It's a lot to take in, but between notes and research, it's all good.  The neurosurgeon gave the go-ahead, and we went on to the rehab visit.

The rehab doc is super cool (I mentioned this before) and tends toward cutting-edge info and approaches, which makes my busy mama brain happy.  She sat Q up on the table and put him through his paces, looking at a variety of poses and stretches and pronounced him not a great fit for the Baclofen pump.  Okay.  She'd like to have him checked out by the PT/OT team who do the evals for the pump placement before thinking about actually going through with anything for tone treatment.  Rollercoaster day there, with long waits, lots of running from one department to another, fairly exhausting, and then...  nothing. 

After talking at length with Q's rockstar PT, it sounds like we'll be looking more closely at a nerve block before going ahead with the hip surgery.  This would help with post-op pain and tone management, allowing for a better surgical outcome as he heals.  The next appointment with the orthopedist is in August, and I expect the films to reflect zero improvement.  A miracle would be lovely and most welcome, but surely not typical.  The heads of Q's femurs would need to move more than forty-five degrees in a medial direction, and his hip sockets would need to deepen considerably and change orientation.  So we'll just be thinking of when to do that, and planning accordingly.

Equipment updates, since we're here:  Q's been able to use his iPad a bit more in school, with some reconfiguring of the icon size, courtesy of the school SLP.  He's switching to a different school next year for kindergarten, and we got to meet the team there - awesome.  I've already had an email from the developmental classroom teacher.  And it's all just in time for the new wave of equipment.  Q's chair is at it's fullest extension in the seat, but has a smidge more in the back.  We've got a few months to figure this out and get the new one here.  The rockstar PT and local equipment rep are thinking about the Kimba.  This option looks good for him, especially because of the base types.  We'd likely order the version above, then go for both the other bases - one for interior use (a hi-lo base, adjustable for table heights and great for kindergarten), one for sport use - because we're often out and about, trying for as much uneven terrain as possible.  Heh.  He benefits from as much safely supported wobbling about as he can get - it helps strengthen  all those teeny muscles around his spine which let him know where he is in space, and it helps his head positioning.  More on that in a minute.  Parts of this system aren't likely to be covered, so (deep breath) I'm going to be fundraising. 

His Rifton stander/walker is also on it's last legs.  Pardon the pun.  He's using it at therapy with a tray on it, which has been added by the magical OT and his team to add height and thereby eek out another couple of months while we await the next one.  I don't think we know what that next one will be.  Maybe a sit to stand model?  He's getting bigger and that version is likely to be an option at some point.  Maybe not just yet.  In the meantime, we have a suspension gait trainer and we're working it out. 

Head positioning.  He's done some amazing work on switches lately with a combination of perforated black plastic lensed glasses and a stiffer support collar.  He's had a soft cervical collar, which was cool (helped him wobble from a more neutral neck position, instead of severely anterior), and in preschool used a head support designed for car seats (gives him a little feedback so he returns to neutral more quickly).  I want that support collar for him because he looked incredible in that switch lab: using his hand gently on the switch, turning screen pages when asked, waiting appropriately for the next opportunity to use that switch instead of just bashing the switch button.  It was several steps up from the work he was doing during the last round of switch intensive OT.

Gotta scoot.  Big day tomorrow, lots to manage. 

Happy Father's Day, to all the magnificent daddies out there.  You rock.  And the world is a better place for your being in it.  Thank you.

The day

Or rather, parts of it.  Today I have run errands for my mom who is post-op and doing well, thank you.  I have made lots of food (thank you for the help, you know who you are).  We have practiced violin and piano for an upcoming performance.  I have emailed on urgent matters.  I have signed papers, including, but not limited to, divorce papers and eligibility determination for Q.  I didn't cry on the papers.

Having to do two sets of paperwork for pretty much the two biggest things in my life, my kids and my marriage, both of which require or indicate an emphasis on the awfulest things about each of them, is pretty much enough already.  My marriage had good and bad, but I would never, not ever, not for anything, have ever said or thought that there was more bad than good.  And Q?  He's a bright-eyed, smiley little boy who is such a challenge to care for that he'll easily be eligible for some sort of personal care hours.  In order to exit a marriage, it seems one doesn't talk about the sweet, kind, funny, brilliant human being one made promises to and babies with.  In order to acquire personal care hours, one speaks only of the deficits, the gaps, the missed milestones, the myriad diagnoses, all the things he cannot do.


I'm afraid that I'm rather inarticulate about this.  It's just a very strange place to inhabit - living and having experienced one thing, while faced with piles of paperwork defying that life and experience.  That I have  two separate piles of paperwork with such similar (to me) themes feels a little outside what I can process at the moment.

It is what it is, and etc.

Tomorrow Q has preschool, and there are various appointments to make, school to be tackled, more practicing, laundry, and the rest of life to be lived.  I have more stuff to pull together for Q's eligibility process, and I will not cry on that paperwork, either.  Or maybe I will, because right now, for the next couple of minutes, I have completely had it.  I'm done.  I can't hold it all together, be sensible, keep tension between the good and the bad.  I'm taking the next two minutes to be an incomprehensible mess who isn't capable of a single thing, and may actually scream until the windows break.

Okay, I'm back.  Can't scream, it would wake the children.  But I did locate another Kleenex box.

Maybe later, when I get to the scheduling of the official nervous breakdown, I'll take up base jumping.  It has promise as an activity - has to be fairly adrenaline laden.  And I bet when one screams while hurtling through the air wearing a squirrel suit no one ever thinks anything of it.

Life lessons (because I need for there to be something useful in this, right now):  try not to handle certain paperwork in the dark, when everyone else is asleep.  When everything sucks, wait two minutes.  Something will shift.  And everything, every single thing, no matter how dark or horrible, can be figured out, worked through, hugged and kissed and made up over.  Every. single. thing.  I believe that to the bottoms of my feet and with every electron in me.  And you know what?  It's true.  It works very well with my children, but it's true for grown-ups too - you only have to believe that there's a solution to find one.

I sure hope I'm well tomorrow.  I really need to run and sweat, without worrying about passing out after from some stupid virus.  Aaaand, I'm out of Kleenex again.   Sigh.

Here's to a week packed full of appreciated blessings, strengthened connections, intact sanity, and rampant encouragement.  XO.

TGI... F? Really?

How did we get to Friday?  Are we all sure that it is Friday?  If we have consensus, could we have an extra Friday?  Or two?  I could use a thirty hour nap.  I am sick.  Doesn't happen often, but when it hits, it goes for the jugular, man.  And the central nervous system.  I think I can safely pick stuff up and move it around now without accidentally wobbling my tippy self right down the stairs, thank you very much.  Now I'm just your average rotten cold kind of miserable.  Carry Kleenex with you at all times kind of miserable.  But not everyone whisper because mommy will melt if the papers or feet or breathing gets too loud kind of miserable.  Thank heavens.  I am not a patient sick person - too much stuff to do, you know?  That's actually how I can tell if I'm going down for the count - when I don't care about dishes, laundry, trash, etc., and when thinking about those things serves only to help me wish I were just dead, already.  When those things bug me again I am well on my way to recovery.  I must be nearly completely well, then.  Heh.

I have a bunch of nice kids, though.  One brought me soup the other night when I finally couldn't stay upright for another second.  One did a stealth run on clean sheets for me - surprise!  One rubbed my back, one took out trash, one did dishes, one did laundry, two took turns transferring Q, one slept through the night with only the wee-est of whimpers.  See how nice they are?  And no, I do not suddenly have nine children.  They were just that helpful and kind.  Or scared.  I have noticed that they snap right to attention when the mama whispers, "I do not feel well." 

Now that we're on the topic, this is truly one of my greatest fears:  that something could happen to render me not useful to the kids, and being that it's just me in the adult category...  yeah.  Best not to go too far down that primrose path.  Thankfully, other people have been around when I've been most debilitated, or we've managed really, really well on our own.  Back when I was pregnant with Q and then again when he wasn't sleeping, I lined up particular PBS or Discovery shows that correlated directly to history and science topics they were already studying, and I'd crash for part of an hour. Which just proves one of my long-held theories:  Necessity Desperation is the mother of invention.

The Kleenex box is calling.  Hope you have a lovely weekend.  XO.

A little light reading:  article.

Wrung

This has been one of the more strange weeks I've experienced, which by now is saying something.  Other than sniffles because I'm tired, I'm really quite physically well, which is of course great, but I think it's the only major area of life that hasn't had something just, well... odd, I guess, occur in it this week.

So let's review, shall we?

Legal stuff was once again on the calendar this week.  I'm still not precisely sure what to make of the details, since I don't know what the ultimate implications will be, but I think we're done with court.  Yes.  Barring a sudden cosmic shift, I have no reason to be in family court ever again, for anything.  So that's good.  But...  Yeah.

Someone I know had a check-up this week, peeking in again to see what's new inside there, that sort of thing.  They know that something is going on that they'd prefer not to see, but they're going back again in six months and expecting to see very little change at that time, so that's good.  And things there are relatively benign, which is also good.  But it would be better if there just weren't anything to report, you know?

Q had his vision recheck this week.  His acuity is measuring 20/180 - 20/80, variable as one might expect with a likely diagnosis of Cortical Visual Impairment.  His pupils aren't as responsive as the doc would like, and he noted paleness on Q's optic nerves.  There's not much that's good about that.  I expected the CVI because there was thinning of the visual cortex visible on MRI.  And a thinner cortex does not necessarily by itself mean much in children.  Cortices can thin and thicken during different developmental stages and it seems that children who experience that actually show an increase in overall brain mass and perhaps intelligence later on in life.  But in Q, with a host of other stuff going on, it means something that his visual cortex is thinner.  And it means something that an optic nerve appears pale.  It means atrophy.

I'm having a hard time with this.

This week I've had to say no to someone on a subject that kills me.  I've been on the phone with a couple of people regularly in crisis management mode, on unrelated topics.  School is happening (sometimes even shockingly well - we can discuss Medea later), but without the mood I'd planned for.  Our motto for this school year, Do the hard thing, is feeling just now like the makings of a bad joke.

All of it is a little much, even the pieces taken individually are each a big hairy deal.  But this thing with Q knocked me back.  Throughout his gestation, throughout the five year legal adventure, throughout the gazillion diagnoses and revisions and meds and tests, and throughout the parenting challenge of the four more or less neurotypical kids as an unwillingly single mom, I've been up, down, and in between, but not really just a mess.  Something about this had me bawling the moment all the kids were in bed.

Here's what I think is going on.  While it's true that nothing changes for Q based on this news, I'd sort of begun to think that we were rather past major revelations and now into the hard work of seeing what he'll do with what he's got.  That we were into managing the needs for equipment and household modifications and meds.  Those things are very different from hearing that not only does your kid have all the other stuff, but now we can say that he's got this too!  And it's irreversible!  And explains much about why he seemed to hate yellow!  How can one like a color one can't see?

Sigh.

I'm not raging.  I'm not even mad, which I know many parents are when dealing with these kinds of things, and that's okay too - everyone has the right to his or her own response.  I'm just sad.  Q's got so much to push through and for, physically.  Plus, he doesn't have his dad around, who was so great with the older ones at this age.  There's just so much potential for loss and heartbreak in life without having to reinvent every single thing in order to let the people around you know that you'd like a drink of water, for crying out loud. 

And too, the last time those three Big Things were tied up together, I had just learned that my beloved was headed elsewhere, my whole life as I had known it was blowing up, and my brain had flipped into profound slo-mo.  I'm pretty sure it was stuck in shock for a few months.

Anyhoo.

So Q is getting glasses with +75 lenses and we're going to see what he can do with that.  And we'll try glasses with tape on the lateral portions of the lenses, to see what range of motion across midline we can get out of those little brown eyes.  And he'll have a VEP, which I suddenly can't tie to the purpose of the test.  To see what his brain is processing or using of what information does come through his eyes, I think.

That he's seeing at all is awesome.  He clearly recognizes - by sight, at a distance - family, therapists, teachers, friends, usual routes we drive to school, therapy, church, Target, the grocery store, library, and etc.  He knows things, age appropriate things, things he's had to struggle for.  He likes to turn pages with his fist when read to.  He knows stories and looks for particular things in the pictures.  He loves the RC cars he plays with at therapy.

He is a happy, magnificent little boy.  He has truly fantastic siblings.  We will be fine.

Things shall improve in the coming week.  I'm reducing certain responsibilities of mine, ramping up others, expecting good news, and thinking about making apple butter with the kids (who've recently held their own spontaneous apple tasting fest, complete with recorded comments and voting on the best variety of seven).  There's other medical stuff to attend to here and that will be taken care of.  And laundry will be done, dishes will be done, and so the quotidien will continue, in all its blessed guises.

To your blessed quotidien:  may it include hard and satisfying work, may it be so rife with gentleness and kindness that you fully feel your worth, and may it present the opportunity to enjoy some really great cheese.

XO.

Fondly

A beloved relative died last week. She's technically not "mine" anymore, though it's difficult not to think of her as related. She had a way of showing up at just the right time, bearing potato salad or spinach salad for myself and someone else, or introducing my kids to "hot dog soup" -- which has become their all time favorite quick meal. She once hung a shopping bag off the front door knob, with lovely jammies for me inside it. It was just because she knew exactly what it was to be in my shoes - missing my very busy med student hubby, on a tighter than tight budget, mom to a bunch of little kids. She brought her world famous enchiladas to someone's graduation dinner. Too much going on, trying to make that weekend a great one, and I just never did sit down long enough to get to the enchiladas, though I'd been drooling a little at the thought of them since she'd offered to bring them months before.

She commented to me once that watching me with Q was like watching one-to-one nursing care, 24/7. She was suspicious of Veggie Tales ("Can talking vegetables really be a good influence on young children?" Ha!) and unfailingly gentle and engaged with little ones - loving on Q and getting him to burble to her, and bringing toddler G the Good Dog, Carl book when she realized that he might be afraid of their large dog. We loved that book, just about to pieces.

I so admired her for who she was: a fierce mama to her kids, whip-smart, wickedly funny, kind, insightful, a touchstone for her husband, a loyal and attentive friend, widely read, loving, and able to throw snark with champions. It seems brutally unfair that such a person should be gone from her family, her life, from the lives of the people who loved her so. I'm sad and fairly weepy.

I have good stuff to share about the more current doings here, but that will have to be later. We've such cool things happening at church this weekend, and I've got to go blow my nose a few more times before hitting the sack so we can be ready for the morning. For goodness sakes, love on the people you find to be important to you. Really.

XO.

Headlong

The big kids will be back Sunday. And we hit it full-speed Monday morning. I've never done re-entry this way before -- usually I plan a few days of getting us all back on track and running a little more quickly every day, but this time we've got school and appointments and practices and meetings all piling up very quickly. I had thought this part of the year might be quiet, relative to December. Ha.

Q has finished his second full day of oral Baclofen -- tiny dosing this week, increasing over the next three weeks, at which point we check in with our lovely neuro guy for a new dosing schedule. Have I mentioned how much we love our neuro guy? He's very cool. It's a little odd to be back to cutting, smashing and combining doses again. I feel a little like I'm managing a compounding pharmacy on wheels when two spoons, toothpicks, and something to cover the taste are all parts of the regularly packed-along items.

Q and I took turns being sick during the big kids' visit with their dad. Q started out their time away with projectile vomiting and is finally wrapping up a snotty nose. My bug flattened me a little, so some of my projects (and writing here) didn't get done. Wah. But I did debreed Q's shelves so now everything that should fits easily in either shelving or the one toy container on the floor. I'm considering waiting a few more weeks and doing it again. I got rid of four big bags of toys and paraphernalia -- it was awesome. Now if we could figure out some way to combine all the other things he has and needs. If someone could make his walker be a seating system, stander, potty system, bath seat, and alternate sleep space (keeping his tiny recliner until I can figure out something else that will let him sleep on difficult nights) -- man, that would be miraculous.

New Year's Eve I was remembering where I'd been ten years earlier. Heh. E had swallowed a penny a day or so earlier, as reported quite seriously by G. We'd been, um, watching for it to come through with no sign of it at that point. We'd been thinking about the options available to us if at midnight that night, all electronics went poof while E suddenly had need of medical attention, and had thus ended up in the local children's hospital for an abdominal x-ray. It was very quiet there that afternoon. I sat my pregnant self down while the daddy tracked the two year-old. He went in with her when it was time. While I waited outside the room full of radiation I wondered about how things would go over the next several hours. Something about the pregnant brain encourages apocalyptic tendencies, I think. I wondered if we'd be living, as one friend puts it, "a Thunderdome existence" while trying to plan for the arrival of the baby that's now known as K. As stressful as things could easily have been, I have very sweet memories of all those adventures with kidlets. Good times.

I've been thinking a lot lately about ringing in new... things. Attitudes. Undertakings. About peeling away the outer scalings that protect us from each other and keep us from being genuine, kind, present, useful. I don't know what to say about it. Things are still organizing in my head. Perhaps the leading thought is that it's important to always be willing to return to the table, as it were. If one were in, say, some sort of corporate negotiations, one would always need to return to that table in order to have progress between the parties, yes?

Sometimes achieving just that much, the coming back when exhausted by the weighty things of life, just that much is the hardest thing to pull off in that moment. It feels insurmountable, and yet not. I have lived long enough now to see a teenager changed by soft words when harsher ones were earned. I have felt dire frustration melt away to nothing when it was simply acknowledged as legitimate. I have prayed for deeper reserves when at 3 a.m. I was sure as I'd ever been of anything that the well had run dry -- and had it filled again. The swift, silent power in that grace experienced is compelling, breath-altering, and so, so bold.

This year I'm looking for opportunities to cement that as instinct within myself and to introduce that to my children. I want them to come to this early, to be on a first-name basis with an internalized peace that simultaneously rocks the world and anchors us, and for them to eventually allow this to frame and inform everything. It is a tall order, I think. We'll begin with hot drinks and something yummy come Monday morning, chatting first, as we work back into our rhythm.

Happy 2010, dear people. Wishing you rest and renewal, strength and vision, and opportunities (take them!) to glory in all that you have. Mwah.

Wanderlust

School's been a bit of a struggle this week. We've had some book work, some art, lots of piano and violin, a kid who set her own alarm for 7:30 and is getting up to take things on in the morning (go back and read that again -- it took me awhile to understand those words myself), some need to confiscate various screened devices (boredom = lots of reading). We've devoured a big box of peaches, tomatoes on the vine, attended to therapies, groceries, more therapies, more reading, earlier bedtimes (recalling the 7:30 alarm -- hooray!), and a gazillion loads of laundry.

Getting the kids into the swing of things is always harder when certain other aspects of life are up in the air. First there's the adjustment involved in coming back from their dad's, then the fact that I'm trying to rearrange chunks of the house. It's a bit confusing, really. Something has simply got to give as far as Q's equipment goes. He must be able to use it, we must all have living space, some of us do enjoy sleep and find the level of chaos surrounding the management of stuff to be time consuming and draining in the extreme.

I fantasize about getting the kids down to a couple of pieces of memorabilia each, their own pillows and sleeping bags, laptops, less than a dozen books, cameras, backpacks, some art supplies, and throwing us all into one of those enormous RVs -- four bunks, each with some shelving and privacy curtains, a couple of drawers and a closet to share. It would have to have a master "suite" which would include a queen bed for Q and me -- other sleeping arrangements would be nearly impossible for him in such a configuration. A crib would take too much space from the rest of the group, and I couldn't put him on the floor because he's getting harder and harder to lift. I think we could easily get his walker and chair into such a space, though. Maybe the feeding chair? Or the Bingo could fold up and slide underneath in those spiffy compartments.

I've always wanted to do this, even before Q. Back when their daddy was working such long hours that it was a serious fantasy of mine just to get him into a place where he couldn't answer a pager, phone, or email, where he could just be with the fam and we with him. I was reasonably sure that even in an RV the bedroom door would have a lock on it, and I wanted us to go see Williamsburg, spend some weeks, maybe months, touring the country, making memories with the kids of caves, canyons, buildings, trains, art, deserts, beaches, us.

Anyhoo, it's still something I'd love to do, with involved and careful planning so we could manage Q's stuff. It has occurred to me that time for something like that may be slipping away as Q gets bigger, his spasticity more pronounced, and he's generally just harder to maneuver. I haven't looked into modifying an RV, but it's expensive to deal with just ordinary autos' mods. I've considered the fact that payments on a ginormous vehicle are less than rent, and that it would be a character building exercise for us to just live in that kind of space.

Aw, c'mon! Think positive! Stop rolling your eyes. Anyway, the kids won't miss it if we never do it, so I will tell myself. They've gotten their RV experience in already, so they're much more pragmatic where I have delusional romantic notions.

How did I get off on that? Oh right, stuff. STUFF. Maybe six years ago now I heard about a guy who decided that since his travels kept him both collecting things and spending very little time actually in his home, with his stuff, he was going to turn all his stuff into digital format. So he took pictures, made notes, wrote a little about the memories he had surrounding those objects, and ended up with a drawer full of compact flash cards in a bank. Wow, I thought. Way to go. Kids and babies do not subscribe to this philosophy of traveling light, be it through life or on actual trips. But with help they can be converted. I'm pretty sure. We're working on it.

There are things I would have once had a serious problem letting go of. They just seemed to represent so much of our family, then -- memories, really. It's amazing how life sometimes conspires to change our attachments. When we were planning a cross-country move it hit me so clearly that the stuff wasn't us. We were more than the things we owned, such as they were. When much of that stuff that I still thought of as precious later disappeared, some in a misunderstanding, some through means I can't really explain, it was an uneasy time. But I'm still here. I still have the memories. Certain things I think I'll always keep (anniversary presents, letters, pictures), but suddenly, well it seems sudden but it was probably years in the making, I want to load up my little brown messenger bag (that I got in college to replace the one that was full of that quarter's books and my whole cashed paycheck and was stolen out of my car when I popped into someone's apartment to say hello one evening...). I want to load that durable little fake leather bag up with a few minor electronic things of mine, put the aforementioned personal items into individual (small) spaces for the kids, and just go. There would be a few other considerations -- I need a decent pillow, Q prefers sleeping on memory foam. We should pack clothes enough to last between laundromats. But Q's not needing doctor visits every five minutes just now (though winter's coming), we have no seizure meds to concern ourselves with and the Baclofen talk doesn't happen until October (new med to try which means we're right here, not going anywhere or doing anything while we figure that out), his equipment is smaller now than it will be in the years to come.

Hey -- I could get the kids' passports all in order and we could see P.E.I. while we're back on that other coast. How cool would that be?

I could continue, but adding detail to the fantasy doesn't really accomplish anything. Q's finally out, and I'm wiped. There's lesson planning to be done, writing, ordering, tossing, filing, and garbage yet to attend to. Aren't brain vacations nice anyway? Maybe we'll have to think up some variations then. Or just go ahead and budget for a 1.5 terabyte external drive. That would hold us for a bit, while I try coming up with some new travel fantasy. Maybe this one should involve nursing care for Q and scheduled naps for me -- probably the single scariest thing to me about taking off cross-country with the kids is how durned tired I am already.

XO, peeps. Hope you're resting well.

To doctor, to doctor

...to, what. Truss a bad wig? To... Stir jam up of figs? Roast good things that dig? Sorry. I've got nothing, but "to buy a fat pig" really didn't fit. Anyhoo...

Just a quick post before running off to vacuum, get lunch together and then head out to the neuro appointment this afternoon. I'm running tired today, not feeling especially clear-headed -- two fifths of the children were up in the night and one of them quite repeatedly. Guess which one.

You're right! How did you know? :o)

The neuro office called last week to tell me that the results of the EEG showed no seizure activity. This being the office manager with the pronounced accent and an understanding that no one else can possibly grasp the issues at hand (eyeroll), I don't know what that really means. I'm not ready to get excited. Well, not beyond the little leap of fluttering hope that pops it's head up every time I think about it.

Sigh.

As much as I long for good news and easy stuff, I'm not especially trusting of such things any more.

On other fronts, G is recovering nicely from periorbital cellulitis. Yay for Big Pharma! I heart antibiotics that really can kick bacteria. E had a round of puking Friday. There's really nothing like waking up to that. After we thought it had passed. And she had eaten spinach ravioli. Which I scrubbed out of the rug with Clorox wipes. Hey, certain sections of the walls and floor and etc. have been so thoroughly disinfected as to have exceeded OR standards. Really all I'm missing in my arsenal is an autoclave.

Thankfully, it seems to have been just an E thing and not a sharable bug. Or I scared it to death with bleach. Great image, no? Three a.m. and I'm brandishing wipes, bleach , paper towels, trash bag, and shouting (whispering), "En garde!"

Snort.

Anyhoo, we've been mostly having fun. We've been whipping up quinoa salads, potato salads, and other assorted yumminess. There's a quadruple batch of strawberry jam in the freezer, made from local berries that melt in your mouth. Slurp. When things get hectic I don't get to do much from scratch. I always forget how much I miss it until I get back into the rhythm of chopping and stirring, seasoning and feeding. It's sort of a three-fold blessing -- it's meditative for me during the process, gratifying to feed the peeps and then have them both enjoying the food and being nourished by it.

It's about time for the homeschooling convention. I have a short list of things to pick up this time, mostly high-school level reference stuff and some workbooks. It's funny -- when I first discovered The Well-Trained Mind I spent hours and hours over the period of several days working out all the details, getting everything just right. I can now list everything the kids will need for any given year from memory -- with the possible addition of ancillary workbooks for an individual child and the exception of the complete reading lists. Funny, no? Anyway, I'm going to try not to swoon at the smell of all those new books. (hee) The big kids may go for part of the day. They get a kick out of it too.

Q's been in the pack for the first time this season. I carried him only about half an hour, thanks to gallant young men in our company, including G. Q seemed to think he'd made himself a cadre of new friends by the time we were done, so I think we're good to go for this year anyway. He's a heavy boy -- about 32 pounds -- but we'll manage to trek around for a few more months anyway. There's a big SN jogger/bike trailer out there. It's about $700 new. It's awesome. I may have posted about it before. I'll go look after the appointment and if not, I'll come back and put up a link to the page.

Melanie and Lonnie and Daniel seem to once again be tracking our vibe, or vice versa. I'm watching Q again for a G-tube, simply because we don't seem to be gaining much on the ability to handle texture. Crackers that melt are okay but he loses lots, soft bits of bread sometimes get chewed and go down, more often not. Otherwise Q has everything pureed, thickened, or monitored as if he were in a maximum security facility and trying to get away with something. He does water okay, but does also aspirate. Some. But no pneumonia. Yet. Which brings us to the swallow study. Turns out Q's Speech Path person is the new facilitator for the brand new pediatric swallow study program at the hospital affiliated with the therapy place. So we'll be doing that fairly soon and follow the result with some decisions.

Blech.

I'll spare you my lament about holes in Q's perfect little belly vs. ease of feeding, what constitutes appropriate weight gain and how one determines what is good nutrition for this child. This part of the medical issues I completely and utterly despise. Most things that come up with him are just things to be conquered, not argued. Do the research, make the decision, on we go, chasing progress. But the eye surgery and the G-tube issues don't seem to have any clear answers (yet) and I hate that. Hate it. His daddy's gruesome descriptions of various procedures lurk in the back of my mind. The order of magnitude for these is too big for there to not be any clear answers; the thought of anyone cutting into this punkin makes me want to vomit. Perhaps I'll stay away from the spinach ravioli for a while.

Back with news later. Thanks for praying.

Sweet water

I've been hiding.

I'm kidding. I've just been very busy and heavily annoyed at my fallible self, physical and otherwise. Mostly the physical parts. Let's just say that I could use a tune-up that involves actual repairs to my cranky parts. Moving on.

My favorite quote this week: The high road is often a pain in the arse.

The kids have had their piano and violin recitals. Q will be up for his next neuro appointment soon. Two girls go in for their orthodontist check-up on Monday (looking for timing).

We tried to have a really cool geology field trip yesterday, but ended up with something more like a nice road trip which the kids turned into an impromptu swimming excursion. "Plan Z" indeed. The best part was not finding that the bridge was closed after we'd driven nearly three hours. It was not that we had along only enough food for a marginally acceptable picnic (if they were starving they could have had carrots or apples or cheese or crackers). It was that everyone kept a healthy sense of humor (Why advertise an overlook if the trees have grown so high that there's nothing to see? Hmm? Because that did not happen overnight and you could have removed the signs five or six years ago.). Yes we did. We had plenty of potty stops, the nice lady let all twelve of us into the park for free so we could salvage the day with a handicapped-accessible beach and play equipment, the coin-op showers were warm, the hand dryers efficient, and it was just about 85 degrees. There were logs to float around and play make-believe with, big fish jumping, and grape-scented bubbles to blow. Miracle of miracles, almost everyone had almost completely dry clothes by the time we found food again. And I got to drive through miles and miles of rolling green-ness, grasses that looked like they'd been groomed for their cover shots, huge gorgeous trees both deciduous and not, nursery fields of iris and baby Christmas trees... It's been eons since we were out and about like that. I think K was a baby last time.

Spring has about taken us prisoner here. But no one really wants to escape. The days are long and sunny, warm enough to send us looking for cool drinks and sprinklers. The tomatoes are mostly in the ground, all eighteen of them. Well, we're down to sixteen. We'll see how many hang on now. The Sweet One Hundred plants already have blossoms on their tops, so we should have home-grown tomatoes to go with our fat and fluffy basil plants by the fourth of July. (How would I know? I'm totally guessing.) The glads all returned this year, despite not being dug up for the winter. I stuck Cherry-blossom nasturtium seeds in between them and sprinkled a packet of rosy pink alyssum seeds in there too. Should be fun to see them all come up and take over: a potential riot of pinks.

A friend and I were reminiscing about the things we missed most about California, she having been born and raised there, I having spent about six years there. We both miss the predictability of the sun. I started thinking about this back yard we had there. It was a funky little place, part of the house being actual dirt walls. I loved that little house. Very cool. The living room carpet was G's learning to crawl place, thick and comfy looking. I painted the master bedroom with a blue wash that made it feel like one was maybe under the sea (sing it!). Never mind the high speed chase that ended with a wheel bouncing up onto the front lawn. Lizards would get in and freak me out (any reptile over about nine inches suddenly appearing in my kitchen might have that effect). The flower beds in the front were darling, really. Sort of English garden on a smaller scale: they had more shade in the heat of summer, plus huge miniature rose bushes. Well, huge for minis, anyway. It was lovely. But the best part was the backyard. Not the part where a kid was dumping medical waste over our fence. Ignore that. Let's focus instead on the little hot tub that someone repaired well enough that we could use it. And then we did.

It seemed like there was about a three week period where the lemons and oranges and grapefruit trees in that little yard were blooming. It was heavenly. And then, sort of simultaneously, there was the huge jasmine, all eighty square feet of it, bursting little pink buds into the sweetest, lightest perfume... It was followed almost immediately by the roses, hot and honeyed, and then the actual honeysuckle, so big that it eventually pulled down it's large and solid support built of four by fours. Being out there in that little hot tub surrounded by those wafting scents was surreal. Impossible to explain. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is maybe being bathed in a warm vapor of perfume, almost more light than scent. Wild.

That little yard saw a gigantic white dog, G learning to walk, the death (by silenced gun) of several possums, and a birthday cake with a conglomeration of little plastic figures on it: a tiny scuba diver, an itty-bitty rattle, booties, plastic fish...

Seems like a lifetime ago. But every once in a great while, I'm flying along, minding both my own business and that of the five offspring, when suddenly there's that scent of something like warm honey, oranges, jasmine, gardenias. That smell that's hard to pin down, but instantly familiar. And I'm back there again, head back, eyes closed, floating and smiling in the dark.

Loss

By now you've surely heard of the plane crash near the Butte, Montana airport?

There's not much to say, is there? It's heartbreaking that three families were just wiped out, now gone. Three homes, left for family vacations, that wait, empty now. One set of grandparents lost not only a beloved son, but their daughter-in-law and all of their grandbabies, another very nearly so -- along with two of their daughters, another a son who was becoming known as a surgeon -- as stellar in his field as his dad. I don't know how a person goes on drawing breath him or herself when suffering through the aftermath of such a thing. It seems too much to bear.

One of the dads who died was a freshman med student when I was pregnant with E on the same campus where we were. Seems like one of the moms was involved in the same mom's group I was when we lived there the second time. Heavens. I can't think about any part of this without welling up.

I hope the remaining members of the extended families can lean on each other and continue to draw on their faith as they grieve and move through the next parts -- funerals, memorials, investigations, press coverage.

Prayers for the families as we all squeeze those beloved littles and their mama/daddy just a bit tighter.

Running

Now there's a title. It's accurate and metaphoric, all at once. I used to have pages of ads, pictures that I'd torn out of Shape Magazine and others, shots of women running: on the beach, down the boardwalk, around a lake. I had them stuck to the back of our bedroom door, sort of a "vision board," to borrow from The Secret's lingo. Anyway, I've thought about it over the years. Had dreams, literally and more figuratively, of doing sprint distance triathlons, but I've never known how to rearrange everything (kids, hubster, house, and etc.) to make training of any kind show up on the radar. Plus there's this ridiculous knee of mine. I truly can't afford to mess with it. If I'm lucky and careful and all that, according to the orthopedist, I should have about five more years before I have to figure out how to finance another knee surgery. Instead of running, we biked on the weekends and used to walk after supper, taking the family around the neighborhood, littles in the bike trailer/stroller or later up on shoulders when the little legs ran themselves tired. It was awesome.

So. Fast forward to now. I still have a bazillion legitimate reasons not to run, but the idea won't leave me alone. In my experience, this urging is best listened to. And quick, before it has to swell to epic proportions to get my attention and I end up learning to run by, say, having to relearn things like standing and walking in some intensive PT program somewhere. Guess I'd better get creative with the schedule, then.

Over the last few weeks, I've tried, pushed in fact, to make sleep a priority for me. I've made it to bed before midnight a few times. But even on the nights where Q sleeps for several hours all in a row, I'm often startling awake, feeling that things are somehow amiss, just as I used to when Someone was on call. Getting better sleep always equals better everything else for me, including just basic ability to keep up. Perhaps if I go back to just focusing on the sleep issue, other things will again feel a little easier.

(Brace yourself for the inevitable whine which follows right... now.) I believe I can now provide hard evidence that whatever happens, no matter how fast I run (pun intended), I will never, ever, not even one time, get it done. Not all of it, maybe not even most of it. Given that, it seems like an important thing right now to know whether or not I'm tired or depleted, you know? Because tired, dog tired, is to be expected. A droopy immune system may also be expected but it is not even a little bit acceptable. It would cut into my ability to push through, as do certain more chronic pain issues. Those things have to be handled, now, and gotten past, ASAP. The ones that refuse to go away just suck the life right out of a person. That's usually the time that a persistent track pops up in my head: "You're just one person. What makes you think you can do this? You can't do this! You're only one person!"

It's taken me too long to shut that stoopid voice down, let me tell ya. (Rolling eyes at self.) The big problem with that voice is that it's right. And also dead wrong. I can choose to buy into the truth that it's all on my head here, all these needs and plans and schedules to keep, or I can go with a slightly less panicky version. It has occurred to me, in sometimes emphatically illustrated ways, that I haven't a moment to spare on this sort of thing. Every last thing needs to be constructive, useful, a building up instead of tearing down. I mean, we all know about the tearing down of muscle in order to build it up (great reference to the same here), and that certainly applies in holding oneself together: the holding together is often best done in the context of new skills, often gained in a tearing down portion of the cycle. Perhaps especially so when one has dependents who, well, depend on one.

Steven Covey says in his tape "How to Write a Family Mission Statement" that when pilots fly, they're off their stated plan as much as 90% of the time. Ninety percent!? And yet, they make course corrections, consulting with their instruments, with their flight plans, with towers. They almost always arrive on time and at the correct destination, even when they've spent ninety percent of their time in the air pointed in a direction other than the one they wanted to be headed. The take away point, for me, is the willingness to course-correct.

I wonder sometimes how the kids will remember these years. That's pretty much what keeps me flying along at a high rate of speed. Vacuums get filled up you know, so best to have a full stock nearby of truly Good Things with which to fill them. So. Rather than being focused on the vacancies, it's vitally important to put all ounces of energy into making good memories, pulling material from every direction, talking when words barely come, listening when sleep is calling, reading and researching and praying, and staying in the moment and loving on 'em even when they're just plain horrid. Wish that last one were easier.

We're in a very different stage of life these days. G has applied for a summer volunteer position at the zoo/aquarium*. He's excited and a little fearful about it, laughing self-consciously when I asked him whether he was hoping they'd call or hoping they wouldn't. E wants to dive in right after him -- she's been trying to figure out how to go rock drug-addicted babies or help therapists where Q is every week. Those places won't take volunteers under 14, so she's been pretty disappointed. I'm trying to think of how to maybe go, the two of us, to do this. K, for all her current frustration with certain sibs, loves on Mr. Q like nobody's business. She is all about how to make him laugh, and does she ever. S is navigating new ground too: how to be responsible and grown-up when no one recognizes your mad butter knife skillz (food prep) or that you're jolly well just as capable of just about everything as any of the other kids. Q is busy -- he's decided that food is mostly passe, unless it's dessert (hmmm, sounds like he's three). He's getting ready for an AAC eval because his new Speech Path is all about getting things done, and she likes PRC. (Hand clapping, happy dancing) And? She knows the rep. She'd be happy to call Mia up and ask her what they can do for us in the way of a loaner. Something to play with so Q can see what he really needs.

So I have five on the verge. They're setting up the pins and knocking them down. By contrast, I'm feeling too often like I'm just about keeping up, when the most useful place for me to be is out ahead. The therapy bags, diaper bags, purses, duffels, music bags, church/quiet bags, and their ilk, all need sorting, laundering, repacking. Q's toy/therapy shelves need sorting. The girls closet needs reorganizing according to size and season. I got a thorough job done while they were gone at Christmas, but it seems like no matter how much a person does in there, clothing and miscellaneous detritus just keep popping up. The laundry room could use an emptying of everything that isn't nailed down and then a thorough cleaning (detergent droplets make a horrible goo). We might be up some pairs of socks at the end of that effort.

While all the above is true, it's also just as true that the kids are 56 days into their goal of 100 consecutive days of violin practice (piano hasn't fared quite as well, but close). It's also true that the dishes keep getting done, the cupboards wiped down, the floor swept and mopped. It's true that the kids keep reorganizing their school cubbies, putting away their violins, sorting laundry. Bags of unused or no longer needed items continue to leave the house, headed for Goodwill or ARC. Things that must be kept are put into their memory boxes. And everyone gets fed really good stuff (my interpretation) and then washed up. Every day. Learning happens, conversation happens. Every day.

"Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself." (The Desiderata) It's hard to resign oneself from being open to the judgements and qualifiers of the rat race. But it's worth it. Or so I hear. I'll let you know when I reach the mountain top. Right after I have a nap.

We'll consider it a course correction.





*This process made me grin. It was very like the mad dash made for the proper postmark date, nearly an hour from where we were going to school, me driving pell mell through the dark while someone was writing his personal statement for his John's Hopkins application. "Discuss, discuss. Scribble. What?" Repeat. G was far more collected than either of us were, much to his credit, and no writing was done en route, but still. He sounds more like his dad all the time, the whole process brought back such strong memories, all while I'm feeling a little out of body about my eldest filling out applications for anything. Seems like he was a toddler in my arms, first asleep over my pregnant belly, then carried by his dad, all of us at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, just moments ago.

In review

On Thursday, Q saw an ophthalmologist. This is a different doc than the one we saw when Q was new. This visit was spurred by the preschool eval, still ongoing. In order for Q to receive vision services (therapies), he needs a specific diagnosis. The neurologist, pediatrician, optometrist, and vision specialist with the Birth to Three program have each thought Cortical Vision Impairment is a likely diagnosis. First because of the thinning of the cortex/white matter to the rear of his brain (in the area of the visual cortex) visible on the MRI, but also because he's behaved visually much like one would expect a kid looking through Swiss cheese to behave, per the description of CVI.

The doctor was quite personable, a nice man, and unusually social (especially for a surgeon). He did a good exam, and talked about how hard it is to tell with a kid like Q what his issues really are, etc. Kind of the usual stuff. There were a couple of things though that sort of caught my attention during the process. First, he told me that Q was the "third or fourth kid with these same issues -- micro gyri" that he'd seen this month. With all due respect, I think he was talking about Microcephaly, also one of Q's diagnoses, but a whole other topic. Polymicrogyria and Microcephaly don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. This has prompted me to think about printing up cards with one side titled: "What is Polymicrogyria?" And the other side reading: "What Polymicrogyria is not" with subsequent lists of helpful details in proper terms, so both medical and lay people can take a quick read and have a better grasp of the subject. I'll be getting right on that, as soon as the boy sleeps through more than 1.2 nights per week.

The second thing was that he didn't notice that Q wanted the light spinner toy he was holding up as part of the exam. The doctor talked about Q being unlike neurotypical kids in that most three year olds would want the toy and try to take it. Right. And Q would have, if it had been available to him longer. I know that I'm more attuned to Q cuing (pardon the pun/alliteration/whatever it is), but how did you not see his hands leap toward the toy? How does one not know that the goofy grin and delighted giggle mean he wants that thing and would gladly arm-wrestle you to the ground for it. If you can just wait until the hands and arms and trunk cooperate. Q's excitement was obvious to me. I wonder if the doctor might have taken longer with Q if I'd talked then about his motor planning issues? It just didn't occur to me...

The night before, Q went down at 11:30 and got up at 12:30. He fussed and kahfitzed about before going to sleep in his little recliner chair around 3:30, then awakening to fuss again at 5:28. (The things we remember at those hours. I was awake for the same reason and felt an earthquake the week before, a 4.5, with the clock reading 5:27am. You know you're inured to these things when you don't even get up but instead open one eye, from the couch where you're lying while you're trying to sleep and pray that the boy will do the same because beds just aren't working this night, to check whether or not the chandelier is swaying. Since it's not, you amuse yourself with imagining how one might describe the motion, what the magnitude felt like vs. what it was, how far underground it was, etc., while you try to drift off again, quickly, before you don't get to. Priorities.) Where was I? Right. So I was up and running again at eight, with Q comfortably ensconced in my bed, now ready to sleep until ten or so. (Eyes rolling) I got everyone else up and moving and we headed out, late, and praying. The office was running more than twice as late as we were, as it turned out. A fortunate thing, because parking there is a bear. I'd mostly happily drive twice the distance to the other children's hospital, just for the two or three dozen handicapped parking spaces they have right by the front door, rather than tangle with cranky people who don't want to walk their handicapped kid five blocks in the stinging cold. The lady who pulled into the spot I'd been signalling for changed her mind and pulled out of it as I circled back around. I'm so glad she did. I'm sure her crazy day was at least as important and thoroughly nutty as mine, but. I had my signal on first, before she was even in the parking lot. She was all pulled in and could have stayed there. But she didn't. This made me so happy I almost cried. (We are recalling the no sleep thing, yes?)

Once inside, the doctor's assistant paid me a lovely compliment when he asked if I was a nurse: "You're describing everything so well and succinctly, just as though you had a medical background." (Yes, well. My medical background consists of quizzing my children's father through his tests -- amazing the things that stick in one's head -- and being a quick study for language-based things, especially when my kids are involved. I read. A lot. Enough that I don't generally have a problem confidently disagreeing with or correcting the professionals when I think they've gotten it wrong. Sometimes it makes them twitchy but we usually fix that pretty quickly -- mostly because we've been fortunate enough to have some really great medical professionals of all stripes on our teams. Speaking of which. Funny story. When the kids' dad was doing his pediatric rotation in the university hospital, the attending pediatrician asked him if he had kids. He responded that he did, four, including a four month old, and that we were all up north, waiting for him to find a house so we could join him there in the south. The attending told him, "You should be nice to your wife, because she works harder than you do." (!?) She went on to speak of her boys and how she loved them dearly, but doctoring was a much easier job than parenting. This made me laugh. I don't know why it struck me as funny, but it did. Perhaps because I hadn't really thought to compare the two? People just do what they do and on we go -- I think learning to be a doctor is a very tough thing indeed, and I love being a mom, you know? How to compare the two? I still think he had it harder. Anyway. Guess who we had as a pediatrician when we moved down a few weeks later? Yup. She's an awesome doc, too. Six years later her comments still crack me up.)

(Have we noticed how distractable I am this evening? Erm. Morning?)

So Q survived the dilation of his pupils and ate his breakfast while we waited for the office to get themselves back on schedule. The harder thing for me to hear when the ophthalmologist was doing his exam was, "Did the other ophthalmologist make any mention of nerve atrophy in the right eye?" I don't know. I don't think so. Q certainly has the most trouble making that eye track, though it seems to have been working better over time (a point I made when the doc referred to Q as "Cortically Blind").

I just don't want him to have nerve damage. Could we have one exam that doesn't reveal some other minor or not so minor catastrophe? So it's probably time to be thinking about surgery to make the eyes line up. While I get that it's important (ish) for the cosmetic reasons (folks respond more nicely to those who look "appropriate" -- the nicest word I can think of right now when I'd just like to point out how inappropriate it is to base your response to another human being on whether or not they look like they "get it"), I don't know about the arguments on the medical side. If his eyes line up better physically does this automatically mean better vision? As in, not double? Or does cutting and etc. in there change his ability to use the neural pathways he's laid down already? Do we really already alternate vision between our eyes, as some experts suggest, and therefore, the risks of losing neural pathways in a surgical procedure is just too great? What to do?

While you ponder that, I'm going to leave you with a story about S. Please leave any comments or info you have about the vision issues in the comment section. Thanks.

After the appointment I stopped by the grocery store to grab milk and baby food for Q. (I make most of his food these days, but sometimes it's important to be able to just stir stuff up and run. Thus the small portions of pre-pureed fruits and veggies.) At the checkout, S was being her usual helpful self and placing items from the cart up on the belt. The checker, who recognizes us every time we're in there, says to S, "Hi! Is school out today?"

To which S replies, all seriousness, "No. I'm homeschooled."

"Oh riiight," the checker says and resumes her work as S chatters on a bit more. S is tired or the patter would have continued and continued and continued... As it was, she had rather a lot to share.

I said to the nice checker lady, quietly, or so I thought, "She'd probably give you her blood type if she knew it."

Nice checker lady chuckles, tickled, and turns around to see S, where she's now positioned herself. "Is that true? Would you tell me your blood type if you knew it?"

S says, perking right up, "Actually, I do." Silence. "It's warm."

Nice checker lady and I blink. Oh right! Warm! As in the science we've been studying! (slapping forehead) Nice checker lady, now grinning, says, "Well, I'm not warm-blooded. I'm cold." Resumes checking.

S, not one to let misinformation stand, says, "No, you're not! You're a mammal. Mammals have warm blood."

Nice checker lady is now nearly guffawing. I murmur that the science seems to be sticking. Nice checker lady collects herself and turns again, smiling broadly, to S to say, "You're right. I'm a mammal. But I'm a popsicle mammal. What do you think I should do to get warm?"

S replies, "Well... I think you should drink lots of hot things... and sit by the fire in a nice chair... and maybe have some soup... and wrap up in a blanket... and see how that works for ya."

I thought we were both going to be crying by the time we were out of there. Me and the nice checker lady. S looked at both of us like we were nuts. Well. Probably so. My brain was somewhere back with the earthquake or the parking space.

Happy Sabbath, y'all. Get some rest this weekend. I'm off to do the same.

::Smooches::

Four things

I'm combining topics here because I'm running short on time, not because any one of them is less significant, or less deserving of a full exploration. We'll proceed chronologically through the biggest events of the week.

Preschool. Turns out the co-director of the Special Services is a member of our church. A guy well known for his even-ness. Hurrah. It seems that the details need to be worked out, but that Q will be able to receive some services at home, perhaps some therapy at the school district? I don't know what exactly this will look like and neither does anyone else, since we're in uncharted waters, but I'm so glad to have a team of people who are listening carefully about Quinn's various needs and diagnoses and all working to get him what he needs. More about this to come. That was Wednesday.

Thursday my mom finally got my dad to a doctor about his increasing weakness in his hands. It's, well, it just is. This isn't going to be a picnic. He has risk factors that increase the likelihood that the worst case scenario will play out, but there are things that can be done, so we'll see. Suffice it to say that things will be different than we had imagined and we're all thinking differently about everything. The rest is his story to tell.

Friday. I was on the phone for most of the finishing off of the trial. It's done. There will be papers to sign, I think. I am sad, but in practical terms, nothing in my life changes. Probably the saddest part is that he doesn't see our kids more, and they him. This is the single most wrenching detail for me now.

It's kind of too bad for him that he didn't meet her long, long ago, you know? I imagine they probably both feel the same. Anyhoo, he's marrying her soon and they'll have a long and quite likely very happy life together.

As for the details of the end result? Well... I'd hoped to be able to save for a house. I don't think that will happen, what with kids needing braces, and etc. But I am without a guillotine hanging over my head, financially speaking. I am grateful and relieved for that; it is no small thing. The kids will have most of what they could possibly need and we'll figure out the rest. It will be good, because it will be. Because I said so. Because I am working up to becoming a force of nature. Rowr.

Some of you will now want to ask things about my moving on, dating, remarrying, etc. Here are my thoughts on that: A friend sent me a link to a woman's blog, the widow of a very good man. They had an incredible relationship, a devout/practicing home, much love and laughter, a pile of growing and happy kids, and then suddenly he was gone. She has spoken on her blog of wanting to remarry in part because she had known a Very Good Marriage and wanted that again.

I can appreciate that. Viscerally. I can also appreciate that you wish all manner of good things for me and mine, especially in the relationship department, especially since each member of my little group has most of our lives yet ahead. Life is just not looking like that at this point. And I've got stuff to do, so we'll move on now.

Saturday (Sabbath). I took the big kids to church and we cut out a little early to get home in time for Q to be the demo kid for a feeding class. Rona Alexander, a speech path PhD, came out from Wisconsin to teach a class at the therapy place. Q's new speech therapist, come March, was there too (hurray!). Ms. Alexander had me set Q up to feed like we usually do in the Versaform, then give him a few bites of food, some drinks out of his Boost for kids straw, and using a cup, drink some water. She watched and then took him and worked him over. For about an hour, she did all kinds of compression, stretching, wringing (massage vocabulary coming out there), and generally turned him into a wet noodle. With each pull/push, he sat up a little taller, pushed a little harder, until he was, while perched on an 8" bolster, sitting upright with his feet flat on the floor (!), and holding his head upright, wobbly still, but only a little, with just light support under his arms. Holy cow! He's a shameless applause-aholic and whipped his head around and grinned at different parts of the room in order to elicit claps and laughter. He was totally in his element, and the whole group of therapists was smiling, enthralled. (Later the resident therapists discussed how they secretly fight over him and want him on their schedules. Heh.)

But the coolest thing? Ms. Alexander has shown in her work how tongue thrusting (Q has an often unhelpful tongue) relates to a child looking to right his tone and stabilize his trunk. So after she worked with him to turn him into Gumby and he was sitting so nicely, pelvis in place, head up, she had me feed him again. Guess what. C'mon. Guess.

His tongue didn't push the food or liquid out.

Really. He got the food in his mouth and swallowed it. He had some dribbles, but one can clearly see the progression and note that the dribbling really is just related to his awareness of his lips. Not to the tongue. Not to his ability to take food. So. Not to overstate it or anything, but WOW.

I inquired further about what an ideal scenario would look like, incorporating her techniques into his daily routines and therapies. She said that more therapy sessions every week would be great ( this means $$$, because insurance probably won't cover it). A therapist asked how much of this she'd show to a parent and her reply was, "Well, depending on the parent..."

I asked, rather quietly, and kind of holding my breath, "How about a parent with a background in massage?"

So she showed me stuff to do. It's a little alarming, since it looks like you're maybe about to lift his ribs right off him, but I did it and I can see how it affects everything from his breathing (his OT had just expressed concern for his future respiratory function), to his tongue, to whether or not and how he'll be able to walk or sit.

I spent a few seconds kicking myself as I watched her work, since much of her technique is kind of like Deep Tissue for itty-bitty bodies, and I feel like I should be aware of all things related to muscle/soft tissue, if not actually able to influence them myself. I reoriented my head pretty quickly. I mean, if I'm short on time anyway, wasting it on self-flagellation is ridiculously counter-productive. So I'll do a little bit more work with him when he comes out of the tub -- while he's all warm and softened up, show everyone who deals with him what he should look like when he's propped and structurally working really nicely, and go push gently for more OT and PT time.

Seriously. If I can get a copy of the tape and figure out how to post pieces of it, you would be amazed to see the difference. Shoot, those of us in the room watching the whole process were floored.

That's been the week around here. Plus the regular school and music lessons. And the kids holding their own Art School in the living room. K became the go-fer, G put his sketch book on the little collapsible music stand, and E and S set up their easels (from Christmases past). Q gets wedged between everyone with his birthday balloon in his little fist. After a while, Little Miss Go-fer settles down with her book and they're all sitting there, alternately gazing out the windows and swabbing their papers with color or scribbling away. These things often spontaneously burst forth and it's so fun to watch. God bless 'em.

I've got paperwork to catch up and things to get written and lesson plans to do, so I'm off. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes, all you lovely people. Goodness knows I need them, still and always.

Blessings.

Ahoy

What a busy month this has been. I keep thinking that there will be a time of less busy, less stuff, less questions and more answers. So far, not so much.

I'm back at the School District office early Wednesday morning with Q for further info/meetings with the district Health Officer. I don't even know who this is or why she's important, but we're going and he'll be eating while we have our meeting. I can only assume that the involved process which his feedings are will impress the nice ladies enough that it will add gravitas to my request that he receive services at home for at least November through March. Why? Well, the boy had his first respiratory bug and NEBs at less than two months of age and he's had something like that every winter. Each time, his tone drops and he's unable to participate in therapies so no learning, no progress for a few weeks while he gets back up to snuff. He loses weight so we work hard on packing that back on, and meanwhile he's at further risk of illness because of being underweight. So it's a losing situation all around for him. And this without exposure to the petri dish that a preschool room so often is.

We have a new case worker for the Dept of Developmental Disability. I'm hoping she'll be more forthcoming, easier to contact, etc. I'm pretty durned disappointed that we didn't get the software, touch screen, and flexible "arms" that would hold Q's buttons up by his head (attached to his strollerchair) so he could play his preschool/learning games at home instead of whenever the one computer in the lab that will do this becomes available and we happen to be there for therapy. The paperwork was submitted at least twice and that particular caseworker never contacted Q's OT. Not even a letter of denial. Not even a contact when he aged out of that part of the program. When I spoke with that case worker, she said that their mail system is very slow and that faxes often go AWOL. What? Really?? In this day and age we still can't find our paperwork? Is it a plot? Maybe I could spearhead an effort to put this all online so that no one has any excuse to say it never got where it was supposed to go. In my spare time.

I mean, come on people. My littlest kid sleeps well one or two nights a week. I have four bigger kids who I'm pretty busy with. If I can think of this stuff, isn't there someone whose job this should be who could just make it happen?

Gah.

So we'll be trying out other funding sources. Meanwhile, the School District thinks they may have a touch screen for loan. Wahoo! I love them already. Big grins. The team of therapists we ended up with happens to be the Aug Comm or Assistive Tech team. These people are the ones most likely to get Q to "speaking", with help. Just for the record, when we get the Box, whatever it is? I want Yoda's voice and syntax. Somehow, it just seems like Q would be that guy, if he had his own voice beyond coos and burbles and crazy-boy belly laughs. (Nodding) That guy, be he would.

In other news...

Court date happens Friday. Prayers are appreciated always. It seems likely that things would be declared final then, she says, puzzled by the whole weird progression (or lack thereof). I'm more or less okay with this, I think.

I mean, I'm not. I'd like a do over, really. One in which, when someone is telling the kids "nothing as silly as a 'disagreement' would ever make mommy and daddy get a divorce", instead of being all deer in the headlights, pregnant-brained, sick as a dog (a surprised to be pregnant dog), and stunned silent as he says this (given the prior announcement of How Things Are Going to Be Now), I reply by standing up, making myself as tall as I could, and stating in clear and calm tones, so that there's no doubt, not even in the distant corners of anyone's mind or heart or soul, not anywhere in the whole universe, that there's no reason mommy and daddy would ever get a divorce, that there's nothing on earth or in heaven that could remove me from being Firmly On His Side or from fighting tooth and nail for the integrity of our family and those little faces' home... That kind of thing. Or getting to say, one more time, how very proud I was to be his wife.

I was. I would have always been. Even with all manner of heck, craziness, uncertainty and this complicated life Q lives... I would always have been.

Since that, uh, isn't one of the options presented? Well. He's very happy. He has whatever it is that he's always wanted, I think. And you know, there's been plenty of sadness over all this. I can't imagine not being sad about this, ever. But the thing is that you sort of have to create joy for and within yourself (and your little ones), or you'll turn to dust. Who wants to be dust? It's all dry, it sticks in people's throats and makes 'em choke. Yuck. You need moisture to make things viable. To have mud in which to grow little bean seeds or robust, stickery rosebushes, one must have wetness.

I'm so far from dust. I might be that red, red clay, ready to be slammed onto the wheel in a studio somewhere. Or maybe porcelain slip, all wet and silky, filling those sensuously shaped molds of undulating vases, or full and sassy fruit bowls, or those sweet little round teacups that like to be held.

Whatever version of mud that it is, that I am (ha), it dwells in the land of possibility. It isn't what it might have been, but it isn't crazy-awful either. Okay, sometimes it's crazy-awful. But there's at least as much to dance about in life as there is to mourn, always has been, even though the things to mourn just keep stacking up. Sometimes the stacks fall on and flatten us pretty thoroughly. But when you're not flattened anymore, when you become ambulatory again, if you can plan part of your dancing-time to be done out in the rain, it helps with one's moisture content. Do try to avoid any actual lightning, though. Electricity + water = no more dancing for you.

Which reminds me: some of us probably feel like lightning rods these days, what with all the layoffs and other not so nice things afoot. Pray a little extra, leave some groceries anonymously for a neighbor, give some extra hugs. Be brave and creative, give something, whatever you've got, whatever it is. If we share and keep sharing, we'll make it. It'll be okay. No, really. It will.

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. -- Jeremiah 29:11

Though it pours, go dancing. And if it's messier than usual? If it turns out that the red clay of Zion (UT) is running all over you? Well, we can share showers and washing machines too, as well as anything else. Besides, we shouldn't let the fear of a little mess keep us from those moments of priceless hilarity.

Go.

XO

Ho Ho Ho

I'm just waiting for Q's meds to kick in before heading off to bed, thought I'd drop a few lines here.

We saw Santa last night. It's been a yearly occurrence since G was 5 mos old. I almost quit after life blew up, but decided that the (Herculean) effort was necessary. The kids were losing so much that was familiar, I didn't want them to look back and see that that year, along with losing their family, every little thing went off the rails.

So last year, when picking Q up off Santa's lap, Santa, tearing up, commented on how lovely a family we were, how clearly and greatly Q was loved. I smiled and said thank you and even managed to walk away instead of falling to the ground sobbing, as it sometimes feels like I'm about to when we get compliments on our lovely family. (Call me crazy, but the irony of a compliment on the sweetness of our obviously incomplete group sometimes seems nearly too much to overcome. It feels a little too much like an O. Henry story gone wrong. Shudder.)

When I announced we were going, G announced that he didn't want to do it this year, crying foul because I'd told him last year that he wouldn't have to do this again. It's true. I did. Then E got out Grandma's Santa pics and well, I changed my mind. I told him so, he wanted to argue. I called him over to where I was feeding Q and told him to remember that this isn't about him. Some things aren't. He giggled (he still does, sometimes). I said, "I have just one question for you. What are you going to say when Q demands to know why there aren't any more Santa pictures after 2007?" G said not a word, but returned a few minutes later wearing clean, less than usually rumpled clothes (he's that age and I'm not dying on that hill). I told all the big kids that they could wear whatever they wanted, but it had to be clean and not clashing (this part turns out to be open to interpretation). So they weren't dressed up (not dying on that hill either). I wanted happy faces.

Over the years, one comes to expect the unexpected in such undertakings. We've had cranky elves, way too happy elves, lines that lasted more than two hours, and no queue at all. Last night's line wasn't too bad. About half an hour of chatting, window shopping, and a change of Q's drooled upon sweater we were ready to roll. Santa was great, except for the minor numbness he seemed to be experiencing in his left arm. I'm still wondering if he went on to end his evening with a heart attack. But I digress.

Q couldn't take his eyes off Santa. In 2006, we solved that problem by having everyone look at Santa and all his rosy red and whiteness. This year, though, the photo people were determined, and Santa cracked jokes while they worked. We ended up with a decent shot of Q looking off to the side, at me. Snort. Santa did the requisite asking after Christmas wishes and we humored him. (S had said she didn't want to go because he was just a fake Santa and no one's seen the real Santa in several hundred years -- since he threw dowries down chimneys. Her older sibs talked her into compliance. Snort.)

We thanked the nice man and headed off to look at our nice pictures, Q draped over my arm. The lady came out with the package I'd ordered and showed me the sweet faces. She handed it to me. As I was turning to ask the kids to hand me my purse from Q's chair, she said, so quietly, "And it's on us." I was stunned. I'd seen the elves watching us while we were in line and wondered about what I thought might have been the pursing of their little candy cane-stained mouths. I may have actually said to her, "No way." I know I managed to whisper a shocked but emphatic thank you and turn around before beginning to sniffle. I'm pretty sure the kids noticed me wiping tears, but they didn't say anything.

What does one say? Sometimes, when coming from a preschool evaluation (more on that later), when tired beyond words, when working to repress being heartsick still at the implications of certain realities, it's just an awesome thing to have a little bit of a Christmas miracle with the mall Santa.

"Kiss those babies." --Dy

"And the one you made 'em with." --me

G'night.

Happy Wednesday!

Well. About court. The end of January we go back, then. Don't know what to say about that.

Got the kids in to the pediatrician late Monday and got all of 'em listened to. G and Q have antibiotics. Hallelujah. Both are having nebs. The other night was very bad for sleep, but neither have looked like they're desaturating, so there's that anyway. I called Tuesday afternoon when K was coughing more and saying that it hurt now. She started her round before bed. E was coughing more as she headed for bed. So there's another phone call for the morning.

Now. About the sleep I'm ready to have. I somehow need to help the punkinheads to stay in their beds. I love to snuggle their soft and sweet little selves up, but actual sleep becomes somewhat difficult (for me) when there's no room in the bed for my arms. Or legs. Or head. Interesting that they sleep really well when piled up like puppies. I find myself waking constantly to make sure they all have adequate ventilation.

Between their upcoming visit and not feeling great, they're not resting very easily. I'm sure they'll have fun with dad, as always, but there's always a bit of anxiety in transitions, isn't there?

You know, as I was on my way home this evening, I was trying to remember the whirlwind of the last several days and found I couldn't place all the details in their proper spots. Perhaps it's time to place an IV for more direct delivery of caffeine.

Q got his new glasses today, S had her second round of fillings (we're cursed with "sticky plaque" here), G had OT, we had an easier time with our Spanish program (Yay! Thanks, M. And where's my IT guy? Hellooooo?), and all are sleeping hard, adequately medicated, and I'm heading off too. The light of day will bring piano and violin lessons, more carschooling while they rotate in and out of said lessons, and Q's SpEd eval. Among other things.

Sweet dreams.

XO

PS -- Barbara. I laughed out loud at your comment. I used to refer to mine, flagrantly bragging, as my "Studly MD Hubby." You got it, flaunt it. ;o)

Speaking of court...

I suppose we made some progress. Things are certainly nearer being once and for all done. I'm sure there will be a wedding soon. Sometime after December 8 (the next and probably last court date), to be more precise.

I met with my attorney before heading to court and she asked me if I was nervous. I told her that no, I wasn't. I'd thought about all of this and decided some time back that since I've no "story" to keep straight, only details to remember, and I've based (or tried to) everything I've said and done on what I've always believed (that kids always come first, that one should work at being nice no matter what, that Truth ultimately takes the day), that there simply wasn't anything to be worried about.

She said, "You know, I can't tell you how many times we've worked so hard, thrown ourselves into arguing every detail, just done all that we could think of to do in order to achieve what seemed to be the only reasonable outcome, only to have it fall through for no apparent reason. Only later, sometimes much later, have we seen that it worked out just the way it was supposed to all along. The right thing happened, we just couldn't see it at the time."

I nodded. "I'm good with that."

She said, "I am too."

I'm glad to have this particular attorney.

Of course, that didn't prevent the near panic attack that happened when they walked into the room. I held my breath until my heartbeat didn't hurt anymore, figuring that either I'd wake up to EMTs standing over me (oh, wouldn't that have been fun) or the silly organ would get back to it's business and leave me alone. What happened? The latter, of course. Who needs that kind of drama? Besides, I haven't had a panic attack since back in the first week after I learned what was about to happen to my family. Not a place I want to go again. Moving right along...

I don't have much to say about the actual proceedings. It was surreal. And I think I may just have to get comfortable with feeling like my limbs are being removed with a dull and rusty cheese grater, since the sensation doesn't seem to be subsiding much. Or at all. It might be marginally better than panic attacks, though. I'd have to think about that and get back to you if you were to want a definitive answer.

I think the judge is a remarkable guy, level-headed, whole-heartedly on the side of the children, focused on upholding the law as he's been entrusted to, as one would have to be under the circumstances. I observed some of his other cases late in the morning and again in the early afternoon. I don't know how a person would maintain objective speech in some of those cases. Really.

A mom was asking for counseling help with her 11 year old daughter, a child she had just allowed to go live with the bio-dad (the split was recent) for about two weeks just prior to their court date. When asked why, she said that she and her daughter had difficulties, that the child pushed constantly to get her way, that it was easier not to have to fight with her and that it seemed like her dad's place might be a good breather for them all. She admitted, when pressed, that a kid saying, "I wanna go live with dad" is not a threat. (It was her best example of "threats made.") The judge, at his most adamant during my observation, leaned a little forward and said, "She's eleven. You have no control over your eleven year old? What will you do when she's sixteen? By allowing her to do this, you have just confirmed that whenever she wants to push you like this, it will work. She will use this on you forever. [pause] This is what we would call bad parenting. The state does not look kindly upon the splitting up of siblings." And he ordered the child back with her mother and brother, to receive counseling, and the parents to work more on this.

I wondered if the mom, with her very shiny, very long, black as midnight hair had finished high school. If she understood the difference between a preteen upset with the enormity of emotion in the situation vs. the amount of control the child feels she has over the emotion, the situation, or herself. I wondered if the mom ever had anyone help her process those feelings that were bigger than she was as a kid, or now, when she's the grown-up in charge.

The dad was quiet. I wondered if he, with his forcibly squared and constantly re-squared shoulders, understood that his daughter needed to stay with her mom, in no small part to help her know viscerally that one does not run away when faced with feelings of chaos and frustration, a skill her own parents weren't modeling for her. I wondered if he knew this but couldn't follow through, just as he (or they or she) couldn't (or wouldn't) follow through with keeping that child's world safe with mom and dad under one roof. I wondered if he knew this but did what he felt he could do: take the child and allow her some breathing room, even as he may have grasped clearly that it wasn't a permanent thing. I wondered what he would tell her about the day in court and why she had to go back. It's certainly not unusual or wrong for daughters to want their daddies or for dads to want their baby girls. Would he tell her that her mom was making them all do this? Would he tell her that it was the (big, mean) judge? Would he say that this was the right thing for now, that he loves her and wants her more than he can ever put into words, but that her mom has been the constant in her life? That it's important to stay put and work through the hard things because she has people who love her more than life and will do good things for and with her and always push for the best for her, even if it's hard and that one day it might be his turn to be on her bad side but how she feels about him has nothing to do with how he feels about her and that it's the same for her mom? Would he tell her that he'll be there for her whenever she needs him? That she can always talk to him about anything and that he hopes she'll talk to her mom too? Would he offer to help her talk to her mom? Would he?

I see them still, standing at that table, both holding a shared and scared breath. I want to stand behind them and whisper the thing they need to hear. The thing that will help them to be whole, to be unafraid, and to be the heroes their kids need them to be.

The (ex)couple who took turns making accusations of certain acts taking place in front of the kids or rock-throwing? That's pretty much fear too. There wasn't much leveled that day that seemed to have any basis in reality. Accusations of failure, inadequacy, most cases were about one parent being terrified that something was slipping inexorably from their grasp(s) and could never be replaced. The depth of emotion was black and heavy and I don't know how the people who work there, including bailiffs who act as combination security detail and social workers, manage to show up every day and not go, as Martha Beck says, "totally barking postal." And again, I am so sorry that anyone would ever, for any reason, need them.

Would that there were some way to snap one's fingers and fix the tremendous amount of pain in that place. If for no other reason than to stop the ripples it slams the whole of society with. Couldn't we all use something more hopeful than that?

Hey

I'm a little busy. Betcha would never have guessed, though. Since I keep posting here so regularly and all. Here's a quick run down.

School: One kid is just flying through her work like it's walking on water. This is cool but I wonder how I'll keep her busy if this keeps up. We're covering a ton of information just now: Life Science and 1600-1850, as well as the more regular, workbooky kinds of things. (Have I mentioned that I heart workbooks? It's a seasonal thing, I think.) I'm tired so the Seleucids, Annelids, and Turks are bleeding together in my head -- I find this to be a somewhat eerie feeling. Music (piano and violin) is going especially well for each of the bigger kids, so it's pretty noisy here. Q loves it and fusses when removed from the immediate vicinity of practice sessions. Pretty funny.

Q: I have a lot to figure out re: equipment. Perhaps this will involve a proverbial girding up of the loins in preparation for battle. It seems likely that we won't be able to get the adjustable arms and software/hardware setup I need to get the boy rolling with head switches -- this because of the timing of the submission of request letter. And there are the really big items -- stander/walker or both, feeding chair, bathing seat, aug. comm. device. It seems likely that not all will be granted and that I'll still be propping the boy up in an odd configuration of pillows and my legs, both of us stuffed into the corner of the couch. I need to be thinking about a different place to live in part because I need to figure out how to have a bathroom that can be basically Q's; lifts, etc. that would take up the tub and render it useless for the rest of us. Ramps for his chair, especially since it seems pretty likely that he's going to use the thing with fervor and until he renders it useless and it will probably be the feeding chair. Which means getting it in and out of the house every day, sometimes several times a day. Guess it's time to up the ante with the free weights.

Small rant: I'm kind of tired of hearing commentary on this topic. He has a right to his experience, and an adequate one at that (we've already had a couple of occasions of "wear" showing on his tender little skin over his spine -- mostly relating to his bath chair), and perhaps we could determine whether or not he "needs" this equipment after someone else walks a mile in these here moccasins? That'd be great -- if you have any connections who could make that happen I think it might turn the therapy/insurance world on it's head. It's really overdue. (rowr)

Misc: Lots of cleaning up to do here. It would help if we were ever home. Violin isn't happening tomorrow, so we'll spend that time folding Mt. Laundry (only three baskets!), putting stuff away, and scrubbing floors/reorganizing our cubbies. What good is it to own all the crayons, pencils, glue sticks, and pens in the world if one can't find them because one(s) didn't put them back where they belong? Indeed.

The perpetual sorting thing is tough -- rather slow going with all those above, quite pressing issues to keep lined up daily. It's really... hard (understatement), finding old medical and dental paperwork, kids school papers (they were so little and cute and time is just flying by), giving away stuff that I might otherwise have kept -- baby clothes and other things that are just too hard to justify keeping in extremely limited space. Still, it seems as though it's multiplying every time I turn my back on it. Or perhaps I'm not getting rid of as much as I think I am. Anniversary presents and pictures, cards, certain toys and other kid things I'm finding impossible to part with. Their mere existence sort of reminds me that I'm not crazy.

A certain someone once interviewed (quite well) in Galveston. When Hurricane Ike was building toward the island, I kept running in to check out the Weather Channel, heart in my throat, shaking my head and thinking things like, "Is that the little amusement park he wanted to take the kids to see? Empty streets, lots of flooding. There but for the grace of God, man..."

At least we're not doing that. It sounds as though it's still a long road back to normal there. Goodness. Funny thing though; I'd rather be rebuilding a physical existence, intact, than sorting one out of boxes. What's the saying? Something like: If you have problems money can fix, you don't have problems. Yeah. We're all doing different kinds of disaster recovery, I guess.

Which brings me to: We're in court tomorrow -- or rather, today, Wed-nes-day (I'm still in the "sounding it out" mode for the first grader so we can talk, a-gain, about how nutso it is to spell it one way and pronounce it another. And who made these weird rules? Anyhoo...). I don't think this date is any bigger deal than any other part of a divorce proceeding. (Which is to say that it sucks nuclear troll toe jam.) Your thoughts and prayers are deeply appreciated as always.

Maybe I should simultaneously burn stress and take advantage of the buyer's market and go house shopping in Galveston? (cheeky grin) That would require some serious juggling of finances and support networks, though. Not happening.

I hope you rest well. Hug your honey extra tight. Or, if you went to bed at a normal hour, give him/her an extra big smooch as you send him/her out the door or welcome him/her home again.

Sweet dreams and blessings to you. 'Night.