A Mother’s Musings and Mumblings

I’ve been seeing a lot of wildlife lately including some quite impressive up close and personal sightings of a fawn or two. It’s always the same – I unexpectedly come up on an unsuspecting creature who neither knows nor cares how interested I am in getting a closer look and at that moment I’m faced with a split-second decision on what to do next. If I keep going exactly as I had been, the encounter will be over as quickly as it began and yet any change in my course of action may draw attention and scare off the timid creature that I am so interested in.

That’s exactly the feeling that i had last night while tucking in Thing 2. She and I were chatting and she made some comment or another about the future. You know, the kind of innocent thing that Mommies and Little Girls talk about at bed time – how she’ll always be my baby even when she’s old enough to have her own babies. It was late, I was ambling along and reflexively came back with a comment about WF. Basically, I asked her if she had this conversation with him, too.

Those of you who do not know Thing 2, allow me to explain that this child is Drama incarnate. Nothing with her is small or insignificant. NOTHING. Her kindergarten teacher once said: “That’s our kid, everything is larger than life!” and that’s about the best summary I’ve heard.

So when Thing 2 very matter-of-factly came back with reply: “No. He’ll be dead too soon to ask him that. Unless they cure cancer he’ll be dead while I’m still a kid.” I froze. Literally. I was afraid to physically move for fear of shattering that moment.

I’d been laboring under the misconception that her silence on the subject meant that she hadn’t absorbed it or had and was just rejecting it. But she very clearly spelled out exactly what her understanding was with chilling accuracy. What is a Pagan Queen to do?

We chatted for a good bit after that. We talked about what she was feeling (a little sad) and how I was there if she wanted to talk about it (she doesn’t) and what kinds of questions she had. She’s the literal child of the two so it shouldn’t surprise me that he questions were very concrete: What happens to WF’s house when he dies? Where does that money go? Do I get to keep the things in my room at his house?

By the end of that I was feeling a bit bolder so we talked about losing my Grandpa when I was 15. I didn’t go into much detail, there’s stuff there that people my age struggle with when they lose a parent as adults that is just plain hard and I still don’t have the heart to warn her. I did tell her that I’d always be there for her and that we’d get through it because I’d always be her Mommy. And that brings us full circle on this conversation.

WF gets home in just over 48 hours. It will do Thing 2 good to have him back and it will do me good to be able to talk to him about some of this stuff and see if we can get on the same page. Because right now, I’m starting to feel like the deer in the headlights myself. I know this is coming and I’m powerless to stop it. I’m not sure what I can do to prepare myself or my girls for the trauma and I suspect that WF isn’t prepared to talk about that at all. I’m not sure I could if I were him.

But this week as I was trying to wrap my brain around how I would ever manage to get us through this, I turned on the radio and heard an ad for the local Hospice. WF isn’t ready for Hospice care at this point by any stretch of the imagination but I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth talking to the folks there who, sadly, have more experience with children in these circumstances than I do. A little information might just save us all from becoming road kill.

So today’s blog entry is going to be written as a tribute to my life the way it has been for the last two weeks while Thing 1 was in Norway because she left Thing 2 behind and then Iggy’s girls were here for two weeks as well and you see Thing 2 is 8 years old and she’s pretty hyper and would meet the criteria for ADD or maybe ADHD if WF and I would only take her in to be evaluated but we don’t want her to be medicated so we just kind of try to manage her behavior without anything and wait and hope and pray that she’ll just grow out of this phase and eventually settle down a bit but then I look at Iggy’s oldest and she’s going to be 14 next week and when I look at her I lose all hope that Thing 2 is really going to grow out of this phase because Dev is the typical teen who doesn’t end every sentence with “why” but only because she never really ends a sentence at all as she runs right on to the next one and then the next, often talking right over the top of her younger sister Elf (who is 10) while Elf talks in her high-pitched tweeny twang starting sentences with “Daaaady” while she competes for attention with both of the other two girls and you might have noticed by now that anything that resembles punctuation is missing from this entry because that’s the way my day has been including a trip to Staples to buy school supplies for Thing 1 and Thing 2 while also listening to a dialog about Elf’s backpack that she wanted but they didn’t have and so it had to be ordered and we needed to figure out if it would be here on time for when she got back next week because it really can’t be all that hard to figure out what day it would arrive if it comes in 3-5 business days while also sorting out how much the packs of 100 lined 3×5 note cards cost and if it would be better to buy the multi-pack or not all while listening to three girls who wouldn’t know how to pronounce a punctuation mark if their short little lives depended on it – which it might soon – and how in the world do they manage to keep talking like that all without ever taking a breath because I’m getting winded just sitting here typing like this and even if they’re staggering their breathing I swear there’s at least two of them talking non-stop at any given point in time and really I honestly can’t wait for Thing 1 to come home from her vacation on Tuesday but I’m sure she’s going to have a lot to tell me when she does and I’m scared that she might have lost her punctuation coming through security on the flight home so I really need to find a case of periods to give to her at the airport just so I can maintain my sanity because it seems less likely to get me reported to the police if I tell my 12 year old daughter that I want her to have a period than if I tell her that I want her to avail herself of the roll of duct tape that I’ve brought along with me or at least the part of the roll that’s left once I’m done with Thing 2 because I can’t duct tape up Dev and Elf but Thing 2 might just take most of the roll on her own anyway unless of course I want to try managing the other half of this equation and just get myself a pair of earplugs which could make other aspects of my life difficult but would allow me to smile and nod whenever I see a female under the age of 15 moving their lips provided of course that I didn’t nod too vigorously because if I did that then I’d give myself whiplash from the non-stop moving of mouths all around me and it would only get worse when Thing 2 started in with the questions because she might be waiting for answers at least occasionally when she stops for breath but as long as there are other girls here then I don’t have to worry about that because they tell her to quit and I don’t have to bother with an answer very often at all except when my brain starts to leak out of my ears and she demands to know if I’m okay and then she won’t let me off the hook even though the talking still keep going and going and going.

Look. A period. Pray that they’re contagious.

I’m officially “that” age. That age when a woman wears Spanx not because she wants to look hawt but because it’s less conspicuous than ACE wrap and still fills the need to squeeze all the aching spots that need to be squeezed. At least until the Advil kicks in.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go shop for support hose.

A friend of mine just got a puppy and is in the midst of the decision to crate or not to crate. This is a process that I’m unfamiliar with as I never really viewed it as a choice – dogs get crated. They learn that their crate is their den. My Old Man is nearly 11 and he still goes to his crate if a storm is coming. If he can’t get to his crate, he destroys the house trying to find a small enough space to simulate a crate.

All creatures need their places of comfort in times of crisis.

Iggy’s girls are with us this week and yesterday it was discovered that the youngest needed an item of clothing that she didn’t have with her. No worries, Thing 1 has just the item! Trouble is, it’s at WF’s house. No worries, I have the keys!

Thing 2 simultaneously levitated, announced “I’ll go” and was at the door with her shoes on. This would be less impressive it wasn’t already her bedtime and she’d been half asleep when I stood up. She was at the front door before I was and opened it so we could head off to WF’s house in search of a random article of her sister’s clothing.

The search was unsuccessful. I did find all three bottles of my missing sun block, both lost soccer bags, the swim bag with gear, a missing lunch box and two of my tote bags. Don’t worry, I left them all there. For now.

But when I was done and had given up the quest, I realized I’d lost something else at WF’s house. Thing 2. She was gone. Now I figured she’d get bored with the search so this wasn’t a huge shock. I walked back up to her bedroom and there she was.

Thing 2 was sitting on the floor in front of a pile of stuff next to her bed. She wasn’t doing anything – and that’s a big deal for this kid. I asked what was going on and she said: “Wasn’t dad nice? I didn’t clean my room so he put my stuff in piles near where it goes for me to go through.”

All creatures need their places of comfort in times of crisis.

Thing 2 and I went home, my home, and she got ready for bed. Even though it was after her bedtime, she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go to sleep until I got upstairs. So I curled up in bed next to her and we chatted a bit about nothing in particular and fell asleep like that. Curled up with one another in her little twin bed. Two creatures seeking out a a place of comfort in a time of crisis.

Thing 1 is really gone now. She’s been in Norway for weeks but has been checking in by phone pretty much daily. But now she and WF are on a boat on their way to Svalbard. Look it up. It’s half way to the North Pole. Needless to say, I think the prospects of a phone call are pretty much nil until they get back to Oslo and are ready to board the plane home.

Thing 1 is loving the trip. Her vacation responder reads:

Hello, i am very sorry that i cannot reply to your messages seeing that i am in Norway, today i will be at the hotel and MIGHT be able to get access to the hotel computer but until then I cannot respond. Also the next 2 weeks I will be in Svalbard (look it up it is a really cool place.) and i will not have access to a computer, but i will reply as soon as i return…assuming i am not eaten by ice bears (they are so cute!!) well i shall try to respond a.s.a.p. bye bye (also look up the Besseggen, a hike i did, the ridge was really hard)
–
\~/   My NORWEGIAN glass looks half full to me!

She’s having a blast. But back home, not so much.

Thing 2 has developed several sudden, unexplained fears of things that go bump that cause her to turn to flypaper and cling to me. I’ve tried talking to her about why this might be the case, but she shuts down.

My best guess? She’s feeding off of me again. Because I’m stressed.

The original plan was for WF and Thing 1 to do some hiking by themselves for a week. That lasted a day. They had to scale back because the weather wasn’t cooperating and the hiking was longer and harder than they anticipated. This tells me a couple of things. First is that WF is being reasonable and not pushing too hard. This is a good thing. Second is that there is the potential for more trouble ahead. The temperature in Svalbard is going to be at least as cold as what they bailed out on so they have to face that weather eventually. But what about the hiking?

The last phone call was from the boat so Thing 1 had already met up with the group they’d be hiking with and had survived their first hike together. It was a short hike but with some fairly steep vertical and Thing 1 was the youngest member of the 15 person team by at least a decade. She hiked right up front with the leader – on purpose – to prove herself. That’s my girl! But when I asked where her father was I was informed that he was bringing up the rear.

He confirmed that, as well as informed me that he was using medication for motion sickness and had been paying attention to his medication. He’s been very good about my overt intrusions into his privacy recently regarding medical matters. In fact, he’s called me promptly every time he’s received his PSA results this year. He gets that checked every month. And yet, I haven’t heard a test result since summer started.

I know I’ve been traveling and that I tend toward “borrowing” trouble. But with my eldest above the Arctic Circle out of contact for over a week, it’s easy to think of things that might go wrong under the best of circumstances. And these are NOT the best of circumstances. Throw in a bit of uncertainty about who I’m most worried about and there’s plenty of trouble to borrow.

So if Thing 2 has random fears of things that go bump I guess I have to accept that she may have come by this naturally. I seem to share those fears.

Flypaper it is.

I’m back in school this week. For those of you who care to split hairs with me I’ll gladly confess that I’ve never really left school (actually) at least not in any sort of lasting way. Sure, I’ll graduate. But I always relapse.

So this week is a summer course. You read that correctly. This week. One week, one course, three semester hours. AND it’s on a topic that is mentioned frequently at work. It seemed like a good way to get some course credit toward my Ph.D. and learn something that might be helpful at work all while not burning too much precious time. So far, so good.

The class has 13 people in it – a nice, comfortable number for dancing in the moonlight. Being a summer course the demographic is just exactly what you would predict. Twelve public school teachers of everything from grade-school math to high school Spanish all working toward a Master’s or Ed.D. in Administration. And me.

Adult learning theory figures into this course and as an adult learner I’ll take responsibility for my own experience. I’ll also take a moment to acknowledge individual differences and say that I’m an introvert. <insert “Duh”>¬† I don’t like to participate in group discussions (15% of our grade) but I will. The trouble is, how?

Other student comments sound like I’ve found my way into a foreign language immersion course. K-12 education administration is not my forte. I’ve talked to the Witchlets’ school Principal. Does that count? Not so much.

Then there’s the self-consciousness factor. There’s a phenomenon that I’ve seen in the last two classes I’ve taken and it’s heavily at play here today. Education is being compared to Medicine. Education delivery is compared to Health care Delivery. It’s all standards, it’s all evidence-based, it’s all professional practice. And I have to wonder: Are these comparisons made when I’m not in the room? Does health care get mentioned this much in classes where the professor doesn’t have one particular student’s name to associate with it? Introverted minds want to know.

Because if this comparison is made in all the classes that I’m not sitting in but these other 12 students are, then why do I feel a pause after my comments? I’m required to participate in the discussions and yet, 12 people can play off of each others stories and I chime in with my favorite story and the discussion stalls. If I give context, I sound like I’m bragging. If I don’t give context, my comments make no sense. Either way, my comments always leave me sitting here feeling like the odd man out.

Now to put this into context for those who would read into this that my head is in some awful space, it isn’t. I’m outside my zone of comfort but it never lasts for long.¬† I wouldn’t have made it this far as a student if I let my introversion shut me down. I’ll chime in, I’ll let the conversation stall and while I sit in my discomfort I’ll reflect on the fact that the other 12 are reflecting on their own discomfort. We all have our own unique experiences, some of us just end up in situations where we’re more unique than others.

Kinda like being a Pagan in Virginia.

I’ve told this story before, generally when speaking to people about the trials and tribulations of co-parenting. Recent events have prompted a desire to tell it here in writing for all to see. Like all things that turn up on my blog, I don’t question why, I just write.

My parents didn’t have custody of me when I was growing up. I won’t get into the whys or hows (what if you held a custody hearing and no one showed up?) but my grandparents had custody while my parents each had visitation. Four days a month with no overnights.

By the time I was six, taking visitation was too burdensome for my Momster and she stopped showing up consistently. She’d drop by when it worked for her and leave me when there was something better to do. For the better part of a year the only time I had visitation with her is when she could take me to work with her (as a waitress at a truck stop) because it didn’t impact on her other plans. This post is not about her. I have other plans.

My Dad faithfully took his visitation. Every single week. Without fail. But as I grew up, things changed. I had friends, I had plans, I had a life. Stopping what I was doing every week to spend a day with my Dad was a drag and, like all tweens/teens, I didn’t want to do things that weren’t fun, interesting and of my own choosing. So I began to complain.

I was 12 at the time. My grandparents decided that 12 was old enough to make the choice of where I wanted to spend my time. My Dad decided that he didn’t want to force a kid to spend time with him if I didn’t want to. So at the mature age of 12, I got my weekends back.

When I was 15 I had the year from Hell. Seriously. I’m still hard pressed to think of other things that could have gone wrong that year. Among the highlights was finding myself essentially unwanted/unwelcome at Momster’s house after my Grandma had decided that she should raise me. Grandpa was dead. And where was my Dad? He’d moved out of town. Because I wasn’t spending time with him anyway so why would he stay?

When I was 21 my Dad died. Now, it’s never easy when a parent dies. My Grandpa died when I was 15 and I remember how hard that was. But the feeling that overwhelmed me when my Dad died was Guilt. Pure, unadulterated Guilt. Guilt for rejecting him. Guilt for choosing to watch stupid movies that I couldn’t even remember with friends I no longer saw rather than to spend the day with him. Guilt for telling him that of all the things in my life, sleeping in was more important than seeing him.

Another therapist sent her child to private school with the fees from that!

But what did I learn from all of this? One thing I learned is that teens/tweens are inherently selfish creatures. That’s just the developmental stage that they are in – their zone of proximal development. I also learned that this episode was as much a failure in parenting as it was a failure of my own – maybe more-so. The adults in my life, by virtue of being parents, had an obligation to teach me how to be a good person. They taught me not to lie or cheat or steal. Why couldn’t they also have taken the time to teach me (better) how to treat people?

It isn’t that my grandparents didn’t treat people well, just that they didn’t like my Dad. So they allowed me to treat him poorly. The result was I suffered – not just him.

This is a lesson I carry with me as I parent the Witchlets. I don’t allow them to beg me to skip family time at either house in favor of friends. I won’t allow them to incur that kind of Karmic debt. And yet I see it happen time and time again – other parents who think that their children know best where they want to spend their time. Parents who allow kids to make the decision to cut out their other parent. Because the so-called adult doesn’t value the other parent and doesn’t see why their child should either.

I’m sure there are plenty of therapists who need the income.

You may have noticed that my ramblings aren’t where they used to be. If you haven’t noticed that then you’re more disoriented than I am or you’re new here. Either way, allow me to introduce you to my new blogspace. I’ve moved over to WordPress and migrated to a different server and while I’m sure that there are still kinks to work out, the blog is up and running in a new location.

Your comments, however, are not. They went into full-scale mutany and refused to be moved from their very comfortable surroundings on the old site. Telling them that the site was going to the Digital Summerlands did nothing to sway them, they stayed. May they long be remembered. Further, may I take this opportunity to implore each of you not to take this personally and to please continue to give me the rich and wonderful feedback that I’ve come to rely on you for.

Trust me, I have no intention of migrating this blog again anytime soon!

Two weeks of vacation flew by as fast as an airplane over the north Atlantic. I’m home and have been for a couple of days now. No, I haven’t forgotten to update y’all on the trip – that entry is being drafted/crafted slowly. But there’s something else on my mind today that needs to get out of my head.

When traveling, Pagan Queens and others should remember to take their medications as directed. A six hour time shift really messes with that and when you’re dealing with a drug that causes fatigue when the dose is adjusted then it can be tricky. The end result of this exercise in mental mathematics is that I’m off on my Diamox dose and have been for at least a week. My head is KILLING me. Throw in some jet lag, a little PMS and eye of newt and I don’t think my current mood requires much explanation. So take that as the backdrop for the little drama that unfolds in the rest of this post.

I’m still getting settled into the routine of being home. Thing 1 leaves this week for a month so I have her for less than a week – and that’s after not having seen her for a month. She’s grown. Seriously. And I hate that I missed it. Thing 2 has oral surgery tomorrow. My baby has four teeth that will be coming out including one that is impacted. I’m scared for her and I keep acting like this is no big deal just so that she’ll not freak out. We’re going shopping today for mushy foods and ice cream. I don’t know which one of us is going to feel worse!

Of course, drama started before we ever got home. We were in the airport still when we found out that Iggy’s girls weren’t sure they wanted to be here for all of their scheduled visitation.¬† So Iggy’s mood isn’t all that great either. The difference between how he’s taking it and how I’m taking it is that I blame Stepford for this. She didn’t want Iggy to have this much time with his daughters to begin with and so here we are with the girls telling him that they don’t think they can stand to be away from Stepford that long. Coincidence?

We’ve now put the scenery on the stage. Let’s add the action.

There’s a family wedding in Iggy’s family next weekend that we’re supposed to attend. “We” in this case being defined as Iggy and his girls, me and Thing 2. We’re driving 16 hours up and 16 hours back and going to the wedding on the day in between. Why might this be less than fun?

1. It’s a wedding. Weddings and I have a long history given that I’ve had a few. The trouble is that in recent years my feelings toward weddings has become rather, well, fractured. On the one hand, I look at the happy couple and want to scream “RUN” at the top of my lungs. On the other hand, I look at the happy couple and see two people who are happy and content and will have the kind of life that I will never have. The kind of life that I apparently don’t deserve. So I cry at weddings.
2. This isn’t just any wedding. The wedding will have me dealing with Iggy’s family. They’re a good bunch – big, close Midwestern family. With pictures of Stepford up all over the place. Iggy and Stepford’s wedding, Iggy and Stepford dating, Stepford all decked out for a night out. The photos of Stepford and their girls I understand. But the others, I don’t get for so many reasons. Why has Iggy never had a problem with these? If my family had photos of WF and I up, I’d have asked them to take them down before I was even dating again. But Iggy doesn’t care. His love life with Stepford is documented on the walls for all to see and he’s fine with that.
3. They’re a Midwestern Family. Some of you know that I’m from one of those. One that is within an hour of Iggy’s family. I’ve asked Iggy before for details of the wedding weekend and haven’t gotten them. I’ve asked Iggy for details of when his girls are here this summer and haven’t gotten those either. This makes it hard for me to plan anything that I’d like to do – say, see my sister after a 16 hours drive.

But at the end of it all, what had me crying myself to sleep is something my mother said years ago when I was divorcing Chuckles. She pointed out that he “doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t beat you” so she didn’t understand the need for a divorce. At the time, that seemed silly. Death threats aside, I was young and wanted to believe that there was more to life and relationships that not being beaten by a sober guy with clean breath.

Times have changed. I’m 42 years old. I’m not getting any younger. Or prettier. Insert a refrain from “That Girl” and you’ve got my mood. I’m not the girl that anyone has ever looked at and said “I see forever in your eyes” – at least not and still meant it the next morning. At this point in my life, no one is ever going to have my wedding pictures hanging in their home to remind them of how happy their son had been. I have no realistic chance of ever being first in anyone’s life other than my own. So when looking for a partner, maybe the bar I’ve set is a bit too high. And maybe, just maybe, I’m holding myself to a higher standard than I need to as well.

Or maybe this is all just a really bad headache with overtones of PMS and I just need a little TLC once in a while.

It began with a three-hour car drive followed by a leisurely couple of hours hanging out in Washington National Airport listening to the news. Farrah was dead; Michael was working hard to catch up. Iran might as well not have existed.

A short flight north left us sitting at another airport for a bit while the crew waited for a plane to arrive. It would seem that the rate-limiting step in getting a flight off the ground is to have a aircraft. Not to worry, only 90 minutes late and we were en route to Amsterdam. The fellow in the seat ahead of me bore more than a faint resemblance to the southern end of a northbound horse but once I was asleep that didn’t seem to bother me much.

Neither did Iggy’s snoring. He wanted to sleep on the plane and so I’d given him a little pharmacological support. It worked. Well. So well, in fact, that he didn’t take me up on the offer to trade him seats half way through the flight. Both flights Iggy sat in the middle seat and both flights he had ~ahem~ large men in the aisle seat next to him. Not only is he a trooper, he’s a gentleman.

In Amsterdam I was stunned by the airport security. Seriously, I allowed an hour to get through security at National and we waltzed on through. I had similar expectations for Amsterdam – customs and immigration questions, having to look through the bag – and we walked on through. The things that could have been in my bag! But no one looked. The pity is the worst thing we were smuggling was a bag of peanut M&Ms. More on those later.

From the airport in Amsterdam to Leiden city center is 10 minutes by train. We stood, which was a good thing because despite sleeping on the plane I’m not sure I could have stayed awake. It was a pleasant enough trip ending at the city center. Iggy and I had no idea where our hotel was at so I set off in search of a taxi. Of course, I did this out of nature – strange city, don’t know where I’m at, have luggage, need to get somewhere AND learn a bit of the layout – OH! It must be time to find a cab! Iggy followed but didn’t realize what I was up to until I was talking to the driver already. Right about then I realized that we were tired, hungry, and most of all, cranky.

So what is the first thing that a Pagan Queen does when visiting Holland for the very first time? Anyone?

Yup. Eats M&Ms and takes a nap.

After all, we have two weeks and it’s important to pace yourself.