The Struggle is Real

As the parent of a child with learning needs, I know I am not alone.  Thanks to social media and the blogosphere, I see daily the struggles many of my compadres experience.  But some days, there comes such a shit storm that you feel so totally hopeless and alone.  I am feeling that today.

My oldest daughter is a freshman in high school and is newly diagnosed with inattentive ADHD.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this diagnosis, think of it as hyperactivity turned inward.  To look at her she is a calm, albeit shy girl.  She is not defiant or hyper, but the storm is in her brain.  She cannot turn off the world around her, which results in her being distracted and unfocused.  When this is untreated, she becomes anxious because her brain cannot process and prioritize the information being given to her.  The result is that she melts down and becomes immobilized—you can actually see her physically become unable to function.  To add to this, she is stubborn as hell and cannot ask for help.  She has not been able to ask for help since she was born.  This is a child who defiantly refused to nurse, refused to sleep, and refused to learn how to tie her shoes.  She actually devised a completely new way to tie a bow, simply out of her stubborn refusal to ask someone to help her. 

This behavior was cute and excusable when she was younger.  “Oh, she’s just shy” I’d tell people as she’d run away mid-sentence, off to do something else or focus on a shinier object.  But now that she’s 14 and looks like an adult, this behavior has gone from cute to embarrassing.  Which makes me angry at myself for being embarrassed. 

Today’s particular incident has to do with the fact that she’s failing English—a subject she normally excelled at, but has become difficult because her high school teacher doesn’t offer too many grades and opportunities for her to stay accountable.  She is great in subjects where there is homework and an opportunity for her to earn points—the point system is the greatest invention for kids with learning needs.  Goals and rewards are huge in our family.  However, there’s no immediate goal or reward in this particular class, which leads to inattention and a lack of focus.  So I got upset with her, and probably said some things that I didn’t mean, such as I was tired of having to go to bat for her when she quits everything she starts (dance, karate, basketball, many musical instruments, track, drama. . .the list is endless) and that high school is something she cannot just stop paying attention to and quit. 

So after all of this, I spent all night worrying about it, and went in to talk to her advisor.  I am not alone, apparently, and her school has classes that can help her learn how to make lists and focus.  And maybe her meds need to be adjusted, and hopefully we can get this part back on track.

This experience just goes to show that there is no “cure” to attention and learning issues.  This is a lifelong struggle and isn’t fixed with just one or two things.  It’s a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, trying to find the secret sauce that will work with her brain chemistry and personality that will help her get on track.  Like the parent of a child with Type 1 diabetes or some physical malady, this isn’t going away, and it’s a daily game of figuring out what will work for that particular moment.  Like blood sugar gone awry, brain chemistry is that way too for many.  And I feel so behind that I didn’t see the signs sooner, and beat myself up on a daily basis that I waited so long to get her help.  Mostly because I was focusing so much on my other daughter, which I’m getting to…

As if I didn’t feel bad enough this morning, it has come to my attention that my other daughter, already diagnosed as a dyslexic, also has some kind of attention problems.  These are becoming more pronounced in the fifth grade, where the stakes are higher and the responsibilities larger.  She is forgetting homework, assignments, and other critical elements of school.  Her teachers, just one month into the school year, are tired of having to remind her of things, especially when they are doing so much to help her with her reading, spelling and writing.

So we have a new strategy in place and I’m putting a plan into action about having her evaluated for an attention issue.  And again, I feel so utterly defeated as a parent for passing along crappy genetics to my kids, who certainly never deserved this kind of burden in their life.  It’s hard enough to be a girl in this society, what with all the negative stereotypes and mixed messages.  The husband and I have done all the things we thought important with their learning, like moving them to a private, Christian school where they get focused attention and better help than they were getting at the other school they were attending.  Teaching them about self esteem and owning their differences so they aren’t ashamed.  But some days I just feel like I’m faking all of it.  That my own shame and feelings of failure of a parent make me a hypocrite for trying to be a cheerleader to them.  And some days I just break.  Today is one of those days.

Parents of kids with learning problems already have so much crap flung at them on a daily basis… “there weren’t these kinds of problems when I was a kid”, “kids in France don’t have ADHD because their diet is better, there’s state-funded maternity leave and they don’t use cell phones”, “you’re giving her DRUGS?  Oh, wow.  Why didn’t you alter her diet first?” , “maybe try the drugs, they aren’t so bad”, “oh, you work?  Don’t your kids deserve more of your time?” , “why aren’t you on her teachers 24-7, this isn’t her fault.”  When I see or hear this all I want to do is scream.  Parents of kids with learning needs already feel bad enough, what we really need is understanding, a feeling that we aren’t alone and will not be judged because we just want to do the right thing for our kids.  We don’t want to live in secret, afraid that if we ask for help, we will be judged by others who blame US for their kids’ differences.  All we want is understanding.

Since I’ve become more vocal about my own experiences, I have had several parents approach me asking for help or advice.  And I’m so glad that I’ve been able to help them.  I want to be an advocate not just for kids but for their parents, who live daily with this struggle and some days are good and some days are bad.  Today is a bad one for me.  But tomorrow will be good because I got this out and someone will read it and know that someone else is out there, too.  And that makes it worth it. 

Now that I got it out, I do feel better.  I’m counting my blessings and remembering why I’m where I am, why my family is where it’s at and our place in this big blue ball.   I’m where God wants me to be at this very moment.  Esther 4:14 tells us “for such a time as this” and that cannot be more true for me than it is now.  But that doesn’t mean that some days it is perfect—I guess I just had to be reminded today that I’m not in charge.  But that’s great because that means I can hand over the responsibility to someone else for now, dust myself off and breathe again.

So that didn't happen

Y'all, I think I might have over promised and under delivered.  I had every intention of doing a travelogue about our trip to Ireland, but as you can see, I didn't get past Days 1 and 2.  It's not for lack of trying--I have sat down at my computer multiple times since I got back last Monday, but then there's this funny thing called "work" which enables me to take these trips.  Then there's "back to school" and those pesky kids who need things like "clothes" and "school supplies" and "attention."  Geesh, don't they know that I'm creating here??

And then there are my other creative ventures...like sewing and knitting.  I was inspired in Ireland to knit and sew and create.  Maybe it was the Cliffs of Moher and the natural beauty, maybe it was all the gorgeous aran-knit sweaters for sale in the shops on the west coast (right by the Aran Islands, no doubt), but sitting down and writing about it seems far less enticing to me than actually living the experience and inspiration I felt! 

So I made pajamas last weekend...lovely cherry print pajamas that I just absolutely love, and if my computer would behave I could post a picture...but alas, I think my computer is also on strike and refusing to cooperate.  So just imagine if you will a cute retro cherry print, made into short sleeved shirt and pajama shorts.  Got it?  Great. 

Then there's the knitting...I finally finished a gorgeous blanket that is a wedding gift for someone who got married a year ago...yes, a year ago.  Hey, it's been a year of transition for our whole family.  I'm sure she will appreciate it now as a 1 year anniversary gift.  No one ever remembers you on your wedding anniversary so this will be a treat, right?

Long story short, I've been busy.  I wish I could get enough time to sit down and write about my experiences in Ireland, but as it turns out, "you had to be there." 

Dublin Days 1 and 2

So we finally got to Dublin---the oldest daughter and I are taking a “dream trip” to Ireland for a few days.  She’s never been overseas and I haven’t for a while-plus, I felt like we both survived middle school after the last two years…anyway let me tell you about traveling with my daughter.

The first thing you need to know is that my daughter has inattentive type ADHD and thrives in situations where she has been appropriately apprised of the outcome.  Which is why our trip got off to a somewhat rocky start…due to storms on the east coast, our original flights to Dublin were cancelled and rebooked for the following day. You can only imagine what the news did to her.  She not only panicked and acted disappointed but was having a full-blown panic attack as I attempted to negotiate a new flight and air carrier.  I was in full on frequent flier mode, using every possible trick I had in the book to assure that we would get to Ireland within the original 24 hour period.  And it worked.  But for a while there it was me on the phone, using all my cell phone battery life, negotiating with an airline whose customer service is awful (this is the third time this airline has messed with me, they are dead to me now), then an airline which quite honestly never gets the credit they deserve (Delta).  Meanwhile my oldest was quietly in a corner of a gate area, chewing on her hair and breathing deeply. 

But this post isn’t about my daughter’s medical diagnosis, it’s about our trip!  So after three hours of some fancy footwork, we are headed to Paris. Paris!   Our original flight plans didn’t include France, so this was an extra treat for us.  I majored in French in college, and it’s been a few decades since I was able to use it so I was kind of excited, even if I’d only use very simple phrases….so after an 8 hour flight we landed at CDG.  The air was extremely hazy, and I now see why the entire country takes the month of August off if it’s this gross and sticky in the city.  Or, just for a chance to fly out of this terminal….

With this lounge area….

 Needless to say we enjoyed the few hours we had in France, even if we never left the airport. And a couple of the men reminded me why I abandoned my high school fantasy of marrying a man named Pierre who made wine—as one body-checked me getting on the plane and another cut me off as he was getting off the flight. Talk about a Jacques-ass. 

Finally to Dublin, where we got off the plane and were first in line to Immigration.  I’m really proud to be a ‘merican most all the time, but especially when there’s a plane load of Europeans and we get priority status going into the speedy line.  And for anyone following politics, which is I guess the entire world, it didn’t take me thirty seconds on Irish soil to be asked about Donald Trump…so much for leaving the states to get away from politics!!  Our driver, Michael, was so great and chatty and what you’d expect in an irish cab driver.  He gave us a mini tour as we speeded into Dublin, which only took about 20 minutes from the airport to our hotel at St. Stephens Green….

 And not that I’m a hotel expert or anything, but I did score with the hotel we are at: The Fitzwilliam Hotel.  This place is wonderful and has all the benefits of a nice hotel with a boutique feel.  The room is spacious by European standards and the bathtub….oh wow, the bathtub is something else!  We are bathers and this one is perfect.  A fully grown adult male can lay prone in the tub.  And it’s as deep as it is long.  I actually struggled to get out of it after a shower, it’s that tall.

While I’m going on about recommendations, I’d strongly recommend Irish Rail Tours for day trips out of Dublin. Today we took one to County Wicklow…we were one of six, so it was intimate enough that we could ask a ton of questions but not so stifling that we couldn’t go off and do our own thing.  Plenty of time for sightseeing and shopping!

This is where Bono has a residence….nice view.  Glad my consumption of your music helped fund this oasis for your family!

We proceeded via train south towards County Wicklow, home to Avoca (because yarn), the Meeting of the Waters (because why not?) and Glendalough (which is the Valley of the Two Lakes). 

Wonderful little day trip up and down winding and gorgeous mountains.  We wandered through an ancient cemetary in Glendalough, which my daughter claimed was haunted and she could feel the ghosts around her (I think it was just the European tourists with boundary issues).  She still swears it was haunted…and it may have been.   Check it out…

All in all a nice day to kick off our journeys around the country.  Our partner in this voyage was a family from South Africa, and I had a nice conversation with the mom.  Because when two moms get in a room it’s likely they will talk, and this was no different.  She was a career mom trying to raise two boys around my daughters’ age.  She struggled with work-life balance and sexism in the workplace, and we talked about that for a while.  So moms in America, even in those countries that appear to be “better” with socialized this or that, the problems of being a mom don’t go away, and as two upper middle class people, that maternity leave still sucked and the health care system was mediocre at best.  Not that I want to get political, but I just have to say that.  Also, they asked me about Trump…because I just can’t get away from that either.

We are relaxing now as we have another big day ahead of us.  Looking forward to hitting the hay.

Congratulations, It’s a Girl!

So I love having daughters.  I do not hide that fact at all.  When I was pregnant with my daughter fourteen years ago a midwife at my OB practice “thought” she was a boy, and I made my doctor do multiple ultrasounds to prove otherwise.  The thought of raising a boy seemed so foreign to me, as would a lifetime of sporting events and ball-throwing.  I am a girly-girl, who doesn’t like sports, camping, the Three Stooges or any of the other masculine things that are so often attributed to the male gender.  Also, my husband is a sports-crazed fool and I figured that with a boy in the house I had no chance of ever seeing the inside of a day spa or bookstore again.  Having girls was my only hope.

And I got two!!  I love it because I have two awesome daughters who love to help me do stuff and make crafty things and love clothes and shopping.  And because they both have different hobbies and interests that mirror my own I have my own special bond with both. And my husband is happy because he’s off the hook for having to coach little league, engage in Boy Scouts or do any of those general “father son” activities.  He is free to sit in his man cave alone and watch baseball or the O’Reilly Factor or a Hitler documentary and not feel that pang of guilt that he really should be teaching his son how to throw a curve ball or whatever fathers and sons do.  AND he has three women who treat him like he’s a rock star.  It’s a good life for him. 

But I don’t think my husband expected what he’s gotten, and that is two adolescent girls.  You see, there are things that we women omit from our description of having girls, and puberty is one of them.  It’s out of a desire to protect the species, really.  If we tell men the truth about adolescent daughters they would find a way to never have them—look at China.  Some woman over there must have spilled the beans to Chairman Mao, which is how they got those archaic restrictions on the birth of girls. Someone ratted us out. 

I’ve learned a few things along the way that will help you, your adolescent daughter/s and your husband navigate through adolescence, that moms are free to adopt if they so choose.  Listen up, mom of baby girls because you’ll want to save this or bookmark it or whatever:

1.  Get that girl a cell phone, STAT.  I can’t stress this enough.  My daughter and I will have entire conversations about “lady things” with my husband in the same room without even having to speak.  How do we do this?  Texting.  Gone are the days of embarrassing your daughters with asking them if they need any supplies from “that area” of Target.  Thanks to Tommy Motorola, we can now text those kinds of requests.

2. While you’re at it, invest in some ear plugs.  No, this isn’t for that crazy rock-n-roll music they are playing, it’s for your kids.  Because they can hear EVERYTHING…and before your mind goes to the gutter, it’s for those conversations you will have that have the occasional four letter word in them...or maybe that’s just my family.  We do work in the political world so we talk like sailors.  My children are scandalized.

3.  If you want some time away from your family, ladies, just kick off a conversation by saying “maybe we need to have a talk about your changing body. . .”  I find that this will clear a room faster than my geriatric dog’s gas.  I now have at least an hour to ponder life, read a book or watch episodes of Intervention on my tablet.  Ahhh serenity.

4.  Remember when you were in denial?  Go back there.  Sometimes denial is okay, it’s to be embraced.  If you don’t want to think of your daughter as being moody because she has PMS pretend it’s something else.  I hear that John Lennon’s song “whatever gets you through the night” was actually a song written about how he coped with Yoko’s hormonal mood swings.  See, now you’re going to be singing that and also pretending that your daughter is moody because that guy from One Direction left the band.  Problem solved.

5. It takes a village.  That means that this is not the time for helicoptering or making frenemies.  Let go of your desire to be Queen Bee of the yoga pant-wearing set and welcome the friendship of other moms.  We all need each other.  It also makes it so much easier to keep an eye on them.  Drones are still quite expensive. 

6. This is a tip from my husband: learn to like their music.  My husband stopped listening to music around the time “Born in the USA” came out.  We are both classic rock aficionados, and I’m proud to say that my girls know the difference between a song from “The Wall” and “The Dark Side of the Moon.”  However, there comes a time when they will grimace when you turn on the classic rock station, and it will suddenly become very uncool to hang out with mom and dad.  Turn on Hits 1 or whatever they’re listening to in your town, learn who Taylor Swift is dating this week and just go with it.  I will never forget the moment when my husband asked another couple at dinner “did you all realize that Taylor Swift and Katie Perry are really not on good terms??” 

We all nodded, of course, because we knew.  We knew the way into the heart of your teen daughter.

I'm ba-ack!

Yep, like that creepy little Carolanne from Poltergeist, I am back.  Now with 100% less goo (watch the movie if you don’t get it)….

So a lot has happened since I last posted about 18 months ago or so….

1.       I switched jobs, which was life changing

2.       My kids switched schools, which was life changing

3.       My husband switched jobs, which has been life changing

4.       We sold and built a new house, which I only recommend doing amidst the above three if you have a desire to fund a therapist’s vacations for a lifetime.

5.       Both of my kids have been diagnosed with a learning disability.

So, yea….that has all happened.  I will say though that I am blessed.  I don’t mean “#blessed” in the way so many talk about things that make them feel blessed in a pumpkin spice latte kind of way.  I mean I am blessed because through a long journey of self-introspection and healing, I have come to the conclusion that I’m good enough.  Not perfect, not a messed up person, but I’m good enough.  For me and everyone else.  Think about it—if you are reading this you likely live somewhere with good internet access, drinkable water, and the money to afford a device that allows you to surf the interwebs for this suburban woman’s blog. Did you know that more people in the world have a mobile phone than a toilet? 

So while some days are harder than others, and because of this chaotic season of life, I have had to abandon a lot of what I used to hold dearly (like karate, crafting, my sanity).  But it’s allowed me to reprioritize.

For example, realizing that my kids need me now more than they ever did when they were babies.  Trust me, new moms.  I know your baby right now is a vulnerable little love-muffin, and has not yet mastered the “full body whatever” but listen to me.  When your kids hit puberty, they need that love and attention more now than ever.  They need a parent or parents listening to them, paying attention to their emotional health, and simply being there.  It’s a different experience, being a mom to an adolescent, and it is often uncomfortable because it is a humbling experience.  You might be like me and have had to relive your entire awkward middle school experience through your daughter, and you’d really just rather forget it.  But God has a really awesome sense of humor, and the pain you thought you experienced in delivering that child into this world has nothing on the pain in your heart when your daughter cries because she feels like she is completely lost in her life.  By experiencing this, I’ve been able to let go of a lot of trash in my own emotional garage.

I’ve also recognized that as I get older the less patience I have for things that waste my time or cause me stress. I learned that the hard way when I became physically ill from adrenal fatigue.  It’s taken me nearly 6 months to recover from the experience but I’m getting there.   I used to be able to push through stressful times with adrenaline surges—unfortunately I’ve learned that if you do that too many times you no longer have any to give.  These days things get heavy and I have to step away—my body rejects stress like a toddler rejecting green veggies.

I’ve also learned that it’s okay to admit that you are in over your head.  My husband’s job change allows him to be at home more, and I couldn’t be happier.  Not just because he’s fun to be around and I love him madly, but I don’t have to be supermom anymore.  I am also less likely to be the martyr about work and parenting and cooking.  It’s okay to admit you are tired and just can’t even.  I never allowed myself the vulnerability, and now that I have I wonder why I spent 42 years fighting it!

So anyway, why am I writing this?  Because I’d like to start blogging again.  And talk about stuff that matters to me.  Like my family, my hobbies, being a mom, learning not to lean in or lean out but to just draft some of the time and be the front of the pack other times.  I don’t have all the answers, and I often make an ass of myself, so I’m hoping that by sharing these experiences you can learn the lessons I have learned before your hair turns grey and your metabolism starts to slow down to a sloth-like pace.

Hope you enjoy my second act—I fully intend to so stay tuned!