Seeking Samadhi

t's been a tough day.  I am hoping that tomorrow is better.

( Tai sickness whine )

I was talking with twirlgrrl online tonight, and we got on the topic of faults.  I said that I wish I could pick mine.  Or, more accurately, trade in a fault for one I'd prefer.  The fault?  My overactive anxiety.  I almost wish I would have *any* other fault, but then decided that I could end up as 'too selfish to be a good mom'.  It's so fucking hard to be there for Tai when I am falling to pieces.  I just sat with him on the couch and while he watched Zoboomafoo, I told myself over and over that *I* am the adult, and I need to suck it up and be calm.  This is a moment of my life, it is not the rest of my days.  Tai will feel better, I will calm down.  Even if I get sick, it will pass.

I also reminded myself of something I realized in therapy last week.  I was talking with Wendy about having another kid, and how one of the main reasons I worried about having kids was because I would be more anxious about stomach flu.  What suddenly realized was that I will be anxious anyway - I could either be anxious with kids, or without.  With kids I get all of the amazing joy, without - I would miss that experience.

How could I miss this?  How could I let the phobia keep me from such love?  Even when Tai is sick, he is so sweet.  He says he loves me, and cuddles, and hugs me.  He sings "Happy Birthday" to me, because my birthday is coming soon.  (In February, heh.)  He teases me and when he smiles, it's impossible not to feel better myself.

I still feel edgy and uncomfortable, but I am going to keep it together.  I might not be able to trade away this anxiety, but I do not have to let it run my life.   Or Tai's life.  I will *not* let it hurt him.

A couple of tiny funny moments:

When I asked him about school last week, he said, "The teacher didn't tell anybody to learn anything." 

On Sunday Tom and Tai were working on a house project upstairs - rebuilding a closet upstairs.  From the livingroom, where I am writing, I hear:

Tom: "I'm going to show you how to use something.  It's called a nail gun." 
Tai:  "What's a nail gun?"

My thoughts  Nail gun + toddler = disaster.  Why show him how to use a nail gun?  At least Tom told him that he can only use it with Daddy or Mommy. 

I had a shit week.  Big panic attack last monday night (prompted by Tai throwing up), and ended up spending all day Tuesday and much of the day Wednesday holding myself together by the skin of my teeth.  I'm still working to get it through my head that every parent makes mistakes, and every parent has things that are difficult to handle.  No one can be there for their kid one hundred percent of the time.  I didn't scare Tai, Tom was home and with him... but I felt (and sometimes still feel) like a completely shitty mother who is going to screw up her son either by the mistakes she makes or the genetics she passes down.  I'm getting my head back together, but it was rough.

Tai is doing fine.  I think the vomiting was actually a result of Tom's overzealous tooth brushing and Tai's super-sensitive gag reflex.  He had a bit of a fever a couple of days later, but that was probably teething related.  What was really weird, was on Friday he didn't pee for almost 24 hours.  He was drinking normally, didn't have a fever or anything... just didn't pee.  On the advice of a call-in nurse and the intarwebs, we took him to the pediatric ER - where he got all checked in, then promptly peed in huge amounts - through his diaper, over the gown he was wearing, all over my leg and onto the floor.  They checked him out and he seemed to be fine, but they asked us to bring in a urine sample.  One thing I didn't like - before i knew what was going to happen, while the doctor was checking him out  he retracted Tai's foreskin.  I guess he thought the skin might have covered his urethra, but it seems like that would have been a problem before now.   On the up side, it didn't seem to hurt Tai at all.  The doctor figures he was dehydrated, but I don't know.  We'll see what the results of the urine test are.

Richard and Judy are in town and Tai is having a blast with his Mimi and Popa.  There has been a lot of playground time and general craziness.  He's going to have a hard time when they go, after four days of non-stop attention from at least two people at all times.  But every night, he's wanted me to help him go to sleep.  Not Daddy, not Mimi.  Me.  I have to say, I don't really mind, even when it takes a while.  It gives us a chance to cuddle up together and relax.

Tai is talking up a storm lately, too.  He tells us exactly what he's thinking, what he wants.  Some of his favorite things to say:

"I've got an idea."  When I ask what his idea is about, he says, "Idea's about.... trees (for example, when we were camping)."
"I'm not a monkey (or lamb, or munchkin or whatever pet term someone is using), I'm a boy."
"When I grow up up up, I'm gonna be a football man."

He sings the ABC's all by himself. 

He's mostly sleeping through the night by himself in his own big boy bed (though sometimes he comes to visit us, or needs to sleep with us if he isn't feeling well).  He does like to keep holding my boobies as he falls asleep.

He loves to play "Plants Vs. Zombies" on the iPad.

He loves to sing 'Happy Birthday" to whoever he is thinking of at the time.  Before bed, he says, "Good night sleep tight" to me and daddy and Luna and Cocoa.

He likes to write emails to Ba (my Mom) and Violetta (her dog).  The emails usually say 'happy birthday' and some various noises that are hard to spell, like the sound of a dog panting, or a raspberrying tongue.

He likes to kiss my booboos to make them feel better.

The other day, when he was a little feverish, he sat close to me on the couch and said, "I love you Mama.  I love you.  I love you lots."  Yes, I did melt.

Tai is my sweetest boy - and I am the luckiest Mom in the world to have him.
 

We were invited to Anat, Karen and Talya's house for their (sorta) annual Hanukkah party so at a little after six we headed out in the wind and the rain to break the darkness with some candle light.  It's been a couple of years since I was able to attend their party - last year they were in LA for Anat's internship; the year before that she had just had Talya; the year before that I was sick... but the year before *that* I went and never in my life have I eaten so much delicious fried food.  I couldn't miss that this year!

We arrived late, but in plenty of time to have some of Anat's latkas.  Tai wasn't sure he liked it at first, but it seemed to taste better from Daddy's plate than Mommy's.  His favorite thing, however, was the sufganiyot - fresh donuts, which Anat is cooking above.  They are perfect, soft and melt in your mouth, hot enough to burn if you eat them right out of the oil (as I did) with a light dusting of powdered sugar.  Truth be told, I'd be happy to skip the latkas entirely and just eat sufganiyot.  But that's because I am a total pig.  

I spent the first little bit of the party feeling awkward - I didn't know anyone other than Anat and Karen (and Talya, of course).  I made a little chit chat, but that's harder to do as a stay-at-home mom... or maybe I'm just projecting.  Then I started helping Anat cook and then I felt much more relaxed.  Tai, as I am sure you will *not* be surprised to hear, had no such issues.  He had a fabulous time running around and flirting with everyone and charming them, and playing with Talya's toys.  It took her longer to warm up than it took him!  But by the end of the evening he was helping her with toys she dropped and trying to one up her show-offingness by doing his modified downward dog yoga pose on his head.  And then shaking his butt like he was dancing, and falling over.  One of the other party goers suggested we should get him into theater immediately because he seems to enjoy performing so much.  I'm just glad he has no trace of social anxiety!

He also had fun helping to light the Hanukkah candles, though he didn't know any of the blessings.  Fortunately no one set their hair on fire.  And i was the only one who spilled wine.

It was another reminder that I feel so much better when I push my limits and go out even if I'm not feeling like it.  I have a good time, and my mood improves immensely.  Not to mention, Anat and Karen are good people.  Talya (their daughter) is only two months older than Tai and I think they'd have a lot of fun together if we all hung out more.  I need to make it a priority.

It was a rough day for Mommy and Tai.  We woke up and had our early morning routine.  Daddy got ready and went off to work, though he was still feeling under the weather.  Mommy and Tai went downstairs for breakfast.  It got to be about 9:45 or so and Mommy was just about to get Tai dressed.  He decided he wanted to 'daw' (draw) so she told him to find his paper (while she checked her email).  He only took a few steps when he tripped and fell.  He cried, and Mommy picked him up saying, "Oh, you're fine".

That's when she noticed the blood.







( Bloody pic below )

Dear Tai,

I wish I were better when you are sick.  I take good care of you, I hold you and cuddle you.  I give you medicine if you need it, juice and water and what food you want.  I nurse you if it doesn't make you gag and you want it.  But I can't make you feel better and I wish with all of my heart that I could.  It hurts to see you feeling so poorly.  Your smile and exuberance are totally gone.  You just want to lay on the couch with me or Daddy and watch TV.  When you're healthy you don't want to sit still for even a whole episode of Sesame Street. 

Your Mimi and Popa and your Uncle Andrew visited you this past weekend.  Even though Andrew was sick, you had such a good time with him.  Unlike your Daddy and me, he loves sports and you both spent some good time watching 'ut-baw' (or foot-ball).  He couldn't even go to the bathroom without you saying 'An-doo, An-doo.'  Your Mimi loved to draw with you, and your Popa had the best time going down the slide with you.  You impressed them with your words and your running and your love of eating (especially olives).  None of them could believe how much you've grown up, just since June.  They had to search out a real 'ba-ket-baw' (basketball) for you, and you love it.  

I can't believe how much you've grown myself.  You are saying two and three word 'sentences'.  You talk about 'boo eyes' and 'boo shoes' and you can ask for juice by name.  You ask to use the drinking fountain by making slurp, slurp sounds.  You know several colors pretty well, and you can almost say 'orange'.  You love riding in the truck with Daddy, and when you both took a trip to Ikea you didn't stop saying 'tuck' until you hit Oakland.  You like to echo the last couple of words of what we're saying, and it's inspired me to start cleaning up my language.  

You have been growing impatient with Story time, but you still love to sing along and dance.  You are starting to play with other kids, like Talya and Dottie.  You have a great time running and laughing with Dottie.  Balls are still your favorite - throwing, kicking, trying to catch.  If anyone, anywhere has a ball, you want to participate.  You want to read stories every night and during potty time.  Your favorite books are about Wibbly Pig and Winnie the Pooh, though you still love your dog books.  And 'Runaway Bunny' has been a very popular potty pick as well. 

Sometimes I wish I could be a better mom - when I'm overly anxious, or short-tempered, or irritable.  I know no one is perfect, but I've been more off than usual lately and I wish that you didn't have to be a part of that.  I'm going to try to get things back to a more stable place, but I hope you'll forgive me for the mistakes I make.

I do love you.  Always.  Don't forget that.

~ Your Mommy

I am not very good at doing things on time - I have probably mentioned this here before.  I'm a professional procrastinator (and oh how I wish I could get paid to procrastinate!), I'm perpetually five or ten minutes late where ever I go, I was bad at paying bills on time.  And while I do remember to take my meds every day (because they are sitting on my nightstand so I see them before I take off my glasses to go to sleep), I am horrible about getting them refilled.  Just about every month I'll miss a night, sometime two nights.  This week I missed two nights, then discovered that I'd run out of refills when I finally called Walgreens.  Oops.  I left a message for my doctor, but she was out of the office already (at 6pm?  Shock!) so I knew I wouldn't get them until the next day.  

Three nights off meds is not good.  I was having fun little brain-zaps and dizziness.  And on Friday morning I was so grumpy that I thought I'd pitch my bluetooth headset out the car window when it randomly quit working and if I'd had a bigger car I would seriously have considered running all of the idiot drivers off the road.  Fortunately my doctor called the prescription in Friday afternoon, so by today the physical side-effects have all disappeared.  Unfortunately the mental effects are still lingering.  I didn't realize it at first, and I'm not completely certain that's what the problem is, but I figure it's likely.

I got a bunch of books at the library last week and plowed through one of the shorter novels today.  It was an easy read, not exactly deep.  Fairly well written.  It was called 'the life before her eyes', and it was about a young woman's life after her best friend was killed in front of her in a school shooting.  ( cut for spoiler )

Instead, I'm just going to have to make a better effort to keep the meds where they belong so I can get back to myself.

Sometimes I feel like there's no room in my heart for this novel I'm working on.  A story about two gay guys in San Francisco, trying to figure out love and how it works and whether it's worth the risk.  (Though the bit about risk definitely resonates with me right now.)  Neither of the two protagonists are where my heart is, lately.  Neither will be a mom, needless to say.  They won't even be parents.  Neither wants kids, at least for a good many years and probably not at all.  While more than 95 percent of my brain is taken up with considering parenting and motherhood and how that works in my life.  So - how do I write about something entirely different?  People so far from where my life is right now.

Maybe Michael and Anthony aren't real enough yet - maybe I haven't spent enough time developing them.  But I've been working on this story in one form or another for years.  (Though a good portion of that time 'working' is somewhat of an overstatement.)  I've outlined, I've taken notes.  I've considered and reconsidered point of view and timeline and I'm just not getting it together.  I'm floundering around, not much farther along than I was a couple of years ago.  And that's depressing.  Because, regardless of all of the confusion, I *like* Michael and Anthony.  I want to tell their story.  I'm the only one that can.  When I was going over all of this with mom, she suggested that maybe it just wasn't working.  That I should shelf the story.  I'm not sure whether she meant for a bit, or for good, but the thought of giving up just doesn't work for me.  I don't want to give up.  But I'm also not sure how to move forward.  I'm stuck.

I've been considering working on another story I have brewing.  One that's more in line with my current preoccupations.  But I'm not sure that's a good option.  So many novelists write about the mid-stretch of a novel where everything feels lost and confused and other stories look like much better ideas.  But, they warn, if a writer gives in to the shiny new story, after about 75 pages or so that story is just as middle-bound.  Then one ends up with a drawer full of novel-halfs, none of which could ever be published and not because they're bad or badly written, but because they aren't even complete drafts.

So here I sit, trying to figure out the 'right' thing to do, when there *is* no right thing to do.  There is only the next thing.  I just don't know what that is.  I suppose I could try and write both - move between them when one isn't going where I want it to.  But I barely have time for one.  That seems like a bad option too.  I just need to get my butt in the chair, my fingers on the keyboard or wrapped around a pen and start writing.  Something, anything.  Not journaling.

( A bit of anxiety waffle... )

It's been a bit of a tough night.  At least I did a bit of work around my anxiety with Wendy this week, because I used it to stay calm(ish) tonight.  At least I hope I did.  Poor Tai - he seemed to be on the mend today.  He was playing like usual, having a normal day.  Maybe a tiny bit more subdued than usual, but nothing like yesterday, even.  He was a bit hoarse and a tiny bit stuffy, but didn't seem sick.  Tom got home and Tai was happy to see him, after a couple of minutes of faux shyness.  They played together and napped together.  Even when we visited with Mom, Tai was hanging around with Daddy.  Tai missed him!

Tonight Tom did Tai's nighttime routine, then I nursed him to sleep.  A couple of hours later he woke up crying to come downstairs, as he usually does.  Tom went up to get him and as he brought him down Tai did a barky cough.  He kept crying until I nursed him, but the minute Tom took him back he started crying again. And then coughing with that same barky wheezy sound.  And then he threw up all over Tom's shirt, as he was coughing.  I'm pretty sure the poor kid has croup.  His breathing is wheezy and every now and again he wakes himself up coughing.  

Once he finished throwing up I took him into the bathroom to breathe steam (I remembered Mel had done that for Asher when he had croup) and held him close.  It took him a bit to catch his breath and calm down, but finally he fell asleep.  He's been asleep since then, though his breathing is funky.  I called Mom for sympathy and Lisa for both sympathy and advice - both of which were provided in spades.  I *really* appreciated it.  It's good to know that I'm not alone.  And that it's okay to call the doctor tomorrow if Tai is still sounding bad.

At least I didn't freak when Tai threw up. I don't think I made anything worse.  He wanted me to hold him and I did.  I just have to keep my own issues to myself and be there for my son.  He needs me.  And I love him.

I've always been a fan of living in the city.  Ever since I was 10 I've lived surrounded by people - in apartments, in cities, in dorm-rooms.  There was a very short period of time in between college and moving out to San Francisco that I lived in the suburbs.  I hated it.   We lived in a big house, the neighbors felt very far away.  Whenever I was the only one home I felt totally exposed.  If I screamed, no one would hear me.  I feel safe in cities.

Until just lately.  There's been an increased rash of robberies in my area of the city lately.  People are getting threatened by guys with guns, even early in the evening  - like 9pm.  On Saturday night Tom and Tai and I got home around 11:30.  We'd been having date night.  As we drove up our street we saw a group of guys, either teenagers or early 20-somethings.  As Tom parked the car, I watched one of them duck under our neighbor's steps.  Fortunately our neighbor drove up then and confronted them.  They cussed him out, but took off.  I wondered whether we should call the police, since it looked like they were trying to break in the basement window or steal a bike at the very least.  But I didn't.  I found out the next day that they'd stopped a block away and beat up and robbed two guys.

A couple of weeks ago Tom went out on a Friday night.  About 20 minutes after he left, while I was watching TV and Tai was sleeping the dogs barked.  At first I didn't know why - then I heard a woman screaming.  It sounded like she was being hurt and it sounded close.  After freaking out a bit, I went to the door.  Several of my neighbors had come out too - one had called the police.  After a minute we saw the woman come to the window, shouting at someone driving away in a car.  Domestic Incident as far as we could tell, but we don't know what happened.

At about 5:45am last Thursday we were woken by a woman screaming, "Call the police!"  from just down the street.  Tom did.  Several other people did as well, and the cops drove up shortly after.  I don't know what happened, again.  But I can't fully shake the fear I woke up with  that day.  

I'm not sure what to do about this.  I'm trying to be extra-aware when I park the car and take Tai into the house.  I make sure the dogs have access to the front door, just in case.  People in the neighborhood are afraid too and we're talking about meeting to discuss changes to make.  And the Guardian Angels (who I'd never heard of before) offered to have a presence some nights, which I think I'd like.

I think part of it comes from having Tai.  I would do anything to protect him.    And I know that I can't, always.  

I've decided someone with such a talent for worry shouldn't be a Mama.  Why did I have this insight so late?  Kidding.  (Mostly.)  I'm not panicking or anything - this is just a normal garden-variety worry.  Tai's having an under the weather sort of day.  No fever, no vomiting, no real obvious symptoms - he's even eating normally.  He's just not himself.  He actually slept for almost two hours this afternoon.  He almost never smiled, not at me or Dad or Grandma.  Nothing made him laugh.  He'd go from 'screeching because it's new and fun' to 'screeching in unhappiness' in less than a second. 

Mom told me not to worry about it - that babies have days where they don't feel well and there's nothing to do about it.  She figures he's probably teething.  He's drooling like a fiend (he almost drooled through his bib).  I can maybe feel bumps in his front gums.  And he loves to chew on things.  His grandma's finger, his bib, his pac.  Fortunately not my nipples. 

I know she's right.  There's no use in worrying.  I just give him extra cuddling, offer nursing whenever he seems to be interested and let him sleep when he wants.  (As I usually do.)  But I wish he could talk and tell me what's wrong.  I wish I could help.  He's usually such a happy baby.  It hurts to see him so serious and down. 

I'm going to keep an eye on him tomorrow and see how he's doing.  I hope a day of rest and a night of sleep will help him feel better.