More than words

Intentions

So this is a post all about intentions.  Way back in January, which seems so way back ago, my intention was to post every day.  Funny because I should know myself better – every journal I ever started began with a flurry, but ended within a few days.  But it was more than just laziness that took hold – there’s been a lot of life going on around here.  I tried a few times to pull together a post, but then more life interrupted, and that’s how this post got to be so delayed.

So now, you get the Christmas card version of the update, because if I try to truly update you, I will be lost in the tide forever.  There’s just truly so much that has happened.  I’ll just go through and give a glimpse at each one of us.

Brenna came home in January for her 16^th birthday, not quite the 16^th birthday I had imagined, but a 16^th birthday nonetheless – she had a *really* good visit. 

One of those visits that makes you wish it had been a bad visit, because it makes the goodbyes so much harder.  We have been working diligently to try to find her a new placement in California, but they prove to be few and far between, so that has been a big part of my battle the last two months.  She has been struggling because of the delay in moving her, but she is brightened by the fact that she’ll be back again for a weeklong visit on the 30^th.  We are very much looking forward to it!

 

Ailish came home just last week for a weeklong visit – she actually arrived on my birthday, which was kind of exciting. 

She came home to shop for a prom dress – yet another unsettling milestone – here’s my baby shopping for a prom dress, and this is the only way I can participate, but I tried to be there in every way that I could. 

She, too, had one of those visits that made her existence in the house seem so normal, so every day that you wonder why she wasn’t here all along.  We are going to meet next month to discuss her next placement options, but knowing how hard it has been to place Brenna in this state, we know it could be some time before we are able to bring Ailish back to the Golden State.  I would like to be hopeful that it could be easier, but I am also realistic.

 

Kieran has had a very busy couple of months, with swim meet championships, school and life itself.  She amazes us with her ability to juggle homework and swim practice, but I think it keeps her distracted from everything else that happens here (and I’m kind of jealous for that).  She struggles with missing her sisters, yet being scared of the idea of them living with us once again – and I totally understand and respect that.

 

 

As for me, I have also had a very busy couple of months.  I’ve worked a lot of swim meets, and spent a lot of my free time trying to figure out how to get the girls back here to California, which is a much harder proposition than I ever imagined.  As far as the County Department of Mental Health is concerned, there are four placements that are appropriate for Brenna – one is more than 10 hours away from us, one is more than four hours from us.  The other two are closer, but one has a waiting list more than a year long.  The last one has an opening in June.  When we were first told that, we thought that was impossibly far away – I guess with attrition, it is beginning to sound more palatable, but I still feel awful for her with every day that she spends in Colorado.  She needs to be closer to us.  Needs to.  Going through this experience just makes me all the more skeptical about the possibilities for Ailish, but we will soldier on.  Personally, I’ve been running.  Running a lot.  Last weekend, I decided to test my long run skills.  I haven’t exactly been on the “marathon plan,” because February was a mess, with meets every weekend, which kind of precluded my plans, but I decided to head out on a long run and see what happened.  Well, I managed to eke out a half marathon, in 2:20, all on my own.  The last four miles were harder than I imagined, but I was so proud just to have done it.  Until that moment, I really didn’t know if I was capable of it.  I mean, it was just a year ago this week that I started walking!  So, with everyone’s encouragement, this morning I signed up for the Hollywood Half Marathon on April 7.  I know I won’t place in the top finishers, but I also know I will finish.

As for us – huh.  That has been the biggest surprise.  Just when we were ready to pull the trigger, and I wanted nothing more than for us to move out and away from each other as quickly as possible, there was a moment.  Just a moment.  We let our guards down.  And somehow, we found a way to make ourselves try just one more time.  I guess the best way I can explain it is that when the girls left for placement, I felt so guilty that I decided to pause everything, because I didn’t want them to miss anything that I had done.  But in pausing, after some point, we had essentially died inside, and that wasn’t good for any of us.  So Brad and I are trying – we are trying to live with intention; just as I have found how important it is to eat with intention, I have realized that living with intention is probably the single most important thing to do.

So that is probably one of the most unsatisfying updates ever – and yet it will have to do.  I had so many intentions along the way, but you know what they say about those…the road to hell is paved with them.

Patchwork Quilts

Kieran and I went to the movies a couple nights ago – such a rare occurrence for us.  What with ticket and treat prices, unless her team is planning a movie outing, it truly is such an oddity for us to go to the movies.  I’m trying to remember back to the last time I went to the movies with her, and unfortunately, I think it was Avatar. Ugh.  So this time we saw The Descendants.  It was something *I* really wanted to see, but I didn’t know that it was something fitting for an 11-year-old.  But as we perused the offerings, the Chipmunks weren’t exactly appropriate for her, and neither of us were up for Mission Impossible.  I offered We Bought a Zoo first, but she seemed to like Descendants better.  After researching the reasoning behind the R rating, I decided that it would be okay.  So we went.  It was depressing – more than the trailers would have us believe.  But it was real.  And for Kieran and me, it was more real than maybe we would like to have faced at that moment – isn’t movie-going about escaping things?  She said the mom in the coma was kind of like her sisters, suspended in life.  At times, yes.  We both cried.  Okay, I did more than she did, but I think that’s because she spent that time trying to make me stop.  And then we went to the mall, and I did my best to laugh louder and harder at everything, to remind her that we were still alive.  (I am fully aware that all five of us are still alive, but sometimes it is most important that I remind this little person, the one who worries the most about us, that we are still alive, that we are, indeed, we are.)

Samantha, you gave me a lot to think about, and I will choose my words carefully with Brenna when I show her the pages, if we get the chance to do so.  I am not so much hoping to show her that she was happy – my intent during those days was to write down the good, but there were many many dark days from the very beginning, and as far as I’m concerned, there are no illusions about that, but I also don’t want the girls to think I focus solely on that.  It’s a delicate balance, that’s for sure.  I guess I’m just hoping to rekindle some feelings for her that she is a part of our family.  I hope I don’t make it worse – I hope it’s not more jarring for her to see these photos and not recognize herself at all.  I completely understand that the girl I can still see so vividly – the one who loved Angela Anaconda, hot dogs, even the color pink – that’s not the girl I know, and I know this can all be attributed to being 16, not 10, but it’s so much more than that.  The biggest difference, aside from the fact that she grew so much apart from us, is that she grew away from us as well.  I know she loves Glee, and turquoise, and peace signs.  That’s not much more than a Google search would find you.  Trying to get to know her would be quite an adventure now – not to say that I wouldn’t want to go on it – but I have a feeling she and I would be going on the same road together, and she gets very frustrated when we try to talk about her feelings, her likes and dislikes, etc.

With our house being what it is right now, suffice to say I have some strange sleeping arrangements.  I actually quite like the couch – it’s pretty comfy.  But Kieran keeps asking me to sleep in her room – I do if she asks, but I never want to force myself upon her.  She is her own person, and that is her space, and to be honest, the twin mattresses are not nearly as forgiving as the sofa :) But when she does ask, I’m always happy to oblige.  Last night, I was in the spare bed across from her, Brenna’s bed, and I realized what I was snuggling beneath – what was so incredibly soft.  It was one of the quilts.  These were the quilts I had waited so anxiously for Target to put on sale when we had the triple bunk bed.  I had wanted so badly for the girls to have matching blankets, wanted them to be 100% cotton, and I admit, I have always had a weakness for patchwork quilts. I’ve never had my own, but I’ve always loved the way they become more beautiful the older they get, and the history that seems to be held within their threads.  I knew these were Target quilts, they weren’t Pottery Barn – we couldn’t possibly afford those, but they were perfect for us. The girls had fought over the color of the room, so each wall was painted a different color, and these quilts were exactly the same.  They really were the perfect fit.  As the years have gone on (a whole decade now), the walls have changed colors, the girls split into two rooms, then Brenna and Ailish have had to go to placement.  There have been many new bedspreads along the way.  But I’ve never let those quilts go.  No, I’m not a hoarder, but I know a useful piece of history when I see it.  They’ve never been stored away – somehow they’ve always been in use somewhere, and though they’ve been through countless extra hot washes, even with bleach involved, they’ve only become more beautiful, more soft, more loved.  Maybe I’m the only one who sees that right now.  But I bet – I bet when Brenna comes home next week (and we just learned yesterday that yes, she will be home for her birthday – yay!) that if I ask her if she remembers anything about those quilts, it will spark something.  If it doesn’t, I won’t be disappointed.  I know that they’ve given her comfort through the years, and they will again when she’s here this time, and in the future. 

Maybe that’s all that really matters – I’ve been so preoccupied with this idea that the past was meaningless.  That all of the efforts I made to not only capture it but to create it to begin with were for nothing, but that’s not really true.  If we just give comfort in that moment, even if it’s never remembered again, more importantly because it probably won’t be remembered, that’s the most important part, right?  In a way, I’m kind of the same as that quilt.  After 16 years of motherhood, I’m a little (okay, a lot) worn, frayed at some edges, and my colors may have faded in some places – but I hope in a lot of ways I’ve grown softer too.  I hope that I can give her that same sense of comfort, even if she doesn’t have the sense of history.

And while we're on the subject of comfort, if you could just take a moment and go to this site and read about Cole.  His 5th birthday is on Monday, and it will most likely be his last, and his cousin would love for him to receive as many birthday cards as possible for his big day.  He loves Spongebob and farms, if you'd like to personalize, but I'm sure he'd love whatever you could send.

Worth Remembering

Thank you – thank you for reading that last post.  Thanks for responding.  That was really hard to write.  As much as I write about lifting the stigma of mental illness, I have completely ignored the stigma of sexual abuse – just another part of my story.  I can campaign endlessly for my girls, but it’s difficult for me to talk about my own history.  Funny how I worked so hard not to inconvenience anyone in my own life about my history, and yet I don’t care how it inconveniences those in the lives of my girls to hear about their lives.  I guess it’s just part of the Mama Bear.

Back in November, I found an article online that spoke to the connection between schizophrenia and memory deficits.  Before this, I guess I hadn’t really fully grasped that this was a part of Brenna’s condition, but that night on the phone, just in conversation, I asked her about it.  “Oh yeah,” she responded matter of factly. “I have no memory of anything before 2009, and even stuff that happens now, I forget half the things that happen unless people remind me.”  Huh.  Huh.  That’s pretty tragic.  Sure, in some ways, it could be a gift, because it means she’s forgotten hospitalizations, she’s forgotten the beating, she’s forgotten the dramatic meltdowns that happened here that brought her to the point we are now.  But it also means she’s forgotten every bit of real home life she ever had.  The only life she’s ever really known is that of being in an institution.  That breaks my heart.

When I first started scrapbooking, back when Ailish was a baby, it was therapeutic for me, in that I was trying to see something good – it was kind of my way of putting the gratitude journal right on the page, even though I didn’t format it that way.  But that was my intent – yes, she screamed all the time; yes, Brenna’s tantrums were frequent, but the girls were awfully cute, and there were good moments, and that’s what I was trying to celebrate.  As I found online communities like TwoPeas, and my pages got better, it became therapeutic for me in a different way, as it became a real creative outlet, but my intent was still the same – find the good.  I didn’t realize at the time that I was documenting something so that I could help her remember that we had a home life, that we loved her, that we had rituals and inside jokes, and we did family things – that we really were a family.

The last pages I made for us were the books I made for Brenna and Ailish, for Christmas 2008.  Creatively, I think I could go back – I still think the paper is cute, and I’m not so tortured by the idea that everything I do has to be Hall of Fame-worthy, especially considering it doesn’t exist anymore, but it’s just going backwards to those times is so painful – it’s sort of like revisiting a story where the kids are playing happily in the yard, yet you’ve seen all of the foreshadowing, you know the earthquake/volcano/hurricane is coming and nothing about their lives will ever be the same again.  Documenting anything from 2006-present (from when they left home) feels like a disloyalty to them.  Just like that stupid 9’ tree that has been on hold until we are back together, I have been putting our memories on pause as well.  I get that it sounds kind of irrational as I write it down, especially since I have a child here who has spent a significant part of her childhood from 2006-present here in the house, and she’s done an awful lot of living – but I’m guessing she’ll argue there’s only so much you can document about swimming, and I did make her a Shutterfly book about that last year :)  And then again, I wonder, is there a point to making these books at all?  Will they have an emotional connection to the words and photos in those books?  If they do, will it be a good one, or will it be sadness or the lives they lost, and by they, I mean all of them, because Kieran lost that life too – the life of having three sisters together at home.  I think the girls like to look at the early pages, of them as babies, but I’m not sure how the words would resonate with them.  It’s something I think about, and then the thinking just kind of overwhelms, and I end up putting it off for another day, and those days turn into years, and here we are, with the mounds of unused paper and photos and oodles of guilt to go with it.

I felt so bad for Brenna today – in therapy, she said she hated Christmas, hated having the whole happy thing shoved down her throat (totally agree), but also hated having to try to come up with presents for us because she didn’t feel like she knew us at all anymore, and didn’t feel like she was a part of our family at all.  That made me feel so awful.  There is only so much we can do from 1,000 miles away.  We talk to her every night, and try to include her in our lives as much as we can.  But when your illness has stolen your whole familial foundation, it makes it very hard to move forward from that.  I don’t know – I’m hoping hoping (we still don’t know for sure yet, and we only have a week to go) that she will be out here for her birthday, and maybe we can really sit down with those scrapbooks and help remind her that she’s a part of us.  I don’t know how to make that link with her, especially when we aren’t with her every day – we do our best to remind her, but she seems really confused and frustrated by this whole idea of family, and I don’t want to push her too far.  I know how we feel – we love her immensely, but we don’t know how to reach her, or how far to go without causing more damage, so we tread lightly.

I don’t really have the answer here…I was going to say something more, but isn’t that the whole point?

Protection

I was thinking today about the fact that 16 years ago on this day, my labor began.  Sometimes when I tell people that story, they look at me incredulously – I know, it sounds unbelievable, right?  I wish I had the tape from the machine to show them the contraction lines…but then again, no.  There’s my need to verify my story, to prove that I’m right, when my word should be enough. The truth is the truth.  I really did have strong contractions – not so strong that I was dying, but strong, consistent contractions for seven days straight. On the 8^th day, we moved to Pitocin, and an epidural, and 23 hours after I started all of that, and three hours of really intense pushing, Brenna was finally born, and we learned the reason behind the arduous labor – her head was stuck awkwardly in the birth canal, and the contractions were not doing the job they were intended to do.  I always worried that the beginning set the tone for us.  Not that I resented her, but that I had gotten it all wrong from the start.  Me.  As if I were the one who positioned her in that way.  Not that she did it either, but ultimately, being the mother, I blamed myself for not being able to just easily pop her out.  I mean, it couldn’t have been a picnic for her either, right?  I watched her heart rate dip, I knew it wasn’t easy.  And then when breastfeeding was so difficult too – no, this was not how motherhood was supposed to be.  I blamed myself completely.

As I thought about all of this today, I thought maybe I should share – maybe it was time – to share why it is so easy to blame myself.  Because it is such an important part of who I am, even though I would like so much for it not to be, and maybe by talking about it just a bit, it will lose a bit of its importance.

I spent a good deal of my childhood trying to stay out of the way.  Many of my siblings might disagree, but they were there for the early childhood part.  I will admit, I was a totally different child while they were still at home, but there is a huge fracture between those times in my life.  Once the last sibling was out of the house and it was just me on my own at home, at around age 10, my life completely changed.  From that point on, the bulk of the house maintenance fell to me, and I was tasked with the bulk of the household chores, and to make dinner for my dad every night.  This is kind of getting off the subject, but suffice to say, from that point on, I just wanted to not make trouble.  I didn’t want to bother anyone – it seemed like both of my parents had so much on their plates, I didn’t want to trouble them with anything of my own.

But something happened to me a few years later.  I was abused by someone we knew – not once, but several times.  At first, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t what I thought it was.  But after several more incidents, I finally had to tell someone what was happening.  When my mom found out, she was angry.  But she wasn’t angry at the person who did this to me – she was angry at me.  She told me I had to have done something to make this happen.  Why was I being so dramatic?  I must have been confused.  I needed to get my head on straight.  And no, we weren’t going to breathe a word of this to my father.  We weren’t going to go and get him all upset over nothing.

So nothing happened.  But it did happen.  Everything changed for me.  It wasn’t long before I left home for good, and just a few weeks after I turned 18, I left for California.  Just a year before she died, she admitted to me that she believed me all along, but that it was easier not to.  She figured I could handle it – I was a strong girl, a smart girl.  I would be okay.  I didn’t know what to say to that.  At the time, I thanked her for her honesty, but on the inside, I was screaming – I was your child! But that’s a pretty common theme now, and one that I think directly stems from that incident.  There are many times when I know that I am being disrespected, or something’s happening to me that I absolutely don’t want to have happening, and I just put my head down and let it wash over without standing up for myself, all the while on the inside, I am screaming my head off.  As soon as I walk away from whatever it is, be it an encounter with a salesperson, a disagreement with someone, even when someone asks me to do something and I really don’t want to do it, but I do it whatever it is, I berate myself repeatedly for not standing up for myself, and yet somehow, I just go into this lockdown mode.  So I kind of treat myself like my mom did – rather than go back and fight for whatever it was I needed, I just kick myself for not standing up in the first place.  I do this – a lot.  A lot.  I’ve been through therapy about this – paid several professionals to analyze this little dynamic of mine.  And yet I can’t seem to shake the pattern.

The funny thing is, when it comes to my girls, all bets are off.  I am Mama Bear, capital M capital B.  Don’t mess with my cubs.  The moment I realized Brenna had been beaten at her placement in Texas, I flew out there to file a complaint, take pictures, do everything I could within the limits of our situation to make it right.  I told her over and over again that this was not her fault, that she did not deserve it.  When the review process was finished and I realized that the person who beat her would not be fired, I immediately demanded that both girls be moved from their placement.  I’m not writing this to say yay me – I am writing it to say that unfortunately, bad things do happen to kids sometimes.  It’s awful, and yet, my point is that it’s not so much what matters the first time around, what really matters is how the adults in that child’s life react to what happens.  That’s what really matters.   If they spring to protect that child, they will notice.  They will realize that they are a person worth protecting, and that will mean everything to them.  Maybe it doesn’t mean a whole lot to the people around them, but I can tell you, more than two decades later, it means a whole lot to the child involved.

Begin Again

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all of that...that notwithstanding, I really was intending to write here on Sunday.  But actually, Sunday was quite productive:

After what has become a yearly tradition of cleaning the kitchen, or at the very least, scrubbing down the stovetop and the countertops, once Kieran awoke, we decided to tackle some other areas.  These were big things to tackle, but after the great purging I did just a few weeks before, I was feeling energized.  She and I went after the hallway outside the girls' rooms.  We quickly had boxes filled with books, clothes and the last remnants of toys the girls had hung onto.  Shelves were cleaned out and dusted, prepped to hand off to Kieran's old school's Goodwill fundraiser.  This got Kieran so motivated that she took down the litle Christmas tree in her room, and then tore apart her bathroom, weeding out make up, soaps and a host of cups and bowls that Ailish must have put there before she left.  Once we'd made a sizable dent in the upstairs, Kieran was feeling so emboldened that she made me attack the most daunting task of all - the medicine box on the kitchen island.  I don't know why we keep it there, or even why things stay in there.  Probably because I don't want to look at them and be reminded - oh yes, there's the Zyprexa that cost a fortune and did nothing but make B drool. Huh, there's the Ativan that just made Ailish more paranoid.  Sprinkled in amongst the epi-pens, anti-psychotics and anti-anxieties is Ibuprofen, cold medicines, anitbiotics, and inhalers for Kieran, and meds the girls have brought home on visits and forgotten to take back with them.  It's a motley mix of bottles that is so overwhelming to ponder that usually, I just give up.  But Kieran put her foot down.  We went through each bottle and determined whether the meds were expired, the likelihood of them being used again, and whether there was a better place to store them (we have a pill graveyard in another part of the house).  And just like that (although it wasn't just like that - it took us about an hour), we reduced our towering terror to a manageable container of medications.

I did take a little break to have some coffee with my dear friend Lisa, which was such a treat.  It is rare that we have a chance to sit down and chat, and though it was way too brief, I was so glad that we did get that opportunity.  I really miss those moments with my friends.  And after that, I did go to Target, where the Christmas stuff was 70% (not 75% - what's up with that, Target?), starting to get into my oh-so-tempting purchase area, but I'm not sure if it's my bah humbug spirit or my purging mood or a combination of both, but nothing appealed to me, not even one roll of wrapping paper, which is usually my Achilles heel, and we are completely out.  I decided I would rather, gasp, take my chances on a fully priced roll of wrapping paper (which, let's face it, you can always find one at 55% off at Kohl's) than to store it all year.  Nope, all I bought at Target were three pair of scissors which we can use all year round.

See, it's not in my nature to hoard anything - I am at my heart and soul a purger, but then I am afraid I'll throw something away that I might need in the future.  For example - Sunday night, I went through one of my online mailboxes, which somehow contained more than 700 unread emails.  I actually thought they were real emails - turns out they were all spam/virus type, but were dated 2008/2009, so they were well buried.  To get to these emails (remember when there was a "View/All Unread" button? It doesn't exist anymore, or at least not with this program - I have two different email addresses, and this one doesn't have it), I had to go page by page to find them, and wow, what a walk down memory lane.  Seems I saved every Girl Scout email ever written - just in case, you know.  I mean, I may have had over 700 unread, but including the read messages, there were almost 8000 messages in my box.  My other email program won't even tell me the truth - it just says "many"  Anyway, I started to delete anything in between the spam emails too, thinking I may not need the flyer for a Junior workshop from 2008.  Just a thought.  Even though it was kind of cool to walk down that memory lane, and it made me realize how much I miss my leader friends, and our monthly meetings.  I may not miss the volunteer exhaustion so much, but I really do miss my friends, and when I run into them, we always promise to get together, but without that structure of needing to get together once a month, it just doesn't seem to happen.  When I got back to page one of my emails, back to 2001, back to emails from my mom, there are emails from my dad, sprinkled in there are emails from scrapbook magazine editors and scrapbook supply companies and clients - it's like an anthropological dig.  A whole other life I lived.  Sure, I don't have to save every email, but a few are worth the kilobytes.  So I knocked it down to 6000 emails in my box - I know, I know, I could have done so much better, but that literally took me hours, so that's going to be a project for another day!  I'll probably need Kieran around to kick my butt encourage me every step of the way.

Still haven't heard if Brenna will be coming home for her birthday.  The reservations have been made, but at least they are refundable if we get a no, but I hope she can - I would hate for her to spend her birthday, especially her 16th, alone.  It's one of those bittersweet milestones, as I watch my Jan96 mom friends celebrating their kids' 16th on Facebook, and realizing that so many of their kids will have birthdays and years so different than ours.  I know this - every day I know this - and yet this milestone is one of those that really reminds me.

But I'm not wallowing - not yet, anyway.  Ask me on the 12th.  Especially if she's not here.  For now, I'm waiting for Kieran to finish her french toast so that we can do her nebulizer and I can take her to practice.  Then I'm headed to the gym for my first workout of 2012 (I know, I feel a little guilty, but oh well - I took two days in a row off, it's not going to kill me).  And when I pick her up, we'll grab a little food, and then we're going to tackle some more clutter.  I'm hoping before she heads back to school that we'll be clutter free! (Or at the very least, clutter-lite :)

Gratitude:

1.  Cleaner spaces - seeing the floor.  Goodness.

2.  The promise of a clean slate.

3.  Sleeping in - as much as I love running in the dark, I forgot how much I enjoy sleeping in!

4.  Hulu Plus - Kieran and I have been catching up on whole seasons of shows we didn't know we'd like. 

5.  Two more weeks of school break - I love the chance to see my girl without the background of the holidays.

Doing my best to keep up my end of the bargain on this whole good 2012 thing...

2012 *Will* Be Better (Because I Said So)

30 days.  Huh.  It’s one of those times when you have a couple of weeks where you have almost nothing to say, and then all of a sudden, you have so much to say, but no time to say it.  It’s safe to say it’s been a long and busy month.

I spent much of December trying to ignore that it was, indeed, December.  I actually caught myself a few times wondering why people were driving around with trees on their cars.  I’m not kidding – I was that far out of touch with the spirit of Christmas.  And I was one of those curmudgeons grumbling about the traffic as I tried to run errands at Target, or just trying to get to the grocery store, which is located so conveniently next to a strip of big box retail.  After much anxious worry from Ailish, I decided we had to put the tree up at least, so we did that on the 18^th, just in time.  And the moment I got home from the airport on the 26^th, I started putting decorations away.  It was a record-breaking short amount of time for our tree to be up – stark contrast from, I think, 2009? I think that was the year we had it up almost until March.  I’ll take this over the other – but still, I kept hoping I would find some bit of joy in the season.  Hoping that once the girls arrived, I’d suddenly want to bake dozens of cookies and spread Christmas cheer wherever I could.  But I guess it’s hard to give something away that you don’t have yourself.

It was busy swim-wise.  The first three weekends of December were taken up with meets.  The second one was all the way in Palm Springs, so Kieran and I had to travel for that one.  Our first hotel was not a good one, so the second night, I Hotwired us a room at the Hyatt Regency Suites – it was gorgeous, and so orange, it just made Kieran’s heart go pitter patter!  She wanted to stay there forever, but alas, check out was at noon, and we had to get back to the real world – Brenna’s IEP was the next day, and there was no avoiding that.  We did stop at the outlets on the way back, but after walking what seemed like miles, we only found one pair of Vans for Kieran.

Brenna’s IEP was something I faced with trepidation, but we had help in the form of my friend Lisa and her colleague.  I’ve never been to an IEP that’s lasted more than an hour.  This one took more than four.  I learned so much from it, mostly that we’ve never done an IEP the right way, and that we’ve missed a lot of things that would have been helpful.  We didn’t think that any of the omissions along the way have been done maliciously – it’s just that it took the keen eyes of really knowledgeable people in the field of special education to make sure that everything was done properly.  The most important thing – Brenna won’t be forced to graduate merely based on the amount of credits she has accumulated, and that is a huge relief.  She desperately needs to catch up on her math skills before she graduates, because she truly wants to go forward and work towards an education in the veterinary field, so she needs to have college level math before she gets her diploma, and right now, she’s at an algebra level.  There was so much more than that – obviously, since it took more than four hours, but it was enlightening, to say the least, and empowering.  For once, I felt like I knew exactly what was happening, and that we had covered every base.  We will meet again in February – Brenna needs some more testing, and we are going to discuss a new placement, hopefully one closer to home – but this was such an important meeting to have.  I know what a huge investment a special education attorney is, but I *strongly* encourage every parent in an IEP situation to have an attorney with you at least once. It is vitally important to your child’s future – all of those boxes on the IEP are there for a reason, and if you, like me, have ever had someone say, “Oh, that one doesn’t apply to this situation,” you should know that they do, they absolutely do, and you need someone to be able to say no – we are going to go through this line by line and make sure that their needs are being properly addressed.

With that, I moved on to the business of our club swim meet, which is just an intrasquad one, but it’s still a big one for me because it has enough differences from regular meets to make everything interesting.  That took up most of the rest of that week.  Except for one very important thing I did, which was oh so liberating!  After almost two years of thinking I would have a garage sale, and a year of accumulating clothes that were too big for me, but being afraid to get rid of them because I didn’t want to gain the weight back and have to depressingly buy bigger clothes, I freed myself from all of it.  I called the Vietnam Veterans of America and told them to come and get it.  I thought maybe I would have 6-8 boxes, but once I started pulling things out and putting it on the street, I couldn’t stop.  I just kept pulling boxes and bags from every nook and cranny, and by the time they came to pick up, there were over 25 boxes and bags!  It was quite a haul!  Best part?  As soon as I walked into my closet, I realized there were several boxes I had completely overlooked in there!  Oh well, I can donate to another cause – it just felt SO good to purge – I honestly hate hanging onto things, and I’d be much happier if our house had nothing in it, but it’s hard to fight against the tide of those who hang onto things. 

Once the meet was over, Kieran and I had to finally admit that Christmas was around the corner, so we, with the help of Brad handling the actual tree putting together duties, put up the tree.  We set aside Brenna and Ailish’s ornaments and dutifully put up our own.  It just seemed so hollow this year, everything about the season.  The decorations, shopping for the girls, all of it seemed like a chore, and not the loving act of fulfilling Christmas wishes that I normally would feel.  Of course, it doesn’t help that Brenna’s school shipped us four large boxes of stuff that she refused to part with, and asked us politely to not give her too much stuff.  Seems I have more than one hoarder.  Believe me, those boxes will be part of my next round of donations.

That week, I went to my rheumatologist, who confirmed what I had been thinking.  The irony of it all is still resonating with me.  The better I look on the outside – and at 99 pounds lost (and more than one clothing label agreeing that I am not just barely a size 4 but a true size 4), I look pretty dang good, if I do say so myself –  the more I’m actually falling apart on the inside.  This is pretty true on all accounts – physically and emotionally.  It’s quite possible – no, probable – that the two are working together.  I just like to think that my Lupus was like, “Yeah, you look fabulous, but just remember who is boss!”  So all those weird physical things I started dealing with in November – yeah, turns out it was a flare.  Didn’t have all of the markers of a traditional flare, so I just chalked it up to weird side effects, but no, judging by my blood work, it was.  Thankfully, after some follow up tests, she was satisfied enough to not insist on a round of steroids, which I hate so much.  But she’s not really happy with all of the running.  I know, sounds weird, right?  Wouldn’t every doctor rejoice at someone who is putting in 20 miles a week?  She doesn’t mind 20 miles – it’s the running part.  If I were walking it, she’d have no problem.  It kind of puts me in a quandary.  I really want to run that marathon – I have so little, self esteem-wise, to hang onto right now, and that was a goal I had set for myself – not to mention, I don’t want to jeopardize the progress I have made with my weight loss.   I want to be able to maintain it for the long term.  But if running is actually hurting me, I don’t know what I should do.  Then last week, I found this amazing blog through Pinterest, yet another inspiration site time waster, called Can You Stay For Dinner.  Andie is a brilliant writer.  She’s a foodie.  She lost 135 pounds four years ago, and she has maintained that weight loss.  And she stopped running.  She walks everywhere.  Huh.  As enlightening as that was, it just complicates things all the more.  Anyway, this should all probably go on my other blog, but it’s been one of those things that’s added to my general low state of mind the past few weeks, as running has been one of the few things that has kept me going over the last several months, and if it were to suddenly turn on me, then what’s left?

Brenna and Ailish came home on the 22^nd, and thankfully it wasn’t nearly as adventurous this time around, though there was some last minute excitement.  We’d scheduled it so Brenna’s flight would arrive an hour before Ailish’s, but then B’s flight was delayed by the snow hitting Denver.  For awhile there, it looked like they would arrive at exactly the same time, but thankfully, her flight was delayed just enough that Brad was able to pick up Ailish and her bags, then head over to get B.  Then they had to fight their way up the 405, yet another adventure, but finally they made it home.  I had made curry that night, the Betty Crocker kind, a family tradition.  Only families that grew up on this stuff in the 60’s and 70’s and had it passed down to them truly understand this stuff – this curry that is so bright yellow it’s almost green – then you put what on it?  Oh yes, dill and sweet pickles, bacon, pineapple, hard boiled eggs?  Oh and this time we added pomegranate, which I highly recommend.  We’ve served it to guests who look at us like we’re serving Haggis, but once they try it, they do actually like it.  Still, because we only make it with whole chickens, and I’ve tried making it for just the three of us before, but sadly, we’ve had to throw out the last bits of it because we just can’t eat it all before it goes bad, I was so happy to have everyone home so we could enjoy it again.  And the girls knew, the moment they came in, with that distinctive curry aroma, what we were going to be enjoying that night.

Kieran had a great idea that we should celebrate our Christmas on Christmas Eve, because we were going to be spending most of Christmas Day with the extended family in Ventura, and we didn’t want to have to rush out.  So the girls were excited to be able to open their jammies and one present on the 23^rd.  I struggled to stay awake long enough for all of them to finally fall asleep so I could set everything out.  So much harder to do Christmas, in many respects, with teenagers! The next morning, the girls excitedly tore through their gifts – that part doesn’t change.  I was happy to have scored on three gifts they didn’t expect but loved instantly – for Brenna, turquoise Aero sweatpants she had seen on the website the night before and wanted to ask for; for Ailish, artisanal caramels from Good Karmal (YUM!); and, for Kieran, an anatomically correct beating heart pillow that she completely adores.  I was so mad when I saw it on Big Bang Theory just a week before Christmas (and I knew she saw it too), because I had seen it and ordered it back in October from Think Geek, but she was just so happy because she didn’t even think it actually existed.  So, there was my bit of Christmas joy – I actually did score a bit of gifting win.

After the presents were opened, Ailish made us her present – her therapist had taught her how to make crepes, so without any help from me, except for purchasing some ingredients the day before, she made us all crepes, and they were fantastic.  We had bought lingonberry preserves, and had assembled chocolate syrup, honey and powdered sugar for everyone.  I told her it was like she brought a food truck to our house, and I was truly grateful for the experience, and the thought and care that she put into it.

Once the crepes were cleaned up, it was time for me to get started on the dinner prep.  I had a ham, and plans to make stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, all that good stuff.  This trip was so different for Brenna.  Where last time she was in the kitchen the whole time, and was just in general so helpful, this time she was almost invisible, and when we did ask her to do something, she only did it grudgingly.  Ailish did help me with some of the kitchen duties, peeling the sweet potatoes, that sort of thing, but it was just so different than the last trip.

It was a really good thing that we had our Christmas early, because the next morning, Kieran woke with a fever, and she had been coughing for most of the night.  We sent Brenna and Ailish with Brad to Grammapoppa’s, while Kieran and I stayed behind.  She was pretty miserable, but we did manage to work a few puzzles together, and we watched a few movies.  We were both asleep by the time everyone got home, and Brenna and Ailish struggled to get their stuff packed up for their flights the next morning.

My hopes in spacing out their flights when they were leaving was that if the first flight was delayed at all, we wouldn’t run into troubles getting Ailish onto her flight. But with flights three hours apart, it makes for a long day at the airport.  Brenna had already landed in Denver before Ailish had even boarded her plane.  And with the joys of Los Angeles traffic, I could see by my FlightView tracker that Ailish’s plane was already over New Mexico by the time I made it home.

And nearly from the moment I walked in the door, I began to take those decorations down.  I just couldn’t have that tree there, that symbol of Christmas cheer that I didn’t have, sitting there almost mocking me with all of its shiny goodness.  That tree – this isn’t even the real tree – this is supposed to be the stand-in tree, remember?  This was the “little” 7’ tree I bought in 2006, because I didn’t want to use our real tree (9’) until all of us were home again.  It’s been five years, and I don’t think we’ll ever use that tree again.  Isn’t that funny – that big tree means so much to me, and the girls, none of them, they don’t even remember what it looks like.  It’s probably time to let that tree go – donate it and move on.  It’s part of another life we’ll never get back to.

So wow, I am just a ray of sunshine, aren’t I?  I’m sorry, I try so hard to find the positive, to find something good to say, to be strong in spite of it all, but I’m not feeling all that strong right now.  I recognize that I am in full-on wallow mode at the moment.  It’s not pretty – it’s the equivalent of an ugly cry – and I would like to dry my tears and move on.  If only it were that easy.  I’ve decided to give myself three more days of this nonsense, and that’s it.  I am going to pull up my big girl panties beginning January 2^nd, and I am going to take back the things that I can control.  Yes, I have been feeling very powerless about many things in my life, but there are some things that I can do something about, and those are the things I am going to concentrate on.  This year has not been a good one, and it joins a long line of those, but I am not going to allow 2012 to start in the same way.  I remember when I had a similar low spell several years ago, and one of my friends sent me the U2 song, “Stuck in a Moment.”  And that’s it, that’s totally it.  But I’m going to get out.  There’s no better time like the beginning of the year to say this is not how my story is going to end.  We are going to make this a better year, not by chance but by choice.

Gratitude:

1. My girls made it safely here and back, and we were able to enjoy the holiday together.
2. That really productive IEP, and the incredible help of my friends who made that possible.
3. I’m so happy for Kieran that she worked so hard to pull off the grades she did at school.  She has really challenged herself to maintain a straight A average and then some, and even with all of the homework and the practice, she’s pushed herself and made it happen.
4. It’s nice to have a break from school so I can actually see her!  Feels like between swim and school, we never see each other, so it’s nice to have a bit of time to hang out together.
5. Fresh starts and big girl panties.  Let’s do this.

Triumph and Heartbreak (haven't I said that before?)

Well, I knew it was going to be a long time.  And honestly, 16 days isn't even close to the longest I've gone - it just feels like forever for some reason.  There was just so much packed into that little frame of time.  And I know I've used a similar title, but it's such a common occurrence - in one week, I see some of the most amazing steps forward, and then...

So, we had the big meet, and it actually turned out pretty well, even with the cold and rainy weather that just wouldn't stay away.  I don't know why we can have beautiful 75 degree days all week, but get to the meet weekend, and suddenly it's 50 and pouring rain!  For me personally, it was a really smooth meet.  I really enjoyed the experience.  For Kieran, it was kind of rocky - she had some good races and some that she definitely wished she could repeat, but it was just good to see her healthy again.  Still, she was right when she said she swims faster in bad weather.  Seems you just have to throw a little adversity in there to make it interesting for her.

We also had food trucks out to the meet, which made my little heart sing.  The first day, Patty Wagon came to see us, and everyone loved their grass fed beef sliders and organic fries.  On day two, Tornado Potato came out, and wow, was that ever a creation!  I love food trucks for so many reasons - I love that they bring something different to our valley, I love that they think outside of the box, and I love that I can support small businesses, so I am excited that we could bring them out.

Once the meet was over, I kicked into high gear to get ready for the girls to arrive.  Monday night, I wandered the aisles of Target trying to remember what snacks they liked, what would they want to eat?  I had gotten Ailish's beloved pickles from Williams Sonoma, and picked up some fruit, but I realized I didn't know their favorite cereals, did Brenna still like hot Cheetos, was apple juice still Ailish's favorite? I talk to them nearly every day, and yet it's sad when you realize that there's still such a disconnect when you miss out on the everyday-ness of life.  I did the best I could, thinking we'd just make a run to the store together after we were reunited.

Tuesday was an adventure.  The girls' facilities had made their arrangements, which is not normally how we do things - normally I arrange everything so I can coordinate the two.  But this time, we were at their mercy.  So Brenna's flight was set to arrive into LAX at 7:30 a.m.  Ailish's at 2:30 p.m.  Hmm.  Both of those times would not work well for me because of trying to get Kieran to school.  At first, I thought maybe Brad could pick up, then take Brenna to his office, which isn't far from there - he could get a little work done and then they could pick Ailish up and head home.  But then Brad had a night meeting crop up.  I considered taking care of airport duties while he handled school pick up, but he thought he could still be able to pick them up and get them back here in time to make it to his meeting.  Well, Ailish's flight arrived late, so that did not help things.  I dropped Kieran off at swim as soon as school got out and started to head towards them, but he said he needed the girls for the carpool lane, so instead I headed towards his meeting place.  What we both encountered was the worst traffic we'd seen in many many years of driving in L.A.  I felt so bad for the girls because by the time we met up, it was so late, we had no chance to even get out and stretch our legs, we had to turn right around and head for home to not be late to pick Kieran up from practice.  I apologized several times to the girls, but at least they were in good spirits.  Thankfully, we arrived in town with 15 minutes to spare before practice got out - just enough time to grab In n Out, Brenna's #1 most requested thing to do when she's home.  As the kids began to come out from practice, Kieran, usually one of the last, came sprinting out, flew open the van door, and yelled, "Peoples!"  She sprawled herself across Ailish, who was sitting in the back seat, and then opened the front door and hugged Brenna.  And then she smelled it.  "Peoples and BURGERS!"  She was a very happy girl!  Those are the moments I tuck away.

The next day, Brenna and Ailish and I went out for a little bit of shopping, just picking up the last few items for the Thanksgiving Dinner.  I asked Ailish what she wanted for dinner that night.  "No, you don't have to cook tonight, you're already making Thanksgiving dinner!"  I said no way, I was definitely making dinner.  So she sheepishly admitted that she wanted Pioneer Woman sloppy joes.  Not a problem at all.  We gathered the ingredients, ran home and put them away, and then the four of us (Kieran was sadly still at school) gathered at a rare sight - Grill em All, probably one of the most famous food trucks because it won the Great Food Truck Race, was in front of my favorite bakery, The Poached Pair.  Grill em All makes burgers, but they make really interesting toppings and combos of these burgers - that's why we go.  Usually, the line is 20 people deep, and it can take hours.  So to see them up here, we jumped at the chance, and since a food truck was high on Brenna's list of things to do, we were excited to do this.  I was concerned about Ailish, because she has a very limited list of approved restaurants, but this was actually one of the things we had talked about before she came - that if we suggested a restaurant, we hoped she could try it with an open mind and try not to have anxiety about it.  We ordered four different burgers, and I hoped she wouldn't notice that one of the burgers on the menu (though not one we ordered) had peanut butter on it.  If she did, she didn't say anything.  We cut the burgers into quarters and everyone sampled portions of it.  She didn't once mention nuts or clear her throat or anything - I was completely amazed.  Then we went into Poached Pair and ordered some cookies and scones, and she actually tried a cupcake from there, without any mention of nuts.  This sounds so small, but it's not - this was pretty massive, really.  She was just so nonchalant.  It was amazing.

That night, Brenna helped cut up the peppers and onions for the sloppy joes, and Ailish caught up on Glee episodes and the Sims.  She had such a short time here, I didn't want to pressure her into anything.  For the most part, all of the girls got along - there were a few little things here and there, mostly caused by Kieran, which I get.  It's not an excuse, just that I understand it.  Kieran has made the bathroom into her bathroom, and it's not actually her bathroom - but for 95% of the year, it is her bathroom, and she has worked really hard to carve out a very orderly place from a very chaotic world.  She flipped out when Ailish dared enter that place, which wasn't right, and shouldn't have happened, but Ailish handled it really well.  And Kieran has been talked to - I feel for all of them.

I decided at the last minute to run in the Thanksgiving 5K up in Ventura, which meant that we all had to be up and out really early so I could be at the registration at 7 a.m.  I had to laugh when I woke Kieran up and she said, "I can't believe we all have to get up this early just so you can run."  Um...like I do every Saturday just so you can swim?  Right...  They dropped me off and went back to Grammapoppa's to meet up with the cousins.

Closer to the start of the race, Brad came back with his dad and uncle, brother and his wife and their daughter.  Brad's brother and his family were the ones who got me started to think about this race, as they ran it last year.  I won't go into too much detail, I wrote about it on my other blog, but it was a fun way to start the day.

With the race finished, it was time to switch to Thanksgiving mode.  I felt a little rusty, a little off my game in the kitchen, but still, I managed to pull together the turkey and all of the fixings, including a new stuffing which Tom Colicchio shared via Twitter just two days before Thanksgiving.  It will definitely be a permanent part of our menu from here on out!  Though it took longer than I had planned to get dinner on the table, once we all gathered, it was really nice.  There were, again, some sister skirmishes, but nothing huge.  Just as I can clearly remember the day - Kieran was 9 days old, we were at a McDonald's play area, and I was nursing her, bending down to tie Brenna's shoe, and Ailish was crying and tugging on my shirt.  I thought to myself, "So this is what it's like to be a mom of three."  And as I sat at one end of the table and listened to the snide comments and watched the glares being exchanged at the other end, I thought to myself, "So this is what it's like to be a mom of teenaged girls." And yes, I know that Kieran is not technically a teenager, but let's face it - in mind and spirit, she is most definitely a teenager.  Okay, she doesn't hate me yet, and though I've made her promise me she won't, I know she will eventually, so there's that last remnant, but in every other way, she is a teen.  But it was a really lovely day to gather, and even given this difficult year, there are still things for which to be grateful.

We left late that night - probably a little too late for me and Ailish, since we had to be on a flight the next morning.  It was hard to get Ailish out of bed, and we left the house later than I wanted to, but we made the flight, and settled in for the three hour trip.  At first, Ailish talked excitedly about the possibility of being a songwriter.  She had shared with us one of her songs the night before, and I have to tell you, not as a mom, but as someone who has listened to hundreds of hours of Disney and Nickelodeon stars, I really think this song could be marketable.  And I don't mean that I'm running off right this second to find her an agent.  I'm just saying that she is really talented.  These are not songs where "right" ends with "light" and "heart" and "apart"  This was a beautiful, insightful song that I think would really appeal to adolescent girls.  I had told her so the night before, and because she knows I don't give praise without merit, she was genuinely excited.  So as she talked about this, the man across from us, with his hipster clothes, gold satin blanket and his eye mask, sits up with an annoyed look and points at her and says, "You know, we need to use our 'airplane voices' and let others get some rest now."  I don't know if she even got it, she didn't seem to respond, but I was not happy.  I sat for a moment debating whether to say anything, but I finally decided that I wasn't going to let it go.  I tapped him on the arm.  With a heavy sigh, he yanked his eyemask off.  "Yeah?"  "You know, she has bipolar disorder, and she has asperger's, so she doesn't have what you call an airplane voice."  "Well she just needs to turn it down!"  "That's what I'm trying to tell you - she can't turn it down.  I'm taking her back to placement after she got to spend just a few days at home with her family.  I'm sorry if we disturbed you."  "Well."  He pulled the mask back down and wasn't heard from again.  I know - I know how it can look, she can seem loud or quirky, but she can write these amazing songs too.  That's my little girl, sir. Leave her be.

About an hour before we touched down, she realized it wouldn't be much longer, and she began to worry.  Why can't she live outside of the structure of placement?  Why is it that she can only do well there?  Why isn't there anywhere closer to home?  I don't know.  I have wondered all of these things so many times myself, and the answers, they just don't exist.  By the time the plane touched down, she was despondent.  I tried to cheer her up by reminding her that she would be home again in just a few weeks.  "Yeah, for four days.  Great."  I know that, I get that. I know that it's no replacement for being at home, I was just trying to come up with something, anything positive to say.  As we rounded the corner to baggage claim, I could see her staff was already there.  It was not a welcome sight for Ailish.  "Ailish, your bags are already on the carousel!"  That was not what she wanted to hear either.  I looked over and I could see it, the distinctive polka dot suitcase, swirling around on the belt.  I picked it up and slowly brought it to her.  Tears were streaming down her face.  "I'll give you two a moment."  I rubbed her back and held her close to me.  "I'm so sorry.  I wish it could have been longer.  But we'll be together again soon, okay?"  "There's no point.  There's just no point.  It never gets better.  I give up."  She just kept saying it, between sobs.  I have, unfortunately, been through many goodbyes.  Whether it's at the hospital or at residential, I have had to leave my girls far too many times.  I thought that I had already had my worst goodbye - the ones where they've had to pry her away from me while she calls my name, and I just have to keep walking - those are the ones where I thought I might just break right then.  But this one, this one broke me in a whole new way.  Because I know she has said this before, but she's never said it at that moment of goodbye; she's never been so despondent, and honestly, that is saying something.  I have seen her in the depths of despair, and I've never seen her this low.  This is my child, my baby, my girl whom I adore, and all I could do was walk away.  I sobbed.  I sobbed through security, sobbed as they patted me down (I'm not even sure for what reason, maybe because I was sobbing?  I didn't set any alarms off), sobbed all the way to the terminal.  I talked to Brad for a bit, told him how it went, calmed down enough to say goodbye and figure out what I was going to do with myself for the next three hours.  The layover there was awful.  Because her place is a bit of a drive from the airport, it made no sense for me to drive out there only to have to turn around and go back, but to sit at the airport with all of this emotion was just so painful.  I even went to ticketing right after we said goodbye to see if I could fly standby on an earlier flight, but it would cost me $287 even to fly standby, so there were no other options.  I had a little lunch, tried to think of something else, but I just kept going back to my girl.

Finally, I wandered to the other end of the terminal, and they had football games on at the bar, so I sat down.  A few minutes later, an older gentleman walked in, and the bartender knew him well - placed his food order without him asking, already had his glass of wine poured before he fully sat down.  He had a NASA cap on, and he talked about how busy he was, flying in and out of cities, working on new restaurant sites. From the sounds of things, it sounded like he had a frenetic, but good life.  Then he mentioned that he was going to have Thanksgiving the next day, Saturday.  The bartender said, "Is that strange, not to have it on Thursday?" And he said no, his wife's parents both had Alzheimer's, so they didn't even know who he was, much less what day it was, so it was all fine, as long as they were together.  I said I understood, and I told him a little bit of our story.  He teared up.  His daughter, in her 20's, has schizophrenia.  He says he hears from her every few months, he gives her what he can, and he's just so happy to hear from her when he does.  He said he lives for her.  He would give anything he could to make her happy, to give her peace of mind.  Oh, there we were, on the same journey, decades apart, with the same futile wish.  I shook his hand, told him to love his family tomorrow, and I made my way to my gate.

The flight got into LAX early, I was one of the first off the plane, and since I had no baggage, it was a breeze getting out of the airport.  I made it home in 45 minutes.  This is normally cause for celebration.  And I still had one of my girls (well, two, but one visiting) at home.  But I was so so broken.  I couldn't even speak.  I just curled up in a ball and went to sleep.  I woke early the next morning, took Kieran to practice, and went for a run.  I felt a little bit better after that.  And the time spent with Brenna, and the things we did - we went to some more food trucks on Saturday and Sunday, and I got another run in on Sunday morning - those thing helped.  But I still don't know about Ailish.  It's a combination of the fact that I am her mom, and it's my duty to protect her and to help her be healthy and happy, and this undying need in me to have everyone around me be happy, and if they aren't, I have to *fix* it, and I cannot fix this.  No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I cannot fix it.  And that breaks my heart.

This morning, it was Brenna's turn, and Brad had the duty of taking her to LAX.  He said she didn't cry - she just said see you in 3 weeks and made her way onto the plane.  Once she was in Denver, she texted me that it was kind of a relief to be back there.  She wasn't sad.  I thanked her for all of her help, because she was a big help - she was quite the sous chef on Thanksgiving Day - she chopped up all of the vegetables for me, and she was just a big help around here - whatever chore we asked, she immediately did it.  I can see she is making strides, and I can see she is maturing.  I see the other things too, and I see she still needs a lot of help with transitioning to adulthood, and all that it entails, and that she is most definitely 100% a teenager now, including that whole mom/daughter dynamic that I wasn't looking forward to, but I understand is completely normal.

So my challenge now - somehow prepare for holidays - holidays that I wish would pass unannounced.  Not that I don't want the girls home, because I absolutely do, I just wish they'd come home for the week for no reason.  Sure, we can make a big meal, bake some cookies, but I just don't feel like a giant celebration.  I don't feel like presents.  I know I need to somehow pull it together because Ailish was mortified at the thought of not having a tree, so we will make something happen, but I'm just feeling particularly bah humbugish this year.  Hopefully I will find some bit of holiday spirit soon.

So wow...that was kind of a downer, huh?  Okay - gratitude:

1. My girls were both home for Thanksgiving. They didn't fight, and I loved having the five of us together.

2.  That now all five of us know the joy that is food trucks.  Yes, I put that second.  AND, that Ailish was truly able to enjoy it.

3.  That I finished my first race, and I now know that I need to run several more races before my marathon.

4.  That we were able to be with family on Thanksgiving, and all enjoy each other's company.

5.  That my niece called me, and she's going to come out to see us soon - I really miss her.

6.  That our meet went so well, rainy weather and all.

So there it is - there were many, *many* good things in the last 16 days. And yet my girl is broken, which leaves me a little (maybe more) broken too.

No news is sometimes good news

Wow, so it's been almost a month.  My silence has been two-fold - there has been a lot of busy-ness here at home, and there just hasn't been a ton to talk about on the girl front.  But it's about to get busy for them too.  So, my apologies for this being short, especially because this is National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month, but unfortunately this also coincides with my busiest personal month of all, so it's a bit difficult to keep my head above water and manage both worlds.  Consider this my place holder until Thanksgiving is over - then I'm sure I'll be back with a better update.

Brenna will be home in 9 days for a week-long visit.  She is very excited about this, of course.  We are too - this is the first time since Mother's Day that she will be home, so we're all looking forward to it.  Of course, just prior to a home pass visit, Brenna has to have a meltdown, which she did this week.  She threatened to kill her roommate, so that was a bit of an issue.  Thankfully, it won't affect her home pass, but it does affect her time while she's there.

For Ailish, she just enjoyed a great weekend with Grammapoppa, which is good, because she'll have a much shorter visit here.  Her facility only approved a four-day homepass for Thanksgiving, which sounds like a lot, but when you factor in that it takes a day to get here and a day to get back, it's really not much.  At first, they only approved a three day pass, but we begged for one more day, just to get us past the worst of the travel days, and to possibly have one more day with her.  Eventually we were given approval.  These are the things that bother me the most - these are my girls, I shouldn't have to ask for approval for these kinds of things, and yet they are out of my control.  It does bother me - a lot.

For Kieran, though her arm is healed, she has encountered her first illness of the season, and that has been disheartening.  We couldn't have expected no illness - she still has an immune deficiency - but we were hoping to escape the worst of it.  But, she's down pretty far with this cough, and it's been a struggle.  It's extra difficult because the one meet where she was healthy, I was working a different meet than the one she was swimming, and we were both miserable being apart.  I am hoping that she will be feeling much better by Friday - fingers crossed.

For me, it has been a very busy few weeks - I've had meets, created a scrapbook for a client, got some shots in my knees to help my running progress, and tried my best this weekend to prepare the house for the arrival of both girls back into the fold.  It's definitely been a whirlwind lately.

I'm sure I will have a lot more, both pictures and words, to report after Thanksgiving, but for now, this is my humble update.  Another swim meet on the horizon, and just a day after that, they'll be home, so it will be a very busy week!

Gratitude:

1.  That my Bears won today, and my dear friend Chrisa helped me find a way to watch it.  That I was able to witness Devin Hester's record breaking run - that was spectacular!

2.  That my knees (and foot) were strong enough to run 6.3 miles today - it was a good run. More details here

3.  That all five of us will be together again in nine days.  It may be too brief, but it will be worth it.

4.  That the Dodgers are for sale, which means I will be able to officially be a Dodger fan again.

5.  My friends, of course.  They mean the world to me.

The Long Journey

I’m home.  Which is kind of a strange word right now.  Home feels a little like limbo, not quite like the soft place to land that it used to, but still, the only familiar place I have to be.  It was a long journey, even though it was only four days – there were a lot of emotions in that four days. 

Being able to see Ailish was a gift, and one that I had planned on somewhere in this journey.  It kind of came up unexpectedly about a month ago, when we found out she couldn’t come home for Thanksgiving until she’d had a successful overnight pass with us in Texas.  Of course I wanted to see her – I’d see her every weekend if I could – it’s just the expense of traveling out there is just crippling.  To be honest, we are still trying to get out from under the expenses of the travel of five years ago.  As I said to her this weekend, if only they could pick up the entire program and plunk it into our backyard, we’d be golden.  Sigh.  So when I planned this trip, I knew somewhat of where our family life was headed, but I didn’t know if I would tell her or not.   But the therapist thought it would be much better if we told her together than separately, so we had no choice but to do it over the phone.  That was an awful night, because we decided we had to tell them on the same night – we couldn’t leave either one of them in the dark.  It’s one thing to tell all of your kids together.  Quite another to have that conversation three separate times.  And another to have to do it over the phone, which added a level of pain because I couldn’t hug them right then and there, couldn’t look them in the eye and assure them that we really, truly were going to be okay.  I could only hear their tears falling and sit helplessly wishing that this was all a bad dream.

When I finally got to see Miss A, her first words were, “Oh my God, you are so skinny!” as she ran to me.  Her biggest fear was that she wouldn’t be able to recognize me.  I had lost about 40 pounds by the time she had left, but I could understand how 50 more pounds after that would definitely change my appearance to her – but I reassured her over and over, I was still me.  “But your face, your face is so different.  You are really so different!”  I promise, it’s still me.  We sat in the day room there and visited for awhile, and she was able to get out most of her questions about our situation.  She had many, some of which I could readily answer; others were tough.  But we got through it, and I showed her pictures on my phone of Duncan and Reilly, Kieran, funny things that had happened, and she showed me the essays and poems she’d written that had won her awards.  After visiting for a bit, we signed all of the required paperwork, and I took her to my hotel to check in.  From there, we drove around a bit, found a SuperTarget, my favorite, and stocked up on a bunch of Ailish needs.  I had hoped to find something interesting for dinner, but as it turned out, we ended up at Sonic, which was fine with me.  Ailish was very happy to have a drink specially made for her, and I love their Cherry Limeades – well, actually, I love the pebble ice, but the drink part is good too :)

I took her back to her school – the first night was only a four hour pass.  The next day, I’d have her all day and overnight as well.  She gave me a long hug and told me to get some sleep, which I fully intended to do.  I had only gotten three hours the night before, and I was exhausted.  Still, I had a lot on my mind, and I was thinking about Brenna and what kinds of unanswered questions she might have.  As I was writing my last blog entry that night, it occurred to me that I had to see her.  I needed to give her that same reassurance.  So I called the airline and switched my flight.  Hotwired a hotel and car in Denver.  Made a reservation for my flight from Denver to LA.  Only then could I sleep soundly.

The next morning, I awoke on my own at 5:30.  I laid there for an hour trying to fall back to sleep without any success.  I gave up and thought about going for a run, but a quick check of the weather showed it was already 77.  And so very humid.  Hmmm…maybe not.  I made weak, awful hotel coffee instead, and got ready for our day together.  Ailish was, of course, very excited about our day.  First stop had to be Cracker Barrel, it was an imperative.  There, while we waited for a table, we found some essential items for Kieran’s Halloween costume.  Kieran had this idea that she wanted to be a drag queen for Halloween.  I said that’s really not possible – you are a girl, I’m not sure how you’d pull that one off!  She said fine, but I want to be something really outrageous!  Hmm…outrageous.  She is truly embracing her oddities, which is awesome.  I just hope she’s doing it because she loves it about herself, not as a defense.  I well remember dressing as outrageously as possible in school because I wanted to control why people laughed at me.  At least I knew why they were pointing and staring.  I think she is definitely more confident than I am, but she has had some issues this year with the “mean girls,” so it’s always there in my mind.  Anyway, Ailish and I found the most interesting long, lacy *bright* orange gloves and a very strange orange witch’s hat.  I’m sure you’ll see the photo in a few weeks, but we both knew instantly that we *had* to get these for Miss K.  Of course, that brought up the discussion again about Ailish’s sadness that she’s not allowed to dress up for Halloween.  It makes me really sad for her too.  I am not sure I understand the reasoning behind it – that has never been a rule at any of her other residential facilities, and to me, it just seems like punishment added on top of everything else.  Especially for her – Halloween is one of her favorite holidays.  Dressing up, coming up with her elaborate costumes down to every detail, that is such a major moment for her every year.  The candy is unimportant; actually, it’s the one downside to the holiday.  Worrying about whether it has nuts in it, whether it might have been near something with nuts in it, whether someone who had just eaten a candy with nuts in it just touched that one, all of those worries are ever present on Halloween night, but she still loves the dressing up.  It just makes me sad for her that she can’t do that.  So I felt a little bad that I was buying something for Kieran’s costume in front of her, but she insisted – where would we find such obnoxiously orange things again? 

Trying to order at Cracker Barrel was anxiety-producing for her.  She wanted pancakes, and she wanted eggs and bacon.  But the only way to get that was to get the giant combo, and she was worried she couldn’t finish it.  I told her I didn’t expect her to finish it.  I knew it would be too much food.  I told her I wanted French toast, and an egg, and a piece of sausage, and I would be in the same predicament that she was in, and that it was totally okay.  But it was still very stressful for her to look at *so* much food and not be able to eat all of it.  I have never asked her to clean her plate.  At home, we have a rule not to take too much food – “You can always get more, but you can’t put it back.”  But as I told her, we weren’t given any portion options here, so it was really okay for her not to finish.  The whole thought was so distressing for her.  The only way we could get past it was for us to take it to go, even though I didn’t think we were going to eat it any time later.  Still, she insisted we drive across town to the hotel and store it safely in the fridge before we drove back to the mall. 

On the one hand, the mall was good because we were able to stock up on all of the clothes Ailish needed for the fall, and she was thankfully pretty easy to please.  On the other, every dress we saw was a reminder that she can’t wear dresses very often at her school, and certainly not the dresses she loves to wear – the satiny, lacy, fashionable confections that she wore nearly every day to school here.  The dresses that most girls would reserve for a special occasion – that was the kind of thing Ailish wore every day.  She sighed every time one caught her eye.  From the mall, we found a DSW where she was able to spend a gift card from her Aunt Pam.  We found the perfect pair of flats, and that made her happy.  She perked up with that, and with a Frappe from McDonald’s. 

That night at dinner, a local barbecue place I found on Yelp, we had another discussion about portion sizes.  I have gotten accustomed to not even coming close to finishing my meals at restaurants.  When I’m at home, I can take it home and eat it later, but when I’m traveling, there’s just no way to avoid it.  I try to order the smaller sizes of things, but even then, it’s bigger than I really want.  I want to sample many things from the menu, but honestly, I don’t want more than two bites of anything, so I wish there were a “bites” kind of restaurant.  Ailish seemed to understand what I was saying, but she was still so perplexed by the idea that we would walk away from these plates with so much food on them.

The next day, it was pouring rain, something that Texas welcomed with open arms.  I would normally too, if I didn’t need to drive on unfamiliar streets or fly in it later that day.  We shopped some more, she picked up a small treat for Kieran, and had one of her rare treats, a Japanese soda from Cost Plus.  It was there that I remembered about her favorite treat of all, McClure’s pickles, which could be found at the mall at Williams Sonoma.  Back across the freeway we went – I was on a mission to get her this treat.  I had my hand on the jar when she said, “But Momma, it’s glass.  I can’t have it.”  And then I did the wrong thing.  Standing there in the store, staring at all of the artisanal treats, foods that could never be classified as a need, but nonetheless can carry a great deal of sentimental importance, standing there, I hugged her and I began to cry.  Just a little bit.  Just because I thought of all of the things that she had to give up in order to be in placement.  It wasn’t enough that she was launched so far from home, unable to feel our hugs on a regular basis, or that she couldn’t see her dogs.  No, she couldn’t have dresses, or a Zune, or gum, or Glee, or even a damn jar of pickles.  I felt every ounce of injustice in that moment.  But I should have felt it privately, because once she saw it in my eyes, she felt it as well, and what she felt was so much stronger.

As we walked around the mall for a minute, she said quietly, her voice cracking, “If I had just gone to the hospital, would you still have sent me away?”  Oh.  Oh, it breaks my heart.  For so many reasons.  First, that she does believe that I sent her away, when that isn’t true.  It wasn’t me.  It was a team of people who thought this was the most reasonable accommodation at that time.  Second, we didn’t send her *away*.  We sent her to get help – it is tremendously unfortunate that this is the closest place that would take her.  Third, that she blames herself, and her refusal to be hospitalized for what happened.  No.  So I first had to set her straight on blaming herself.  I told her that refusing the hospital was just another sign of how bad things had gotten, and that her illness was exactly that, an illness.  That I had never thought of her refusal as a willful thing.  It was a symptom.  And that the team decided that residential was the only option because of her absences from school, which was also a part of the disease.  So then in trying to reassure her that being here was not her fault, that this was a part of her disorder, that I knew that it wasn’t a willful decision of hers not to go to the hospital, I did the next wrong thing.  Because that got her spiraling out about the fact that since this was a disease that she had no control over, what was the point of working towards getting better at all – wouldn’t it just strike whenever it wanted to anyway?  I was trying to think of any way I could to get past this, but I realized we’d reached the point of no return.  And while the skies had actually been a little sunny when we’d entered the mall, it was now once again a torrential downpour.  We stood at the door of the mall, waiting for a break in the rain, and tears streamed down her face just as mightily.  What was the point exactly?  There wasn’t one.  This was all for nothing.  And then she launched into the worry of what would she be when she grew up.  I told her I didn’t even know what I was going to be when I grew up – there was plenty of time to know that, she didn’t have to worry about it now.  “But I *have* to have something to worry about!”  And she wasn’t being funny.  She truly meant that.  It just makes me so sad for her.  Finally, the rain relented just enough for us to run out to the car without getting completely drenched.  I drove back to the part of town where her school was, but we drove to a little park I’d seen on my first day there.  I thought this place would be perfect for pictures, but we had been so busy, we never got a chance to take any on the first two days.  There were a couple of phone pics, but no real ones.  And sitting there in the car, rain beating down on the roof, tears still falling down her cheeks, I knew the likelihood of getting any before I left was pretty low.  As I tried to calm her down, she just became more and more agitated.  I was actually getting a little concerned that she might try to take off.  She wasn’t threatening it, but she just kept saying she wasn’t going to go back – I couldn’t make her, no one could.  There was no point in being there, she hated it, she was just faking her way through, so what was the point?  She wasn’t going.  At first, I tried to talk her through the idea of maybe not faking it; maybe she should take this opportunity to be as real and as honest as she possibly could so that she could gain something from it.  That conversation went nowhere.  So finally I said, “Okay.  You know what?  I mean this in all honesty – if you are that bound and determined,” and then she cut me off.  “What?  Commit suicide?!”  Um…no, that wasn’t where I was going with this.  “No, that wasn’t it at all.  If you are so against this place and you just want to get home, go ahead.  Go ahead and fake it.  I can’t stop you anyway, and you know where it will lead in the long run, so go ahead.”  “BUT I CAN’T!”  There was no way out of the vortex.  Even though I had another 45 minutes, I knew it was time to take her back before things really got out of hand.  I parked in the lot next to her cottage, and started to get out.  “NO!  I’M NOT GOING!”  I said, “Ailish, I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be for now.”  “Nooooo!”  She protested loudly at first, but then it turned into a cry.  I was so afraid, but my heart just hurt so much for her as well.  And how did we get from the happy day of yesterday and even that morning to here?  Oh yes, that’s right, she has a disorder.  Well, several of them.  “Okay, I’m going to call the cottage so they can help me.” “NO!”  “But if you won’t go on your own, I’m going to need help.”  “I’m not GOING!”  “Okay.”  So I started to dial.  “FINE!”  She angrily threw open the door, slammed it shut and started marching towards the cottage.  I hurried to grab her things and get behind her.  We rang the doorbell and I anxiously waited for the staff to open it.  I didn’t know how she’d react when they did.  But of course, by then she’d put the mask back on.  She politely said hello to them, put her things away where they could be checked, went and took her urine test, standard procedure after a pass.  They asked if I wanted to stay a few minutes, but I didn’t want to drag it out.  I hugged her goodbye, but she wouldn’t let go.  “Why?  Why?” she just kept sobbing.  The radio in my head played “Monster,” because I absolutely felt like one in those moments.  After a few minutes, I looked up at the staff, and one gently pulled Ailish back while I walked to the door with the other.  I didn’t look back.  I couldn’t.  She was crying loudly.  One foot in front of the other.  With one lock turned, and then the next, I was suddenly back in the great big Texas expanse.  The rain had stopped for the moment.  But my own personal rain had just begun. 

By the time my car made it to the freeway, it was pouring, and I was busy trying to navigate the traffic, the downpour, and the unknown exits when my phone rang.  Brenna.  Usually she calls us for distraction, but this time she was a much needed one.  We talked until I got to the rental place, mostly about what we wanted to do the next day.  When I told her why I was coming, to answer any questions she might have, she said, “I only had one – where the dogs were going to live, and Daddy already answered it, so I’m good.”  “Oh, so I spent $500 for nothing?” I said teasingly.  “NO!  I need jeans!!” 

My flight was delayed by the weather, so I waited it out by watching football and baseball games in the airport.  Very good distractions.  I tried not to think about Ailish, and how she would be feeling that night.  The first night is always raw, but I had to shift focus to B now.  I finally made my way into Denver late Sunday night, and I was in my hotel room by 11 pm.  I don’t think I fell asleep until 1 – just way too much on my mind.  The next morning, as I drove over to B’s school, my phone rang – I was 10 minutes late, where was I?  Patience, child!  Oh, right, none of that!

I picked her up, and we were off to breakfast.  From there, we headed to the mall for those ever so necessary jeans.  We blew through that challenge very quickly, so we wandered the mall, ended up picking a few things up at Aeropostale, and then headed to Target for a few more goodies.  By then it was time for lunch – the only place I said was a must have in Denver – Noodles & Co.  Once we finished lunch, we still had several hours before my flight, and every “to do” had been checked off.  So with that, we made our splurge trip – we went to Boulder.  We had the chance to wander Pearl Street, pick up some much loved and missed spices from Savory Spice Shop, peruse the wonderful book sections at Boulder Bookstore, and then we got to do something really unusual – once we had run out the time on our meter, we drove to the closest park.  I had originally driven there in the hopes of getting some pictures of Brenna, but then I noticed these beautiful trees dropping yellow leaves.  I’d been obsessed with yellow leaves – the swim banquet decorations are going to require yellow leaves, and we’d been trying to figure out how to acquire them, especially when Southern California doesn’t typically enter Autumn until November, just a tad late for the October 30 banquet date.  So when I saw these yellow leaves, I had a spectacular idea, one I wasn’t sure would work, but hey, at the moment, it was free, so why not?  I grabbed a bag from the car (Wal-Mart, which I’m sure mortified those hip moms in the park with their canvas bags – I wanted to yell, “Hey!  I have canvas bags at home, I swear!  And I rarely shop at Wal-Mart, but Brenna needed headphones and Wal-Mart is the only place that carries the right ones!”) and Brenna and I spent about an hour gathering leaves.  This amazing park, nestled in the foothills of the mountains, oh, it was so gorgeous.  I am in love with Colorado, I have to say.  Denver and Seattle, my favorite cities in the world!  Once we had gathered as many pretty leaves as we could find, we finally got some pictures in.  They aren’t perfect, but we did the best we could with the set-up we had. 

With the sun beginning to set, we knew it was time to head back.  We still had time to make a pit stop at Starbucks for one last treat for Brenna.  And then it was back to school with a few new bags of clothes, a reset Zune and some new books.  When we said goodbye, she smiled and said, “This was good, you know?  A one day thing makes it easier to say goodbye.  It was a good day.”  Indeed it was.  I left there with a much lighter heart than when I left Texas.  Still, there was a snag about halfway to the airport when Brenna called and said her Zune didn’t sync right.  I figured she had checked it before I left, but apparently she hadn’t.  All we need to do is have her send it to us and we’ll sync it up, but she’s been extraordinarily upset about this fact ever since.

That night, I finally made it home around 12:30 a.m., but I couldn’t sleep until I had all of those leaves securely nestled between pages of books.  I couldn’t risk having all of our hard work harvesting them ruined by curling up.  It took me several more hours to fall asleep that night – so much in my head, so much to digest on that trip.  I think I fell asleep at 4:00, and I was definitely not ready for the alarm at 7:00.  Suffice to say, between the lack of sleep and trying to remember what time zone I was in, I was pretty useless that day.

By Thursday, I was back in the swing of things to take Kieran to her orthopedic surgeon’s appointment.  It was a tough drive – 9:30, in the most southwestern part of the San Fernando Valley, and Kieran wanted to be able to drop off her homework at school first.  We were hoping her teacher would be there at 8:30, but no, she didn’t get there until just before the bell rang, at 8:45.  My GPS, with the traffic-enabled time estimation, had us not getting to her appointment for at least an hour, so there was a great deal of stress during that drive.  We ended up only eight minutes late, whew!  She got new x-rays and we waited to meet with the surgeon.  And then we heard some pretty stunning news.  Her elbow did not have a cyst.  That was really wonderful news.  But her arm was definitely broken.  Wait…what?!  Yes, that cyst that the radiologist thought he saw was the break.  The look on the surgeon’s face was priceless.  But she said she would have just put her in a cast for three weeks, and it had already been more than two, so at this point, she would just recommend no weight bearing.  As long as Kieran was okay with swimming, she would clear her for it.  And Kieran’s response?  “Mom, if she had put me in a cast, I wouldn’t have been able to swim, so it’s all okay.”  Right.  Okay.  Not really, but hey, make lemonade, right?

We had our first meet of the year this weekend near Santa Barbara, and I wasn’t sure whether she should swim it or not.  We compromised, and switched her to swim only the 50’s, two events per day.  She said they were very painful, and she added time on all of them, but only a second, and on 50’s, that’s really not bad.  We have another meet coming up next weekend, and I don’t know if she’ll be ready, but I know she’ll give it her best shot.

Gratitude:

1.  Once again, my friends and supporters are amazing.  I love you all.
2. That I have a new goal – one that was so incredibly improbable just six months ago.  I will run at least one marathon in 2012.  I am documenting it here
3. That I was able to spend time with each girl and give them a chance to ask as many (or as few) questions as they need to ask.
4. That swim is back in full swing.  I need that.
5. That Kieran’s arm, though mis-diagnosed, is healing correctly on its own, and that it doesn’t require surgery.  HUGE gratitude!

So.  It’s been a long, emotional ten days.  And knowing that today is the fifth anniversary of the first time I took Ailish to residential adds a little more emotion to it.  But things are better now than they were then – I’ve answered all of the big questions.  I feel like we’ve gotten through the worst of the first part of things.  And I’m working on working.  We’re going to be okay.  I’m sure of it.

Turn and face the strange...

Whew…where was I?  It’s only been a month, but simultaneously not much and an awful lot has happened.  On the outside, it looks like not much.  Internally, an awful lot.  Preparing myself for a lot of changes.

First, though it seems like the school year has barely begun, it’s already report card time.  Kieran got straight A’s.  Two A+’s even, in PE and Science, naturally.  There were very few easy A’s, not because of the material, just the sheer volume of work and the juggling of homework with swim.  Though there were some exhausted tears some nights, I’m proud of the way she pulled it all together and got it done.  She was happy to have two days off for fall break, and then on to the next quarter.

She and I did have some great weekends in San Diego in September.  We first went down for her second Open Water swim, this time the La Jolla Rough Water swim.We went down the day before to pick up her registration packet, and then spent the day with my dear friend Mindy, whom I met through Girl Scouts.  Her family lived here for a long time, and moved to the San Diego area just last year.  They were nice enough to let us stay with them on Saturday night, and then come down to La Jolla to cheer Kieran on the next day.  But Saturday we had quite an adventure as we took the regional train into downtown San Diego.  Kieran had never been on a train before, so it was really fun, and it was a beautiful ride along the coastline.  We wandered through the Gas Lamp district and found out about a restaurant that would be perfect for Kieran called Burger Lounge.  Was it ever – the whole restaurant was her favorite color – I don’t know if you can tell from her first day of school pics – Orange.  They had her at orange, but the menu looked promising.  Grass fed beef, ground turkey with basil, hand battered onion rings, fresh baked buns – yes, this could be good.  We ordered up, and then they gave me my drink.  Pebble ice.  Oh yes, it was getting even better.  The way to my heart can be quickly found with a big glass of pebble ice.  When we got the food, it was amazing.  Truly.  The burger was huge, and fabulous.  The fries and rings were awesome.  At that moment, I wished I could have my old appetite back so I could eat my whole entrée, but I was just happy to have the chance to enjoy it all.  The next day, after Kieran’s successful swim, we visited the Burger Lounge in La Jolla, where I had the turkey burger.  Wow.  YUM.  Yes, I was in love, and wishing I lived in San Diego!  Then last weekend, Kieran and I first went to Pasadena, where I worked at the USA Swimming/Navy SEALS Fitness Challenge at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, and then from there, we drove to San Diego for our first ever game at Petco Park.  Our first, and only, Dodger game of the year.  Let me say first that Petco Park was gorgeous – everything I love about stadiums – open, part of the city, easily accessible by many different modes of transportation, and the hot dogs were, dare I say, more tasty than Dodger Dogs.  The weather was even more hospitable than the stadium. 

It was a perfect day.  As we sat there, just 13 rows away from first base, with tickets obtained at an amazingly low price from stubhub, I wondered what was wrong with this picture?  And then, just before the game began, I learned what would become wrong.  The fans in row 12.  Now I am well aware that we wouldn’t be exactly welcomed as the opposing team – I didn’t wear a bit of Dodger blue.  I didn’t plan to cheer against the Padres one bit.  But every time I cheered for the Dodgers, the four fans in row 12 turned to glare at us, and the two Dodger fans behind us.  But they were a bit more vehement in their cheering.  Not only did they cheer for Padres, they actively cheered against the Dodgers.  It was okay in the beginning.  But between the fourth and fifth inning, when the crew launched promotional items into the stands and Kieran had the item into her hand and the fan in row 12 wrenched it out of her hand, that was a problem.  And then, when Chad Billingsley, our pitcher, got himself into a mess of trouble in the fifth, with every run the Padres scored, the fans turned around and pointed at us while cackling.  It just seemed weird.  And a little threatening.  I didn’t want to be paranoid, but I had Bryan Stow on my mind the whole time.  Then, still with two outs,and two strikes, Bills threw a ball completely out of control and plunked the hitter in the back.  Clearly, it was not intentional.  I cringed in horror.  He had lost it long before this batter appeared, but I guessed Mattingly was just trying to give him a game that counted for something.  He had to get through this inning for it to matter.  But it didn’t matter anymore.  The fans in front of me started screaming, “HEY LONEY! YOU’RE NEXT!”  That was enough for me.  I told Kieran to pack up her stuff.  I couldn’t leave without saying something.  I went to the leader of the group and told him that she and I had been to many Dodger games, and regardless of win or lose, we had stayed the full nine innings.  I had never felt so threatened by people around me as I had at that moment.  The fan started screaming at me, “WHAT DID I SAY?!  WHAT?!”  I forgot to mention that he had told me and my fellow Dodger fans to go back to the stadium as we were discussing how much better the food was at Petco Park compared to Chavez Ravine, etc.  With that, Kieran and I left, disappointed that we didn’t get to see one of Matty’s famous home runs, but at least we got to see *some* baseball this year.  We headed back to Mindy’s house, and I was fast asleep by 9 p.m.  The next day, we headed back to the Gas Lamp district for more Burger Lounge – we’re addicts, we can’t help it!  But better than the burgers, better than the Dodgers even, was the chance to spend time with my dear friend, to take in the beautiful weather that San Diego had to offer, and for Kieran to love on their impossibly fluffy dog, Murphy.  At the end of each weekend, it was tough to say goodbye and trudge our way up the 5 freeway back home.

We did have some excitement last week when Kieran fell during the dry land portion of her practice and nearly broke her arm.  She finally called an hour into the swim part of her practice, once it was clearly determined she couldn’t swim very well.  I took her to urgent care, even though I was pretty sure she didn’t have a broken arm, just to rule it out.  And they decided to x-ray everything from elbow to wrist, just to rule everything out.  Her arm was not broken, but they put her in a sling and said the radiologist would call the next day with the full report.  I didn’t expect any news beyond that.  But the next morning, I received a call – Kieran’s arm was not broken, but her elbow did have a bone cyst that needed treatment.  Without it, the bones in her arm would become brittle and break.  She would need a referral to ortho to find out the next step, and thank goodness we did the x-rays on her elbow.  While  am grateful that we have caught this early, I am sad that we have yet another hurdle for her to cross – hasn’t she crossed enough?  Apparently not.  Thus begins a new journey, and we’ll see how this goes.  We see the orthopedic surgeon on the 13^th.

Ailish received straight A’s on her report card as well, although she immediately discarded it as meaningless.  We have tried to remind her of this fact many times – that she has always had straight A’s, but they never count in her eyes.  She says the classes aren’t the same, that they are dumbed down, that if she’s missing something, they just give her an A anyway.  While some of this might be true, there is no doubt that she’s performing at the top of her class.  Still, it is troubling for both of the girls that they are missing huge portions of the math requirements here in California.  No, I’m not expecting either of them to pursue a math degree, but I know that you need to have a certain level of math in college before the classes even count toward your general education requirements, and I don’t want them to have to take endless math courses and get frustrated before anything even applies.  There was more good news from Ailish, though, if she would let it sink in – she won several awards for writing.  She submitted several poems and short stories, and received 1^st place awards for both.  Of course, she just shrugged, said it was no big deal, there was hardly any competition.  She is highly anxious about the future, about what she will be when she grows up, about how long she’ll have to stay there and what will happen to her when she gets out.  For awhile, she did pretty well with that, but now she seems stuck on the loop again.  On the one hand, I’m glad that her therapist and staff are getting to see more of what we were dealing with, but on the other, it is so hard to see her going through it again.  There is not a single thing I can say to make her feel better, so I just listen.  That’s really hard for me, because I am just not the type of person to sit in it, but trying to offer up suggestions is like adding fuel to an already unpredictable fire.  I just don’t want to set her off anymore.  I know to some who haven’t known her long might think we don’t care, but it’s just we’ve been down this road so often that we know it will only make matters worse to try to “fix” things.  But an interesting note – her therapist just asked me today to consider that she may be on the Asperger’s Spectrum, something I had never thought about before, and yet, it’s so simple, so true.  Why did I spend so much time trying to find Brenna in there when Ailish fit so perfectly?  Funny how when pieces of the puzzle fit, it suddenly changes everything.  I’m not sure how this will change the future, but it does at least help me see her in a whole different light – one that has a lot more promise, and that is a *very* good thing.

Brenna is doing okay – she has to maintain her behavior on several fronts in order to work at the veterinarian’s office on the weekend, and though it took some time for this to sink in, she finally has enough incentive to stick with it.  She’s been waking up for school on time, keeping her temper in check, and has been able to work four weekends in a row, so that’s really huge.  She’s scared herself about the future, and what it will hold – whether that future is as immediate as May, or if it’s further out – but we just tell her to work on what she needs to do right now, concentrate on taking responsibility, and we’ll worry about the rest.

But as for me, as for changes – they’re pretty big.  I was hoping to hold off on them, but it was not to be.  From the moment I discovered I was going to become a mother, my happiness was secondary to the welfare of my children.  It was never even a question, it just was.  Like the laws of gravity, like the existence of the sun and the moon, there was just the ever present thought that my children were the highest priority in my life.  There was nothing more important in this world than their wellbeing.

I think many parents feel this way, but I’ve had my conviction pushed to the limits over the years.  Parenting at its best moments is exhausting, fraught with emotion, and yes, requires sacrifice.  But parenting one child, much less two children, with special needs is such a soul-testing journey.  Where I often draw parallels between mental illness and physical illness, this is where it’s different, because there is at least a definitive diagnosis.  The first five years of the girls’ lives were filled with so many questions, so much self-doubt, so much anger at myself for not being a good enough mother to figure my girls out and help them be happy.  And then when the diagnoses started coming, they filled in bits of the puzzle, but they weren’t entirely accurate, and the medications only did half the work, so the doubts continued.  But what never stopped was my pledge to do whatever I could to try to help them, to try to unlock the secret to their happiness.  Did it matter that I wasn’t particularly happy myself?  No.  I did my best to use my free time to focus on things that made me happy – helping others, keeping myself creatively challenged, rooting for my Dodgers and Bears, whatever little distractions that could give me a moment to come up for air, as long as they didn’t take away from the girls.

Somewhere along the way, our marriage changed.  The details are not important – what’s important is that I was willing to wait it out.  Even though we were not in love anymore, we didn’t hate each other, we didn’t fight, and, for the sake of the girls, I thought the best thing would be for us to stay together until Kieran graduated from high school.  Maybe that is unreasonable – I guess it is.  But after having to endure telling the girls, I wish we could rewind, and I’d gladly live the next six years in an unsatisfying lie. 

It was horrible.  All I could think was, “They are in pain.  So much pain.   We are supposed to be their shelter and we are causing them pain.”  I did my best to reassure them that we are still there for them, both of us, but I know it was not much comfort in that moment.  I felt like a monster.

So begins the new journey – I am going to re-enter the work force.  This may not be an easy transition, but my conviction remains the same – their happiness (or as close as we can get) is the most important priority to me.  I hope one day they will forgive me for breaking their hearts.  I hope one day I can forgive myself.

Gratitude – I guess I need it now more than ever:

1. My amazing friends, who have been so supportive.  Thank you for being my cheerleaders.
2. Our families, for their support and understanding.
3. I’m in Texas right now – seeing Ailish for the first time in six months.  I hope she’s able to enjoy our time together.
4. After this trip, I will fly directly to Colorado for a one day visit with Brenna.  Though it may be short, I just want to touch base with her, to let her know that we’re okay – I want her to see that though so much has changed, it really hasn’t in so many ways.
5. That after a few weeks of adjusting to the news, Kieran seems to be doing okay.  I hope her sisters rebound as well.

I will feel so much better after this round of visits is over.  Once I've held and kissed and loved over each of my girls, once I've hopefully reassured them that it's all going to work out, that will only help inspire me more that it will absolutely have to go in that direction.  I know it's a bad mashing of Bowie and One Republic, but that's just how the radio in my head works...Turn and face the strange changes...One foot in front of the other, right?  Keep marchin' on.