The Point

So, during my Sunday conversation with Brenna, she let me know that she has finally grown out of her 14 slims.  To quote her, she’s “popping” out of them.  This is cause for celebration!  For awhile there, we were sliding backwards on the weight, so it’s nice that she’s moving in the right direction.  I didn’t want to sound too happy, though - remembering my own experience with eating issues, I know to bring a great deal of attention to it might mess up the progress, so I just nonchalantly said I would try to find new jeans for her, although I knew it would be difficult without her there to try them on.

I didn’t realize until Monday just how difficult it would be.  Though I prefer the size 16’s, because they still have the adjustable waist, I knew she might think they were “kid-like,” and want to move to Juniors, but what size of Juniors, and did she really have the curves to hold them up?  After a *great* deal of searching at four different stores and the mall, and consulting with my Facebook friends, I decided on a pair of Levi’s 16 Slim, a pair of Target 16 Slim, a pair of 0 short that I got at Marshall’s and I’m blanking on the name brand, and then at Aeropostale, I found two pair - one 00 short and one 0 short.  So, five pair for $60, and hopefully at least one of them will fit!  It was during this trip that I made my first venture into Hollister.  Thank goodness I went in alone!  I had told Ailish and Kieran that since they were both starting at new schools this year, and both of them had more clothes than five girls could wear, they would each be getting $40 for school clothes to spend as they wish (with parental approval, of course), and anything else, they’d have to pay for on their own.  I said, for example, if they wanted to spend $40 on a sweatshirt, that was fine, but that was all they would get.  I may have missed that mark on the underside!  If Hollister is their goal, they might get two t-shirts for that price!  Still, they have plenty of opportunities to earn money, and Ailish’s birthday is in July, so I’m sure she’ll have no problem building a suitable wardrobe.

I ran around doing all this shopping until pick-up time at the school.  Once I had the girls, we raced home to make sandwiches before swim practice.  We had a crazy schedule that day, having to go from swim straight to a Girl Scout SUM meeting for me.  Since Brad wouldn’t be home until later, I didn’t have a choice but to bring them, and there wasn’t even time to stop and grab fast food.  We all made sub-style sandwiches, and I packed them, some chips and potato salad in a cooler.  The girls were *so* excited to be eating in the car - it cracked me up.  My mom was famously frugal with food - we *never* ate out until I was much older (totally understand why, with 6-8 kids in the house, but this is my kid perspective!) - so when we traveled, even cross country, she’d make us sandwiches in the morning, and we’d eat them as we passed these tantalizing places - McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, etc.  To this day, I hate sandwiches.  But for the girls, making them on sub buns I picked up just for the occasion, and having their little portions metered out, they just loved it.

The next day was supposed to be just as crazy, but my support group meeting was canceled.  That was a bummer, but as far as we were concerned, at least we didn’t have to run from one thing to the next.  Still, I was busy during the day, getting my labs done, having lunch with my friend Ellen, and trying to track down Ailish’s costume components for her Aphrodite project.  But after swim, we were able to go home, which was nice.  I was telling Kieran after dinner that I needed to do a 9-year-old photo shoot with her, and that I needed to do a favorites page - I haven’t done one in years.  She asked what a favorites page was, so I starting trying to find one in my albums.  From there, we pored through albums for nearly two hours.  Seeing them all just made me realize how much I need to do it again.  It’s not just a hobby, and I know I say that to my students and other people all the time, but I have neglected it *so* much in the last few years.  The girls *love* looking at their pages, love remembering things they’d long forgotten, and oh, to remember that Kieran’s favorite food at 4 was, “the chicken that is pink at pink fish,” which meant the salmon at her favorite restaurant, Think Fish.  That restaurant has been closed for at least two years, and we would never have remembered that.  Or that her favorite animal was a snake, because it had bumpy skin, and how funny it is now that her favorite animal is a bearded dragon - why?  Because of his skin!  And guess what?  The girls never once commented on the design.  They didn’t care if they were my first pages or my Hall of Fame pages - they just loved the stories - that was it.  I have to fit that somewhere back into my schedule.  I realized more than ever how important it was.  Brad came in around 9:30, surprised that both girls were nowhere near ready for bed.  Totally my fault!  We were so lost in the books!  With a groan, the girls got ready and headed up to bed.  That night, I felt like I had a tickle in my throat.

Yesterday promised to be a very busy day, but I woke up with more than a tickle.  I had a dry cough that wouldn’t go away.  We were joking that I hadn’t sprouted a tail, so it must not be swine flu!  I didn’t have a fever, and felt fine otherwise, so I just went about my business.  I had tea with my friend, Gina, and ran home to work on a few Girl Scout things and have lunch with Brad at home before picking everyone up.  Ailish had a dr. appointment, so I had to pull her at the same time as I pulled Kieran.  Plus, I had Kyle - my companion for this week :)  Since Sandy was recovering from gall bladder surgery, and I’ve been picking him up.  He likes to act like I really annoy him, but then I make him laugh in spite of himself.  Yesterday, I called the three of them my little ducklings as we crossed the street, and I started quacking.  That got a giggle!  I dropped him off, and then we were on our way into the valley for the appointment.  They claimed we weren’t in the system, even though we had a card with that date and time, but they said they would squeeze us in - no apology, no nothing, but hey, at least we were squeezed.  Everything went fine, got new prescriptions, and then we were back on the road.  My goal was to get home in time for Kieran to eat something before swim.  We actually think she may be a little hypoglycemic, because man, if that kid is hungry and can’t get to food, watch out!  She turns into a total crab until she gets food in her system.  Since she burns such a massive amount of calories every day in swim, as soon as I pick her up, she’s starving.  Usually we have some snacks in the car - jerky, chips, 100 calorie bags, something, but yesterday we had run dry.  She had turned into a bear!  We hit some traffic on the way back, but thankfully, we made it with 23 minutes for her to eat. 

Brad ended up working from home yesterday, which was such a blessing.  Ailish didn’t have to go to swim, and it gave her time to choose the perfect outfit for her junior high orientation last night.  She told me it had to be, “teen casual,” which I didn’t quite decipher.  Then she decided it had to be, “teen responsible.”  Hmmm...I knew whatever it was, she would need the entire time until orientation, and she would look impeccable!  BTW, she is *very* excited that her school does not have a uniform policy like the other junior highs in the district.  Me, not so much.  That would have solved a lot of the morning problems!  But, for her, it’s a definite plus!

So off to swim we went, and then an hour later, Brad brought Ailish to me and we switched places.  I picked up my friend Gina and her son, who was also attending the same Junior High, and off we went to orientation.  It was kind of crazy at the beginning, with tours leaving every 3-5 minutes.  I think Gina and I are both still in a state of shock or denial about the whole thing, while Ailish and her friend are really excited.  I suppose it’s better than the other way around!  We took the tour, and I was happy to learn that 7th and 8th graders are, for the most part, segregated.  And even though the junior high has 1,000 kids, since they are split into teams, they really only interact with about 150 kids.  Obviously, Ailish’s situation is different, but still, I’m hoping she will feel less lost than I’m fearing.  After the tour, they told the kids to go into the gym, and the parents to go into the MPR.  Gina and I both had a look of abject terror.  Send our kids, alone, into the gym?  I swear to you, it was one of those pedaling the bicycle kind of moments.  Let go?  Really?  Is she going fast enough?  Is she going too fast?  Finally, we said okay, and told them to meet us in a specific location after the presentation.

The principal was really funny.  She was young - okay, she was probably my age, and I still consider that young, but she’s not young to much of the population :) - and she was very sympathetic to us newbies.  She said in many ways, junior high is harder on the parents than the kids, which I can totally understand.  A lot of what she and the team talked about didn’t apply to us, but still, I could feel myself get a little hopeful that Ailish would do well here - that maybe she can handle it.  I hope so, I really do.  I’m hoping that she will try out for Choir, which would be her one elective class, but she hasn’t decided whether to do that or the exploratories.  The advantage is that she picks choir, the exploratories are chosen for her.

And, bonus for me, at least for that night, was that halfway through the presentation, I realized that C. Thomas Howell (remember the Outsiders?  Red Dawn?) was sitting across the aisle from us.  I only recognized him because he’s been on Southland, which is one of my favorite new shows.  He is much thinner now, which, when I looked him up later, I discovered was because his appendix burst several years ago and it took him many years to recover from that.  Anyway, thin or no, salt and pepper hair or no, he is still every bit the teen heart throb I remember.  I mean, it’s not like Kyle Chandler was sitting across from me, but it was still pretty cool :)

By the time I got home last night, my throat hurt, and I could tell my cough was picking up speed.  I barely slept last night, tossing and turning to try to find the right way to breathe.  When I woke up, I felt like death warmed over, although I had no fever.  Promise, it’s not the flu!  Still, I could seriously do without this because I have so much to do over the next few days!

I told myself I would just take the girls to school and then I’d go home and get in bed.  But after I dropped them off, I decided to run to Staples to finally ship Brenna’s jeans.  I’d been meaning to do it all week, but it kept getting away from me.  While I was there, I thought I’d check the clearance table.  They had 3-packs of the Kleenex boutique boxes for 50 cents!  50 cents!  I was loading up when a sales guy came back and said they had another basket under the table with more of them.  Yes!  I got 15 of them, that would be 45 boxes of Kleenex for 7.50!  I was so excited, I knew the Charter School would be so happy to have them, especially right now with all this flu scare.

I drove straight to the school, because the boxes were taking up half my car, and dropped them off.  They were quite excited about my delivery.  After that, I remembered I had to head to Target to pick up Ailish’s prescriptions from yesterday and grab a few snack things to keep the Kieran monster from roaring too much.  I was also on the hunt for the perfect temporary hair color for Ailish’s Aphrodite look.  I finally decided after two more stops that I would have to bring Ailish with me to decide.  So, I dragged myself home with just enough time to rest for an hour before the girls need to be picked up again.  So much for my plan of resting today!  But at least tonight is completely empty, except for dying Ailish’s hair for tomorrow.  Hopefully I won’t be worse tomorrow, because I really want to see her in action at the wax museum.  And then we have the swim meet on Saturday, and then the Girl Scout Tea on Sunday.  I just don’t possibly have time to be sick!

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this little controversy about my posts, about my blog.  What it comes down to is this - when my brother was diagnosed as a juvenile diabetic at the age of 8, my mother vowed that she would learn everything she could about it, and she would fight it as much as she could.  When the doctors told my mom there was nothing they could do, and to take him home and let him die at the age of 12, she told them to go to hell, and she found a new doctor who was working on experimental treatments for juvenile diabetics.  My brother ended up being one of the very first people ever to wear an insulin pump.  My mom adored my brother, but she hated the disease.  When my brother was having an insulin reaction, he would become incoherent, violent at times, and until we could get his blood sugar levels taken and figure out if he was too high or too low, and then somehow get him to eat or to let us give him a shot, he was very hard to handle.  She didn’t talk about it, but I know it was really hard on her.  I adored my brother, I still do.  But I hated his disease.  There were times when I resented the attention he got, the gifts he was given for being in the hospital (which I *totally* understand now, but again, this is my kid perspective), the amount of time and effort my mom put into the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.  I never dared speak about this - I knew what her answer would be.  I was healthy, I should be grateful.  And I was grateful, but still, I hated his disease.

I love my girls.  I loved them with everything I am from the moment I knew they existed.  I have loved them through the good and the bad, cried more tears for them then I even knew were possible, fought for them every step of the way, and quite literally risked my life to ensure their safety and well-being.  BUT, I hate their disorders.  I hate the control it has over them, I hate that they can’t just snap out of it, I hate that there is no cure, I hate that just talking about it causes most people in social circles to make that, “Oh....” face as they subtly take a step back.  I hate that there is no public outcry to find more help for these disorders.  I hate that the older they get, the less control I have over how much these disorders will affect their lives.  I hate how much these disorders have affected our family - and that is the understatement of the year.  The problem is, it is much harder to separate these disorders from the people who have them than it is to separate diabetes from my brother.  Diabetes did shape him, but it did not necessarily define him.  I don’t want their disorders to define them either.  But it is *very* hard sometimes to distinguish where the person stops and the disorders begin. 

I am not grateful for the disorders, in the way people sometimes talk about being grateful for disabilities or illness, because it teaches them to treasure every moment.  I am not grateful.  I am angry.  I am angry that they are so impossibly brilliant and beautiful and yet they get held down by their own thoughts or actions.  I am angry that I can’t dare to hope for a bright future because I am so scared that there is no future.  I am angry that I can’t just love all three of them together - can’t just be with them and enjoy their company - there is always an undercurrent among the three of them that unsettles me.  I can be with one and love them unconditionally.  Two of them, and I have to start picking sides.  Three of them, and I feel like I’m on the teacup ride, spinning madly, unable to get my bearings, completely out of control.  I am angry that by enjoying the easy company that is Kieran, that automatically makes her my favorite.  I don’t want to have a favorite, but I am angry to admit that yes, it truly is easier to be with her.  She is not perfect, she is not without faults, and truth be told, she gets in far more trouble than her sisters do at home because I expect so much more from her.  I’m angry that she takes on so much of this.  I am angry that she feels like she has to be responsible, that she has to grow up and cure the world.  I am angry that so much blame is placed on the parents, from the time they are babies and need, "more consistent discipline."  I am angry that so much of this is beyond my reach, that no matter how hard I try, I may never have the answers that the girls need, and I may have to admit defeat someday.

This blog is about many things - it’s about me, sometimes it’s about scrapbooking, it’s about my girls, but much of the time, it is about my war with these disorders.  I need more troops to fight this battle, and every once in awhile, a parent will stumble onto this site and realize that they don’t have to fight this war alone.  That makes me feel good, and it gives me just a tiny bit of hope, because we definitely need to band together to fight.  My girls are all aware of this blog, and at least at this point in their lives, they have told me that they understand why I write it.  I think I have made the distinction to them that there is a difference between them and their issues.  And that I do write about positive things too.  For Ailish, that’s the important part :)  Maybe someday it will be embarrassing for them - probably so.  If it is, I will apologize.  But for me, it is an important part of my life.  For me, for them even, as I document the journey we’ve been on, for others out there who might find it and realize they need help, and for this greater battle that we need to wage.  Maybe I am kidding myself, but I would like to believe that I write this with the best of intentions.

Comments

[Gina]

Thank you for having the courage and talent to share so eloquently. I HATE the disorder as well. It is so unfair that our kids are saddled with such a burden. They are funny, articulate, impressively intelligent kids, but sometimes that's all hidden by their disorder. I am so blessed to have a friend that really "gets it"! And we'll survive Jr. High, I promise. :-)

[Kendra]

Jen, I have many friends with children who have mental health problems. I point them to your blog often. I hope you do know how much you are helping!

[Nicole]

You have opened my eyes to a disorder that I didn't know much about and never really thought about.
You are brave and courageous.
I have been reading about you, your life and you beautiful girls for so many years now it seems as if I know you... and you don't have a clue who I am. That is what is so cool about this blogging world. The few blogs that I do read are written by mom that just love their families. Everyone, every family has 'stuff' they go through... some worse than others... but all of us have it. It helps to know that other moms, like me, struggle against how we 'should' feel and how we do feel. I am thankful that you ARE angry! I am thankful for you sharing a tiny portion of your family. You vent here... but anyone who reads your blog knows that you are there... for your girls, your husband and your family. I FEEL how much you love your kids and how much you hate their disorders. One is separate from the other, although when you live it daily, it probably doesn't seem that way.
Stay strong!

[Kim]

I have to tell you that the reason why I like this blog so much is because you are real. Kieran also reminds me so much of myself and how I struggled with a sibling that I feel has issues-to put it mildly-in almost exactly the same way. I think it's good that you talk about these things, but please keep in mind that your older two may resent this information being put out there.

[Robyn :)]

Kieran sounds a lot like me when I have not eaten. I get extremely cranky and rude to my husband. To other people I just get cranky :)

I like reading your blog because I learn so much from it. I like that you are willing to share so much of your life and struggles. It is your blog so you should be "allowed" to say what want, about whatever you want, as long as it is not hurtful and I think you take great care to do this. I think it also helps a lot of people who have similar issues, even if you don't know it :)

[Lisa]

I thought of you when I read this: http://foodlibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/05/mothers-cookiestheyre-back-in-time-for.html

Cheers!