February 2006 Archives

Yeesh, it's hard to recover from a pathetic blog post like that last one. But today I will try to look on the bright side of life ("Alllllways look on the briiiiiiight siiiide o' life" lalalala) and write about something that always makes me feel better: my kids.

Today is a special shout-out to Eli, because today is his birthday. He's 5 years old. 5! Years! Old! Somehow 5 seems like such a milestone to me. He'll be going to Kindergarten, learning to read, learning to ride a bike, maybe even losing his first tooth. Eli at 5 is so different than Eli at 4, yet his basic personality hasn't really changed. He's still a sweet, generally good-hearted, thoughtful, friendly, goofy, talkative kid. But now we have long conversations about bugs and God and the things he does with his friends at school, and I'm amazed at the increased complexity of his understanding of the world, and of other people. He's such a boy now, all about the superheroes and guns and bugs and dinosaurs and racecars, into physical play (run! jump! wrestle! chase!) with his friends and talking about blowing up bad guys with sticks of dynamite (uh, that one comes from TV, I'm pretty sure) but still young and innocent enough to want to sleep with his teddy bears every night and snuggle with his mama.

I am thrilled with his new maturity and sophistication and eagerly anticipating watching him take on new challenges, new skills, and new interests as he moves through his 5th year. But like every mom, I think, I'm also going to miss some of the younger, less complicated times, where really his needs were simpler and relatively easily fulfilled by an attentive parent willing to be his playmate or emotional touchstone. There will be a time very soon (if it isn't here already) where I really can't be all (or even most) things to him, and he’ll push away in search of what he needs. But as I like to remind him every chance I get, even when he's a grown up man, with kids of his own (God willing), he'll always be my baby. I'll always look at him and see all the ages he's been and love them all simultaneously, while still enjoying watching him move on down the path of his life (and cheering him on).

Happy Birthday, Eli…you're a superstar, and you're going to have a great year ahead of you. Your mama loves you.

Warning: this is a totally self-indulgent, whiny, "gotta-get-this-crap-outta-my-head-before-it-poisons-me" kind of post. I've been pretty sick the last few days (strep throat, oh lucky me) and so my attitude right now is perhaps a bit more cranky and overwhelmed than usual, but also, I feel like this topic has been churning around in me for awhile now.

Adulthood sucks. I know I've mentioned this before. But really, there's no joy in Mudville right now. There is only suck-it-up and slogging. It's the same old crap, the usual kind of "high-level complaining" that almost makes me ashamed to write it down. (I mean, it's not like I'm dealing with homelessness, divorce, serious illnesses, financial ruin or other honest-to-goodness tragedies.) There is the paid work, there is the parenting work, there is the keeping-a-house-and-a-social-life-together work. There are all these living things dependent on me: kids, pets, even the frikking plants, which I can barely seem to keep from completely expiring by watering them every few weeks. I am hurtling along without enough rest, without enough warmth, without enough time to even really think about what I'm doing to my long-term mental and physical health merely in order to survive today's challenges. I am like some short-sighted, government-subsidized logging company, gobbling up my precious resources left and right with no regard for any of that namby-pamby, green-schmeen sustainable fallow-time practices. I know someday I will crash and burn--but today is not that day. Yet.

(Yeah, the metaphors are mixin', a sure sign of tiredness. But on I press.)

I had a realization bubble up to the surface this morning: I'm lonely. (Listen, future self, assuming that you're still around after all this wanton pillaging that's been taking place around here, I want you to know that this is how you felt back then.) I slog, and I suck it up, and I slog some more, and no one cares. Chronically underslept? Body breaking down? Feeling sick? Needing some personal downtime? Too bad. No one cares. Everyone's got their own slogging or distractions, and in the meantime the cat still needs her meds and the dishes still need to be done. The kids still have to be hugged or praised or disciplined, they still have to eat breakfast and get dressed and eat dinner and be put to bed and they aren't going to do it by themselves. Projects need to move forward at work and the boss doesn't care if you have other things pulling at you. So just quit whining and get organized and Get It Done (whatever "It" is) because ultimately, you're on your own, Mama. Any help you get is just bonus sprinkles on the cupcake icing.

I just want someone to be *my* mama for a little while, to soothe the boo-boos and help with the hard stuff. I want someone to fuss over me when I don't feel good and put me to bed when I need it, to sing my praises and tell me what a good job I'm doing; I want someone else to be in charge for a little while, someone else to set the boundaries and tell me what to do and how to do it.

Or maybe I just need an actual, honest-to-goodness vacation. That might help too.

Because I'm sure all 4 of you reading this want to know...Oreo went back to the vet today for a reassessment. Her bloodwork came back surprisingly decent, but I've been worried because despite our heroic needle-sticking, she still seems mostly lethargic and checked out (she spends pretty much all her time on the heating pad I set up for her in the bathroom, away from the hurly burly of the rest of us). We did find that she had gained a tiny bit of weight back (which is pretty surprising to me given that she seems to be eating hardly anything…maybe it's all that extra fluid she has in her now), but overall the treatment doesn't seem to be having that astounding "wow she's back to her old self again" effect I was hoping for. Josh and I keep circling around that "where do we draw the line/how much farther do we take these heroic measures" conversation. But we still have several treatment options left (I won't bore y'all with too many technical details), and I'm happy to report one tiny little glimmer of good news: the shot of B-complex vitamins that the vet gave her tonight seems to have helped somehow, because her energy seems to have come back a little (she was particularly feisty during tonight's needle sticking) and she even ate her pill-holder treat (if not her dinner) with relish, which she hasn't been doing for days. Most reassuring of all, though, she's started purring again--I'm sitting in the bathroom with her right now, thanks to the power of wireless internet + laptop chicleta, and she's been purring and purring just like she used to, when she'd get so loud we'd kick her off our bed at night. So that makes me feel hopeful that maybe we've found something that's helping. We'll see what happens after this--I'm supposed to check back in with the vet in a couple days and probably go back in at some point next week.

In other, completely unrelated, and far happier news, Josh utterly surprised me last night by taking me out on a special date night in honor of my birthday--after a delicious sushi dinner at our favorite restaurant, we went to go see Howard Jones at the Red Devil Lounge in the city. And what a great show it was! It was an acoustic show (which is kind of funny if you know anything about Howard Jones--he of the electronic synthesizer pop fame) in a tiny little club with a generally happy and polite audience (of course I'd have to say that there probably wasn't a soul under 30 in that place that wasn't an employee). Howard (and a guitar player) played wonderful acoustic versions of a lot of his "classic" (ouch) hits from the 80s, which gave me a lovely little nostalgia hit as well as being enjoyable in and of themselves. It was so fun to be out and about like "regular" (i.e. non-parent-of-small-children) grownups--even though I only wound up getting about 5 hours of sleep last night, it was worth it.

Wait a minute…did someone say sleep? Zzzzzz…