The things no one tells us

I have been a parent for seven years, eleven days, and a few hours.  The longer I walk down this parenting path, the more I realize that there are a lot of things no one warned me about before I became a mom.  I mean, I don't blame y'all for keeping your lips sealed, but holy cannoli.  Some of this stuff is getting really hard, really fast.

Dallas has been having some sleep issues lately.  Those sleep issues bleed into behavior issues which ooze back into sleep issues.  See what I'm saying?  Ever since mid-October, Dallas has decided that he doesn't want to be alone.  Ever.  He doesn't want to play alone in his room or run down to the basement to get a toy or sleep alone.  He has always been a kid who enjoyed time alone to decompress, but for the last few months, I can't be more than ten feet away from the boy before he starts to panic.  I have NO earthly idea how this started or where it is coming from.  We have the same nighttime routine we have always had - no shake-ups or surprises - but the routine doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore.  He wants someone nearby while he falls asleep.  Scratch that: he wants ME next to him in bed while he falls asleep.  When I give him snuggle time before he goes to bed, he cuddles under the blanket next to me and says, "Now this is what I'm talking about," while he sighs contentedly.  It's literally the only time of the day when he is fully and completely relaxed.  He doesn't want to feel this way.  I mean, who would want to spend his life being tired and mad?  He's a happy, sweet kid when he is a well-rested kid.

Now, I know you all are rolling your eyes and thinking that the kid has me snowed, that he's doing it all for attention.  This ain't my first rodeo, and I know when I'm being snowed.  When it comes to snowing Mama, Dal is the Sahara.  Whatever is going on is terrifying and absolutely real to him.  I can't dismiss what he's feeling, but it sure would be fabulous to figure out why he's feeling this way.  We have tried a menu of things to help him feel better at night: soft music, plenty of snuggle time, lots of reassurance, leaving a lamp on, and even giving him audiobooks on an iPod to try to quiet his mind.  Is any of it working?  Not so much.

Because he isn't sleeping well, he's a bit of a grump during the day, especially as it gets later into the afternoon.  The bedtime ritual is strained because he's grumpy and tired, so he's going into sleep in a bad mood.  VICIOUS CYCLE, y'all.  Vicious.  It's hard on everyone because he isn't kind to any of us, and it's hard on him because being mean is really not who Dallas is.  He's a sweet kid who likes to keep the peace, but he can't do that when his brain is a grey fog of fatigue.  I try everything I can to smooth things over so we can all enjoy a good dinner and a quiet family evening together.  Nice, right?  Well, Lottie has started saying that all I do is pay attention to Dallas.  Her favorite new phrase is, "Little brothers get EVERYTHING!"  So, that's pleasant to hear.  I have been making a concerted effort to be equal in all of my attention to both kids, but there is only so much I can do.  I'm spreading myself pretty thin, y'all, and I am toeing the line of sanity.  And it didn't help that this happened on our FUN FAMILY TIME at the ice skating rink:

First time on ice skates plus falling on her face equals a sweet shiner. 

No one ever told me how guilty I would feel about my parenting.  I spend hours and hours and HOURS worrying about what the heck I'm doing to my kids.  Am I too strict?  Not strict enough?  Do I push them too hard?  Do I do too much for them?  Am I babying them?  Am I expecting too much from them?   What am I doing right?  What am I doing wrong?  Am I doing anything right?  When they were babies, I didn't worry this much.  I changed diapers, I nursed them, I swaddled them, and I put them down for naps.  Easy peasy.  No wonder women keep procreating: babies are awesomely easy compared to what comes later.

When I had kids, I knew I would love them deeply and intensely for the rest of my life, but I had no idea how much I would question every single move I made.  Being a parent has made me realize how utterly clueless I am and how helpless that makes me feel.  I guess I'm not the only parent who feels this way, so I'm in good company.  But to all of my readers who don't have kids yet, I give you a warning: do lots of smart things now to build your ego because once you have kids, you're going to become a drooling fool who knows absolutely nothing.  For real.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Packing and dragging

I have been just the teensiest bit busy lately.  Go figure.

The kids are out of school (boo!) but summer school starts a week from Monday (yay!).  Don't get me wrong: I love them and love spending time with them.  However, trying to get the house packed with them around is a Sisyphean task, and the time is drawing closer to The Move.  Things have to get done, and they need to be done soon.  I want to pack as much as I can now so I can have at least a little bit of time before The Move to have fun in Lexington with the kids and see some friends as well.

All of this is made more difficult by my own fatigue.  Since I had the total thyroidectomy a couple of months ago, I have been really tired.  I don't mean the normal end-of-the-day tired; I mean I-can't-make-it-through-the-day-with-a-clear-thought-or-without-a-nap kind of tired.  Having two little kids running around makes the nap situation impossible, and loads of caffeine haven't helped, either.  I wake up after a full night's sleep feeling utterly unrefreshed and unwilling to start the day.  I have never been a morning person, but it's really getting ridiculous.  My follow-up appointment with my endocrinologist was scheduled for the first week of July, but I knew I couldn't make it that long without seeing him.  I was able to get an appointment to see his Physician's Assistant, and when I got off the phone, I wept with relief.

As soon as I got to the office the day of my appointment, the nurse took a blood sample and sent it off to the lab.  I had to wait an hour for my results before I could see the PA, so I was glad I had my Kindle with me.  (And, by the way, what's up with that scheduling?  My appointment was at 1:00: shouldn't I have arrived at noon for the blood test so my appointment could really be at 1:00 instead of 2-ish?  Call me crazy, but that just might have worked!)  As soon as I finally saw the PA, she asked me to describe my symptoms.  That wasn't difficult because there were almost too many to list.   After my litany of complaints, she told me that a normal TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) level is 0.4 to 6.0.  The doctor is actually trying to keep my level to the lower side, around 0.4, because too much TSH in my system could trigger regrowth of the cancer.  The PA studied my lab results and let me know that my TSH level was at a 42.  So, yeah, things were pretty out of whack.  I cried then, too, because I was relieved that the fatigue wasn't just in my head.  The PA upped my dose of Synthroid immediately, but the meds take a long time to work.  She said it could be months or even over a year before I feel like myself again.  Hey, thanks, PA.  (There may have been more tears at that point, but I don't want to embarrass myself further.)

Synthroid, cruel mistress of my fate

I totally understand that my body has been through a lot, and as my awesome hairstylist Justin said this morning, apparently the thyroid just isn't something to mess around with.  Logically, I know it's going to take time and adjustment to get me to the level where I need to be.  Emotionally, though, I am totally OVER it.  I don't have time to be exhausted: Mama has a house to pack.  I want to see my friends before we move, get pumped up for my niece's graduation party (and have I mentioned she's going to play volleyball at Purdue next year?  Squeeeeee!), finish packing, play with my kids, and not feel like I'm living in a dense fog every moment of every day.  This isn't who I am.  I do everything at warp speed, and I love crossing things off my daily to-do list.  I do not love feeling sub-par at best.  I had faith before that everything would turn out okay after the surgery, and I have faith now that I'll return to normal again someday.  But, man, I really wish that someday could be today.

Okay, I'm done whinging.  (That's a little Harry Potter reference for y'all.)

By the way, does anyone out there want to buy my house?  Please?  :)

And so it begins...

I have been a little MIA in the blogosphere lately.  I have great ideas for blog posts, and when I sit down at night after the kids go to bed...I'm too tired to write.  The last few weeks, I have been getting back to normal (or as normal as I get) while my new thyroid meds start to kick in.  However, I don't really have the luxury of time to sit around while the meds do their magic due to The Move.

The Move is happening in eleven weeks and three days.  That may seem like plenty of time to get everything done, but I assure you, it is not.  I have to declutter and pack up a 4,400 square foot house while trying to manage taking care of the rest of my usual chores.  In addition to kid stuff, mowing, laundry, more kid stuff, and then some kid stuff, I'm keeping the house in "showing" condition and packing as much as humanly possible every day.  So far, things are going pretty well.  I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff - a LOT - by donating it to a local church.  As an awesome bonus, Fausto, who has done  house painting work for us in the past, comes and picks everything up from us.  Score!  The trick is to get rid of things while the kids are at school or otherwise occupied.  If they're around, every single thing I try to put in the donation box becomes the VERY BEST TOY EVER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.  Quite frankly, I sort of have to pull the same shenanigans with Trevor.  I found a box of files that had some of his old phone records and random bills from when he was in law school.  Uh huh.  I'm really glad he moved those from house to house without ever opening the box.  So, bye-bye bills.  Bye-bye college textbooks.  Bye-bye gross, sweat-stained baseball hats.  (And you just know he's going to read this now and immediately begin to squirrel things away.  Here's a tip for you, T: you had better start bolting things down because Mama's going scorched earth and there's nowhere to hide.)

It's not just that it costs about a billion dollars per pound for a long-distance move.  I mean, that's a huge factor, but it's more that I am ready to live a simpler life.  I want less...stuff.  Less stuff to clean, to care for, to worry about, to move, and to contain.  I want to spend more time with my family and the people I love.  I want to spend more time doing what I love to do and enjoying each day as it comes.  I'm always going to have the memories associated with the things even if I don't have the things, you know?  If the whole cancer brouhaha taught me anything, it's that being happy doesn't come from having things; it comes from appreciating all of the intangibles in life.  Peace comes from forgiving, starting over, and moving on; it doesn't come from holding on to what you don't need.  Don't get me wrong: I still have stuff but I think a lot less of it will help me focus on what's really valuable in my life.