Chewymom

Hello out there, Blogworld. My name is Chewymom. I have a blog. And I used to write posts on it. And then something happened.

Facebook.

I now write and think in only 100 characters at a time. My brain cannot handle more than that. In fact, this post will actually be a combination of dozens of short Facebook-length posts, all strung together. So forgive me if it is disjointed.

Okay, there is this one other tiny detail of my life, called Nursing School that has started to rudely encroach on my time. Well, and then there’s just life itself. Let me outline the month of…say…August for you.

On Monday, August 10th, my kids joyfully bounded out of bed, anticipating their first day of school. You know that part about the joy and the bounding is a lie, but it was the first day. Because what else is there to do in August in Alabama? Children are sick of swimming, nobody wants to do anything but move from one air conditioned room to another, and there are only so many trips to Chuck E Cheese that a mother can make before she really loses it.

So, August 10th was the first day of first, sixth, ninth, twelfth, and post-high-school job training for my five kids. On Tuesday, August 11th, I checked them all out of school at noon so we could drive to Atlanta and hop on a plane to Baltimore. We saw Dr. Francomano, a geneticist who specializes in connective tissue disorders. She confirmed that me and all of the Chewychildren do have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and that it is the classical type. She carefully measured and plotted the extent of hypermobility of dozens of our joint, made recommendations for follow up care with physicians and therapists, and made other unpopular suggestions like that the kids should not play contact sports like football. Drew was not fond of this advice, but it was still a very helpful visit, and we even had time left over to drive into DC and visit the Smithsonian and the Spy Museum.

We flew home on Saturday, and on Monday Drew went on to football, still pondering whether he wanted to quit. Actually, I was pondering how to get him to see the wisdom in quitting, because he was not convinced that was a smart thing to do. But then he had a little intervention from above, along with a teammate who hit him, causing his knee to dislocate. When he hit the ground, it popped back into joint, but his MCL was torn. He was put in a brace, and his orthopedist and his coach both sat him down and told him he could no longer play football. The risk for injury was too great. He moped for about a day, and then he went and talked to the basketball coach and decided to go out for that sport.

The following Sunday, Brig fell and hurt a muscle in his leg. On Monday morning, he came down the stairs on his bottom. This was normal behavior when he was three, but he is now 18, so it was a bit odd. Nevertheless, I sent him to school, limping, and went on to my first day of class in Nursing School. After my class ended, and I was totally stressed out by the realization that life as I knew it had ended, I took Brig to the orthopedist (we’re on a family plan there), where we learned that he had not, in fact, hurt his muscle. He had broken his leg. He was put in a boot, which he was just allowed to remove this week.

Crazy times, huh?

Oh wait. I forgot to mention that on Tuesday evening of that same week, Sally began running a high fever, had a headache, stomach ache, was tired….You know where this is going.

Oink.

Yep, swine flu. Which she passed along to me.

So, let’s recap, shall we? Kids start school. Kids miss 3-1/2 of the first 5 days of school and are deluged with makeup work. Drew tears his MCL and has to quit his favorite sport. Brig breaks his leg. Mom starts nursing school. Sally gets swine flu. Mom gets swine flu.

And now, I am thoroughly exhausted from stringing all of these 100-word status updates together to make a single blog post, so I am going to sign off. Perhaps you will hear from me again before Christmas, but I make no promises….

Years ago, the Chewyfamily viewed Halloween with great disdain and suspicion. We, along with most of our friends at the time, refused to even call it by the name “Halloween.” We acknowledged it only as “Reformation Day” and would do fun stuff like sit around and discuss Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door. A big day in protestant history, to be sure. But hardly exciting to small children!

In the late 90’s, we moved to Atlanta and decided to amend our ways and let our kids dress up and attend a church festival. That was great, but we had just moved into our new home in a great neighborhood two weeks prior. As we met neighbors over time, they expressed their disappointment that we had not trick-or-treated at their door. Many had waited to meet this young new family with the four boys that they heard had moved here. But we never came.

Here we are, ten years later, and five of the seven of us trick-or-treated. Ben had to work tonight, and Drew is at a friend’s house. The rest of us dressed up - yes, even Chewydad and me. Brig and Sam used our ancient, but still quite useful M&M costumes. Sally was a princess. I was a nun, and Scott was a monk. Making some wonder what we were doing with so many children.

When we decided to start trick-or-treating, Chewydad lamented that we had not done it before. As he said, “When else do neighbors actually WANT you to knock on their door? When else do our neighbors show up at our house?” It’s a perfect way to build relationships with neighbors.

And yet tonight, as we went from house to house, Chewydad and I became really exasperated. We wanted to get on with it - hurry from house to house. Collect as much candy as possible, you know! But Brig would stop and engage EVERY PERSON in conversation. He might ask which veterinarian they used for their dogs. And then announce that he works for a particular one. He might realize that he knew one of their children or neighbors. But whatever the conversation was about, the point was that he was engaging the person at the door. He was doing the very thing Chewydad and I claim to want to do. Getting to know the neighbors. Showing an interest - a real, genuine interest - beyond just grabbling a candy bar and moving to the next house. Brig had more in mind than just filling his candy basket. He was networking.

And you know, I have to laugh. Brig knows everybody in this town, and I often am surprised and wonder how he does it. But that’s exactly how. He engages people in conversation. People remember him when they see him around town, because he is the kid who asked after their pet, their son, their mother. He remembered that they drove the red truck, or they live in the yellow house. He has commented (positively) that they have an Auburn hat or (negatively) an Alabama shirt.

Brig challenges me constantly. Often he does it by trying my patience, or by nearly making Ben late for school. But he also does it by showing me in his own way, how to engage the world around me. He just knows how to love people. He makes them feel valued and cared about. Who else thinks to do that on Halloween?

Today is Brig’s 18th birthday! I have not made a big deal of any of my childrens’ birthdays on my blog this year, so it seems unfair to make a big to-do about Brig’s. But I have to comment on three things.

First, Brig registered to vote a few weeks ago. His birthday is exactly 8 days before the election, and he has been just DYING to vote this time! He is very opinionated about his candidate, too! I just cannot wait to take him to the polling place and show him how to cast his ballot! We have a sample one, and he has been practicing.

Second, I had the pleasure of registering Brig for Selective Service today. You can do that online now, and it takes about 30 seconds or less. Now, if we ever implement a draft, I’d like to see what they would actually do with Brig!

And last, I leave you with a little birthday tale. On the kids’ birthdays, we let them pick the meals for the day. Usually we don’t go out to eat, but this is a big birthday! So Brig, after having donuts for breakfast, really wanted to go to Pizza Hut for dinner. And so we did!

The great thing about eating at a restaurant on your birthday is that you can always count on the waiters to embarrass you by singing and bringing you a little dessert with a candle in it. And you can always count on me to announce a birthday, because it’s worth the embarrassment for a free dessert!

So I told Paula, our 40-something waitress that tonight we were celebrating Brig’s EIGHTEENTH birthday! After she took care of bringing our pizza out to us, and while we waited thirstily for drink refulls, she went back up to the front. She hit a button the register, pulled out a strip of register paper, and used hi-liters to draw a cake and write Happy 18th Birthday. She brought it to the table, handed it to Brig, and walked off.

So that was it. Brig got some extra register tape with the doodles of a 40-something year old waitress.

And he was REALLY HAPPY about it! He really was! That’s just Brig for you.

Happy birthday, young adult son!

Sally was invited to a “Fancy Nancy” birthday on Saturday. She was in her element! They had the dress-up clothes, they did the hairdos and everything. Check out my Fancy Sally!

The day started innocently enough. My plans involved cleaning a few rooms, lounging by the pool, and taking ONE child shopping for shoes for school.

And here’s where the day began to turn scary, because I ended up with THREE children tagging along, and I ended up in TARGET. Meaning aliens obviously sucked some of my brain cells out while I was sleeping.

The three children who came along for the ride were three who either had money to spend, or who like to nag me into spending money on their behalf. It made for a really fun shopping trip.

Not surprisingly, to me anyway, or to Chewydad I’m sure, we ended up in electronics. That’s scary, too, because that’s where serious nagging and begging takes place, and it reminds me of the Hotel California. Once you’re there, you can never leave.

But the really scary part is the man. The man who appeared to be about my age (somewhere between 25 and 100, depending on who you are and how I answer the “how old are you” question). He had on his wife-beater and was playing a PS3 video game. That was the first time we passed him by. From there, we went onto another aisle, came back, and he was still there, blocking the aisle and oblivious to anyone around him. We went over the the CDs, came back, and guess where he was! Right. Still playing. Left to look at babydolls that cry and pee, walked over to books, came back, and VOILA! The man. Still absorbed.

And I just want to know, what kind of 40-something (oops!) man has the time to stand in Target all day and mindlessly play a video game? (Maybe one who has no job and therefore can’t afford to put on a regular t-shirt over his undershirt?) And to me THAT was the scariest part of my day.

Even scarier than dragging three kids back OUT of Target without having bribed them with toys or candy.

I am trying to figure out why God has brought about a gazillion people into my life in the past few years who have children with OCD. I suppose a small part of it might be the fact that once you have a child with a disability–any kind of disability–you begin to meet more and more people who are walking a similar path. But several of these are friends I already had who down the road learned that their child has OCD. And it makes me wonder if the numbers are on the rise, just as they are with autism.

Growing up, did you know anyone with OCD? Oh, I mean we all had friends that we said had OCD. People like my mom, who could not go to bed unless the dishwasher was emptied and every dish put away, or who reminded me about five times each day to get my school books OFF of her counter already. Or like my friend who keeps a spotless house and has to rearrange the sofa cushions whenever anyone gets up off of the sofa. You know, the “ha-ha” kind of OCD. Yeah, these people are a little compulsive, but their life is not adversely affected by it.

That’s not what I’m talking about. These friends of mine have children who wash their hands until the skin is peeling off, and then they try to force their siblings to follow the same behavior patterns. They fear thunderstorms and sharks to the point that they are debilitated and cannot go to sleep. They rage when they cannot force others to comply with their obsession. These are children whose brains are literally wired differently. They do not have the filters that allow them to STOP the obsessive thoughts like most of us do. Their obsessions disrupt the entire family, and the mom has to spend hours each day working with the one child.

Interestingly in a few of these families, one of the parents had the “other” kind of OCD. One of them cleans out his wife’s car before he enters the house when he gets home from work each day. Another one keeps the house completely clean, and yet another worries about her children even more than most moms.

So what is the difference? Why is it that my generation of people with OCD, while maybe a bit quirky, were not debilitated? And yet their children are? I don’t have the answers. I have no doubt there are as many theories about this as there are about autism or early puberty or whatever other generational changes we are seeing. Too much tv? Hormones in milk? Genetics? More lenient parenting styles? Chemicals in foods and in the environment?

Do any of you readers have thoughts about this? Have you observed the same phenomenon?

Folks, I’m surrounded by cats. We have four as pets, along with two dogs. Thankfully so far we have not ventured into the reptile and rodent category of pets, unless you include Mr. Darcy, who still is not much bigger than a large squirrel. And is currently entertaining himself in the usual way–pulling Max’s tail, and then running for cover and then starting the process all over again.

Cats are so different than dogs. My cats busy themselves doing their own thing. They will sometimes follow me from room to room, but they keep a safe distance. I can coax them to come if I walk into the laundry room and rattle their food bowl. Occasionally a couple of them will approach me to be petted. Of course, Serafina still prefers to sleep practically on my face for at least part of the night, and to purr and sharpen her claws on my back. She is not normal. But the others are typical cats–keeping their distance, waiting for me to offer them something, and then going on with their own busy lives of sleeping and grooming.
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And lately that has felt like my life. You knew this post wasn’t just going to be about cats! Do you ever feel that way? Maybe it is the life of a busy woman–wife, friend, mother, lover. Right now it feels like I am surrounded by cats–people who go on about their own lives, which are legitimately busy, and who come around at feeding time. Or whatever. It feels like I have to dangle a carrot–er some catnip, in keeping with my theme–like I have to offer something others want before they come around. I feel this need to always have the right catnip on hand, and I have an intense fear that if I run out, the cats will no longer want to come around. And it isn’t that I’m surrounded by bad cats people. They’re just busy people, like me, overwhelmed with their own lives, and probably feeling rather like they, too, are surrounded by cats.

Sometimes I just want a Mr. Darcy. Someone who adores me. Who follows me around, waiting to see what I need or what I want. Who waits for the moment that I sit down so he can just hop in my lap and lick my face like he hasn’t seen me in a week, when in fact it has only been about five minutes. I want to be pursued from room to room in my life.
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I want the Hound of Heaven! And that is Jesus. He pursues me when I am weary, sad, tired, running from Him. He is not a Mr. Darcy who loves on me for a while, but who is then distracted by more entertaining things like Max’s tail! No, his focus is all on me, and he does not rest until he has found me and brought me back before the father. And actually, even then he does not rest, because he knows I will again and again need to pursued and loved relentlessly.

This morning I am praying for the strength and love to continue to be a cat-herder. And I can only do it because ultimately, a hound is after me.

Brig is convinced that he is famous. He has been on tv (in the background), in the paper (lots of people in our town are in the paper), and he hopes to someday be on Ellen. He sees no problem with calling Ellen up and inviting himself to be a guest on her show because she is famous just like he is. They understand each other.

Delusions of grandeur.

So, a couple of weeks ago, his Special Olympics swim coach called me and asked me if Brig would participate in the Torch Run this year. The police officers in our city run the torch from City Hall to Walmart, where they gather on top of the Walmart and solicit donations for Special Olympics. I said, “SURE!” knowing Brig would love an excuse to miss a little bit of school.

I showed up yesterday morning at 8:00 at City Hall, expecting to drop Brig off and leave. I had a busy day with it being Ben’s birthday and all. There were little things like driver’s licenses to get and birthday cakes to buy. When Brig and I walked over to the small crowd gathering I realized that Brig wasn’t one of the Special Olympics runners. He was the runner. The torch bearer, in fact.

Meaning he spoke to the mayor. Had his picture made in front of the sign. Started the race with all of the police officers following him (many of whom he knew, because he is famous, of course).

So the race started, Brig enjoyed the attention, and I left. And a couple of hours later, his swim team coach called and said, “Tune in to xyz radio station! They’re about to interview Brig!” I was in the drive-up line at a local coffee shop, and I tuned it in, and just as the man asked for my order, here came Brig’s voice over the airwaves, not just of our city but of the whole surrounding area, because this was a station out of Huntsville! Surreal. I had called Chewydad who ran out to his car with a tape recorder and managed to record the interview. Click on the arrow to hear it (they talk to another person in the middle, but if you keep listening, they talk to Brig again at the end).
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 Brig on the Radio [2:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

That night we tuned in to the local television news because I had noticed some video cameras present when Brig started the run. He wasn’t on, so we headed on out for dinner to celebrate Ben’s birthday. As we were finishing our meal, a friend called and said, “I just saw Brig on the news! They said his name and age and everything!” Dang it–we missed it! We’re working on getting a copy of the report.

So this morning I am awake before the rest of the family, except for Sam who has always had an internal alarm for 0-dark-thirty. I walked out to get the paper, opened it up, and found Brig on the front page!

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Hey Ellen, Brig is awaiting your call.

Dear Ben,

Today you are sixteen, and I am terribly excited! I finally have the driving help I have waited for for years! After I take you to hopefully pass your driver’s exam, I will send you off into the world in the old 1994 Honda Accord. With fear and trembling.

I know that over the next days, weeks, months, I will annoy you to pieces.

I will say things like, “Be sure you drive the speed limit!”

Which really means, “I am really afraid that if you get a ticket, I won’t be able to afford the insurance any more!”

And, “Don’t get distracted by the radio or a/c.”

Meaning, “People make sudden moves in front of you. If you aren’t aware, you could rear-end someone. And get hurt. And I really, really don’t want you to get hurt.”

I’ll also say, “Never talk on your cell phone and NEVER text while driving!”

And in my head I’m thinking, “If you have a wreck while using your cell phone and someone is injured, you could be doing jail time.”

I’m sure I’ll nag, “Watch out for school zones!”

Meaning, “Whatever you do, don’t hit a kid! Talk about ruining lives…his, yours….”

And I’ll ask, “When will you be home?”

Meaning, “I worry when my little chickies aren’t all safe in the nest. Hurry back so I can breathe a sigh of relief and go to sleep at night.”

And I’ll definitely say, “NEVER drink and drive.”

Meaning, “NEVER drink and drive.”

And I’m sure I’ll say, “Be careful.”

Which means, “I love you.”

I’m sure I’ll say all sorts of other things, and they’ll all annoy you. You will roll your eyes. You will think I don’t trust you or that I assume that you are a bad driver.

It isn’t that, dear Ben. I’m just being your mom, trying to adjust to your new freedoms. I’m frightened and worried, and I’m not so good at this letting go thing. So bear with me. And be careful. Okay?

My parents were married back in 1949. I was their first-born in 1966. You do the math. Yep, seventeen childless years, many spent trying to have a baby. A while back I did some reading up on Clomid, and I realized based on the timing of its release, that my mom was probably on that when she conceived me. I know she took something. (Interestingly, Clomid was initially supposed to be a birth control pill. Imagine the surprise of the women and their doctors who thought THAT!)

I don’t remember being rebellious as a preschooler. When I was 4-1/2 and my brother was born, my grandmother came to stay with us to help out. The story goes that I got irritated with my grandmother who would NOT meet my breakfast demands, and I put my little hands on my then-little-hips and declared, “YOU’RE JUST TRYING YOURSELF THIS MORNING!” Maybe not rebellious, but I certainly had a smart mouth!

When I was in first grade, my teacher had been a student of my father’s. Great. That meant I got away with nothing, because she occasionally came over for dinner. Not that I was a bad kid–actually the thought of getting in trouble horrified me, and when Anne and I were caught talking, and Miss Majors practically slung our desks, with us in them, in opposite directions across the room…well, I never forgot that and was traumatized for years. Not because of the slinging, but just because I, the perfectly obedient Chewymom, had gotten into trouble.

Outwardly I was a model student, but inwardly a rebel. I guess. My dad was a leftward-leaning Political Science professor. It was 1972, and the previously-mentioned first-grade class held a mock election. Nixon vs McGovern. You can guess who all the talk in my house was about. McGovern. So who did I vote for? Nixon.

Now, what first grader goes completely against her parents? Huh?

Okay, so along comes the Christmas season, and we were decorating pine cones with little tiny figures–you know, shepherds, angels, wise men, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. The teacher had a few extra packages without a baby Jesus for the Jewish people in the class. So I piped up, “I’m Jewish!” Right. My teacher, who you will remember knew my parents fairly well, went along with it all, even though mean ole Jennifer declared, “SHE’S LYING!!” My parents never said a word to me when I came home with a Christmas decoration sans baby Jesus, even though my teacher had to have told them.

My childhood was littered with examples of me telling whoppers, talking back, thinking my parents must be aliens, and just generally wondering who I was and how I got stuck in this weird family. I have no doubt my mother wondered the same thing, minus the weird family part.

In fourth grade our elementary school was merged with another one, and as a result we had a whole slew of kids we had never met before. One of them was Jamie. Jamie and her sister were the first people I ever knew of who were adopted.

“A-HA!” A light bulb went off in my head. “That’s it! I’m adopted!” My parents were significantly older, and horrifyingly more old-fashioned, than any of my friends’ parents. Except for Tiffany and Linda, but they had siblings in high school, so their parents were supposed to be old. I seemed to have NOTHING in common with my parents, either. I still loved conservative politicians. I had a thirst for spiritual understanding that seemed to not be matched by my parents’ boredom with church. I liked the pop/rock station Z-93, while my parents preferred elevator music. I wanted to watch cool stuff like Gilligan’s Island and Brady Bunch, and my parents were obsessed over 60 Minutes and Walter Cronkite. Obviously I was completely unrelated to these people. I wondered what my “real” parents must be like–certainly they’d understand me better. They’d vote for a Republican, and for goodness sake, they’d watch decent TV!

For the record, here I am 30-something years later, and I can assure you that I was not, in fact, adopted. If I were, I would not hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth on a daily basis, saying things I SWORE never to say to my kids like, “If you don’t hurry up, you’re going to be late!” And “Stop that or you’ll be grounded.” Or “Did you remember to brush your teeth?” Or “Your room is a wreck!” Literally in her voice and with her inflections. Eerie.

And besides, I gave birth to my twin, ironically at about the same age as my mother gave birth to me. And I fully expect for Sally to look at me in a few years, as though she is looking at an alien, and be certain that she did NOT come out of my body. Whether it is rebellion, a strong-will, or just thinking completely outside the box, she and I do not see eye to eye on many things, just as I did not with my mother. We butt heads and argue, and yes she is only five. And she would never dare to get in trouble at school–not a single popsicle stick has been pulled this entire year.

Next fall, I fully expect for her to vote for McCain and come home with a Muslim crescent moon decoration in her Christmas ornaments.

And if my mother were still alive, she would lift her hands and sing “GLORY, HALLELUJAH!” knowing that her prayers have been answered, because I finally have a child just like me.