Baby Milestones

Three major milestones yesterday in my daughter's transition from toddlerhood to preschooler.

1. She hit me. She wanted to be picked up and I said "not right now I'm cooking dinner". Her frustration grew instantly and she screamed "NO!" and then smacked me on the leg with her hand. I let her know, sternly, that hitting is not good and you dont hit mommy. She burst out crying. I picked her up a few minutes later when dinner was in the oven, and we had a "chat" about not hitting, that its not nice, and we don't hit in our house. She seemed to understand. At least she could see that I still loved her and could be tender and loving towards her despite her unacceptable behaviour.

2. She finally has her bottom molars poking through her gums. Finally at 17 months she's almost able to chew food, and not resort to either trying to swallow chunks whole (she chokes frequently) or for us to cut things up into such tiny pieces it's not fun for her to eat. She does try to mash things up with her front teeth, but she's not always successful.

3. She cursed. Now before this sounds too awful, toddlers are prone to making up a lot of nonsense words and not knowing what they mean. Her favourites lately are mostly two syllable ones such as "ag-doh" and "da-bee". She's also been heard saying "la-vash, ba-doh, da-bah, ba-gah, ba-deesh, za-bah". She also occasionally comes out with "a-go-doh" which has something to do with her crate of soft-blocks. I haven't figured this one out yet. She does have a few nonsense words that actually mean something.. her own little language. She uses the word "ahm-ee" for lemon, and "ack" for eyeglasses or sunglasses.

But last night, amid the usual nonsense words, came something that sounded like "sh*t". My husband looked at me, I looked at him, our eyes met, they grew wide, and then I burst out laughing. I had to leave the table so as not to encourage her from saying it over and over (as toddlers love to do when they find something that makes adults laugh). It sounded SO funny in her little baby voice, her saying something that sounded a lot like a curse word.

I know curse words are vulgar, and improper, and probably a sin in some people's books, but I have often found cursing funny. Particularly when I'm extremely stressed, and/or it comes from people who dont seem like the cursing type: proper, formal, uptight people, sweet elderly grandmothers, and toddlers who dont really know what they're saying yet.

Aaaah. Parenthood is waay too funny sometimes.

Putting blame where blame is due...

... or is it really a matter of responsibility? Blame sounds so harsh, taking personal responsibility is more like it.

Why do I seem to attract those who need to shift their helplessness onto me and project it to the point where it seems to be MY problem? My fault? Why am I a punching bag for the insecure? And why does it hurt me so bad? Maybe because I've lost a lot in my life due to that kind of faulty thinking. I've lost time, energy, self esteem, relationships... I've suffered abuse, broken hearts, and a lot of crap that's taken a lot of energy and good health from me. Or maybe my recent string of bad luck is just too tempting a target....

Why can't people take responsibility for themselves and stop hurting others? How can people not feel bad about putting others down in order to make them feel better about themselves? Why is this a theme I see over and over - in love, work, life...

Why are healthy boundaries so hard to draw for so many people? Why do people struggle with responsibility/over-responsibility/under-responsibility? Is our society so screwed up that we can't define these places very well?

And how do I get myself back on track after this most recent heart-splitting attack?

Give it up....

... to God. I've been so freaked out about things lately and a coworker of mine just said that to me. I forget sometimes, to let things go, and I sit and worry and clamp onto things that I really have no control over. Like whether or not my husband comes around to decide to have a second child. Whether or not I'll be even able to have a second child. Whether or not I'll have a job in five, ten, fifteen years.. what this move to a new division will mean, whether or not this or that will happen....

For so long, most of my teens, twenties I've tried to "drive" things in my life and it's always been so painful. I had a strong drive to achieve at school, to get the perfect relationship at the right time to have kids at the right age.. etc. etc.
It was always so painful and exhausting. And everything blew up anyhow. So by now, at my age, and with my recent hard training in the School of Life, I should know better than to not heed the signs that I'm trying to warp myself out of shape about something I can't control. For awhile now, in the wake of my PPD, my father's death and my health issues, I've been able to let things go, to trust, to just accept whatever comes along. To accept that God really is in charge, and that things happen on HIS time, not on ours. But recently, I've had a hard time doing that.

I have not been to Church in several months for a variety of reasons (mostly because my husband is taking a class on Sunday mornings and I don't like the thought of bringing my 17 month old toddler to Church alone - I wouldn't get much out of it). Not going to Church that often, I forget the magnitude of God's presence in my life, in everyone's life, and that not much of what we go through is really in our control. Due to so many painful and harsh realities that have been thrown in my face recently I've had to learn that, or go absolutely stark raving crazy. Or actually, I did go stark raving crazy, THEN I learned that I really have very little control over most things in my life.

I gotta keep remembering this. And waiting for the BIG signs. Maybe I've just not had the right sign yet. And maybe God wants me to wait right now. To learn obedience, to learn patience.

Stay Strong
Be Brave
Wait for the Signs

P

One year and one day....

...since my dad died. Actually it could be one year and two days, since he died alone, overnight, we dont know exactly what day he died. but likely it was in the wee hours of the morning, on Tuesday, November 15, 2005.

I've been having a hard time this week. Its been pretty stressful. First my daughter was sick and had to go to the ER on Saturday night. Sitting there with her, waiting as the medication kicked in to help ease her difficult breathing, I was thinking that this was the exact building that they brought my father's lifeless body into almost a year before. I wondered where his body went - what door it entered, where it was kept, etc. I couldn't squeeze that image out of my head. I was not there when my dad died, and by the time I got to my parents house, his body was gone. But I still replay what it might have looked like - what my mom saw when she discovered him, the ambulance attendants bringing his body up from the rec. room. My mom did call me when she was trying to do CPR on him, that moment is frozen in my nervous system somewhere. Every once in awhile I remember that call, her distant, floaty, disoriented voice saying that she thought he'd passed away, and he wasn't responding to CPR... the emotional ice-bath that hit me as I was trying to sit there and process the news.

I sometimes cant get that thought out of my head and when I go to my mom's house (its so weird to not call it my parents' house anymore) I have to literally squeeze my temples and pinch myself to stop thinking about what the scene might have looked like. I try not to spend too much time thinking about that, or if he suffered, or if he knew what was happening to him. I hope that God made it quick and painless, that my dad didn't even know it was happening. I hope he wasn't in pain, or scared. He was scared of so many things. I hope that Jesus was there to meet him, or someone he knew, maybe my grandmothers, so he wasn't scared.

For the one year memorial, I placed an ad in the local paper with the following in memoriam notice:


No farewell words were spoken,
No time to say goodbye,
You were gone before we knew it,
And only God can tell us why.
It broke our hearts to lose you,
But you didn't go alone,
Part of us went with you,
The day God called you home.
Peacefully sleeping, resting at last,
His weary trials and troubles past,
In silence he suffered, in patience he bore,
Till God called him home to suffer no more


Yesterday, for the anniversary, I took the day off and went to the cemetery along with my husband, my brother, and my mom. We cried buckets. I'm so exhausted today.

I need to sleep, but I have to go to work, and my daughter and my husband are both sick, and I feel like I'm coming down with yet another cold. I was not feeling well early this week and I thought I was done it, but who knows. I could just be in acute re-grief again. Grief feels like a cold that's for sure.

So many painful memories this week, and no rest for this weary Mama.

Fifty-one weeks

Since the death of my father.
My dad died.
My father is dead.
Oh my God.
Its so final.
How could this happen? I just talked to him on the phone one day
And the next he was gone.
All over.
Where did you go?
Where are you?
Please don't go.

The finality of this is just hitting me so hard. I cant stop crying this week. Today is the worst day of all.

Pictures and memories
are all I have of you now
no family dinners
or other celebrations

but what really would have been there
another twisted sad event
as so many of them before
when would we have had you
the REAL you to be with
or your distressed,
self destructive, evil twin?

Why did fate
deal us such a final decision
let us trust God
that all is right, all is correct, all is well

Memories of a curly little girl in the 70's
crazy about her dark haired daddy
running through my mind
those days over forever

They really were over before
I'm grown up now
But now its so real, so final
Memories of the past
Bringing not happiness, but pain

When will the sharpness
of the grief
fade into something more mellow
no anxiety to greet me
as I remember the past

maybe never, anxiety was always there
fear, uncertainty, instability
A girl, never confident in the world
can't sleep, can't get any peace

I can only buffer
the sadness, insecurity, anger
for my own little girl
to fall in love with her own daddy
but she has to learn feminine grace and dignity
from a Mom so hollow and scared and insecure

One foot in front of the other
self parenting in full bloom
You can do it
You are doing it
You are fine
All is well
Breathe
Breathe

Grieve the loss
then live is what you once said
I'm still grieving
I'm trying to live
I now realize, both will happen at the same time
its not a two step process.

its about incorporating
this new reality
in every activity, every thought, every moment.
its now reality that we carry
its hard
we're getting better at it
but we still carry it
every single day.

I miss you Doots, and I love you. I know you sometimes doubted it
But I always did.
I was so mad becuase I saw you being so awful to yourself
And I figured you always deserved so much more.

I just wish I could hear your voice right now.
Listen to your floppy slippers on the floor
the clinking of ice in your glass
the clearing of your throat

the sounds of every day life
we take for granted
until they're gone.
then we'd give anything, everything we have
to hear it again.
Such is the life of a survivor.

Surviving what?
I think the dead are the lucky ones.
No grief for them, no pain, no loss, no heartbreak.

Changes and feeling like I dont belong

Changes in my work life are bumming me out. I thought it was just me and I needed to just "tough it out" until I came across this.

Enjoy.

**********************************

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN RESEARCH: Sense of belonging helps people suffering depression, by Colleen Newvine.

Having a sense of belonging with family, friends and co-workers can help relieve symptoms of depression, according to U-M research.

Reg Williams, professor of nursing and psychiatry and co-author of a paper in the current issue of the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, says people who feel connected to the world around them feel better.

"You can have lots of social support, but unless you feel you fit in, it doesn't help," Williams says. He teamed up for the research with graduate student Chanokruthai Choenarom and long-time collaborator Bonnie Hagerty, associate professor of nursing.

The researchers studied 90 people, and separated them into two groups—one diagnosed with depressive symptoms and the other without. They looked at perceived stress, sense of belonging, social support and spousal support for one year, taking data every three months.

Notably, spousal support did not help with depression. In fact, it sometimes had a negative effect. "The things a spouse thinks might be supportive aren't necessarily helpful," Williams says. For example, some spouses might think they're giving cheerful pep talks, but they might be received as nagging or minimizing their mate's suffering.

The higher that subjects rated their social support and a sense of belonging, the lower they rated their depressive symptoms. Williams says there are implications for this research both for clinicians and for those suffering from depression.

"When I first see a patient who is suffering depression, I ask them to reach out to friends, family members and co-workers and get re-connected to their support network," he says. "It really works."

"When a person is depressed, the natural tendency is to want to withdraw from the very people they need. That's what's so wicked about this illness," he adds. The depressed person might have a support network of concerned people who love him or her, but the depression will make the person unlikely to return phone calls or go out to social events. Eventually, those in the support network might feel rejected and stop trying.

Hagerty and Williams recently received funding from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation to do a two-year study of adherence to antidepressant medications when prescribed by primary care physicians.

Williams says one of the problems with treating depression is that when the patient begins to feel better, the person might stop treatment. To keep depression at bay, the patient needs to continue treatment, as quitting will cause a backslide.