The hits keep on comin’
Otto’s car isn’t salvageable, unless you count “costing as much money to fix it as the car is worth” as salvageable, which I do not.
Monkey is on day two of a Mysterious Fever, which today came with a bonus Mysterious Rash.
And yet… my folks have arrived, and my office currently houses Wave Two of the great tampon lemonade project, ready for delivery tomorrow.
Twenty-four more boxes of goodies for the girls. Know what? It’s better than a working car. [Bonus: My dad turned to Monkey this morning and said, “What do you think of all these donations, Monkey?” and even though he was laying on the couch being pitiful he said, “My mom collects tampons and IT’S CREEPY.” So fever or no, he seems fine. Heh.]
A little perspective goes a long way
I knew, of course, that yesterday would be a hard day. Days when we see Chickadee for family therapy are hard, because she is not exactly what you would call pro-therapy. Things are better—so much better—than they used to be there, really. There is no longer screaming and throwing things, for example. But I’m pretty sure that if she had the option of passing on this particular exercise, she would. Sadly, she’s not in charge and we cruelly demand that she be tortured with our attempts to restore a workable family life (because we are monsters).
The fact that we parted with her angry at us over the weekend was on our minds, too. So: It would be hard. We knew. She’d seemed recovered, on the phone, but it’s hard to tell.
The good news is that the session itself wasn’t too bad. One of the things I really like about the family therapist is that she’s an equal-opportunity bullshit-caller, and although Chickadee maintains that she dislikes her (probably due to her absolute unflappability and also that she is not buying what my darling daughter is so often selling), the fact that I’m the one being chastised nearly as often as my kid is slowly winning her over. read more…
Because where would you put it?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the notion of things you “have” to have or that are worth working towards. In a lot of ways, life was simpler when my biggest concerns were packing lunches and getting some work done every day. On the other hand, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned family crisis to make the difference between “important” and “totally not a big deal” crystal clear.
Thanks to the Olympics, I find myself wondering what it must be like to have single-minded determination to reach a specific goal. I can only wonder, of course, as I have lots of different goals. Like, today I’m thinking of cleaning off my desk. Hardly worth building a life around, it’s true, but it leaves me enough time and energy to procure and eat a snack while I’m doing it. Win/win!
Come read more in my post over at Feel More Better today—I’m using the Olympics as a springboard (get it??) to the whole “having it all” conundrum. I think there’s a sweet spot between having it all and having only one thing… I’m just not sure how to find it. Maybe it’s buried here on my desk.
A bounty of bittersweet
There’s a part of me—rather a large part of me, actually—that wants to just walk away from the blog and leave the last post up forever as the latest and greatest thing I’ll ever have to say. Because there is simply no topping the generosity you’ve shown over the last week, and little better in recent memory for us than the giddy anticipation of taking Chickadee on an outing after so long apart.
Our Saturday afternoon adventure was 99% wonderful. We met up with a staff contact who ushered us around back to unload our donation bounty directly into a basement office, then came back around front to pick up Chickadee, who was literally bouncing in her excitement to see us. We ate good food, ran some errands, got ice cream. Good stuff. Things started to unravel a bit when it was time to say goodbye, but I guess that’s to be expected. Still, it’s hard.
Then we had a meeting at the high school this morning and I forgot that of course band camp is going on, and as Otto drove past all of those marching kids, that group where our Chickie belongs, healthy and whole and happy, he patted my knee and said, “You okay?” I never know how to answer that question, anymore. read more…
I don’t even know where to start
Actually, I do know where to start. With this: THANK YOU. Thank you for reading, thank you for caring, thank you for being generous beyond measure. You don’t need to care about my kid, or about a bunch of other kids you’ve never met, but you do, and you are AWESOME and PRETTY and I am inspired by you.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go read about my possibly ill-named post on making tampon lemonade. In the face of learning that Chickadee’s hygiene items were constantly being stolen by other girls in the hospital, I’m not going to lie: I got angry. Anger is easy. So that happened first, and then I realized anger accomplished nothing, and instead maybe I—we—could do something, instead. I asked you to help me round up the supplies these girls need, and you responded beyond my wildest imaginings.
I rented my UPS mailbox on Monday, and put up that post, knowing that thanks to Amazon Prime, there would be packages arriving on Wednesday. I planned to go pick up at the end of the day, but around 2:00 I received a rather stern missive from the store. read more…
Up with people and happy endings
I have been so busy giddily anticipating an avalanche of tampons (thank you so much to everyone who has donated—updates coming soon!) that I totally forgot to tell you that I have a new post over at Feel More Better, this time about things working out as they’re supposed to, most of the time.
Someone has already asked how we can continue to believe in a “everything is for the best” sort of stance when there’s so much apparently senseless tragedy in the world, and I don’t know the answer. All I know is that I’m happier when I can find those elusive silver linings (like an army of readers ready to buy shampoo for teenagers they’ve never met).
Feel free to come on over and weigh in—how do we balance that which seems beyond understanding with a cosmic “it all works out” kind of trust?
Making lemonade, darn it. Tampon lemonade!
So when I first shared here about Chickadee’s toiletries being pilfered by her fellow patients, many of you responded with a righteous indignation that brought a little tear to my wounded mama-bear’s eye. Several of you commented or emailed saying “Let us send stuff to them. We want to help.”
And I was touched by your generosity, so I went and mentioned it the person who I assumed was the correct contact at the hospital, and the response was… lukewarm. “It’s not really about the stuff,” was what kept being said. “This is more a matter of boundaries and appropriate behavior.” And yes, it is, but still. Some of these kids arrive at the hospital literally with nothing.
So I kind of tucked my tail between my legs and let it go, but it kept niggling at me. Really, they were going to turn down FREE STUFF for the patients? Really REALLY? And was I going to just let this go instead of doing something? I took a page out of my kids’ playbook and went for broke: I went and asked someone else, pretending I hadn’t already asked and been turned down. And I chose more carefully, this time. And her answer was, “Oh my HECK YES!”
If you want to help, here’s how: read more…
Loose ends, tied up with tomato vines
It was not actually my intention to wander away for most of a week, leaving you considering whether or not I had managed to get through that treatment planning meeting without vomiting. Whoops. Sorry! I suck.
In my defense, now that the Great Zucchini Invasion of 2012 is winding down, it’s gone all Attack of the Yummy Tomatoes ’round these parts. And although we all know I’ve been a little weird about my garden pretty much forever, the whole ZOMG-there-is-so-much-I-cannot-control-right-now-and-it-makes-my-tender-pink-middle-feel-uncomfy thing means that I am committed to my stupid garden in a way that borders on pathological. Because things GROW and DAMMIT, we are going to EAT THEM. I will not waste a single item! I will process tomatoes until the kitchen looks like a crime scene! If everything needs to get put on hold while I make tomato sauce, SO BE IT. Make the sauce, save the world. Or something.
I know. (It’s really, really good sauce, though!)
Anyway. Allow me to elucidate on various and sundry: read more…
Trying not to throw up
Today my Chickadee has been in residential treatment for 36 days. (Not that we’re counting.) She was in acute care for five days before that, so the total 41 days she’s been away is by far the longest we’ve ever been apart.
I keep waiting for it to get easier. Joke’s on me, because it doesn’t.
We have a treatment planning meeting today. Recent comments from her doctor are… not encouraging. I have to get over feeling sick and scared and get my game face on and keep advocating and forget that I only slept three hours last night and that I doubt my ability to keep doing this. We just keep doing what we have to do, I guess.
Oh look, it’s something shiny—I have a new post up over at Feel More Better about the dumbness that is youth, and you can look at that while I try not to barf in my shoes.
It’s a melon
It’s depressing me to have that last post be on top of the page, here. Instead let’s all admire the latest arrival at Casa Mir:
I’ve been trying to grow melons in my garden for years, and this year—the year my garden surely should be dead of neglect—is of course the year that they took. We’ve had a lot of rain, you see. (Also: irony.) I have trellised the sugar baby vines and dutifully constructed pantyhose slings for my budding fruits, and although my reading told me all about how fruits should reach at least eight pounds and sound hollow and blah blah blah, this morning this melon had made an executive decision and broken free of both its vine and sling.
At six and a half pounds even, it may be a little premature. But it sounds hollow, so who knows. My boys arrive home tonight after being away for a week; I’ll save it for them. We’ll cut it open tomorrow and see if it’s any good. And if it’s not, well, I’ll try not to take it personally. (If it is, I won’t take that personally, either.) It’s just a melon.