When you don't actually like your children

M had me up from 2:30 until 5 this morning, which was when I was supposed to get up and run and I was frustrated enough to know I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so I went running anyway. This made me a very tired mama to begin with. Then, I was trying to talk to my mom, make dentist, orthodontist and well child pediatrician appointments which meant I was upstairs because that is where my calendar is. So I didn't see this developing. My older boys, who were within feet of the whole unfolding of massive amounts of gluten, also claim to have seen nothing because they were playing games on the computer and could have been visiting Mars for all the good it did me.

So, I came downstairs and saw the mess that M and Bam made, neither one willing or able to take responsibility. A six gallon storage bucket holds a lot of flour. They didn't just dump it, they threw it, so that I had flour on the fridge, flour in the nooks and crannies of all my canned goods, boxed pasta, a box of oranges and even in between the coloring books and the bread maker (that still has cinnamon almonds in it from the last banner pantry event M engaged in)

As I began to scoop up the mounds of flour (too deep to just vacuum), I found several packages of baking chocolate--M had been thwarted by the packaging of most of them and discarded them into the flour. Several times, I had to walk away from the mess. I was tired to begin with. I am not good at looking at an enormous mess and not being overwhelmed to the point of flight feelings overtaking me. Eventually, with the dustbin and my trusty dyson, I got the mess cleaned up. M is exhausted and whiny but won't nap. I have no desires to actually do the productive things I'd originally planned for this day. The only upside is, my floor wasn't clean to begin with, so I'm not feeling that bitterness of work thwarted.

At least it wasn't sugar.

The Power of Story

I am a book geek. I have stayed up all night to finish a gripping story more times in my life than I am able to count. I am compulsive about finishing books. A book really has to be bad or fail to grip my interest in a phenomenal way for me to fail to finish it. Failing to finish a book usually has something to do with overdue library fines too, because I don't really want to pay for a bad book on top of waste time reading it.

Z belongs to a book club. It is the coolest book club for boys that I could imagine, entirely because my friend is a very cool mom and she works hard each month to make this book club rock. Today they will meet to discuss the book Where the Red Fern Grows. Z is a very tender-hearted guy and I knew that this book would slay him. I don't know anyone who hasn't been slain by the end of this book. As of yesterday, Z was still about halfway from finishing this book. Usually, he flies through books but he was having a hard time getting into this one and it had taken a while for him to get this far. But the power of story finally grabbed him this morning and he crawled into the guest room and shut the door to block out distractions and he read and read and read. I wanted him to finish before book club because I knew he'd find out the ending one way or another then and I wanted him to have his own quiet time with his emotions and not be stunned by them in the open club, surrounded by a dozen 8 and 9 year old boys. So, I'm the mean mom who hovered around, waiting for him to get to the sad part. Eventually he got there--about lunch time--I checked on him and his face said it all. Tears streaming down his face, he asked for some tissues and then he asked to be alone to finish the book. This is the boy that cried when Sirius died at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. There was no way around his emotions getting the better of him at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. I wasn't excited for him to go through this emotional pain, not really. But I was excited and I am always excited when my kids get so into a story that it takes them beyond our little stucco house in the desert. It tickles my momma heart pink when my kids sleep with books, when they can't take their noses out of them, when a trip to the library is THE coolest thing we could do of a summer afternoon. Story is transcendent, story is power and story deepens our humanity and helps us to understand places and ways we will never otherwise experience. And there are certain stories that I think every person should get lost in at least once.

Yes, I am a book geek and few things would make me happier than to find I have raised a new generation of proud book geeks, with the circled eyes from getting lost in a story to prove it.

Swimming

We've embarked on a new venture this summer. Swim team.
CE has been more reluctant than Z But both are benefitting from three times a week spent in the pool doing drills and laps and perfecting their strokes. They also get to compete in low key swim meets every couple of weeks. Each meet offers only two strokes for the kids to compete in.

They are designed mostly to give the kids experience standing on the blocks,
starting at the gun, doing flip turns and
stopping at the wall.

One of CE's friends didn't know that touching the wall was important and couldn't understand why everyone was yelling at her during her first race--the officials couldn't stop the clock until she touched the wall. At the last meet, one of the littlest girls thought she was racing a 50 m (it was a 25) and the official was heard asking her to return to the finish line because she was already done. One entire heat of small girls uniformly didn't start at the gun and instead looked at each other and cannonballed into the water to start their race. It's moments like these that give us giggles in the rarified, humidified air of the indoor competition pool. Other incidents (like the extra 10 seconds forced onto CE's breaststroke time because of the girl in the lane next to her who crossed CE's lane as she was approaching the wall--because she was done and so completely self-absorbed that it didn't occur to her what her action would do to the other racers) help me to remember that the lesson of sportsmanship at this level of play is just as much about being forgiving as about being gracious in winning and losing.

So far, I like swim a lot better than other team sports we've tried. Since their efforts are theirs alone, my kids are learning to focus more on their personal record improvements and less on the wins, losses or goals scored that are more apparent in team sports. Since their efforts are theirs alone, they let no one down but themselves when they fail to show for a practice or a meet.

From a spectator standpoint, swim meets aren't exactly a picnic. Usually DH is unable to attend, so it's me and the kidlets at the swim meet circus. Our meet last Friday gave us the following climate choices: sit outside (in between races) in 115 dry heat or inside in 90+ exceedingly humid heat. Neither choice was terribly appetizing and we all had heat induced headaches by the time it was all over. But both CE and Z had new PRs in each of their two races. I love that part of the meet. The other part, where I pack snacks and water and the portable DVD player and notebooks and coloring books and hope for the best is not my favorite, but it's worth it. I love to see my kids develop a skill that helps them to care for their body. I love to see the gleam in their eyes as their muscles become more coordinated and they gain strength as they plow through the water. At times swim is another thing on the list of things the mom fights about: that list peopled with piano practice, sweeping the kitchen floor and cleaning rooms. This is a list I feel passionately about--that some skills are valuable enough to fight for their mastery. I'm glad though, that swim is not always on that list, that sometimes swim is fun, it breeds power and skill. I'm hoping swim is something our family will continue for years to come. I don't have delusions of Olympic grandeur, but I do have hopes of health and well being, both mental and physical, that come from training both body and mind. And I'm willing to bet the sunscreen, spandex and fears of green chlorine hair that come as a result on it. Wish us luck!

How I have spent my summer vacation thus far

Apparently I have a wonky brain. The migraines were, perhaps, my first clue. Turns out though, that my brain may be doing Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs) as well. These are also called warning strokes. TIA sounds far more innocuous.

Since anything that is called a warning probably should be checked out, I went to the neurologist. Since modern American medicine relies firmly on the might and right of testing, the neuro scheduled me for many tests in an attempt to determine if I just have "complicated migraines" or if I am actually having TIAs. Thus far, I have had vats of blood drawn (I actually stopped counting at twelve vials--it was called "a stroke panel"), I have had an EEG, an MRI, a Transcranial Doppler Study (TCD), a Carotid Artery Ultrasound and a TCD with Microemboli (the last three were performed by a technician who travels once a month from Houston just to administer these tests). I have also had a round of physical therapy to what end I'm still uncertain, but it seemed to result in more and nastier tension headaches and combination tension/ migraine headaches, so I stopped the PT. All of these procedures have required that I either have stuff put in my hair and on my neck or that I arrive with no hair products, lotions, make up, caffeine, extra water, less sleep etc etc. All I have to show for the process thus far is more headaches, I think we may have reached our out of pocket yearly maximum on the health insurance and I have an increasing distaste for testing and doctors' visits. I won't even have a follow-up visit with the doctor for another 6+ weeks. The upside is that CE is a pretty decent babysitter these days and has been holding down the fort since DH has been working his tail off more so than usual. The downside is that I know nothing specific about the wonkiness of my brain and it has actually been worse. I have no assurances that Obamacare will make such experiences as mine better or worse. If I had no insurance, none of this would be possible which in the short term sounds pretty good right about now, but if something could actually be found to help my brain or otherwise prevent it from throwing a cranial rod or whatever it is brains do when they cease to play well with others on a long term basis, then I suppose having health insurance and all these crazy tests could be a good thing. But maybe when all is said and done I either will still know nothing or will know something I wish I didn't, but will still have to pay for.

And, I have substituted for CW's teacher so she could go on vacation, for Bam's teacher so she could go on vacation and now two weeks for M's teacher so she could have a cold and go on vacation. And if I'm lucky, our vacation this year will be a family reunion with my parents, sisters and families but there is a very real possibility that DH will deposit us there and go off to do some more crazy work. So once again, I find myself firmly in the camp of avoiding certain FB posts and certain blog posts of those people who have vacations so that I can mitigate bitterness that my summer is filled with acronyms, headaches and an overworked, overexhausted husband and five crazy kids who want to be entertained.