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Summer Fun
This summer has been a good one. Different, but good. Most years, we have gone camping but with buying a house this year and Jon and I needing “sanity time”….camping just wasn’t in the cards this year.
Having a “backyard” has been so incredible. The stress of living in a townhouse (while having 5 active children and an incredibly grouchy Strata Council) was more than I could bear and this place has been an absolute blessing in SO MANY WAYS!
Probably the highlight of the summer – aside from our amazing trip to Mexico – has been just hanging out with my sisters and nephews and nieces. A couple of weeks ago we headed out to Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver. It might seem crazy to drive from Langley to West Vancouver when we could go to White Rock, but honestly, it’s so much easier to get our enormous brood and all our crap from home to beach if we go to Ambleside. And………because it’s all highway driving, it takes the same amount of time – 45 mins from door to water.
I think the biggest production was getting our gear from the vehicles to the sand. With 3 mom’s and 11 kids (but only 10 were on this particular trip – Jer was at a nerd convention – ie. Minecraft meet up), there is a colossal amount of “stuff”.
We managed it all in one trip…..cause we are amazing like that.
Once we found “the perfect spot” we set up the shade tent, parked the babies underneath it and started slathering kids with sunscreen. I have no idea how he did it, but the instant I got Judah slimed up – he managed to cover himself with sand…..which, while I think is nasty, I’ll admit it does offer an additional level of sun protection.
It’s so fun having kids that are around the same age. The big girls all play together so well….although as teenagers – there is a lot more laying around and a lot less playing.
Jack, Zac and Judah are all 3 years old and they alternate between playing incredibly and fighting like baboons. Which I’m sure will carry on throughout their lives….and it’s so fun to see them growing up together. This particular day, they were all playing so well together. It’s so neat hearing them chattering at each other at a 3 year old level with their lisps and mispronunciations. It’s absolutely darling.
As happens wen you are at the beach, there was a lot of sand EVERYWHERE and a lot of really gritty food. YUCK! Nothing says yummy quite like gritty watermelon, carrots, and sandwiches….
The girls went exploring up and down the beach and found a red jelly fish. It was pretty exciting until Xani got stung….then it was slightly less fun…..but still super cool to have found the giant slimy creature.
I might be totally biased, but I think I have the cutest nephews ever.
We went crab hunting and taught the little boys how to hold them by pinching them from behind. We found some crabs that were smaller than dimes and those ones were less scary to hold than the bigger ones. But this dead one was the least scary of all.
I love it when I find interesting things to snap a quick photo of and Ambleside didn’t disappoint. I’m sure that this orange rock was covered in some toxic sludge in order to make it this amazing color, but regardless of the reason….it was still beautiful surrounded by all the green seaweed.
I’m so thankful for my sisters and all the love and support they give. I love that our kids are growing up together. I’m thrilled that we get to spend time together making amazing memories.
Do you have special memories of summers spent with family? Has this summer been a good one for you? What fun things have you done? I’d love to hear about it, if you’re willing to share.
If you’d like to see some more pics from our beach day, click here.
Letting Go
Sitting at the kitchen table, plopped down in the middle of a mess.
Staring at a blank screen…..
Smelling the herbs just picked from the garden and hung to dry……..
This has been a very different summer. Different than any we’ve ever had before. I’ve not written a lot. I gave myself the summer off. Well, if I’m honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted regularly. Stress is a funny thing, and by funny……. I guess I mean horrific.
Stress is a killer…..a killer of energy, a killer of focus, a killer of creativity…..
Even now, I have so many words floating through my brain and I’m not sure which ones to grab onto and which ones to banish and which ones to allow to continue to float around in there.
I’m doing a lot better than I was…….at least I think so. And yet, I’m not sure where I’m going.
Angelica came back from Camp Goodtimes (The camp put on by the Canadian Cancer Society) and was quite emotional as she shared with me how she was realizing that she could never “go back” to normal. There is no “going back”. There is no “picking up where we left off” or “getting back to where we were or the people we used to be”.
This is such a tough concept to grasp. There is so much grieving and letting go to do and it just keeps going on and on and on……so much so that this feels like the new normal and yet……I don’t like this. I don’t like this new me. I don’t like the me who is exhausted all the time. I don’t like the me who can’t organize and plan and arrange things instantly. I don’t like the me who forgets things and lets balls drop. I don’t like the me who can’t accomplish very much in a day.
I feel like I used to be SO. MUCH. BETTER. at everything. And recognizing that I’m no longer that person is a tough thing. I want to be that person. I want to be able to do more and organize more and think more and handle more and yet what I’m stuck with is SO. MUCH. LESS!!!!!
Less organizing, less tidy, less capable, less focused, less disciplined, less stable, less energy, less…….just SO. MUCH. LESS!
And I hate it!
And yet, what I feel that I need to do, is to recognize that the “Old Me” is “no longer……she was buried under a mountain of stress and cancer and grief and loneliness and exhaustion and……
This…..the me sitting here right now with her scattered thoughts and messy table and even messier kitchen, with no clear schedule or plans or meal plan (that one really gets me – and yet everytime I sit down with my paper and pen….the blank sheet mocks me with my inability to “make it happen” and I put it all away and allow myself to get distracted by something else that doesn’t require so much thought or energy)…..the woman who prided herself on the healthy foods she fed her kids has been replaced by one who allows her kids to forage for cookies and tortilla chips or dry sugar cereal and calls that breakfast. This person is who I am now….this is what I have to work with…..and I find that so difficult.
I’m trying to accept her. To love her for all her faults. To recognize that for all the things she can no longer do or be…….that there are still things that make her incredible. I’m trying to love the fact that she is more compassionate than she has ever been, that she is more understanding and accepting of people, that she is less judgmental, less controlling. I’m trying to believe that there is good that has come from all of the bad and that even though there has been so much loss…..that there is still “gain” and yet its hard…..
When I see all I could do and to try to stack it up against what I can do now…….I fall so short.
It’s a tough concept….to let go of who you were and to accept who you are…..much more difficult than you’d think.
I’d like to think I’m getting there, but I’m still not sure I like this new me…..and yet, I can’t go back. I’m not even sure I’d want to.
Evolution
Anther deep thought from Jon. (Patti and I are heading to Mexico in 2 days, and I wanted to get this off my chest first.)
The topic of evolution has come up so many times recently that it seems worth addressing. It seems like every show that I have watched recently, or article, or radio news story has had some reference to an animal or human evolving in a certain way. I am adamantly opposed to, and actively speak out against “such rubbish”.
Ok, to set the stage for this I am going to state that I am a Bible believing, God loving, Christian. The thing that strikes me the most about the whole topic of creation/evolution is that your belief or lack of belief in God seems to make all the difference.
For example, I see a bunch of systems in organisms that can’t evolve in stages – The Respiratory System, The Circulatory System, The Inner Ear, to name a few.
The Respiratory System:
The basic requirements are a vent for air to enter and leave, an organ capable of handling airflow and an organ that can transfer gases into and out of blood without letting the blood out – OR – a set of valves that allow water to be directed from the mouth to pass over gills and an intricate set of gills to extract the oxygen. Oh, and don’t forget that at the exact same time you need a circulatory system that can make use of the oxygen to fuel the cells in the body. A vent in the body that is not associated with any other air processing would be catastrophic; lungs not attached to tubes and vents would be catastrophic; etc. Even if such a deformed creature did ever exist it would certainly not be “the fittest” to dominate its competitors for the bazillion years required through trial and error to oops its way into completing the pieces of the full system. Remember its “Survival of the fittest” not “Survival of the weak, malformed half-step, that’s required to get to the next actual fit model”.
The Circulatory System:
Basic requirements are a liquid substance that can carry a variety of gases, a cell wall structure that knows the difference between good gas and waste gas, complete with an osmosis mechanic that can make the exchange with the liquid in a split second, a filter that removes expended cells, and a mechanism that continually creates more cells… oh and a complete respiratory system. Try taking a single cell organism and injecting it with a foreign liquid and see what happens. Heck, inject it with some simple insect blood and see what happens. The result from such experiments is called ‘death’. For sure there are insects that have a small heart and an exoskeleton and no veins or arteries. The blood just pumps out into the body cavity and back into the heart, but it still has all the required pieces. (I’m not even going to start talking about what the kidneys do and what an evolutionary catastrophe it would be to either not have them or not have them work properly.) Please explain to me how a DNA miss-alignment at conception could result in the spontaneous development of all these systems at the same time. And if you can’t do that, explain to me how any creature could live and dominate the evolutionary game long enough to get all the pieces working together.
The Inner Ear:
The basic requirements, nerves that connect to the brain that can process a new and unique signal, a membrane that is responsive to sound waves, several finely tuned floating bones that connect to the nerves in such a way that the sound waves produce an electric signal that can be sent to and interpreted by the brain. This is one of the systems in the body that a half step may not be catastrophic, but would also not afford any benefit. No benefit means natural selection has nothing to ‘select’. Imagine all the species that would have to exist with no hearing and dysfunctional attempts at an ear for one DNA lineage to randomly make it all the way to hearing. The fossil record provides no such examples.
I have MANY more examples that make no sense to me. But here’s the rub:
If you are an atheist, you don’t automatically say “Well, I’ll be! There must be a creator and therefore a God.” You say, “There must be an explanation and dammit, I’m going to figure out what it is because I ‘know’ there is no God.”
If you are a “theist” then you say, “Obviously, your arguments are rock solid; jolly good show. There is a God and He made it all. Thou shalt suck lemons, atheists!”
The belief in the Divine is the basis of these thoughts, NOT SCIENCE! Science does not start with a conclusion and work backward. As a Christian, I start with a belief in God and my world view and my “how did humanity come to exist” thoughts are all based on that. I will never see creatures as possibly evolving because my knowledge of God is at the core of who I am. I am most definitely biased. Conversely, if atheism is at the core of who you are, you will never see the possibility of God’s involvement… you will never see a lack of evidence or contrary logic as proof for the creation side, but rather just another challenge of ‘science’ that is yet to be discovered, or logic that needs to be adjusted. You are also most definitely biased.
I have yet to see a creation / evolution debate end in an alter call where people give there lives to Jesus because the creation side proved its point. I have seen the creation side prove its point, but all that I have ever seen from the other side is regrouping and a challenge to come up with a better argument. For that reason I stay way away from the whole debate most of the time, cause whats the point? But maybe its just me, maybe its just on my mind cause I have kids that are taking those subjects in school, I’m just opposed to every TV show, documentary, newspaper article, etc. basing all their comments and explanations on evolution.
What do you think?
~Jon
What’s in a label
another post from Jon
In the summer of 2011, right in the middle of dealing with cancer and a 1 yr old baby, and… everything, we had an assessment to see if Jeremy had ASD. Being the geeky, need-to-know people that we are, we went to the assessment armed with DSM-IV self tests, and a whole host of facts about Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and mental health issues. Asperger’s explained everything: pedantic rules, unexplained extreme anxiety, very poor social development, inability to empathize or sympathize (while at the same time being very concerned about anyone being in pain or acting upset), single-minded unyielding focus on certain topics with the inability to focus on almost anything else, and a whole host of other stuff.
I’m not totally sure why, but he was not diagnosed with ASD, but rather Extreme AD/HD (one of the most extreme cases that BC Children’s mental health had ever seen). I was so upset. People think that that is weird or that maybe I wanted the money and programs that are available to kids with ASD, that are not available for AD/HD kids. Some think that a diagnosis that is of a “lessor” disorder should be good news. That’s totally missing the point.
Labels (or proper diagnosis) don’t change anything about the person. Jeremy is an amazing and incredibly bright boy, that struggles with a host of things. Remove him from the medical system and nothing about him changes. With or without a diagnosis he is still smart, and still doesn’t know how to connect with a guest in our house, and still cannot read the faces or emotions of the people around him, and would still never get invited to a non-relative’s birthday, and would still destroy very valuable things that are not important to him, and would still not be able to tell a joke to save his life. He would also still be able to look at a box of junk and invent almost anything he can think of with creative problem solving that boggles the mind, and he would still melt when he stumbles on something that earns him praise.
There are reasons why he didn’t get the label of ASD. One of the reasons is that he would get angry and loose all ability to communicate when he was very young. So we drilled into him how to express what he was feeling. We could not understand how that could be so difficult but after years of walking him through: “are you ‘angry’? are you ’embarrassed’? are you ‘frustrated’? are you ‘sad’? …” he got to the point where he knows, at least academically, what emotions there are and what they apply to. So if he is being assessed and is shown a picture of someone expressing an emotion, he might be able to access that academic information and tell you they are ‘sad’ or ‘happy’. Put him in a classroom where he leaves his desk in the middle of a lesson to collect another broken pencil lead (literally a desk full of tips of pencils that had broken), he could not tell by looking at her face or body language that a teacher was getting impatient with him. Another thing that I think worked against us is that we came in with so much information and were so convinced that it was ASD, that the psychologist kind of felt like she should push back and examine other possibilities…. So we got “Extreme AD/HD with Anxiety and Sensory Processing Disorders”
The label of ‘Extreme’ AD/HD got us new meds and more advanced medical care and it helped a little. Add in “Anxiety Disorder” and meds for that it made some things better and some things worse. Add in “Sensory Processing Disorder” and that explains some things and gives us strategies that help a little (weighted blankets, sensory deprivation rooms, sensory toys, dog clickers… he desperately wants one of these.)
Here’s the issue for me: If I take Jeremy to a summer camp where they have qualified supervisors that know about children’s mental health issues and I say “here is my son, he has ADHD / SPD / Anxiety”, then he gets treated thoughtfully, but he will still likely have a good handful of avoidable negative experiences. If I say “here is my son, he has Asperger Syndrome”, then he gets treated in a way that avoids almost all problems. That’s where a label makes a difference.
A label doesn’t make the actual condition better or worse. It doesn’t validate, exonerate or diminish you as a parent. It doesn’t make symptoms go or come directly. But it does give you a common language, terms that you and the people that you work with understand right away. It does give you access to tools and strategies that are unique to the issue. It does give you the ability to sit your extended family down and say, “our son has _____, and the symptoms for that are ______, and this is how we deal with it, and this is what you can do to help”.
Its a lot harder to have a diagnoses that doesn’t cover the issues and you are left trying to say something like: “hi, here is our son with ‘Alphabet Soup’, but he’s also got issues with social skills, and he has odd things that crank him up with anxiety and they don’t seem obvious, so if you see (here is my list of 10 things for Jeremy to avoid) any of these, then you might need to let him go take a walk outside, and if you play sports you will need to watch what his ‘teammates’ do and say to him because he doesn’t understand… (and at this point they are tuning you out and wondering what monster you are sending them).”
After working with the current diagnosis for almost 2 years and trying everything imaginable with some very very good behavioral therapists and occupational therapists, our amazing home school is using some of their resource money to pay for a private reassessment for Jeremy. The behavioral therapist is attaching a note about her work and observations and has told us, “if he doesn’t walk out with an ASD diagnosis then I am in the wrong career.”
I’m hoping soon that I can just say without qualifiers or exceptions that: “Our son is autistic. He has Asperger’s. If you don’t know what that means then educate yourself – watch the Temple Grandin movie, read a book or two, watch the first season of Parenthood (not totally accurate, but close enough). Then armed with that information, please come and be an involved and help us out… or at least understand what we are dealing with and cut us some slack.”
I’m not saying that anyone is doing a bad job or is not supportive. In fact we have very good family and understanding friends and great church youth leaders. But even they are struggling with trying to understand how to treat J with a diagnosis that is very complex and doesn’t cover everything rather than just reading up on what it really is.
So we wait for the reassessment; maybe August, probably September. We’ll let you know how it goes.
~ Jon
Voter Turnout
(post by Jon – don’t blame Patti, and I’m not saying who I voted for or why)
We just had a provincial election in British Columbia. BC politics is always weird, but this one was off the charts. ALL major polling authorities had the Liberals (the most right wing party we have at the moment) getting annihilated by the New Democratic Party (the most credible left wing party). Pollsters gave a wide lead to the NDP, but on election day after the votes were cast the Liberals not only won, but gained more seats in an unprecedented reversal of pollsters predictions and now control almost 60% of the provincial legislature.
The other issue that has been talked about at length here is the voter turn out. On election night it was said that only 48% of eligible voters actually made it to the polls. Later that number was revised to 52%, but still that’s not a lot of democratic involvement.
People blamed the media for overstating the NDP lead, which left people feeling that they didn’t need to vote. People blamed the pollsters and questioned their legitimacy. People flooded call-in radio shows with a wide variety of thoughts on why the vote went the way it did and why the voters are not turning out. Veterans called in, enraged, to talk about what they fought for. People offered opinions on voting reform, making it easier to have people vote, and even making voting mandatory.
I don’t think we should make it easier to vote at all!
I heard someone speaking recently that stated that democracy was designed for an educated and enlightened people. And for the most part the educated and enlightened people make a point of voting; for this I feel confidence in our system. But what concerns me is that our society and education system is not turning out fully educated and enlightened pupils. I’m not saying that teachers are doing a bad job. But teachers do face a challenge when it comes to teaching about the economy.
Think about what you know about the economy and how it works. Now think about where and when you learned that information. The economy is the pool water that we all share. When the pool level is up we have enough room for everyone, even if we are not sharing fairly. Some might have more water, and some might have less water, but all have water to swim in. Some might take way too much water and intervention might be needed to make them be reasonable, but not at the expense of the total volume of water in the pool. When the economy tanks, the pool gets drained and we all have less water to share. Picture being in a crowded community pool where it really is too crowded but everyone is swimming. Then picture about 20 people trying to share a blow-up kiddy pool; doesn’t mater how hard you try, no one is swimming. That’s the economy. There’s a lot of things that a government can and can’t actually do, but all that I really want is a fair playing field, then I can take care of myself and those around me.
Now think about teachers. AS A GENERAL RULE (and I know someone is going to point out some great exceptions), teachers start out as students who are not taught about the economy, then they go to school and get their teaching credentials in an environment where socialism rules and the economy is ignored, then they go to work in a fairly safe microcosm of society where jobs are secure, pensions are livable, and the greatest interaction with the economy is buying a house or paying student loans, where interest rates go up and down for some reason. They don’t get involved in investing capital, suffering economic failures, reinvesting windfalls, hiring, firing, or anything else involved in building enterprise or driving the economy.
I don’t fault teachers for this at all, but it does leave a big hole in the education and enlightenment needed to decide who should govern. Most of the people that I know that know anything about the economy (and some of them ARE teachers), learned it through life experience or through involved parents that took the time to share what they know about the topic.
Stats show that people with more life experience are more likely to vote, which at this point means sacrificing some of your time, getting in your car, driving to some designated place, waiting in line, proving who you are and then casting a ballot. I do not invite the day that youthful inexperience, who knows more about Angelina’s double-mastectomy than politics, can click on a link on their smart phone, authenticate with some digital ID and then cast a ballot for the Rhino Party cause they think it would be funny. I do invite the day that youth at the age of majority, would be willing to stand in line in the rain to cast a ballot for the candidate that they think is best for our society and economy. But regardless, I don’t care what the percentage is; if only 10% of the population is educated and enlightened about what is going on in the world, then I only want 10% to vote. (I am not saying that we should be all right-wing – a bird needs a right wing and left wing to fly.)
Here’s one of my suggestions: hire a special class of teachers specifically to teach about the economy, the marketplace and entrepreneurship, made up of retired successful business people.
What do you think about voter turnout or how would you address this issue? Do you think that young people today are actually prepared to vote for what is good for all?
~ Jon
Changes can be Good
So many new changes…
We moved into our new home just over a week ago. The home itself is lovely and bright but the actual move just about did us in.
We have moved so many times over the past 18 years but this move was by far the absolute hardest…..even taking our move from Abbotsford to Langley after 10 years of living there.
I’m not exactly sure what made this move so horrific, but I’m almost positive that our “reserves” to be able to handle stress were non-existent and that made things so SO tough.
We have things settled down to where we can sort of function but we are not actually “settled”. My room is a disaster with unopened boxes still stacked about and we are still trying to figure out how to place our furniture. It’s tough when everything had a place and now the layout has changed and you are not sure how to “Tetris” everything in. There is quite a bit of puzzling and re-arranging to try to fit 7 people and all of their stuff into a new space.
Jeremy is finally starting back into his regular homeschool routine after 2 weeks of chaos. We started a little bit at the end of last week just to ease him into it and then we hit the ground running this morning. Our “office/homeschool” room is still a bit chaotic but it’s coming along slowly.
One of the bigger changes around here, as if moving wasn’t enough, is that Siah is going to the local Elementary School. He started the first Monday that we moved. He’s been so excited. We had a big meeting with the school before we moved and then another “intake meeting”. That one was kind of rough because you are talking about all the ways your child struggles and will need help. Having a child with learning differences is not easy but having already gone through the Infant mental Health Clinic at BC Children’s has totally given us a leg up to be able to get him the help he needs.
It’s exciting to see him SO excited to go to school and meet new friends. Today he is going to attend until noon. They’ve started him attending slowly and are working up. We’ve gone from 1 hour last Monday to half a day today.
I’m shocked at how much it feels like I have “all this free time”. It’s quite a lot of work teaching two kiddos while supervising a third and trying to care for the home too.
So not only are we adjusting to a new home but also a new schooling balance. I’m excited and exhausted. Looking forward to spending the summer out on my deck and in the backyard.
Just trying to get through today…….that’s how my world feels right now. Just focused on today…….sometimes that’s all I can handle.
But I feel like this is a new beginning and I’m pretty excited. I have no idea what the future holds but for the first time in a long time……I’m feeling that we are headed in an upward direction. I feel like I can breathe. I don’t feel like I’m drowning. I’m tired but feel like we’ve crossed over from barely treading water to being able to rest and rejuvenate. It’s such a welcome feeling after the past 3 years.
Not like an elephant
My dad used to ask odd riddles. (I would never do that to my kids…) One of the riddles went like this: How do you carve an elephant out of a block of wood? The answer is: You take a chisel to a block of wood and knock off anything that doesn’t look like an elephant.
As dumb as that it, it’s relevant in raising a family in today’s world. You have to know what your family is supposed to “look like” and knock off stuff that doesn’t look like that. I guess its also like driving a car; after a while things just look like they are supposed to. You can’t really explain why you stop before going through a green light, but something just doesn’t fit the normal and then a car runs a red light right in front of you.
This happened today for me with my daughter. Angelica has fought cancer, and now she is fighting to get back her strength and mobility. She wants a car, she wants a job, and most of all she just wants to be normal (at least as ‘normal’ as one of my kids can be).
She is taking a class at school called ‘Planning’. In this class they discuss all kinds of relevant stuff, like what skills will actually make you successful in the real world and how to think critically and how to prepare for a career and how to apply for a job. This part is awesome!!!
In teaching the class, her teacher wants everything to be ‘real’. He wants them to make resumes with skills that they actually have, select a job from the local paper that they might actually apply for, write a cover letter for their tailored resume as if they were actually applying for that job, and then conduct a mock interview where you explain why you want the job and what your qualifications are. This part is awesome!!!
The line was crossed for me when her teacher (name blurred to protect the well-meaning) told her that she couldn’t apply to be a “mother’s helper” because she can’t run after kids on a playground if they start to run away. Again, this is all in the name of making this exercise ‘real’, and I kind of understand the point. This went back and forth a little bit, but today Angelica got this note:
An alarm went off inside me… Now that I have processed it, written a response, received an apologetic call back from the teacher, I know perfectly well why this is bad, but I wrote the email before even fully thinking it through… I just knew it didn’t “look like an elephant”. Here is my reply:
As per attached, I do not agree with this and I want it to stop immediately!
Angelica has fought cancer with every fiber of her being for over three years. It has been one of the most difficult things that I have seen a child go through. Angelica was very athletic and was talking about signing up for baseball before she was diagnosed with cancer. The most painful part of the treatment for Angelica was what it stole from her in terms of time and opportunity. Now she is in a place of working very hard to recover and we are constantly reinforcing for her that she can do anything.
In an attempt to make this job interview as real as possible, I believe that you have crossed a very sensitive and very real personal boundary. The facts of her “medical condition” have only been discussed at length with Mrs — and Mr —. By repeatedly questioning Angelica’s “mother’s helper” job application and telling her that she couldn’t do that job, you are 1) incorrect about her condition, 2) incorrect about what a mother’s helper job is, 3) acting in a manner that will be harmful to her recovery, and 4) breaking the spirit of my daughter.
- Her condition is such that she should avoid running or doing major impact, but is completely capable of it if needs be. I don’t believe that its really her responsibility or requirement to provide you all the details of her condition to take this class. If she says that she can be a mother’s helper, then you are in no position to say otherwise.
- We have employed a couple mother’s helpers in the past and it did not always include taking care of children. A mother’s helper may be required to do household chores so the mother (who is still in the home) can spend time with their child. A mother’s helper is not the same as a nanny as a nanny is left alone with the child and chores. If Angelica applied to be a mother’s helper to our family, and I knew what I know about her capabilities, I would hire her in a heartbeat.
- Angelica needs motivation to do all the physio that she is required to do. Her motivation right now is that she wants to buy a car, and she needs a job to do that, and she is doing her physio as hard as possible so that she can get an actual job as soon as possible. By making her focus on limitations (that aren’t actually there) you are taking away her motivation.
- Angelica, who holds her emotion in to her own detriment, has broken down in tears about this. She is getting the message from this process that she is not good enough, that she is broken, that she could never get a job. My daughter has the spirit of a fighter, and in fact she has fought through cancer to live. But it took a lot of effort on the part of us, her parents, school counselors, friends, neighbors and family to constantly encourage her to fight, to win. I did not tolerate negative reinforcement then, and I will not tolerate it now.
I believe that walking the kids through real world scenarios is VERY VERY good. I wish that I had been taught what it is to apply for and compete for a job when I was in school. I understand the motivation for making it real, but I ask you to step back from the “realism” in this area.
I was impressed when I read my own email. The teacher called me right away, immediately saw my point and has set out to amend the situation. I wouldn’t always jump in to fight for my kids, but there are times when I do jump right away and I can’t really explain why… I just know what my family is supposed to look like and I’ll knock off anything that doesn’t look like it.
When do you jump in and fight for your kids, or let them fight for themselves?
A record setting pace
When I was 20 years old (seems like half a lifetime ago) I ran in the Vancouver Sun Run 10K and had a time of about 42 minutes. I’m told that’s pretty good. My new employer has been entering a yearly corporate team to the Sun Run and I signed up to go.
When I signed up I had the idea in my head that I would try and beat my previous time which would require a significant amount of training from where I was(am). Regardless, when you sign up you are supposed to put in the time that you predict you will finish in, and I conservatively put in 46 minutes or something like that. This time effects your bib number, starting position and so on, as faster runners get to go first to prevent bottle-necking on the race course.
So I started running a few times a week. I had a goal, a date to aim for, and I was excited about getting back into running.
Then Patti decided to start an 8 week “Couch to 5K” program but didn’t want to run alone and asked if I would join her. I can’t put into words how quickly my goals changed. Before she even got the full question out of her mouth, I no longer cared at all about the Sun Run or my time. I immediately had a new goal; to be Patti’s running partner.
There are challenges that go along with this. For starters, I might be turning 40 this year, but I can still run at a decent speed without training and I can definitely run a full 10K without stopping, even if the time is a bit high. So my first challenge is to make Patti feel that she is not holding me back or cramping my style by getting me to run/walk/run through a fairly light 3k over 30 minutes. Also, I’m still signed up for the Sun Run and I still have a low bib number coming so I need to not be a total mess out there, so I need to fit in the occasional 10K as well, but the goal is now completely different.
Why? Why would I change my goal so fast? Typically ADHD people don’t like to change goals once they are set on something. On top of that I have wanted to beat my 42 minutes for 19 years and this is my first crack at it.
Because, Patti and I are better together. Patti is an amazing person. I don’t think I’m that bad of a person myself. Both of us have accomplished a decent amount on our own, we both have skills that are unique to us and we both have imperfections and problems. But when we do things together we rock! I’m not just saying that; we’re amazing…. Really!!!
OK, so in all honesty our weaknesses match our spouse’s strengths in an uncanny way and when we rely on each other’s strengths we are just… better.
Patti and I were talking about this the other night while we were running (actually I talked and Patti concentrated on breathing and managed a “yea” once in a while. She’s a good listener when she’s running….) We were BOTH talking about this the other night while out running and it came up that she feels that her blog only represents a half of her. Certainly there are things that we don’t share on a blog, this is after all a public forum and we share a lot, but we do choose to share some stuff and not other stuff. What she meant is that the readers of this blog only get her side of things, and you don’t get mine. Not that my opinions are all the different, but that sometimes my perspective is.
So we have decided that I will start contributing to the blog and not just as a guest blogger, but under my own name. Just to warn you, sometimes I’m all surface level, geeky, odd humor, and sometimes I’m deep and philosophical. Patti is generally somewhere in the middle all the time…. See we complement each other even there.
So as the title says, I’m running for a record setting pace. I’m not aiming to beat 42 minutes on a 10K; I am aiming at running more, farther, faster with Patti on whichever trail we happen to be on, as long as we are doing it together.
See you soon…
BTW: As you can see from the picture, my bib number for the run is 2955 which puts me in the yellow zone which is way too close to the front… but if I beat 50 minutes I’ll be thrilled (and a little surprised).
Success and Anxiety
So, I tried again tonight and YAY! I made it. I re-did Week 2 Day 3 of the “Couch to 5k” program AND…….did it with no problems. This is after not running for over a week…..almost two weeks? I’m not sure? I’m quite excited about that.
My knees feel tired but not injured which is good.
So Saturday, I’ll be attempting Week 3 Day 1…….which is a bit of a jump from this week but I’m trying to not worry about that.
I have been worrying quite a bit though. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you might remember that at the end of last year, I realized that I’ve been dealing with and fighting against anxiety, my whole life (for as long back as I can remember). Most specifically Social Anxiety but heck, if it can be worried or stressed about……most likely I’ve worried about it at some point in my life.
I went on Anti- Anxiety meds back at the end of November 2012. I was started on an extremely low dose and it made a HUGE difference. I don’t even know that I could fully explain (and most definitely not from mg phone – I’m posting from my phone……yah for the WordPress App) how much of a positive difference it made and how fast.
When I found out I was pregnant, at the beginning of January……to be honest, I felt devastated because it was best for the baby if I went off the meds. I had UNREAL amounts of anxiety for the twelve weeks that I was pregnant and would have been seeing a Reproductive Phsycologist this week had I still been pregnant. (That appt was to discuss the safest meds I could take that would still help me.)
Probably, had I not gone through the 2-2.5 stressful “cancer” years……I’d still be just plugging along; but those years really did a number on me. There is so much “fall out” from a family member going through something like that.
I started back on the meds as soon as I miscarried. I went back to my dr and checked in with him. It was all good and I made an appt for a follow up in 2 months from then.
But the meds don’t seem to be affecting me in quite the same way they did initially. I’m not sure if hormones are at play – my hormones always seem to be messed up after a miscarriage – or what the issue is but what I do know, is that I feel anxious. And it SUCKS!
I have an appt for Wednesday to talk about the possibility of a dosage increase…..but I’ll see what my Dr. says
It’s tough to feel anxious about stupid things. Things that really should make no difference and most people wouldn’t even give those things a second thought. Where as me……I fight those thoughts a third and fourth and fifth and even tenth time; and get more and more exhausted because I’m always fighting “the anxiety”
It’s hard to feel like you’re not enjoying life because everything’s a fight. And so for now……I take meds because its what I believe I need. In some ways, even taking the meds feels like I’m “failing”. Like I should be trying harder and yet……..I’m “tried” out; and going this route…..it enables me to still be available for my family. Which is so necessary………although, I’d love to check out……not forever……just for a moment….maybe to catch my breath.
It’s what all mom’s hope for, right?