I Know This Much is True

We had a very crazy 2 weeks. This will be the abridged version of things that I will hopefully be writing about in the next few weeks.

• I am not awesome in a crisis. I did however, surprise myself by being more of a half full than half empty during the Pre-Halloween N'Oreaster, Storm Albert and subsequent 9 day power outage.
• I am not nearly as graceful or brave as my children during a stomach bug. I cry, wretch and carry on. Until I realize that one of my own is there in the trenches with me, barfing up his guts. It activated my mommy response and I was able to rise to the occasion.
• I don't find candlelight or fireplaces nearly as charming as I used to. I have a renewed empathy for people who go without. I understand now why you hear about people burning down their apartment buildings and homes trying desperately to keep their families warm. We were lucky that during the day the temperature didn't dip below 50 but the nights were cold.
• These are things I can live without (in an emergency)... cable tv, hot food, telephone, heat overnight when I am in bed....
• These are things I can NOT live without (in an emergency)... hot water, coffee, web access, heat in the evening and enough candlelight to read by.
• I am truly grateful that we had a full sized warm home to relocate to on the Cape when we needed it. As well as invites from family to stay with them.
• I yell too much and need to find some kind of self soothing methods, whether it's yoga, meditation or taking up smoking, something's got to give. If I've learned nothing from the people around me, including my immediate family, is that you never know what life's gonna throw at you, and you better be able to handle it.

Stay Little

My oldest is turning 10 on Monday, Halloween. I am having a really hard time with it. Not the turning ten part, but the fast train we are on that is heading right for middle school, high school, college..... I had to pick my son up over at the high school the other day, and looking at these enourmous, lurking, loud, texting, swearing, flirting teenageradults had me sweating and losing my breath. Literally. This is right around the corner. And next year when my tiny girl (why oh why didn't we decide to hold her in preschool for another year? well, she was ready to go to kindergarten and the state said, go ahead and send her, and when you are sending your first born to kindergarten, you don't even have a clue about the great big world you are sending them out into) is going to middle school, the eighth graders at her school will be gearing up for high school!! It's all too much. She's always been a mommy's girl, and still is. She loves to watch Extreme Couponing with me and loves to find snippets of things that we have in common, but there is a gentle pulling away. Sometimes with a look, or a tone of voice. This Halloween, she's going trick or treating with friends. At first, (I'm ashamed to admit) I tried to guilt her out of it... Are you sure? Really? Because, you know it's your birthday too, and I guess it'll just be me and Meggie and Crid... But then I realized what I was doing and back pedaled and told her to go have fun with her friends. I guess that's the right thing to do. I hate that next year she won't be with her brother and sister at the same cozy little school. It feels so far flung to have them scattered all over town. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. But I guess she's ready, and probably wouldn't take too likely to me trying to hold her back in 5th grade, even though I really want to.

Momma Bear

I am not a perfect parent by any account. I yell, I stomp my feet sometimes, and many nights my kids eat cereal for dinner. However, the balance is that I love my kids like crazy, do everything I can to keep them safe and happy and protected out in the world. They know at home, no matter what they do, that they are loved and cared for. That said, I am now going to go on a shortish rant about how angry I am at our school nurse.

When my oldest was in second grade, she was on a daily medication that unbeknownst to us was the cause of headaches, stomachaches, loss of appetite and full blown panic attacks. It took us several months of continuous trips to the doctor, specialists, eye doctors, a battery of blood tests, agonizing mornings before school, and yes, many many trips to the school nurse. She lost 5 pounds over the course of about 3 months, which doesn't seem like alot until you take into account that she only weighed about 55  pounds at the time. So she lost approximately 10% of her body weight from not eating. We had her tested for Lyme, mono, pneumonia, and even leukemia. We talked about taking her to a psychologist to see if there was something going on that she just wouldn't tell us. Finally, one morning up at school I was on the playground with Meghan after the bell had rung and she came outside to see me (totally against the rules and very out of character for her to break any rules at school) and I had to bring her in through the office because the doors automatically lock. After speaking to the vice principal about what had been  going on for months she decided to have the school psychologist call us, since I had told her the extent of her panic attacks and anxiety. When my husband and I met with him he was taking general background info from us and we mentioned the medicine she was on. Mind you, her pediatrician never found this to be a red flag. He had a subtle but jarring reaction when we mentioned it, but didn't give much info except that the medicine could have some side effects that we might want to look into. We went home, and looked into the side effects, and she had 100% of the side effects from this particular medication.  We took her off it immediately and saw a gradual but steady improvement in all of her symptoms and side effects.

Flash forward to yesterday. Three years later and this woman still holds some kind of weird grudge against my daughter, who when she was 7 went to her office... at her job... that she is PAID FOR... when she needed medical attention too frequently for her liking. I know some kids, when I was a teacher I called them nurslings, like to go to the nurse to get out of class, or for a little extra attention. But mostly the kids that are there too frequently are there because they need a little extra tlc. Maybe they have anxiety, maybe something bad is going on at home, or they are nervous kids, regardless, you are there to CARE FOR CHILDREN. I'm pretty sure it's in the job description. So anyway, she fell at recess yesterday and the on duty teacher sent her for an ice pack. "what is it now Erin?" is how she greets her now, any time she goes to the nurse. Like a few weeks ago when she had a sinus infection. And when she went back to return the ice pack.. a clipped "what Erin???" GFY lady. Stop being mean to my kid.

5K

I'm not a runner, but I surprised myself this past weekend by running my first 5k faster than I would have ever expected. I normally run a 15 minute mile on the treadmill. At the race I did an 11.14 mile, and finished in under 35 minutes. It's not from hard work, or dedication; it was because of this kid....

My almost 10 year old ran this race like a pro. She beat me and she would have beaten me by a lot more if I hadn't been afraid of losing her in the crowd at the finish line and let her go sooner. She didn't train. Heck, she didn't even have running sneakers on. I literally thought I was going to throw up as I ran the last 50 yards. On the video that the marathon posted I'm one of the few people walking across the finish line. Erin just sailed on through like FloJo. And then played a soccer game that afternoon. And another one the next day.

I have had "run a 5K" on my bucket list for years but never had the motivation or inclination to actually do one. For some reason, watching these races makes me very emotional. It's so inspiring to see people running or walking for a cause, or because they have overcome something, or used running as a way to better themselves. I did it because Erin asked me to run it with her. I knew that if I promised her, I would do it. So we did. I'm so incredibly proud of her and I'm proud of myself for really pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Now that I know that I can do it, if I want to do another it won't be a big deal. This was a big deal.



Max and Ruby

When I started writing this blog, I thought I would use it more frequently to chronicle funny little anecdotes that my kids say, that don't necessarily need to make it to Facebook. The other day I was letting Meghan (recently turned 6) choose an episode of Max and Ruby from OnDemand. She doesn't get the opportunity to pick a show, since her almost 10 year old sister monopolizes it with Food Network shows. But I'm glad that when given the chance, she picks from the little kids menu, Max and Ruby, The Fresh Beat Band, and just this summer asked to watch a few episodes of Sesame Street. So my sweet little innocent third born when given her choices of which title to choose, I think it was Rocket and Fairy Tale. She told me she wants a different one. Max and Ruby, Ruby gets a Boobie. And started cracking up at her own joke. And the beat goes on.

Room With a View

I don't have much to write about today, but this is the view from my desk, the hydrangeas are from my garden and the sunflowers are from the awesomely fabulous Trader Joe's.



911

Below is my memory of September 11. But first I need to comment on something that has always stuck in the back of my mind and I never heard it explored in its obviousness on the news. In the US, our distress call, nationwide, is 911. Did they pick that day on purpose. Snickering behind their hands? Knowing the bedlam they would cause. The fact that they would obliterate an enormous demographic of our 911 responders? At the same time rendering our ability to dial 911 useless? It is too obvious to even seem ironic. I'm surprised that I haven't heard it discussed.

As a former New Yorker, accent on the former, I felt like a poseur when I was feeling what I was feeling on and after September 11. I felt like I needed to validate that it somehow hit me harder, because my father had been a FDNY firefighter, and only had just recently retired. I knew people that died. Only 2 I could call real friends but there were many others that I had known, worked with, been at parties with, went to college with. I felt like I somehow had to acknowledge that, without being a narcisstic drama queen, or having a clever anecdote in a conversation when the all too common conversations about the attacks came up. "Oh, you're from New York City... Did you know....." I was a peripheral player, who was feeling homesick and terrified and depressed and displaced and couldn't believe that I was bringing a baby into this world. I was obsessed with obituaries and the then limited internet, trying to piece together my purpose or place in the craziness that was our post-911 world.

I copied this from the Notes of my facebook page; my memories of September 11.

On September 11,  I was at home in Scituate, Massachusetts; 8 months pregnant. I had opted not to start the school year since my baby was due in just a few weeks. I wasn't sleeping at night and had gotten into the habit of sleeping in. The phone rang shortly after the first plane hit. It was Tom in an incredibly calm voice asking me if I had the tv on. "You may want to turn it on. A plane just hit the World Trade Center." I immediately started to panic because, as a former Staten Islander the possibility of knowing several to hundreds of people that worked there was very real. Aunts and cousins that travelled in on express buses. Friends and family on the ferry and in the subways. Then the second plane hit. Like everyone else I was nauseated and appalled  by people jumping out of buildings. Then the collapse. Now I was freaking out because, not just for the obvious reasons of all the death and devestation. My sister worked the 10 am shift at a midtown hotel, and would have been on a bus into the city at 9 am. I couldn't get calls through. Phones were completely out at my parents house. I deperately called my aunt (who's 2 boys were FDNY EMTs and were probably at a makeshift triage unit waiting for the injured who never came) and my parents' neighbors, just to see if everyone was safe. Just busy signals no answers for hours.
 I was silently crying my eyes out. Riveted. Alone. In Massachusetts. I felt so removed and homesick, even though I hadn't lived in New York for 6 years at that point. My mother in law called me to distract me, but I didn't realize it at the time. She was rambling on about the movie Princess Diaries starring Anne Hathaway. I kept switching the topic to the Towers. She was trying to keep me from going into labor a month early by keeping me calm, but I couldn't see it then, I thought she'd lost her mind. I got off the phone and started going through my mental rolodex of all the people I had lost touch with who could possibly be there; firemen, police officers, finance and wall street people. I kept hearing about Cantor Fitzgerald. So familiar. I was wracking my brain. Billy Micciulli, a high school friend had given me his business card when I worked downtown. Holy crap. It had been a long time. Maybe he didn't work there anymore. Unfortunately he was the first of several names I would find out hadn't made it that day.
I finally got through to my parents, only to find that my sister hadn't gone into work that day, my aunt had missed a bus, my cousin was fine. But my retired firefighter father had grabbed his gear, hopped in the back of a pickup truck and joined countless other off duty and retired Bravest. Great.
I was obsessed with the television trying to watch and see if another of the few survivors would climb out of the rubble to the applause of the bucket brigade of so many hardworking people digging out rubble, bucket by bucket. There were so few. There were rumors as the hours passed of others, alive and trapped, everyone waiting. Names of the deceased started to trickle in, and I waited with baited breath for someone I knew. Amazingly, only a few friends were lost to me that day. Kevin Reilly, a smart, funny classmate of mine from Oneonta, lost his life in the line of duty that day as a firefighter. My father lost friends that day, but what was more difficult for him I think, were his friends' sons. A legacy lost.
So many brave men and women were taken that day, and I have so much respect and appreciation for the men and women who stepped up after that day to take their places, whether they had been waiting for a spot to open up at the academies or that went out after that day to take a stand. Thank you.