The Po Show

It's Getting Better
"Get-ting so much bet-ter all the tiiiiime!!" Ooh, musical reference for the old!

Today was Matthew's spring conference, and it went well. I was not in attendence, as we didn't have anyone to watch the kids. Another tragic side effect of having no friends or family around here, sigh. Ross left work early so that he could go, which was nice since he met Matthew teacher for the first time...yesterday (that's a whole 'nother post).

Matthew's teacher just raved over how much he's improved over the year, and how impressed she is with how far he's come. Which is wonderful and all that, but again, this happens EVERY SINGLE YEAR. It's great that he improves so much during each year, but why oh why must there be such a regression with each new beginning????

But I need to give him credit where credit is due, and I do. The teacher said that not only is he much more in control of himself, she has to step in and intervene for him much less often than before. Instead of actively defusing him when he starts to lose it, she just reminds him that he KNOWS how to behave, and that he is capable of getting in control of himself. And he does. Wow, that is so good to hear, honestly!

Today they went on a field trip to the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT (I just love this school so much; they take the greatest field trips!). Matthew had a fabulous time, raved about all the things they saw, and apparently he did great the whole time. Even in parts that I had worried about (they saw an IMAX movie, and there was an area with big, loud animatronic dinosaurs), he did great. Those are big steps for him, and I'm really proud of his progress.

He still hasn't gotten invited to any more birthday parties (after the one and only one at the beginning of the year :*( ), and he hasn't made any real friends, but I think he has made some progress socially as well. Last night we went out to Applebee's (woohoo! hot night out!) because they were having a school fundraiser there, and seated at the table behind us was a girl from his class. She turned around and said hi to him and said to me "Oh, it's the math champion. He thinks he's a math champion, and, well, I think so too." :) He said hi to her very nicely once he noticed her (though he wasn't sure at first that she was whom he thought she was, because "She looks like Jackie, but bigger" (huh??)).

He's been going to chess club once a week during lunch, and he's really enjoying it. This was what he needed, a social environment that involved an activity he is good at, as opposed to soccer or something else in which he was unsure of his ability and therefore made him too nervous. The only thing about chess club that he is nervous and self-conscious about is his lunch. He has not been eating his chocolate Balance bar (his lunch staple for the past two years) on chess days, just drinking his juice box. For two weeks, he said he forgot (uh-huh...). Finally he told me that he felt nervous to eat a "little lunch" in front of the other kids, who all had "big lunches." Poor thing, there's just nothing that can be put into a lunchbox that he will eat, and he won't eat school lunch. I sent strawberries this week (ugh, icky hard shipping berries, an anathema to me, the California Strawberry Princess, but he eats them) in a tupperware and he ate those, but that's just not much of a lunch. Not much brain food in the afternoon for a kid that really needs the sustenance to keep his behavior in check. But he seems to be handling it okay and ultimately, the decision to eat or not to eat is his.

So there we have it, the state of Matthew's days here in the third quarter of school. He's doing well, has improved in so many areas, and is truly excelling in math. I'm very, very happy. We just need to work on easing his transition to next fall!

Maternal Instincts

Being home with Tessa, 24/7, for over two full weeks, has made me really think about demonstrative mothering.

I'm a very hands on mom, very cuddly, very touchy-feely. When Matthew was a toddler, I realized that I could scarcely be near him without stroking his hair, touching his face, hugging him close. Tessa crawls into my lap every chance she gets, and I cuddle her close like a baby. I rock her in my arms and I still get drunk smelling the top of her head.

Tessa is very into "mothering," into play-acting mommies and babies. Every play scenario involves mothers and their children, usually animal mothers and their young. Tessa herself becomes the mother to countless offspring, animal and human and imaginary (well, I know, they're all imaginary, but I mean the imaginary that you can't see :)). She is always so tender and caring with these faux-children, lavishing attention on them and fulfilling all their "needs."

Even when she's playing games that are not "girly," she puts a maternal spin on it. She'll say good night to her Pokemon deck and put a little blanket over it so it won't get cold. Same with her new Nintendo DS (she had to save the little pink spongy packaging sheet that came in the box, since that was its blanket).

I'm constantly blown away by all this mommy play, and I wonder how much is modeling of me, and how much is just her own personality. I wonder how much is "girl" behavior (because I'm constantly amazed at the differences in play and in general behavior between the genders) and how much is uniquely Tessa.

The other day she asked me, "When I have a child, will you help me go shopping for beautiful things for my child?"

Be still, my heart...

Post-Op

I've realized, with guilt and sadness, that it was all well and good for me to talk about Tessa's surgery last Tuesday as "just" a routine adenoidectomy and ear tubes insertion. Topped with the surpise tonsillectomy chaser, it was anything but routine for HER.

I had been afraid of this. How do you explain to a four year old what will happen during surgery? All the moms I knew whose kids had gotten ear tubes had gone through the experience when the kids were two or younger, and you can't explain anything to a child that young anyway. But at almost five, and a very verbal almost five, Tessa thinks in terms of language, and I gave her insufficient language for dealing with this experience. I don't know that I could have done any better (other than warning her that her throat was REALLY going to hurt, rather than telling her it was going to hurt a little, since I was expecting just some referred pain from the adenoidectomy and from the intubation tube) but I am left with the knowledge that what I gave was inadequate.

She is pissed off, and I can hardly blame her.

I don't think she's even in that much pain anymore, though she certainly feels "off." But what she really feels, and feels very strongly, is a form of PTSD, I believe. She's had a traumatic experience, and she doesn't know how to deal with her feelings about what happened to her. She's still not entirely sure what DID happen to her, and she doesn't like that one bit either.

The last two nights, she has not been able to sleep much at all. She falls into a light sleep, and starts literally tantruming in her sleep. Her feet hammer against the bed, her arms flail, she moans and whimpers. She wants me next to her, then pushes against me, hard, then throws her legs over me. Last night she woke up, bunched up her blanket with absolute fury in her eyes, and chucked it away from her.

On Sat. she ran into her room, crying as she emerged a few minutes later. She sat on the couch with me, and cried and cried. Then she told me she had gone into her room to say goodbye to her toys, since she was running away.

I told her, "You don't really want to run away from me, do you?"

"No," she sobbed, "but I just feel so sad!"

She can't deal with her sadness, with her feeling of instability, with all the emotion. Several times in the last two days she's told me, "I can't get past it, what I said about wanting to run away." She wants to escape feeling so shitty, and I don't know how to help her.

Yes, I know she'll get better. I'm not sure yet when she'll go back to school, since one of the post-op side effects she's gotten is REALLY REALLY bad breath, from the bacteria colonizing the back of her nose and throat, and I absolutely do not want some kid from school to tell her she smells bad. Mints, even listerine doesn't help, so I may just keep her home till it gets better as the dead tissue sloughs off. She doesn't need any more trauma right now.

In a few weeks this will all pass, I know, and we hope that her health will improve and make all this so very worth it, but for now, damn it sucks.

Vehicular Woes

OMG, I don't know if you read here anymore Ambre, but you were RIGHT, all those many years ago. I should not have bought this damn Volkswagen.

I have loved this car, heaped love upon it, loved how it drove. And it really wasn't that much trouble, didn't end up in the shop all the time, didn't have a bunch of stuff go wrong with it, didn't feel at all unreliable.

Till recently (now that it's finally paid off). I took it in for its check up in Jan. and ended up needing almost $1900 in repairs.

Yesterday the oil pressure light started coming on (actually screaming "STOP MOTOR Oil pressure STOP" at me on the dashboard screen) and I couldn't get the hood open to check the oil. Three more times during the day, just driving the kids to and from school, that scary, dire command appeared on the dash screen. And the latch that releases the hood would not budge. Ross came home and by flashlight light tried to get it open, and the little plastic piece of shit latch came off in his hand. Well, so much for that.

I took the car in today after taking Tessa to her pre-op appointment. Of course the dealership repair shop guy had no idea how long it would take, or pretty much anything about anything. I walked about two miles to the train station with Tessa in the stroller and caught a $25 cab ride home.

Now I wish I had some nice reliable Japanese car, that didn't let me down this week of all weeks. I'm already stressed about Tessa's surgery on Tuesday (yes, ear tubes and adenoidectomy are very minor, very routine, but this is my baby :( ). And I'm still REELING from the worst case of PMS I've ever had in my life, with anxiety attacks that threatened to level me. My heart is pounding just thinking how bad the beginning of this week felt.

Life in general is feeling very shaky to me now. I hate that I'm having to worry about a hunk of machinery as well, a machine that I depend on to get through practically every part of the day (Tessa has to skip Pre-K today since I can't drive her there). I don't need this!

Time off for good behavior

I felt like I got released from prison today! It was the first day since last Saturday that I've been able to run around on my own and get stuff done. Matthew got sick last Friday and has been housebound ever since.

He seemed to be getting better so on Tuesday I sent him to school. I was putting together my ebay packages to ship, started struggling with my cable modem connection, limped through a call to tech support, and finally was ready to leave at 10:30 (for a quick dash about before picking up Tessa at morning school to take her to afternoon school). Then the phone rang and the school nurse informed me that Matthew felt very dizzy and "didn't feel he was able to learn." Okay, I headed right over to pick him up and take him home.

I let him rest again on Wednesday for good measure, but by evening he was jumping around with Tessa playing "bunt ups," a game invented by Tessa in which they would jump as high as they could from the foot of my bed and land face down onto the bed. "You are so going to school tomorrow," I told him.

Then of course Thursday was a snow day (earlier in the week they weren't even reporting snow), so we stayed home all day again.

But today I was free! Free to: drop off both kids, go to the grocery store, to the bank, to Trader Joe's, to Gymboree (FINALLY got to see the new line and get my bunny purse!), to home, to Target, to the movie theatre (needed to buy a gift card for Tessa's school fund raiser, but they were not open yet). All in two hours and fifteen minutes.

Then off to pick up Tessa, drop her off, to the the YWCA to inquire about summer camp, back to Target and the movie theatre, to the post office, to home, to ToyrUs. All in two hours and fifteen minutes.

It is stunning to me how much I can accomplish when I'm alone. And how stunning that freedom tastes like a trip to Target.