The Po Show

Bumper Sticker Wisdom

I thought of a saying to go on a bumper sticker (or refrigerator magnet or whatever purveyor of life's truths you prefer):

"Motherhood is having soup for lunch, even when you don't feel like it, so that your child may have the can for a science project"

Guess what I've had for lunch three times this week :p?

Heartstrings

Today is Matthew's friend Ana's birthday. This is the girl who has baked him cookies, who made him a two-foot-tall card for Valentine's Day. A couple of weeks ago, he told me that she had invited him to her class birthday party (kids can invite someone from another class, particularly if they are in the same unit); he was terribly pleased about it. Last week he decided that he'd like to buy her a birthday present. He'd thought about it carefully, and said that she did not have a backpack, so he wanted to get one for her. He did have the foresight to ask if she actually wanted a backpack, and she'd said yes. I have the feeling that she would have said yes to just about anything, if he was getting it for her. Last Friday, as the bus dropped Matthew off at home, Ana leapt up and gave him a huge hug. I had to go into the house, so he wouldn't see me clutching my hand to my heart and going, "Oh my god! Oh my god!"

We spent a lot of time over the weekend looking for backpacks. This is just not the time of year for prime availability. After about the fourth store, we found one that he liked (and didn't cost $40). He had already chosen a gift bag and a card. During his initial shopping trip on Saturday with Ross, however, he had suddenly gotten anxious that he didn't know the rules about students giving each other presents for their birthdays. He was worried that he would not be allowed to give one to her. I was confused, since when he had initially told me he wanted to buy Ana a gift, he'd said, "People do that sometimes." But he now said that those had been small gifts, like a Yugioh deck or something. I told him that I'd call on Monday morning to confirm that it was all right, and we could always take it back if there was a problem. He could give her the card in any event.

This morning he paced about nervously until I could call his therapist at 8:30. She was not in, so I left her a voice mail. A little before 9:00, just before Matthew's bus was due, I called again. She said she'd just left a message with the unit director asking if it was all right, and Matthew could bring the present just in case it was approved. I was in the process of trying to fit the bag and the backpack into Matthew's backpack when his therapist called back, saying that it was fine for him to give Ana a present. I went into a flurry of adding tissue paper and curly ribbon to the gift bag, moments before the bus came. Matthew was very appreciative.

As I said good bye and closed the door, my heart felt tight in my chest. Girls, and growing up, and more life chapters. It's one thing for him to be 5'8" and need extra large men's socks (the package says they fit size 12-16 for god's sake!), but another entirely for him to think so much about a girl. Aspergers can be a surprise, since it makes you make assumptions that don't always hold true. I thought he'd be delayed in these kinds of feelings; I worried that girls would be slow to see him in this light. And while he is still very delayed in so many social aspects, his heart appears to be right on course.

I Got Better

I was thinking of the scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail:

Villager: She turned me into a newt!
Knight: A newt?
Villager: I got better...

So yes, I am sorry I caused you to worry, because I seem to no longer be a newt. Or horribly dizzy. Or afraid to drive.

Perhaps I needed more sleep, or I was more allergic to the stuff in CA than the stuff here (despite the layer of yellow-green pollen covering everything here). Or that I'm back home with my neti pot, so my sinuses are clearer.

In any event, thanks for caring, sincerely. Smooch!

Bad Brain Syndrome

I don't feel too well.

It started while I was in CA last week, and I just sort of powered through it because I was having so much fun, and there was no way I was missing out on that fun. But from the second day I was there, I started feeling really dizzy and disoriented. I chalked it up to jet lag (what with with leaving the house at 5:30AM and flying across the country, having a big family dinner, then staying up till 11:00, or 2:00AM EST, then getting up in the middle of the night because my grandniece was crying and wanted to go home). That was on top of the extreme exhaustion I was already suffering from having not slept the night before we travelled (since Matthew woke up at 11:00PM and never went back to sleep). ANYWAY, I was understandably tired.

I blamed that exhaustion for the hair-raising drive home I went through after a fabulous girls' night out in Pasadena. I only had one drink at dinner, hours before the end of the evening, and felt okay as I was leaving, but once I started down the freeway, it was like I'd been lobotomized. I couldn't feel my hands on the wheel. My vision was, not blurry, but distorted, like looking through choppy water. My heart rate shot up and I started to panic, and my senses got even more distorted. I realized that driving was not the safest thing to be doing at that moment, and thought of pulling over, but I knew it really wasn't going to get better. I didn't need more coffee, or a breather; I needed to get home. So I shook my head and turned up the radio and tried singing really loudly till my throat was hoarse. I chewed three pieces of gum at once, to try and still the tremor in my jaw. I clutched the wheel so that I could feel my hands, and I stayed in the far right lane. It was absolutely harrowing, and I felt like cars were speeding past me at 100 miles per hour.

Two days later, Tessa and I went to Disneyland. We had a marvelous time, as we always do when we go there by ourselves. But I was struck by bouts of dizziness throughout the day, and I dreaded when I would have to drive home. It was not as bad as the previous drive, as it wasn't quite dark yet, but it was bad enough. The following day, I had to drive myself and the kids down to Long Beach and back, an hour and a half drive, and the dizziness hit me even in the full light of day.

Today, I started out tired because Matthew was up in the middle of the night again, and I never really went back to sleep. As soon as he was out the door to the bus, I headed to the couch and took a two-hour-long nap. Me and naps, we go way back. I love my naps. I'm one of those people who can grab a ten minute cat nap and feel really refreshed. But when I woke up at 11:00, I felt awful: incredibly dizzy and out of it, and vaguely nauseous. I took a shower and had a double espresso, and an additional two hours later I still felt terrible.

I had to run to the grocery store for a few things, and as I was driving, I started to feel that dissociative feeling again, like my hands and my head were not connected. I felt like cars in the lanes next to me were drifting out of their lanes, coming too close, and then I'd realize that they were not. I clutched the steering wheel again, trying to hold on.

So yeah, I'm sure by this point you're all yelling at me through the monitor: "GO TO THE DOCTOR!!" I'd be yelling the same thing, from the second paragraph, if I were you. But what am I supposed to say? "My brain appears to not be working, and I can't feel my hands when I drive. And all the other cars are driving too close to me, and are passing me way too fast." What is my GP supposed to do with that information? Do I need an optometrist? An opthamologist? A neurologist? Is it my allergies (I'm not congested at all, thanks to all my lovely allergy meds, but that could explain the dizziness)?

I think that for some reason, my brain is just on the fritz right now.