Teachable moments...

Last weekend we went to the county fair. Almost immediately upon walking in and into the barn area, while looking at the Watusi cow (have you seen one? They are awesome!) a little girl in a wheelchair rolled up next to us. Jack loudly asked (because he's 4 and the only volumes a 4 year old knows are loud, louder and whispering so quietly that I can't hear) "What is that wheelchair for?" At first I cringed a little inside, as I know most parents do, and then I took a breath and said "Baby, she hurt her leg so she needs help to get around" and that was that.

 

But as I thought about it, I'm glad he asked and I'm glad I responded. Because then I started to remember two summers ago...when I had no hair and was pregnant out to there. And people stared and looked away and ignored me. I would have been happy if some kid asked why I didn't have any hair, and their parent took the time to explain it to them, or even told them "I don't know baby, why don't you ask the lady yourself?" An honest question asked and answered, no matter how uncomfortable the parties are, is a million times better than a silent stare.

 

Jack knows that I have scars all over... I haven't hidden them from him because I wanted him to know mama has ouchies, but they are healing and will eventually get better. He knows that mama has been "sick" before. I don't want him or AR to ever be afraid to ask about people's differences but I also want them to understand that those differences are completely okay, that everyone has their own scars, their own abilities, their own normal.

 

 

A Roiling Boil...

Do you ever have so incredibly much going on - good or bad - that you just feel like you are in a bubbling whirlpool? I'm in the whirlpool. Between my very long and scary surgery tomorrow, Jack turning four, my baby girl just changing immensely every day, my grandparents house, a house that I pretty much grew up in, being almost emptied and up for sale....I'm just overwhelmed. They aren't all bad changes, but they are big life changes all at once and my goodness, for someone who does not like change at all, well...I was driving home from my grandparent's house this weekend, singing loudly with my Mumford and Sons and streaming tears - some happy, some sad, some grateful, some freaked out.

 

So now I will try to go to sleep until 5 am tomorrow morning when I get ready to go to the hospital, and kiss my sleeping babies heads, and get ready to put one of the big life changes behind me.

Mother's Day 2014

 

Mother's Day now, to me, is not a day to be feted. In fact, oftentimes I'm so frustrated and disappointed in my own mothering skills that the last thing that I think I deserve is any sort of congratulations in the matter. What it does represent is a day to be so thankful that I was gifted these two beings. I don't always remember this in the throes of another dinnertime where Jack is refusing to eat or when AR decides to scream and cry for half an hour because I don't give her the 300th cracker before lunch, but I am well aware of many fellow cancer ladies who have been stripped again of one of the most basic of human rights - the choice of whether to have children or not -  as a result of this completely unfair siege.

 

This is a day to thank God again that I get to be here. A funny thing about Mom's with littles who have gone through this fight - while most other people (and I do NOT in any way begrudge anyone this, it's just a difference that I have noticed) talk about their bucket lists and places they want to visit and things they want to do (and yes, I am not in any way saying I still don't see myself sitting in my little coffeehouse at the end of the street in the Salzburg Altstadt, sans kids, sometime soon), we make deals with God about time. And not time for us, time with our kids. I can't count how many of us have told each other that we have tried to bargain with God by asking "Please just give me 5 more years so I can get them into elementary school" and then "Please God, can I just have 10 more years because then they will be in high school" etc etc etc. Things that don't occur to other Mom's swarm our brains every.single.day. So these holidays, Mother's Day, birthdays, etc., are not just holidays, not just breakfast and flowers and cards -  they are milestones.

 

 I don't need to know how much they love me - I desperately need them to know how much I love them.



Constant battle

Source: Pinterest

It has been a bad few weeks on the news front as far as our facebook group of girls and some other people that I have heard about as well. It just saps the heart out of you some days, and your already semi-constant anxiety grows and you have to consciously, almost physically, stop your mind from spinning like a hamster wheel. It's tiring, exhausting actually, but you do it. You contemplate running away, singing while your fingers plug your ears and not looking back but then you remember that you would not want people to run from you if, there but for the grace of God, something should happen.
So you make sure to soak in the sound of the rain that's fallen for the past two nights. And to stand in the ferocious winds that blew today, with your face toward the sun and the sound of hyena-like child giggles in the background, and breathe.
 

Nature vs. Nuture...daughter of anarchy?

This post has taken me forever and a day to write. I couldn't really figure out if I was telling the club's story or my father's story or my story or what, but I guess that's the point, it's all an intertwined mess that can't be separated. I don't know enough about the club to tell it's story specifically, but I do know my story, as a child of a member of the club, and the ramifications that came along with it.

With the wonder that is Netflix I developed a love of binge-watching shows during chemo (I am a voracious reader but 4+ hours in a chair + IV benadryl = limited cognitive abilities).  I've gone through American Horror Story, the first season of Downton Abbey (bastards went and switched over to Amazon Prime so I'm stuck for now), House of Cards, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Hemlock Grove (OMG!), The Fall, Top of the Lake, and probably more that I can't remember. TV's great, we get to escape for a awhile, to Regency England, to the 60's, to an insane asylum...well, you get my point. Maybe you see yourself in a character or see a snippet that reminds you of something but for the most part...it's fiction, and that's the point (and great for taking your mind off of sitting in a chemo chair and to drown out the older gentleman "singing" next to you).

 

So in bed a couple weeks ago I was searching for something new to watch, which if you have Netflix you know is a feat in and of itself. Came across Sons of Anarchy, which I honestly didn't know a whole lot about (for the longest time I think I assumed it was something akin to Duck Dynasty or Appalachian Outlaws, some pseudo-reality show about hillbillies), and thought oh hell, why not. Well. Here's where fiction and reality cross paths. No, I most regrettably do not have Charlie Hunnam riding up to my house, guns literally and anatomically blazing, (omg, have you seen this buzzfeed?? #11, ummm yeah...Charlie Hunnam Queer as Folk or Cold Mountain days, NO, not even...now, omg, I have dreamt about him) preferably speaking in his native accent. I don't even have Tommy Flanagan with that "Glasgow smile" and gorgeous Scottish brogue lilting around my house (yes, I have a serious British Isles accent thing). What I do have is in my blood.

My father - sperm donor, biological contributor, whatever - was a founding member of a motorcycle gang called the Heathens. They started in Southern California, namely Venice, in the late 60's, spread a couple chapters around and sort of flamed out in the 80's. They have regrouped these days and you can actually find a website they run (www.heathensmf.com), but I would gather to say that it's pretty much just some guys flying colors these days and not much else. And there you go - I was raised knowing what terms like flying colors and ape hangers meant (although much hilarity ensued when I was little and mistakenly called them monkey bars). Instead of the Mayans and the Grim Bastards, I knew who the Vagos and the Mongols were (funny enough, small world story - when my husband and I were house hunting years ago, we walked into one house and my eyes went to the huge flag on the wall. I screeched, "This is a Vagos house?? We can't buy this house." The real estate agent looked at me like I was nuts...and kept more than a few paces away from me after I explained what it all meant). Instead of Opie and Juice and Tig, when I was born I was held by people with names like Turk and Hillbilly and Grinch.




These are my "cousin's" parents...we'll get into their story below.

As I started watching the show, I felt things most people probably don't feel while watching a show - I saw, acted out in front of me, things that I knew a family member had done but could only imagine before. I didn't need to imagine them now. Obviously I've seen all of this portrayed before, but not on a show specifically about a motorcycle gang. Because while the show is fiction, many of the crimes were all too real. The drugs, the guns, the gun running, the beatings, the rapes, the murders...I know that I come from someone who participated and committed most, if not all of those crimes. And I don't quite know what to do with that, because knowing it and seeing it are two very different things.

 



Have no idea who these people are but these were the easiest pictures I could find, the other photo albums are packed away somewhere.

 

Since most of these people are still alive, and I'm borrowing their story through my eyes, I'll use initials to protect the players. You think the show goes overboard? A little dramatic? Too many people interconnected, a touch incestuous in the dealings? Let me give you the rundown of the people in the first picture above. Big B was married to my cousin L when they were very young. They got divorced and Big B was then with M, who had my "cousin" (always called each other cousins but we are not blood related) Little B. Little B and I grew up together, he is 6 months older than I am. Little B was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and was also born to a mother who had on/off periods of being a junkie and a drunk over the years so he had quite an uphill battle. Big B was not around except sporadically, which was more than most. Little B and I grew up and he tried really hard to get through school but it was very difficult for him.

We kept in contact over the years as we were close growing up and our moms were still good friends, but sort of lost track for a couple years. I went to college, the Marines, Little B worked his way through gas stations but did end up becoming a plumber and making a decent life. I went to his wedding, he and his wife came to mine. When my husband and I bought our house he came down and helped fix some old plumbing, helped us install a gas line for the dryer. Then he and his wife decided to move to greener pastures in Denver, cheaper living, more jobs, bought a house they could never afford here. And I thought he had made it. And then their marriage fell apart, and he stupidly followed her and hounded her and probably harassed her, not violently, but the guy she was dating had connections and he didn't let up. He was convicted of stalking and has been serving the past 10 years in prison.

M's sister S was also married to someone in the club. S and Big F had two kids and moved to Vegas to try and get away from the life. Well, they didn't get far because in the early 80's, during some sort of highly volatile argument, likely drug and/or alcohol fueled, Big F shot S and then killed himself, leaving behind two small children, J and C. M found them. I still remember hearing about that, and really, as a 7 year old, I shouldn't have had to know what a murder/suicide was, and their kids should most definitely never had to have lived it. I saw J and C sporadically over the years...J tried really hard to keep clean and stay out of trouble, and other than the occasional teenage scuffle I think he may have, I'm not sure. C however didn't fare quite as well and last I heard, years ago, was dabbling in drugs and prostitution.

Now I'm not saying these stories are specifically because of the club, but there is an aspect of the life and it's all too real.

I can tell you what wasn't real...stacks of cash on the table and professionally decorated houses. Most of us grew up in shitty apartments, hand to mouth, with single or may-as-well-be single mothers.
 

As for me, well, here it is. What would not get a second look or thought these days as far as family dynamics go was pretty traumatic 35 years ago. I was the only kid with a different last name than their parent, and I was only one of two kids in my elementary school class (I went to Catholic school so went to school with pretty much the same 35 kids from 1st-8th grade) raised by a single mom. Add to that the fact that my dad was not just gone but in prison for murder (I remember that he, explaining it to me in a letter, said that he "had gotten angry and hurt someone really bad") made it all the more something to hide. I'm guessing not many kids got letters from Soledad when they were 8. By high school I didn't care so much anymore about the circumstances, I just was dealing with growing up without a dad. Although I was actually a really good, responsible teenager, probably specifically because of what I was raised around (I never drank a drop until college), I was quite guilty of playing the card "well, whatever I do can't be as bad as whatever my parents were doing". My mom knew for years that I would race out to get a tattoo on my 18th birthday because "it was in my blood", and it was. I've loved tattoos since I was little, when only, well, criminals and gang members got them. Drinking in college...eh, wasn't doing anything as bad as my parents had done!

So, just like Jax on his rooftop perch, I often wondered - is it in me? I don't know. I know that I come with a mighty temper than I could have acquired from either parent. I know that motorcycles enthrall me. I know that I've never been afraid to start shit with people, and have been lucky that's it has never blown back on me. Whether that's luck, or because I look scary when I mean it, I don't know. My mom loves to tell the story about Little B's 3rd birthday party when he got a motorized truck. She says most kids would ride around the park smiling and laughing and giggling, but apparently we got in it, started riding roughshod over everything and mad-dogging everyone along the way, not a tooth showing between either of us.

I also know that I've always been an extremely good student, that the most serious infraction I've had is a speeding ticket in 1997, that I put myself through college and went on get my MBA,  that the thought of being in jail terrifies me, I've always had a decent respect for authority,  and the thought of some of those crimes makes me ill. I was lucky in the fact that regardless of whatever issues my mother had, and there were plenty, I was raised in a relatively stable environment given the circumstances, with a strong emphasis on education. I can tell you that I would tell Tara to take those kids out of Charming and go far far away. So who knows...

 

And then Jack went to a birthday party a few weekends ago...and picked this out all by himself. Passed up the soccer balls and dragons and turtles...and picked this. And I said, yep, that's definitely my kid. Uh oh.

 

 

A peaceful view...

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is but a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." -Mother Theresa

May we all have a joyful week ahead.

 



A fall birthday...

This is a long time coming due to a missing, then non-working camera cable...but here we go finally!

 

Baby girl's first birthday party - obviously having a baby to celebrate in the month of October is going to be wonderful...for me at least, maybe not for her eventually. So I had to have a fall themed party - what else? And it was actually pretty stress free - I mean, the house is already decorated for fall/halloween, so I just had to add some things here and there...

 

Easy decoration - tissue paper pom poms

A book for guests to sign

The welcome wagon...

 

Caramel apple party favors - easy and delicious

More easy tissue paper pom poms...I think they are a little classier than balloons right?

 

Crafts to keep Jack and his friends occupied for a bit

The birthday girl...still deciding that she could crawl faster than walk at that point...although that has started to change this past week.

 

 

Marshmellow fondant leaves - this recipe is soooo easy and doesn't taste that bad!

 

Birthday girl could not understand why everyone was singing to and staring at her at that point

Hmmm, this feels interesting...

But I don't think I will actually taste it for a while...

  

The boys are over celebrating a one year old girl....

Family shot...Happy first birthday to my baby girl - I eagerly look forward to many more with you.

 

A whole lot of growing up going on...

A little piece of my heart broke off today, but it also burst into about a thousand pieces of pride...

 

 

Since before Jack was born, the one thing I have been SO excited about was him going to school. Not to get him out of the house (although let's face it...), but because the start of school just meant the opening of a world of opportunity for him. I completely get Meg Ryan's giddiness at the line "a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils"... I literally cannot wait for him to bring home lists of schools supplies in the coming years, permission forms to sign, books to cover (okay, I get that it may be an Ipad to cover), new friends to talk about, crunchy leaf days to be tattooed in his memory. Yes, yes, I understand there will be nights when I am gluing some stupid diorama together (am I completely anachronistic? do kids even do these things anymore??) and I will be of no help to him past third grade times tables, but still. The possibilities, the reading under the covers late at night, the love of just plain learning something new - it all lies ahead for him and I am going to suck in and be grateful for every single moment of it that I can.

 

Little big girl here - 11 months old.

 

Top two teeth finally appearing - resulting in not so great nights.

 

Eating everything in sight.

 

Standing up. Soooooo close to walking.

 

Growing blond hair.

 

Loves her brother madly.

 

Cannot believe she has been here almost a year, my little chemo-sabe.

10 months.

As with your brother, I am amazed at how lovely, how striking you are, that I produced you. It truly awes me.

You crawl like a lightening bolt, like a water walker hovering just above a solid surface...you "talk" to your brother, you two screech at each other like howler monkeys. You are saying mama but I'm not sure if it's just one of your noises or if you mean it yet. Eating is getting better...sleeping, well, I'm crossing my fingers that the day, or night I should say, is coming. You exhaust me and I am blessed for that. I am sure I will appreciate it more later on. Love you little buggy.

Would you rather...?

Remember the game you used to play as kids, would you rather? Would you rather....kiss this boy with "cooties" or smell this hot boy's feet? Would you rather lose an arm or a leg? Would you rather run through school naked or would you rather dig through a full dumpster? Would you rather die really quickly and not get to say goodbye or know you were going to die and get to do things and say your goodbyes? It's all fun and games when it's theoretical but when it hits a little closer to home...well, you start to realize, you still don't know. I never knew the answer and I don't now. And truth be told, it is still, in essence, theoretical. I would rather live until I was 87, with a clear mind and a relatively healthy body and see my kids and grandkids. I would rather not have to think about any of this. I would rather go back to being blissfully unaware and ignorantly healthy. That's what I would rather, but that rather is gone, no matter what happens, even if I live to 87, even if all of those great things happen, my mind is tattooed with this knowledge.

The news stories the past few days, along with some new members in our facebook group, have me thinking. I know, as if I don't think enough, all the live long day. A few of us have run into (do you run into people on the internet?) girls who have metastases, and are younger, and that sucks by itself. Many of us, with a few of the girls having recurrences lately and such, are having such yo-yo days, where we are feeling great one moment and despondent the next, and so we post and ask each other what to do. And then I read the news where two hikers get lost and are found and then proceed to drive into a lake and drown an hour later. Or the newlywed who goes halfway around the world on her honeymoon to get mowed down while looking a patchouli and rasta hats at the beach. Or the guy on the motorcycle that I witnessed under the yellow blanket on Sunday while getting Jack a burger. And it really just gets replayed in my mind on a loop lately - NONE of us know what is in store for us or when - not even when some of us have already played ding dong ditch at the reaper's door, not even if he has peeked through the peephole but not opened the door yet. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse, I guess it's just one of the mysteries of the universe that I have to come to terms with.

But with all of this going on, I just go back to a line from a TV show that hit me years ago. I loved the show "Dead Like Me". It was a one season show, and I adored it. In one of the first episodes, George has to reap the soul of a little girl,who is to die in a train crash, and she can't do it, it's unfair that such a little girl should not get to live. And Rube (Mandy Patinkin, in one of his so many many great roles) says to her something along the lines of "No, it's not fair, she should get to live, but life is not fair. But we don't make the rules, and if souls don't get reaped when they are supposed to, I have seen what happens. They wither and rot and die inside of a person. Would you condemn her to that?" And with all that has been going on around me lately, what I have seen and heard, I'm starting to truly believe that. No, life isn't fair, it's not, and that really really sucks at times. Young children should not lose their parents. Kids shouldn't die. But we don't make the rules. I don't know that I will ever understand that. Maybe I just have to live with it.

My kid is "that" kid....

Jack started soccer on Friday - just a half hour, once a week, 2 and 3 year old class - enough for him to learn to listen to a coach, take some direction, experience some semblance of a structured environment, learn to play with other kids and get some energy out before bed. As his little personality develops, I have been well aware that Jack is a friendly extrovert - he will say hi to anyone at anytime, roll down his window to say hi to the next car over, he will shake hands, he will high five, he knows not an iota of what "stranger danger" might imply. But this is the first time I have seen him in a "class-like" setting and oh my goodness - my kid is that kid - the kid who runs right up to the front of the room (in this case the soccer field), who raises his hand whether he knows the answer or not, who thinks the teacher/coach is speaking only to him, who may perhaps monopolize the conversation. Oh jeez. This is not a character assassination of my son, I realize he is going to be a very high energy, super smart, eager extrovert. My problem is - I have no idea how to relate to this or to parent this.

 

 

I am your classic INTJ...I have tested high on the introvert scale since forever. Every.single.one. of my elementary school report cards - actually some of my college evals also - say "Very intelligent but doesn't participate" or "Jamie knows all of the material but needs to speak up more often".  During a business school retreat, we took the Meyers-Briggs test again and then separated ourselves by how we landed on the scale... let's just say I was an island unto myself. Everyone stared at me like I was a bug - I don't know that my teacher had ever had anyone that high (or low I guess) on the "I" scale in business school. I've learned to deal with it, and I've learned to be "extroverted" in certain situations - I'm a great public speaker when I know my subject, I can man a booth at a conference and answer questions like nobody's business. I can run meetings, give speeches, presentations, etc. But put me at a party where I don't know anyone and I will quite contentedly sit in the corner observing everyone else for hours. I don't answer questions unless I know the answer. Being in a roomful of people physically drains me. I am more than happy to go anywhere by myself.

 

As prospective parents do, we wondered what Jack's personality and demeanor would be like before he was born. My husband often spoke about the sports he would play and the activities he would involve himself in...I would input "Maybe he will be happy to sit in his room and read a book, you never know." Well...the answer is glaringly obvious - my kid is that kid, the kid who intimidated me when I was young with their seemingly effortless bravado and swagger and confidence - and this introverted mama has to learn quickly how to parent a strong extrovert. They are sent here to teach us, aren't they?