Posted by Kimberly on March 31st, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to come up with something to write about today, but what I find myself thinking about is all the things I haven’t written about in the past few months. All the milestones and moments that have passed by unrecognized and unremarked on as I sit trapped inside my own personal Bell Jar.
There was Facebook Guy’s party, Best described as “Home by 11 and it wasn’t even a school night.” First I got lost 2 blocks from his house and had to call a cab to get there Then, about an hour later, I fled the scene (also via cab). I tried, I really did. But the only person I knew in the whole crowd was Facebook Guy, and he was busy hosting. I tried to talk to people, and even made a new Facebook Friend, but after a while, I could just feel the panic starting to set in and I had to leave.
Oh yes, the panic attacks.
They’re not exactly panic attacks. Certainly not the fullblown, oh my god I forgot how to breathe! variety I was subject to during the Oncology Odyssey. But lately I’ve found that when I’m out on my own I can feel that sort of hyperventilating feeling stirring in the back of my head. Fortunately, it’s not like I get out much, so it’s really not that much of an issue.
Regan turned four nearly a month ago now and I have yet to talk about how that makes me feel. My baby is four. And no longer much of a baby at all. She is, in nearly all respects, a Big Girl now. And much though I love watching her grow up, I cannot help but mourn the loss of the baby she was–an attitude that feels ungrateful at best, if not flat out tempting fate.
There are experiences both big and small that have fallen by the wayside. Blog fodder that has not been forgotten rather than shaped into an amusing or heartwrenching anecdote for the internets. On the one hand, the argument could be made that it’s healthy to concentrate on living life instead of constantly reflecting on it, but really, didn’t someone say that the unexamined life is not worth living? I wouldn’t go that far, but it sure is more fun to turn it into a series of amusing stories than to simply sit around in pjs all day waiting for the next thing to happen.
Plus, I’m feeling guilty–a feeling that often goes hand in hand with depression. In my case, I’m feeling like I’m failing The Ladies not only in not creating enough moments for them, but also in not preserving the moments we do have. So, when I do blog, I feel like I’m spending too much time thinking about my life and not enough time living it. And when I don’t blog, I feel like I’m letting those moments go too easily.
So, Depression 962 Kimberly 2.
But still fighting. There’s that.
3 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on March 25th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but when The Zen Baby asks me a question, I generally try to answer it with the correct information. I don’t whip out the flashcards or anything, but I figure, “hey, she asked. Might as well take the opportunity to teach her something.” Of course, in the way of all children, oftentimes I am the one who ends up learning a lesson. In this case, that the preschooler answer key is very much like the toddler answer key.
Case in point, our recent scientific discussion:
“Mama, what is the sun made out of?”
“Gas.”
“No, really what is the sun made out of?”
“Really, it’s made out of gas. A big ball of flaming gas.”
“Mama! Not that sun! The sun in the sky! What’s it made out of?”
“Oh, that sun. It’s made out of sunshine.”
“I thought so.”
7 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on March 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
One of the best things about having kids is that, if you’re lucky, you get to relive treasured moments from your childhood. Holidays are especially good for this. Christmas and Easter are once again infused with a magic that moves them beyond the realm of mundane, crass commercialism they descend into once the cat is out of the bag and all the secrets are told; that you are now the one trusted with the keeping of that secret makes it that much more precious and exciting a time in your life.
Next to stuffing Christmas stockings, filling Easter baskets is my favourite holiday tradition. I love the sense of power I get as I fill each tiny plastic egg with trinkets and nestle it safely into the plastic “grass” that I will be picking out of my vacuum cleaner rollers for months to come. This, to me, is a Motherhood Moment. These necklaces, lipglosses, hair ponies, and pinwheels are more than the detritus of another Christian holiday sell out: they are my Ph.D thesis in Zen Baby and Diva Girl.
Each item, from the types of candy to the colours of the eggs is chosen with care, designed to express both just how much I love my girls and how well I know them. Much like Santa Claus–and very unlike Mommy–The Bunny never disappoints. The Bunny always knows exactly what to leave, even if The Ladies themselves had no idea that it was just what they wanted.
I’ve just finished filling this year’s basket, and in doing so have skyrocketed straight past bone deep exhaustion into breathless anticipation. I cannot wait for the sun to rise and my girls to begin to discover the goodies that await them. And even though I won’t get any of the credit as they crack open their eggs and show me their treasures, I will get the ultimate reward of knowing that someday, when they are filling Easter baskets of their own, they will look back on this time and think, “Boy, Mom really knew us; and how much must she have loved us, to have done this year after year, always saving the good presents for the characters who didn’t really exist, except in the way she kept them alive for us.”
This Easter is all the more sweet because Sabrina is on the brink of the age of unbelieving. Right now Santa, The Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are all still alive and well in her world, but soon that magic will disappear for her, dimming mine in the process. So, while I still can, I am grateful that I get to weave a spell that will leave my children too thrilled to sleep past dawn. There will be plenty of time for that in the years to come and too few mornings like tomorrow’s to balance out the scale. So, while I can, I choose to embrace the magic–even if it does cut into my beauty sleep.
12 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on March 13th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Sure, it might be nice to head down south for March Break. To take a break from the windchill and the snowstorms to frolic on a beach instead of vacationing in our own backyard (so to speak). But then, if we did that, we would have missed sights like this one, the magical winter fairyland that followed us down the highway from home straight up to the American border. And that wouldn’t have been worth the flight into sunshine.
I have to admit, I was dreading this March Break. Given the way I’ve been barely hanging on even with the luxury of having Diva Girl away at school five days a week, the very idea of a full nine days home with both of The Ladies made me want to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head for the week. Which in turn made me feel even worse about everything; nobody wants to start each day with her children marking the hours until bedtime, after all.
But that’s where I was afraid we were heading: a full week spent drowning in kid crap, refereeing sibling rivalries, and doing the broken record routine with the house rules–all set to a soundtrack of Hannah Montana.
Instead, we piled into my parents’ car for another family road trip.
I have to say, when I stop and think about how well traveled The Ladies are–this past year alone they’ve been to Niagara Falls, The Atlantic Provinces and Eastern Seaboard, the Toronto Zoo, and Northern Michigan (twice)–it fills me with pride as a mother. I love knowing that my children are not missing out, that even though on paper we linger around the poverty line, in reality their lives are full and rich and brimming with experience.
I also know that I have my parents to thank for a large part of those experiences. It’s not just the driving I’m grateful for, though. Or the willingness to share a hotel room. It’s the memories.
It’s the time spent with Grampa in the hotel pool. It’s the multiple trips to see the Easter Bunny. It’s hearing the Zen Baby order “Miley Cyrus faces” for dinner and having someone to share it with.
It’s about having a family. And about knowing that however much I may feel like I need to get away, when it comes right down to it I’d rather get away with them than get away from them.
8 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on March 9th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Everyone has their parenting line–the point where they are totally skeeved out and just would rather really avoid the whole experience. For some, it’s the poop. For others it’s the needles, or the blood. Me, I’m fine with all that. I mean, it’s not like I’ve particularly enjoyed my education in the seemingly endless permutations of poop. And I really, really hate needles, but you do what you gotta. And the blood? Well, fortunately we’ve not really had a lot of that to deal with.
My line is the teeth. Loose teeth, specifically. They give me the willies; there are few things that make me cringe more than being asked to observe some child proudly twisting a tooth around by that last stubborn thread. Unfortunately, when you are a parent, the loose teeth are just as unavoidable as the poop in the bathtub.
I’ve been doing a pretty good job of just sucking it up since the Tooth Fairy started visiting our house a few years ago. I’ve kept the revulsion relatively under wraps and feigned enthusiasm when greeted with the dread “I’ve got a loosth toof!” announcement. I have even, on occasion, helped the Tooth Fairy out by playing midwife to some particularly stubborn baby teeth. Which is gross, but sometimes anything is better than the incessant whining about how wiggly it is.
Or so I though until last night when I ended up spending over three hours in the ER all because I “helped” Diva Girl’s maddeningly stubborn baby molar along on its journey to the garbage can Tooth Fairyland.
Now, ER trips are just as inevitable part of parenting as the poop, the blood, and the teeth. It’s just understood when you have kids that at some point, you are going to spend time in the emergency room. While I’m not the type of mother who goes running off to the doctor at the slightest sniffle or owie, I wouldn’t say I’m a “go rub some dirt on it” kind of parent, either. So, it really wasn’t blind maternal panic that lead us to the ER in a snowstorm after I saw all the blood welling up in Diva Girl’s mouth and what looked to be the root of her tooth still embedded in her gum.
I’ve not had a lot of experience with lost teeth. Other than DIva Girl’s, I mean. Most of my baby teeth were pulled by the dentist, so I don’t have a lot to drawn on when it comes to what is normal in the dental realm. I probably would have assumed that what I was seeing was just the new tooth poking its way up if not for the fact that what I held in my had appeared to be just the crown, with no root attached. Staring at that little piece of enamel, I started worrying about exposed nerves, abcesses, infection….
Three hours of 20 Questions, Rock Paper, Scissors, and Dix, a resident, an attending, and a consult with Tom, the on-call emergency dentist that ended in ME taking the dental x-ray in the deserted clinic later, we had an official diagnosis: I am a nelly.
Apparently, what I saw in her mouth was the top prong of her shiny new adult molar. And baby molars are supposed to look like that when they come out.
Good to know, since we’ll be losing about 6 more of them before the tooth fairy can finally hang up her wings. But embarrassing to require a trip to the ER to find it out. I think I’m all done with the amateur dentistry though. From now on, this Tooth Fairy is strictly about leaving the money and will be leaving them alone (except to dispose of them, of course. What is up with that whole keeping the teeth thing? Seriously, ewwww.)
8 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on March 5th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
I don’t want to write this post. I want to write something funny, upbeat, light. Something sassy and selfdeprecating. I don’t want to wallow anymore.
And yet…The button is still there and I’m still separated from it by the bell jar that is depression.
I’m hanging on by my fingernails with The Ladies, letting everything slide that I can so that the little I have, I have for them. But I’m starting to worry that it’s not enough. I’m feeling guilty that they are stuck with ME for a mother. They deserve so much more than a mother who is willing to watch the same episode of Hannah Montana over and over again, who is just barely capable of pulling on pants a couple times a week in the hopes of maintaining some sense of normalcy, who wants to laugh and play and make fabulous memories in theory, but in reality plans the games around what can be played from the couch. And I deserve it too.
And yet…This is who we are both stuck with right now, it seems.
I’ve been clinging to the idea that I just have to hold out until the drugs kick in and then it will get better. But it’s not getting better. I’m drowning here. Being buried alive in my own life. Suffocated. Smothered.
And yet…I can’t give in.
I want to. Oh, how I want to. But more than I just want it to stop, I want it to start again. I want to hear my Diva Girl’s boisterous, infectious laugh and know I caused it. I want to see the Zen Baby’s beautific smile and know it’s for me. I want to embrace them and live with them in all their moments.
There is no joy here.
And yet…There is still hope.
14 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on February 27th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Sitting in the ultrasound suite today, it occurred to me that I am far better acquainted with my daughter’s internal organs than I ever wanted to be. It bothers me that I can look up from holding her hand and identify the Zen Baby’s kidney or pancreas on the computer screen. The shape of her toes, the arch of her brows, the curve of her lips–these are the features a mother should be able to identify in her child, not the shape of her pancreas, the arch of her kidney, the curve of her intestines.
Much though I’ve become blase about these semiannual returns to the scene of the crime–this time around, rather than obsessing about the appointment in the week leading up to it, I forgot about it until the last minute–I do still find myself waiting with baited breath as we take that tour around her belly. I didn’t think I would this time; walking into the appointment, I had not one iota of fear that this might not end well. So it surprised me when I found myself bracing for the worst; however, it was only for a second and then my confidence that all was right in our world (and her belly) returned.
At this point, 3 years and 6 all clear scans in, it would be easy to look at these appointments as an annoyance. An inconvenience and the waste of an afternoon.
But then I think about where we could be right now, and how much more time we could be spending in hospital waiting rooms and I’m happy to sit in those depressing rooms filled with cheerful paintings, ripped picture books, and neglected toys, trying to entertain an increasingly bored child. I think of the shellshocked woman with the raccoon eyes I saw wandering the corridor on our way to our appointment with the surgeon, or I imagine the family in the exam room next door who were there for their first consultation, and I don’t mind our wait at all.
8 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on February 26th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
I’m trying. I really, really am. And I even feel sometimes like I’m getting somewhere. Until I turn around, look where I’ve been, and find that I’m right back where I started again.
I’m in a bit of a vicious circle right now. The house is, frankly, a tip. I am utterly demoralized by my living space. Which some could argue is an external reflection of my inner chaos at the moment. Basically, I’m depressed so I create a depressing environment that in turn depresses me.
And I’ll even cop to that, to an extent. I mean, I’m certainly at least partly responsible for how out of control it’s gotten around here. However, I’m not the only one who lives here. And while I’m certainly responsible for the recycling depot in the hallway, the past due kitty litter and the laundry pileup in my bedroom, I don’t think the toys scattered everywhere, the the books and crayons and barbies and dvds that conceal our floors, are completely my fault.
I took responsibility for it all anyway, though, because I’m the mom and that’s what moms do. Especially single moms who know that there isn’t going to be anyone else showing up any time soon to pick up the slack–or the crap off the floor. So, I spent a couple of hours on Friday excavating the livingroom. I cleared through layers of debris–Build A Bear clothes, lost webkinz, papers with a single crayon scribble, a Barbie harem….all of it picked up and put neatly where it belonged. I could see the floor. And once I saw it, I vacuuumed it! When I looked around before bed on Friday night, I felt a sense of contentment about this small corner of my world.
It took The Ladies less than a day to return us to our former state of chaos, leaving me once again feeling like I’m drowning in the quagmire that has become my life. It’s hard to muster up the ambition and energy to tackle the same task over and over and over again, knowing that there will be no real lasting results.
I do keep trying though. Every time that boulder gets away from me, I chase it down and (eventually) start pushing it back up again.
Today I tackled the dishes. Choosing snack options based on the dish situation was getting old, as was the spoonquest that had become a part of our regular dinner routine. So, I pulled on my brand new, super lined dishwashing gloves, grabbed a fresh antibacterial sponge and set to work.
I was in the zone. I was flying through those dishes, so high on my sense of accomplishment that I was actually planning which household chore I would take on next.
And then I felt it. A sensation connecting my fingers and the sponge that could only be described as “gummy.” An apt description, since it turns out that my finders were glued to both each other and the sponge by an abandoned piece of gum left in the cup I’d just washed.
It’s enough to make just want to push the boulder down the hill yourself. Or fling yourself in front of it to put yourself out of your misery.
9 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on February 21st, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
The best description of depression I have ever heard goes like this:
Imagine that you are sitting in a chair. On the arm of the chair is a button. In order to get everything you ever wanted, all you have to do is push the button. That’s it. And yet, you just. Can’t. Do. It.
You want to do it. You how simple it would be to do it. You know it would make everything so much better if you would just do it. And yet, for some utterly inexplicable reason, you just can’t do it.
That’s how I’ve been living these last few weeks.
I don’t want to spend my days sitting in this chair, endlessly surfing the same 5 sites on the net and venturing forth only for grocery shopping, skating lessons, and Tuesday dinner with Granmma. I don’t want to be silent, unreflective, simply floating through my days in a pj’d fog. I want to be dynamic, energetic, and seizing life with joyful abandon. I want to be engaged with and excited by my world. Or, you know, showered.
The medication has started to lift the fog enough that I can see the button sitting there, but not enough to actually press it yet. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself as I sit here in my PJs day after day, cut off from my world but not making much of an effort to reach out to reestablish those connections that are important to me. Then I came across this quotation today:
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
It suddenly occurred to me that while on the one hand my depression has been very, very real, that on the other hand maybe it’s also gotten to be a bit of a habit. Maybe the reason I keep sitting here in my jammies, avoiding both living my life or reflecting on it, is that I’m simply out of practice.
So, I may not be ready to push that button. But I won’t know if I don’t try. And even if I can’t, I can at least flex my finger and try to get it in shape for the day I am capable of pushing it.
9 Comments »
Posted by Kimberly on February 14th, 2008 — Posted in Kipple
Letter To My Mommy
Thank you for all the things we do together. Thank you for taking me to Build A Bear Workshop and for comming on feild trips with me. Thank you for playing chess with me and letting me be your waitress when we were playing with Grandmas toy kitchen.
Thank you for giving me what I need. Thank you for giving me hugs and kisses. Thank you for giving me starbucks and putting me in skating and thank you for loving me.
Thank you for Loving me. Thank you for loving me and for letting me use webkinz. Thank you for making me and for giving me food.
I love my mommy.
*this post was written by Diva Girl in lieu of making me a valentine this year.
9 Comments »
