A Song for Love

She went to sleep early tonight; falling asleep in my arms as we snuggled on the couch watching a movie after dinner. She lay in the crook of my arm, warm against me and I told myself to remember this. "Be still and stay in the moment." She's still so tiny, so young though already almost 6. The time flies by and these moments where she can lay so tight against me, fitting perfectly in the bend of my arm are fleeting.

I carried her upstairs to the bed remarking on how light she still is. Still sleeping, she leaned easily and trustingly into my shoulder. I whispered into her ear "I love you so much, baby girl. You are never going to know how much you are loved."

I sang her "her" song as I tucked her in.  It's a Five for Fighting song called "If God Made You" and while pretty much the whole song is perfect from me to Dia, the part I get choked up on is where he sings "I can't say what I might believe, but if God made you he's in love with me."  That is so incredibly true I get tears in my eyes every time I sing it.

If I were a first-time-out parent, I would wonder, maybe even worry a bit, about when this raw love will wear down.  I don't think any parent ever believes they will stop loving their children by any means.  I just mean that we might get to that place where we get used to their being there.  That age where they might grind on our nerves more than delight and enchant us.   The time when knowing you love them is more a statement of fact than an emotional, physical feeling. 

I think, if I were that first-time-out parent, I would lament my baby girl's looming birthday a bit.  I think I would take a precious moment like I had tonight and wish it to last longer.  Certainly she's not going to need me so much, eventually she won't cuddle so much, and one day she and I won't even fit on the couch together (that day may come much sooner if I don't stop piling on the pounds!).

But I'm not a first-time-out parent and I can tell you unequivocally that that raw love never fades.  Twenty-seven years ago I held my first born child in my arms and danced him to sleep.  "Inspiration" by Chicago played on our stereo more often than not because Tim was my inspiration.  The lyrics to that song, though intended for a lover I suppose, fit so perfectly: "You're the meaning in my life.  You're the inspiration.  You bring feeling to my life..."   I was so entirely and completely in love and I never before thought I could feel that much emotion.

And nothing - other than I can't lift him anymore - nothing has changed.  I watch him play with Dia, or listen to him on one of his rants, or pretend to be annoyed at his habit of picking things up and fiddling with them and later misplacing them, or just watch him be what he's always been - what I was smart enough to step away and let him be - and I love him so much.  There are times when I get so overwhelmed with what I feel that the emotion overflows to tears and I have to bat them away quickly or be busted for the sap I really am.  Even if he noticed that, even if he understood any of this, he will still never truly understand how much he's loved.

Cheyanne counseled me the other day when I was kind of down. "I've been away for some time now" she told me knowingly, "that always gets you down."  It wasn't arrogant of her to say that, she just knows.  She loves her people on that highly intensive level I do, so I think she understands a little bit better.  But still she, just like Tim and Dia, will never truly understand how much she is loved.  She will never understand how I felt sitting in the sunshine only she could bring into a room singing Elton John's "My Song" to her.  I'd change the lyrics a little to fit her:  "But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song, It's the people like you that keep it turned on. So excuse me forgetting but these things I do  You see I've forgotten which one is green and which one's blue..." (on account of the fact she has one green and one blue eye).  I have memories of her that are so simple and so amazingly "Cheyanne" and I hold them so dearly.  I remember my little 3 year old girl sitting on the floor drawing circles around the holes of a piece of notebook paper happily singing 'bop, bop, bop," while I did my college homework at the dining room table.  How could I ever feel that kind of unconditional admiration and love again?

Yet?  Same thing.  I'm not feeling it again, I am feeling it still.  Nothing has changed.  Though I doubt she sits on the floor drawing on notebook paper any more, she still lights up the room when she enters it.  Her smile can cure anything and when I see her, now a woman more beautiful than anything that should have come from me - well, I still see my little girl and I still love her just as much.

So while I do wish time would slow down its march a peck (particularly the part of it that is marching across my face), and there are certainly going to be things I will miss when I'm no longer the mom of a small child, I take some comfort in knowing how much I love being a parent regardless of their age.  If I ever feel down because Dia doesn't feel cool loving me so openly any more, I have Tim and Cheyanne to comfort me until she gets back around to it.  And if all else fails, well, I'm sure I can find a song that will cheer me up.

History Shmistory

Why do people study history?

1. to learn from past mistakes
2. to prevent future misfalls
3. to help us understand our world 
4. to have a semblance of control
5. all of the above

In the world of Type A and Type B personalities, I am a type D.  It's not so much that I'm lazy but I hate chaos, drama and stress.  I hate those things so much so that I almost pathologically analyze whatever has gone wrong so as to avoid any repeat stressors.  Mind you, this can be as insignificant as preventing a search for my keys in the morning to something as complicated as avoiding a bad relationship. Whatever bad stuff has ever happened in my life, I study the history thereof and try to learn from my mistake and/or understand the cause so I can prevent it from ever recurring.

So here's the thing: My heart's gone bad again.  We are talking anatomy here, folks.  I'm still a good person, but my heart is broken in the literal sense and that wasn't supposed to happen again.

See, I had studied my earlier "mistakes" and I thought I understood why I'd been burdened with a bad ticker.  I understood that the life I'd led before probably contributed to my illnesses - from a holistic sense.  Now?  Now I was supposed to be impervious.  I thought I'd become invincible.  I thought I was all fixed up and ready to go forever.  I thought the joy I lived - through the gift of my children, to my every day gratitude, to the true contentedness where I normally dwell - well, I thought that would protect me from ever being sick again.  I mean, I barely ever got so much as a sniffle.  Certainly since Dia's been born I can count on half a hand how many times I've been ill.  Yes, I thought I was the epitome of health and would be to infinity and beyond.

And OK - I noticed palpitations sometimes.  Whatever.  Everyone has those right?  And, yeah, my blood pressure would careen into some bottom dwelling version of everyone else's - but that's just how I roll - and my little ol' heart would just kick in and start beating like crazy and bring it up to a more respectable level.  So I was good.  I was good forever.  Damnit.

But then recently I've been experiencing a dizzy I can't blame on being blond.  While I was fighting to stay conscious and take my vitals at the same time, I plopped on the blood pressure cuff and it wouldn't even register.  Oh, I'm good at this folks.  I can prevent myself from fainting like no one.  I mean, if there's an award out there for staying conscious I win it.  So I did - stay conscious, that is - and once my blood pressure was finally up enough for the stupid cuff to read something, my heart, it seemed, was just cold chillin.'  I swear I must have interrupted a nice bong session in there as slow as it was beating and I found myself actually talking to it.  Out loud.  Scolding it in fact.  "Dude!  What ARE you doing?  If the blood pressure crashes, you kick in!?  What the hell!"

When there was enough oxygen to my brain for me to realize how stupid it was to have a heart-to-heart conversation with my heart, and after a few more episodes (because I really did think I was invincible so a one-off crash wasn't credible enough), I called the doctor.

After a test or two (or eight) and a 24 hour holter monitor (a favorite of mine because I look like a terrorist with all those wires coming off me) it turns out it is my heart.  Again.  Fucker.

Yeah, I said it.  I'm pissed at it.  I mean, seriously.  During the holter test, they discovered that I have another dummy AV node.  I will admit that after my surgery the cardiologist made mention that there might have actually been 3 of them.  One that works, one that he cauterized (that was causing all the trouble) and one that hadn't activated.  Seems the Wonder Twins have now activated.  In the form of....palpitations!

But the fun part is that's not even what's causing this crap.  It's the lazy heart.  It's exactly what I said.  My heart is supposed to deal with the fact that my blood pressure crashes and now it's not doing it's job for whatever reason.  I'd fire it and replace its sorry ass if I could, but I fear that would cause the very thing I want to avoid here: surgery.  Again.

Then, to further complicate things, once all this information sunk in I got pissy and generally frustrated and the wonderful bliss - the same bliss that I felt protected me from ever falling ill again - is getting beaten up.  So there lies the dilemma.  I really did believe that the positive mindset - the gratefulness, the joy, the appreciation - kept me healthy.  I really did believe in the psychosomatic aspects of our health.  This was the lesson I learned from the first go 'round.  Keep it positive; claim your health; claim your joy and all will be well.

Sure enough, when I consulted my personal bible "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay and looked up low blood pressure, the healing thought pattern is "I now choose to live in the ever-joyous NOW.  My life is a joy."  and when I flipped to heart problems I see "Joy. Joy. Joy.  I lovingly allow joy to flow through my mind and body and experience."   But riddle me this Batman:  How the holy hell do I live in joy joy joy when I'm pissed pissed pissed that I'm broken again again again???

I'll admit I might have gotten a little less joyous over the past year than I had the year prior.  Finances got tighter than ever and I had to pick up more work leaving less free time and a tougher schedule.  I got less sleep and less time to play.   But are we suggesting, dear universe, that if I don't live my life lolly-gagging about eating bon bons and touring France (which would certainly bring me joy times three) then I'm going to fall apart?  I call foul there.  Foul, I say!

I still believe in the holistic idea of health and I still believe we can heal our lives, but I refuse to believe that if we falter even for a moment all the good we've done to date is negated.  I think the most frustrating part of this life is never understanding the why of history - or of current events - that follow no logical cause and effect.  It's just random isn't it?  Nothing to see here folks.  Move along.  Nothing to learn here either.  It's just the luck of the draw.

For this hand?  I guess I just have to play the cards I was dealt really, really well.


kec

And I Will Always Love You

While the nation is grieving the passing of Whitney Houston, I endure a far greater and more personal loss.  On Valentine's Day my brave kitten, Albert, lost his battle.  Though it has only been days now, his passing has left a huge void and seemingly endless tears.  His short life left such a big impression.

His valiant attempt began in a feral state.  His warrior mom, a feral cat, seemed to have lured a dog away from the nest she'd made for her kittens.  She met her demise doing so, but a kindly human found the precious babies and took them in.  With the help of friends, she nursed the kittens to health.  Then, tragically, she too lost a battle and passed away due to a brain hemorrhage.  The kittens and her personal cats now needed yet another home.  I wanted to help but truly felt it wasn't right as I have a cat that doesn't enjoy the company of others.  Yet eventually this sweet baby found his way to us and there he stayed. 

His first vet visit was to rid him of fleas and ear mites and we did that successfully.  Yet with each subsequent visit, there was more.  Never weighing more than 3 pounds, a heart murmur, infection, anorexia, dehydration.  We cured him of all but the former and though the vet tried so valiantly to save him - even performing free examinations and acupuncture and an angel fund came to his rescue financially for the echocardiogram - she always warned, with tears in her eyes, that it might be FIP. 

That evil freaking disease - Feline Infectious Peritonitis - which is neither infectious nor peritonitis - took my Albert in a matter of days.  He showed signs of improvement and even gained a little weight after an acupuncture session, but the next week he lost all the weight he'd gained and then some.  His little wobbly gait got so intense that he did more correcting than walking.  By the time I took him in for his next acupuncture, he'd lost half a pound and could barely walk.  His little heart was beating so irregularly and so fast and because I share that with him - the heart arrhythmia - I knew all too well that all it was going to take was one bad beat. 

Dr. Rebecca began to cry.  "Do I need to tell you today is the day?" 

I'm notoriously incapable of letting go.  I put a 14 year old dog through chemotherapy and didn't put down a pet rat with a tumor until it was so large she could only move backwards.   I made Logan endure probably far more than he should have so that he would just go 'naturally' instead of it being on my hands.  I had a miscarriage before Dia and though the doctors begged me to have a D & C, I wouldn't give up.  In the end, I almost lost me from the hemorrhaging, but I just couldn't give up hope.  And, here, I held this tiny, beautiful kitten and couldn't save him.

"Yes" I said.

"Today is the day" she said, sobbing.

And so it was on Valentine's Day that I held my sweet little guy and said goodbye.  He went peacefully and I held him the whole time, but it broke my heart so many times over.

There was one moment, though.  Yesterday morning.  And I don't believe in these things, so I'm sure it was a dream, but...
I was awakened by the sensation that he'd jumped up on the bed as he did every morning.  He weighed so little that you only ever felt one paw when he landed.  I felt that paw on my leg and then felt the sensation of another paw landing as he would to walk across.  I wanted to open my eyes, but I was afraid - of course he wouldn't be there - and then, before I did, I heard "What's up, Mom?"  It was so weird and so vivid.  His human voice was like a Disney character - like Oliver or one of the kittens from Aristocats.  I knew I was dreaming but I opened my eyes and looked down at my feet.  There were two, tiny indentations exactly where I'd felt the paws land.  In fairness, I have a down comforter and it could have been anything that might have made those indentations, but it did give me a moment of relief.  Maybe he's fine now.  Maybe he's happy and healthy.

But right now, I'm still so sad.  I know it will pass and I will be left only with the joy that came from giving everything I could to this precious gift. 

Albert - I will always love you.

KEC  

Early Civilization

When Dia attended her first week of Kindergarten she’d really never had any sort of "formal" early socialization.  I was expecting some bumps and a little bit of culture shock but I wasn’t ready for her to have to switch desks away from a child the first week.  It turns out that child was taunting Dia, telling her she didn’t know anything.  Dia, who took this quite literally since she had never known teasing prior to that very moment, tried to explain to the little girl that she did too know stuff – like she knew a ton about dinosaurs.  Little Miss refused to accept that and just continued with her mantra that Dia, in fact, didn’t know anything at all even about dinosaurs.  After a time, Dia began to get hurt feelings and her teacher decided that this particular pairing was not a good one.  Call it a personality conflict.

Dia took this all in stride.  She wasn’t overly hurt and was given a seat opposite an invisible child (the poor dear had yet to attend class – I don’t know if she was sick or withdrew from class, but she had a desk and a name plate all the same).  Dia was happy at her new desk placement.  Everything was OK in the end. 

Except that I think we are doing it wrong. 

I agree with what Dia's teacher did in this instance, but disagree that nothing was ever said about it.  There was no discussion to Little Miss about why Dia was being moved away.  There was no sit-down with the kids to explain that, really, calling someone stupid is quite unkind and we shouldn't go out of our way to say hurtful things.

Do we send our children to early education for true socialization or is it just to toughen them up for what is to come?  I mean, what is preschool's version of socialization exactly?  It looks to me like it’s adults dumping their children in a pile and letting them sort it out with a modicum of guidance as to ‘how we behave’ with one another.  “Hands are not for hitting” and “teeth are not for biting” themes resound, but we aren’t teaching our children to be gracious or kind.  I truly believe that perhaps a better alternative to early socialization might be early civilization.   As in being civil to one another.

Stay with me a moment on this one because I really do feel like I’m alone here and I want to provoke a thought or two out there.  Contrary to popular belief kids aren’t mean to each other by nature.  We teach them that.  We teach them that it’s OK to talk to each other that way.  We teach them that it’s OK to be cruel to their siblings.  We teach them that kids just say mean things to each other and that “kids are mean.”  But kids are not mean people.   

Kids are just curious.  That's how they learn for Pete's sake.  So when Dia asked why the cashier at Ralph's was so heavy - in front of the overweight woman - it was an honest question.  She wasn't making a judgment.  She wasn't saying bigger was worse than smaller - she was just inquiring as to why this particular person was larger than the people she was accustomed to.  My answer was that there are all kinds of reasons a person can be heavy, but that a lot of them are very personal and it might hurt the person's feelings to dredge those up.  (We had a longer chat about it on the car ride home too, but that sufficed for the moment.)

That wasn't an amazing mom moment there.  Most moms I know would have said similar things if not just cutting to the chase with the "we don't ask such questions, it's rude" answer.  That's OK too.  In some way, shape or form we teach our kids that they shouldn't point out adults' flaws - whether we label it rude or hurtful, we do let them know it's not OK.

But what we do NOT do is bring our kids up short when they do that to other kids.  The children do not start out taunting each other.  They start out genuinely curious.  If they see a person that's different than they are,  they want to know about it.  That's all.  Often the way they learn about differences is by listening to us speak about people.  They hear OUR errant comments about fat people, too-skinny people, dark people, light people, and people who don't dress well.  Later, if our little sponge-babies share this wisdom we've imparted by relaying it to an adult, we redirect them in a second.  Yet if they do so to other kids?  We let it go.  Why?  Because kids are mean to each other.  Whatcha' gonna' do?

Same thing with siblings.  My thesis in college was on sibling placement so I'm not going to try to say that there's no natural sibling rivalry, but there isn't natural sibling abuse.  We allow that too.  We don't think twice about it because that's what we endured, that's what we heard our parents tell stories about (often somewhat fondly) and that's just how brothers (particularly) and sisters behave.  Right?

Wrong again.  We teach them that.  Yes.  Yes we do.  Think about it.  If your kid wallops on the dog, you grab the kid and tell him we don't treat dogs that way.  We must be gentle.  We must be kind.  That stance never changes.  We never allow the child to abuse the dog.

It starts out the same way with our children when a new sibling is introduced.  While one is still an infant we teach them to be gentle and kind with the baby.  Once the baby becomes a toddler, though, those restraints get loosened.  Sure we start out with redirection away from physical harm but once the younger sibling shows signs of strength and resilience, we stop.  We only break up the big ones, the ones that end with someone's eye about to be poked out.  From that day on, we silently teach our kids that it's OK to fight with their brother or sister or to be too rough or too physical with them, not to mention the mean things we allow them to say to each other.  We let it go.  Why?  Because siblings fight.  Whatcha' gonna' do?

Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.  I'm going to keep the course that I was on with my first two kids.  I'm going to teach Dia to be kind, to be thoughtful, to consider other people's feelings whether they are grown or small.  I'm going to teach her that manners are, in fact, the respect of others and she should know how to employ them.  Her older siblings can help her out a little and share with her how hard all that can be sometimes.  It's NOT easy to be the 'better person' in some situations and, contrary to what we all want to believe, kindness doesn't always pay.  The good guy doesn't always win and it sure would be a bummer to miss the opportunity to land a zinger on someone who deserves it.  Still, if I can set one more adult out to this cold, hard world who maybe isn't so cold or hard, I will have done one (more) good thing in my life.  This world definitely could use it!

True Confessions from a Perfect Mom

Everyone who knows me knows I am the best mom alive.  I am practically perfect in all things parental and I have the pudding to prove it.  Tim and Cheyanne are spectacular adults.  They are successful, happy, confident, well-adjusted and kind.  Dia is the teacher's favorite in all the classes she's attended, she has friends galore and she never gets in any trouble at school.  All that is my doing, of course.  I should pat myself on the back for such an amazing job.

Or I should wake up and smell the day-old coffee...

Now, it's true that Tim and Chey are a.ma.zing, but that is NOT because of me.  Dear lord and bless their souls, it is despite me.  The only thing I can give myself credit for was to have the sense God gave me to just get out of their ways and let them become who He created.  I didn't try to impose my agenda or have them fulfill a missing component out of my life.  (In fact, I always wanted a license plate frame that said "I do not live vicariously through my children.") 

That is what I do right.  What I do wrong is a list that goes on for days.

Poor Dia, in fact, had to endure my flawed parenting just this past Monday.  Even better, it was my I'm Alive Day - one in which, of all days, I should have just been grateful to simply be.  But no.  Instead I woke up all pity partying that I'm single and likely to stay that way forever (I told you it was a pity party).  A friend had introduced me to a guy who called the night before... we'd talked for a couple of hours actually and he was really nice, but definitely not for me.  This scenario keeps playing out: Katie meets guy, guy is nice, guy has some pretty major flaw (like a felony), Katie doesn't want guy, Katie convinces herself there are no great guys left.  Rinse and repeat.  ANYway - that was what I woke up with on my I'm Alive Day.  Oh, poor me. 

Piling on to my misery, I had to reschedule the day because Tim was sick and so couldn't do what we'd originally planned.  So I'm grumpy about that too.  Dia wanted to go down to the Discovery Museum (the Cube) because she loves it, but it's one of those places where the kids are much more entertained than the grown-ups and I wanted to do something either novel or more interesting to me.  I thought maybe we could start with breakfast at a place in town I'd never been that supposedly has the best breakfast in L.A.  OK?  No.  It's closed on Mondays.  So I'm grumpy about that as well.  I recoup and decide we'll have lunch at the Bowers Museum across from the Cube and... it's closed Mondays too.  At this point I'm all types of pissy.

All the while Dia was trying so amazingly hard to cheer me up.  She was saying how we always have fun at the Cube and how we'll see something new there and how everything is good.  To further try to cheer me, she toddled off and got herself dressed top to bottom all on her own and even did her hair.  The hair is a big, big deal.  She has crazy curly hair and it's a challenge for anyone to do, much less a five year old without the best fine motor skills in the world.  When she presented herself to me she had the biggest smile on her face and I could see the pride literally emanating from her.  So what did I do?

I exclaimed "Oh, you did your own hair!  Wow!"  But the good parenting ended there.  I attempted to fix a bump on the top of her hair saying "let me smooth that out" and she shied away from me like a spooked horse.  That's when I lost all sanity.  I scolded her saying that she promised she'd be good all day and that she promised we wouldn't fight over teeth brushing or baths or any of the usual things she protests daily which includes hair brushing so just let me smooth this out!  She backed away even further from me.  So because I'm all kinds of adult here, I picked up my purse and threw it to the ground (what the...???)  - and she started crying.  She was scared because, in fairness, I never act like that - and she was crushed because she'd been so proud of herself.

She went into her room, closed the door and, still crying, vented her frustrations to her stuffed animals.  I walked away from her, went back into my room, saw the purse on the floor, and immediately felt like the stupidest person alive.  I turned on my heels and pushed the door to her room open. 

"I am the worst human being."  I announced to Dia.  "I am just the worst thing ever."  And then I told her how I knew she was so proud that she did her own hair and she was just trying to cheer me up and she was doing absolutely nothing wrong and I just blew it.  I told her how I can't get that moment in time back but that I wish so much I could.  I told her I was sorry.  She hugged me back tightly and accepted my apology, but honestly she had every right not to.  It was just so shitty of me.

And then I did it again. 

I didn't throw anything this time and it wasn't directed at Dia, but I did it again. 

On the way to the Cube we got stuck in a huge traffic jam.  It took an extra hour to get there.  Once finally there, I paid $4 for parking but there was no parking.  Eventually, after doing several laps through their parking lot, I was forced to go park at the nearby mall.  The one that you can park in for free.  I've spent $4 to park in the free parking at the mall and there's no parking there either.  As I'm driving around searching for one empty spot, my mind is racing with "it took so long to get here, it's going to close in a few hours, it's packed so we won't be able to play with anything and this whole idea sucks."  So I express that.  AT TOP VOLUME.  Yup - driving around the mall parking lot, trying to find a single parking space, I am screaming at the top of my lungs about how much this sucks.  And?  Dia starts crying again.  (Again... reminding you that she is NOT used to this out of me at all, so I'm scaring her no end.)  "Pop the bubbles, Mama" she cried desperately "Pop the negative bubbles."

Sigh. 

I found a parking space, parked, got her out of the car seat, picked her up and carried her all the way to the Cube.  Quietly this time, I talked to her the whole way saying I was so sorry, I was done with the tantrums and no matter what she was the best thing in my life that day and I was so happy to be alive to have her. 

We ended up having a wonderful day despite me.  We met my mom for dinner before driving back up to L.A.  It was a nice little Chinese restaurant and Dia ordered vegetable egg rolls that were supposedly quite delicious.  I don't know because she wouldn't share them with me.  "After your behavior earlier today, do you think you deserve them?" she asked.  "No, sweetie, I don't in a million years."  I thought that was completely fair.

Kec