Just Call Me Dr. Google… April 16, 2009

When I was a little girl, I was dubbed “A bull in a china shop” by the bitchy Grandma. Wow at 33 years old, I can still hear her saying those words.

Recently, I have been talking to someone who has Adult ADD and she was describing ME.

So I decided to consult Dr. Google. After reading the symptoms I felt as if someone jumped into my brain and typed up all the things I have been struggling with since oh I don’t know… the 4th grade maybe? I took the test, you know the one, at the end it disclaims that it is not a diagnosis but gives you a score and depending on such score it tells you if you should A. Not worry, you’re fine or B. Get thee to a Medical Professional immediately. Well, Dr. Google thought I should get off the damn computer and make an appointment. Apparently the only symptom of this that I did not exhibit was the hyperactivity but it does explain why my feet are always moving… a habit that drives The Old Man bat shit.

My car or my apartment for that matter is a metaphor for what has been happening in my brain as long as I can remember. It is a cluttered, trashy, mess. It is a conscious effort to remember to do simple tasks like brush my teeth or put on deodorant hence I have a whole arsenal of toiletries in my desk drawer at work for such occasions. I have 6 different hair brushes because it is easier to have one in every room so I know I can always find one… but I can NEVER. FIND. ONE! I have never gotten the hang of paying bills, balancing checkbooks, making and sticking to appointments. It is not because I don’t have the money to pay them. There is no reason with my salary that I cannot support our family. Yes, it would still be tight but there is no reason I can’t pay my bills or my rent on time. You know, and it is not because I can’t do the math either. I just can’t bring myself to add those things into my daily regimen… I forget, I procrastinate, and I forget. I totally under/over estimate how long something will take. I start projects only to leave them undone and start sill other projects. I cannot hold my concentration on reading material except if it is really interesting and even then. If it were only one or two of these symptoms, even four? would not mean that I have this problem but I had all but one of them.

My thinking has always been so disjointed and so garbled. I have struggled with a low-grade (and sometimes not-so-low-grade) depression my whole life. Apparently people with ADD are at a higher risk of depression and/or anxiety. In fact ADD often goes undiagnosed because it is attributed to depression/anxiety instead. Those silly ADD folks just can’t seem to take their freaking medicine… imagine that.

So hey, perhaps, these aren’t character flaws. Maybe I am not just an unorganized, undisciplined mess of a failure… maybe this thing has a name. Maybe, if it has a name there is also a solution; a wonder drug perhaps. Maybe I will be able to get my life together for once.

Appointment is set for the end of April.

It is that time of year… April 10, 2009

Peep Photo deleted… apparently nyc dreamer was not amused…—-

I am not Christian. I celebrate the pagan/commercial version of Easter. Now, I believe in God and I love the nice sentiments of what Jesus said when it is not being wildly misconstrued. I do think the last thing he would want to see if he ever graced us with his physical presence would be a cross and quite possibly we would treat him like a psycho cult leader if he ever announced he was here amoung us. All that said… I think the man could get behind the consumption of Peeps in his name.

“Do this in remembrance of me” or “”Body of pastel baby chicks for you.”

Peeps are my favorite part of Easter/Ostara/Spring. I know they make them now for other holidays but for some reason the Easter ones taste a litlte different to me.

My sweet & lovey cousin Nick Nak mentioned a great idea to us one year and we have observed this particular tradition in our house ever since… We roast the pastel baby chicks over a candles flame and eat them toasted to a crisp. It makes this yummy confection that much better.

Peeps don’t last long at our house. They barely make it into the easter baskets. Sometimes the Easter bunny takes a bite out of the Peeps head just to let Mogo know that the bunny likes them too.

It is dangerous when you start talking to yourself… April 8, 2009

Rattle Snake Canyon

Originally uploaded by MogosMama

Dear Me,

This is a reminder… WWI was not your fault. WWII also had nothing to do with you; you were not even born yet Sheesh. The plight of starving children in Malawi will not be solved by you this week. People go through stuff and you are not required to fix it. There is no fix for much of this stuff anyways. When things seem like they are going to bring about the apocalypse; just remember its really just normal everyday life stuff and you have no control over the outcome. Yes, I know how you feel about control and no you still don’t have any!

Oh and hey do me a favor will ya? Allow folks to feel whatever they are feeling. Feelings are not right or wrong. And quit using the words “should” and “you always” or “you never” they are not helpful. You have to take ownership of your own feelings and you can’t go taking offense if others don’t follow your script. You don’t have to take everybody’s emotional temperature all the time and BTW it is really annoying when you do so knock it off.

Now after all that… there are things that you have SOME control over – paying your bills on time, making sure that everything is packed BEFORE moving day, feeding your small children, eating food with ingredients that you can pronounce, and a walk around the block never hurt anybody… those things are your business. Get off your fanny and get moving.

Oh and, BTW… Love is an action word.

Love,
You

Personality/Pregnancy Differences April 6, 2009

Mogo & Charlie

Originally uploaded by MogosMama

I suppose it is a given that Mogo & Charlie are so different. I am not really sure why that surprises me. Their personalities are as different as their pregnancies were. I did not post often when I was PG with Charlie. This was mainly because I was trying not to dwell on the fear, I was trying to put only positive energy into the universe where pregnancy was involved but also because I knew that the thoughts floating in my brain were not the type to say out loud until well after the fact. Now that Charlie is 7 months old and passed the point where my PPD reared its ugly head with Mogo, I feel I can talk a little about it. I think I have escaped without falling into a black hole.

With Morrigan, my pregnancy was long. After multiple pregnancy losses and some complications requiring 5 months of bed rest, I was filled with anxiety but the post partum was far worse. In the beginning, all was well but slowly I developed a severe case of PPD. Wow, those were some of the darkest days of my life. It took over a year after giving birth to Mogo for me to feel somewhat “normal” again. Now, with Charlie, the pregnancy was normal with the exception of a little thing called Gestational Diabetes. Depression and anxiety showed up much earlier for Charlie’s pregnancy though, those very dark days were met with instant relief the minute she entered the world. Toward the end, I was going absolutely mad. The insomnia, the nightmares about dead babies, all were just so hard to handle. It was a 1 day at a time sort of thing, sometimes it was 1 minute at a time to get through it. I was so scared. I lived at the Labor & Delivery Triage – seriously the nurses knew me and tried hard not to roll their eyes. I had an open invitation to have Charlie’s heartbeat checked any hour of the day. Eventually, Charlie was taken early… for my sake, not hers. I simply could not last another day of not knowing if she would live. Despite the fact that she was perfect and growing beautifully, I was certain the longer she stayed in there the more danger she was in. I simply had to have that baby out – she would be safer in a NICU than in my belly as far as I was concerned. It was so irrational and I knew it was irrational, but it did not stop being true… in my mind anyways. My OB/GYN was awesome. She humored me, she understood, but she also helped to encourage me to hang in there as long as possible. In the end, she agreed that my mental state was not helping Charlie or my blood pressure and she agreed to take her early. I actually showed up at L&D and told them I intended to have my baby that day. No, I was not in labor but I was done and I was not leaving there without a baby. One look at my Old Man confirmed that no, I was not kidding.

You know… I am grateful Charlie was ok and that the only consequences of my impatience were a lazy suck and some formula supplementation. I got off easy. I can only imagine the guilt that would follow had she experienced any complications as a result of my insistence that she make her birth date 3 weeks too soon.

Since her birth, there has been no depression, no horrifying thoughts. The only pictures in my mind have been of bouncing babies and not babies bouncing (as in down the stairs). Charlie has been able to have a Mom that is present; a mom that is clear-headed and sane. She seems so innocent and so new to the world unlike her sister, who always seemed to have this very old soul. I am grateful that I am not experiencing PPD this time but I can’t help but feel like Mogo was cheated. When Mogo was born, I was elated. I had so much joy about her entry into this place that the love seemed to physically hurt. The fear was debilitating. It went so far beyond waking up and checking to see if she was breathing. My jaw would not unclench, my hands shook, and I became concerned that I would neglect her or hurt her. I did not think I was safe to be alone with my own daughter. I knew something was wrong but I thought if I told anyone, they would take her from me. It wasn’t until I decided I was nuts enough that maybe someone should take her from me that I spoke up. I avoided inpatient treatment by the skin of my arse. I was determined to nurse. The only reason they let me go home was because I had a good support system. Matt would leave for work and wonder what he would be coming home to. Sometimes I wonder if he will ever forgive me for that. I am not sure I could forgive it.

Granted, I got the help I needed. Mogo has continued to develop normally and we are bonded; I just can’t help but think that she was cheated out of something very important because her mom went crazy for the first year of her life. I wonder if when she is a woman and starting to think about having her own children, if she will understand when I tell her about what PPD looks like. I wonder if she will be angry with me or feel somehow less loved that I did not have the same problem with Charlie. It just doesn’t seem fair that Mogo has not been able to experience a carefree childhood. She has experienced so much in her little life. She is wise beyond her years. I don’t know if that is because of her experiences or if she arrived in the womb that way. I would like to think that perhaps she chose us because her spirit knew she could handle it. I’d like to think that I am not the reason my 6 year old talks to me like she is 40.

Spring Has Sprung… April 3, 2009

Charlie the Bunny

Originally uploaded by Minarae

THis is Charlie @ 7 months doing her impersonation of Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

It is spring! Hooray! Spring cleaning! Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs! Hardboiled Eggs that have been dyed a color never to be found in nature! Cadbury Cream Eggs! Fuzzy Bunny Ears! (We love fuzzy bunny ears when they grace the top of a head so sweet) Oh, and Pagan celebrations of rebirth and fertility! (I will stop short of running around nekkid in the moonlight.) I love spring even with all the sneezes and allergies that plague my house this time of year.

and, in the spirit of Spring and, new beginnings and the associated symbolism of whatnot… this little clan of ours is moving again – starting over if you will. The rent on our teeny 2BR/2BA apartment has been raised from “God Awful” to “That is Freaking Ridiculous” and the burden of making it from paycheck to paycheck with out selling myself on a street corner has become too much. So, we are moving to a smaller place where I can afford the not quite God Awful rent and perhaps I will save myself a few hundred dollars per month. I need that. I really, really do.

With all this change, Mogo gets a few changes of her own. She will be starting a new school in the fall and she is very excited. To be honest, I am a little excited too. She will be attending a brand new school with all the current technology and it even has… wait for it… it has a library – with a librarian even. She could you know, check out books to read and forget to bring them back and I will be responsible for her incessant late fees but COME. ON. NOW… A school MUST have a library. There is some sort of a rule about that isn’t there? The school she is at currently? No library. In fairness, I should say there is a library but since there is no librarian, the children are not allowed to use it and that? Well, that is preposterous to me. So this will be a good change. BTW… have I mentioned that the State of CA can kiss my lily white arse? The budget cuts to San Diego Unified are absolutely unconscionable. Our government really ought to be ashamed of themselves but that is a post for another day.

Keeping with the new beginnings theme, I am attempting to simplify my life. I am downsizing the amount of crap we have. I am throwing out clothes I have not worn in at least a year and I have vowed that I will have clean surfaces and vacuumed carpeting. I will have dishes in the appropriate cupboards and I will fold AND put away my laundry. I will not continue to have a disaster zone for a home.

Ok well, I vow to work hard to have all those things be true. My little bunny eared girl is going to be crawling soon and I really just have to make things safe for her to do that.

I will keep you posted.