Life's been good to me so far

I do not even know where to begin. I've let this thing go for too long.

It's wild, just nuts, how different I feel when I'm really engaged with people and the world (as opposed to spending all my time alone with my kids in our house, with very minimal adult interaction). It is truly the difference between feeling mentally ill, as opposed to being like, "Wait what? I have PTSD? I guess technically I do." Sometimes I feel sad about this, because I used to be so (relatively) content to be home alone with my children. Other times - like now - I feel really happy that such a simple thing can make such a huge difference. Things get complicated because I can be very picky about who I really want to spend time with...

Many things have changed over the years on my Myers Briggs test results, but the most significant and startling was definitely watching my stubborn, moderate "i" turn to a just-over-the-line "e," last year.


I'm sitting here tonight, agitated and stressed with everyone else asleep, wondering what the hell my problem is - and it occurs to me that this is the first day in weeks that I haven't seen anyone that doesn't live in my house. There were other reasons to be stressed: a bank error I had to spend awhile on the phone about, some tedious crafting time with Elise that really took a tremendous amount of patience, realizing at the last minute during cooking that I was missing a crucial dinner ingredient... But all that is just life, it's the kind of shit that happens every day and hasn't been tying my shoulders in knots until today. Maybe it's isolation. Maybe it's not. There was a lot of arguing with Aaron about cleaning his room, and a lot of moodiness out of Jake, and a lot of Annie eye rolling and Isaac homework procrastination.

Still and all, I could list three times as many positive things about each of them. So. *shrug*

---

Previous non-isolation:
G and I had an awesome trip to Maryland ♥ Grant had enough flyer miles and hotel points stored up from business trips that we could fly and stay for free, and his mom was here in town with a friend for a couple of weeks, and spent those days with our kids. So, all we had to pay for was food! Totally awesome, and he has a ridiculous amount of paid time off accrued since he rarely uses it. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday exploring Maryland together, which was just fucking great. It was all awesome sex and sweet cuddling and a picnic in the park and a picnic on our hotel room floor. We walked all over and found great farmer's markets and a cool Thai restaurant and an interesting Ethopian place. The weather was lovely, we laughed a ton - it was really cool to be on foot and transit for a few days with no car whatsoever attached to me. Talk about a paradigm shift.

Then he left, Sunday night, to come home, and I stayed at my friend Kristin's house Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. She works in the evenings, so I was free for those hours. One evening I took Jenne/the_waker to that Thai place I mentioned, which was awesome. I hadn't seen her since she came by Dama/mommydama's place while we were there with newborn Elise in 2007. I think we could be really close friends if we just lived closer together. Totally easy and natural to hang out with her and talk about ANYTHING.

Another evening I met Amy/tumblr user Bohemianelitist, with her kids and Kristin's kids (who I love, and have known for a decade...they're like family and only moved up there 6 months ago). We had great food and then moved over to a playground. The time went too fast.

I was going to meet Ruth/former lj'er "meileki," but she got too booked up at the last minute by a high needs kid and study demands, which was disappointing but I totally understand (obviously).

Staying up til 4am laughing with Kristin after she got off was great, as it always is. And her brunch spreads were fantastic. And her kids are pretty much what I would call friends, 8 and 11 though they may be :)

The week+ since we've been back from Maryland has also been a connected, networking sort of week. I didn't really experience the coming down of a vacation being over, because:

-My mother in law was still down and visiting and wonderful until a couple of days ago. She is really great. I got so lucky in the mother in law department.
-I spent a half hour at our evaluator's house talking when I picked up all our forms. We have enough in common that this can be an actual good time.
-Cybele and I caught up for at least that long, when I dropped Aaron off to hang out with Adrian. They've been gone all summer.
-The most recent weekend at home Grant and I had was riding high on the utopic chemistry of the previous weekend away (we barely see each other during the work week, it's mostly texting honestly).
-Laura brought the kids over one afternoon and we all sat around the bar eating and the library floor talking.
-Shaun came to dinner last night, with his new girlfriend. We pulled out all the stops (my husband actually made two different meals) and it was a pretty cool time.
-Aaaaaand a bunch of little things - needing to run errands and interact in small ways, meeting Isaac's new teacher, bringing the snack for Annie's derby team this last practice, all that sort of stuff that I don't even think I care about, but, what do I know. It probably makes a difference.

Tomorrow, my Fall semester begins. We had a big family meeting tonight before bed about the kids' meals and activities (Grant is working from home when I'm in school, so though here we need to have enough stuff set up in advance that they aren't constantly interrupting him).

I'm sure I was going to say more. Sure I gotta go to bed.

I'll leave this with a bunch of pics that will be outdated, if I don't hurry...

I had to take a picture one day when I realized that I was treading water in the deep end, with all five of my kids nearby - not a flotation device in sight - and we were all just hanging out, casually having a conversation.

It really hit me like, "Whoa." I kept counting them, unable to process that they were all there and everything was so simple and easy.



Diner (breakfast for) dinner.



Yes, that diner is actually in a pharmacy O_o

This is Elise before GMYS camp one morning, Isaac the day they were going to perform, and the three of them after the performance...


My "little kids," at 7, 9 and 6...

This is Elise after she went around and found all the pieces of that table, reassembled it, and started doing her art outside, and Jake doing a trick he learned at camp with water and vinegar (making tones sound by running his finger along the tope of the glass...pitch changes based on water level).


Ananda and Aaron, after breakfast one morning and waiting for me in the FIU library while I took a makeup exam.


Ananda came home from Mia's house with this lovely hair...we were at a coffee shop in the Gables that afternoon :)


We kinda look alike.


More than 5 years, we've had Aaron's cat, Peter...and finally he's starting to almost, sort of trust me.

I honestly think it's because I quit acting like it's preposterous and just accepted that he understands English, and speaking to him like I do people. Now, I can put him at ease. He is the weirdest and most complicated animal I've ever known, and the 11 year old cat I had who died, before we moved into this house - was a pretty developed personality.

Three thirsty chickens.


There are a lot of pictures of everything from Elise's doodles and her and Jake's cross stitching, to Maryland trip pics galore, on my tumblr in the personal tag. On the second page there's also a montage of my trip to Fairchild Tropical Gardens, with the big kids and our friends Gloria and LJ, a screencap of my grades and some degree planning, and many other random things :)

( Long post, photos throughout, mildly Elise-centric )

For those of you waiting on an Andrea update, I don't have one. The last thing that was posted on facebook, I posted on the previous comment thread. As soon as I know something, I will relay it.

I went ice skating yesterday. It rocked. At first I was shaky, but then something clicked from when I used to ice skate all the time and I was FLYING, and all that cold air in your face...♥ It was Grant and Aaron and I. Aaron got really fast, too. And then he was jumping and spinning, because he is Aaron. Probably if we took him everyday he'd be in the Olympics by the time he was 15. Sometimes I feel remiss for not pushing him in one focused direction whether he likes it or not. Mostly I'm just sure he would not.

Really though, disco ball colors on ice, and Lady Gaga's Paparazzi -

Wait, I don't like Lady Gaga? Right? Don't'nt I? Well, I went doing some e-search and found that...I sort of do. At least insofar as I didn't realize she actually has a pretty strong voice and can play piano and writes her own songs (all surprises) and then I saw her interviews on Ellen and realized she is a total nerd and sounds so likeable. And I like Speechless too. So there it is. I inadvertently found out that Madonna took (her 13 year old daughter) Lourdes to a Gaga concert and Lourdes was dancing on tables and things because she is this huge Lady Gaga fan.

Aaaaaaanyway. I found as I left the skating rink that the cold was not bothering me on some deep emotional PTSD level, and that was pretty rad. I think it might be worthwhile for me to do that more often just for the positive associations to build up.

Speaking of which - it is IN THE 30S HERE, tonight and tomorrow night. This is intense for us. All our blankets go in the dryer before we head to bed.

We've been on a 13 hour odyssey of watching The Lord of the Rings with Ananda and Aaron this Christmas holiday. Which is about to come to an end when Grant goes back to work, and chores and schoolwork resume - tomorrow. They love it. We do about an hour a night, with an average of I'd say two pauses for explanations and making sure they understand what's going on. It's weird how...mockable and ridiculous...parts of it seem to me now. It was the movie that invented Epic, back in the day, but now..I don't know. It's good! But. *shrug*

Today, Grant took Ananda, Aaron and Isaac to Mass while Jake, Elise and I did a mass cleanup of my bedroom and bathroom. It was way overdue. Then I took the two littles and drove up to meet G and the bigger ones at his mom's house. She sat with them all while he and I shot over to the farmer's market and got tons and tons of produce for next to nothing. Then we went back and Grant and his mom made salsa. We all drove down from there to the park to meet my Dad, who had come from Key West for the day to meet Laura's new baby. It's cool that my kids are starting to really know and be comfortable around him. And I like being honest with my Dad. There's more honesty between us since Thanksgiving. Like I told him today that I feel like Grant and I must be the stiffest squares ever in his eyes, and he was interrupting me, appalled, at how he feels like he did something right because hopefully some of the talking we did when I was young made me the way I am, yada yada yada.

I gave my brother the task of making a plan for the coming week, today. It's supposed to tell what he's going to do each day. I asked him if he had worked on it and he said, "Oh yeah. I put 'Get a job' for one day and 'spend time with kids' for another". Totally sincere. *headdesk* So yeah, we went over how breaking down things like "Get a job" into individual steps could help his success. Things like, "Spend this afternoon mastering the bus scheduling and fare system" and "this is the morning I go tour JobCorps - approve with whoever is taking me ahead of time" and so on.

I've stalled long enough with the massive kitchen cleanup that needs to be happening...So off I go. BUT!

I have this new thing. By following this link, you can "ask me anything". Obviously you could also do that in the comments of any entry or via email, except that to others, apparently, that is not obvious at all. Also you can be anonymous, which I know by now is the only way many people know how to operate honestly. I don't mean for that to sound so snippy. Whatevs. Anyway, I've enjoyed watching the questions roll in on a couple of other peoples', so here is mine -
http://www.formspring.me/altarflame

I'm waiting, waiting all the time for a call to come that means Pa is dead. And wondering if my Dad will be able to call right away, or if he'll want to calm down first, or...

And thinking how glad I am that we got pictures and a card sent before it was too late, and that I got to visit him at the hospital before it was over, but mostly thinking about the huge chasm between the close interaction and looming significance of him, when we were kids...and this little bit of something, re-established at the very end. In between...well, I went to Key West three times in a month this year and I never stopped to see him :/ I mean it was special circumstances...the death of my other grandfather with my grief stricken mother in tow, a first weekend away for Grant and I wherein I saw no relatives and was on vacation, and a day trip for a baby shower that meant we only had a few hours on the island. Still and all. Bah. It starts to seem so hard - without Ma there to make it "Ma and Pa" there was no constant flow of relatives in and out, no endless interrupting-each-other conversation, no loud arguments to roll your eyes at, or huge meals always ready to be served up on plates...just him, chain smoking, hard of hearing and not one to intiate conversation much, in his tiny efficiency apartment with the tv always on. And that should be enough...I would want it to be enough, if it were me. If it is me.

He was the Easter Bunny, sneaking out to hide treasure and then telling us it was out there. He had a riding lawn mower I drove. He used to wake us at dawn so we could sneak to the windows and see deer in the yard, when they lived in central Florida. He made us "snack plates" that Laura and I both think of as perfectly current and appealing food. He LOVED Elise, the single time he met her, which was just last week. And told my Dad over the phone all about her, right down to how soft her hair is.

---

I felt really heavy and awful all evening. Grant was home late, again, he stops at his mom's on the way and checks on her. He doesn't really understand her condition because she wants to downplay it or talk about other things and Mindy exaggerates and dramatizes to the point of being fantasy... Somewhere in the middle it seems like she absolutely must quit smoking, needs to get away from her job and from stress asap, is having more doctor's appointments than usual and is taking new medications. She went back to work yesterday. I seriously cannot stand it for her to be in danger, too. From my perspective or Grant's.

My Nana got denied entry to the rehab place they were all so excited about, because based on doctors' reports they don't think she can handle the intensive therapy they offer :/ It leaves her with really unappealing options like going home unable to move one side of her body aside from a hand and wrist, yet, still with vision impaired and some major confusion, or checking into a nursing home, which is not really an option for them...they're trying to appeal. I selfishly think of how Christmas is never going to be the same as though it is a blow to my stomach. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.

Grant led me to bed after dinner and we layed together and I cried and he talked and I talked and we kissed and so on and so forth and by the time I came out shaky legged and warm to get kids into bed (he has to be up ultra early...) I felt like I lost 50 pounds of foreboding. I love that man.

---

This is the second night in a row that, with everyone else long sleeping, I have stayed up until past one am with Ananda and Aaron, reading 3 chapters at a time of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in my office. It takes longer than normal Harry Potter because we have to stop almost every page while Aaron works out a plot point that's giving him trouble, Annie excitedly expounds on some theory or other she thinks she has that explains every mystery, or we deal with something incredibly scary/sad/angering. We read The Tales of Beedle the Bard between Half Blood Prince and DH and they liked that and I was trying to stall, but really, it was so, SO fast. And between the harrowing ending and the trailers they're addicted to, for #6, I couldn't torture them anymore. I love it that they know those Tales, now, though, because it makes book 7 all fall into place so much better to be familiar with them first...Their room is plastered in HP posters from a book they bought with their own money, and Ananda is already asking me if I can make her bigger robes so she can be Ginny or Tonks for Halloween (they've long outgrown the ones I did for a costume 3 years ago...though the scarves still work, and that was the time consuming part).

We have to get the invitations and solid date and time and all ready, tomorrow, for her birthday party...she's having a formal tea for her birthday, of all things. Like, gloves and hats and I imagine I can find a lace tablecloth at a thrift store somewhere...I can't believe she's going to be NINE. 9. I have very clear memories of my own time being nine. I read Beaches, Stephen King's Misery and a Jim Morrison biography and went from a New Kids on the Block obsession to a burdgeoning interest in Motley Crue, that year. I wore pink flamingo earrings made of foam, that actually laid on my shoulders, and ripped up jeans, and those slap bracelets...I had a crush on a girl named Lula and nightmares about my mother dying. I stayed late after school to play chess with my teacher and won an award for a poem I wrote. I called everyone "Babe" and wrote "Tonight Hernandez" on my school work, insisting that was my name.

Obviously she is not me O_o (THANK GOD)

So far, for her presents, I've gotten her a vibrating, snarling Monster Book of Monsters that opens or belts closed from Amazon, a blue tshirt that says "I", then a picture of an owl, and then "U", and a silver fairy ring. It's all en route to our house.