Life's been good to me so far

I am really at a loss as to how I can slow down, be happier, relax, and still give all of my kids everything that they need. Stretching helps. Meditating helps. Drinking enough water and making sure I step outside often enough is nice. Lots of things help for anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes.

It's WONDERFUL to be able to go and go and go, again, now that my shots have taken effect and I'm no longer sick, exhausted, and in pain. But I don't know how to relax, now. Part of that is that there is so much to do, part is that I was pushing myself through much worse conditions than "plain old" mental exhaustion and tension, and so my cues for when to scale back are totally screwed up now.

There is also a combination of real backed up work (at school, with our house, mostly with each kid) that snowballed while I was napping, weeping, and/or sitting in waiting rooms, and my own terrible self conscious guilt about how much of that all backed up. I think on some emotional level I feel like however much it hurt, however hard it was to cope with, however terrible living at doctor's offices can be, I focused on me a whole lot for a long time. And it worked! I'm better now! But it seems selfish to focus on me anymore, at all, as a result.

And I'm...frenetic. There may be an element of my body and brain readjusting to having ENOUGH B-12 again? Because I feel almost jittery at times, like a constant caffeine buzz. I can't stop moving my feet around when I'm sitting there. I was really in a fog for months, so, it's got it's benefits as I DO ALL THE THINGS, but O_O

I have also turned a significant corner, in therapy, as of about 2 months ago, and I feel radically less triggery and ptsd'd out ever since. It's there, but it's so much less a hindrance than it's been in years past that I feel...free? Normal? It's big. And, again, that's great. But, again, without having terrible depression or internal freakouts when I don't take care of myself...I just kinda don't take care of myself. I'm realizing things randomly, like, wow, I haven't spoken to a friend, any friend, even online or in text, in a WEEK. Or, I haven't went and exercised in...TWO WEEKS?!

All my resources are just going to this deficit I've built up, since I can attend to that deficit now.

After teaching my kids all Friday morning; taking all 5 of my kids to the dentist Friday afternoon; blitz-cleaning with them for a frantic hour; and then hosting Laura and her kids and Shaun and his girlfriend, plus baking and frosting a big cake that night (Grant cooked dinner) - then I woke up super early Saturday morning and took A&A with all their supplies up to audition at the arts charter. It's far, it took many hours. When we were back home I tried to chill out and just water and prune all my plants, talk to Elise, enjoy Grant making soup, but it's like I can't kick the manic anxiety of having already pushed myself too hard. Because this is just a close-up example of how ALL THE DAYS, strung together, with no rest days, have been for weeks. Last night at the "end" of obligations, he and I got in a stressful conversation about his work stress, his self esteem issues, his generalized fears and things that do and don't effect our relationship. I cleaned our entire (gross) bathroom to take a bath and relax, and then laid awake in bed until 3 am. This morning, I had to be up by 8 making a huge breakfast for everyone before taking Annie up to her end-of-the-year mentoring showcase performance, where the rest of the family eventually met us.

I don't even wanna list it all, everything we've done today. Or Thursday, before I arbitrarily started the last paragraph. Every day lately is too much, never stopping. It makes my head hurt to even start with the listing. Last Wednesday, which was overwhelming, Grant wanted to budget and then plan the logistics of how today would go, and by the time we were almost done I felt like I was going to cry. "Normally," historically, things might SOUND overwhelming on paper but in each moment I was chill and ok and so things really did just SOUND that way. I don't know why that seems so challenging now. It's like the last piece of the puzzle I'm just not getting - how to be present and enjoy stuff as it's happening. How to ride the wave. I've been riding the wave by coping with things that are NOT getting done, for too long :/

I'm not yelling or angry. I do probably seem hyper or irritable at times, though often I keep that together, too, and it's just an internalized pressure buildup as I stretch further and further.

I go in these circles, that are comprised partially of these things:

-what can I let go of?
-part of the problem is definitely all the driving
-we can't afford to live closer to things
-I'm not willing to let things go
-I feel like it's totally unacceptable to punish any one of our kids for how many kids we have. Like that is not even an option. Whatever they need individually is irrelevant to our family size, in my mind.
-is it fair, right, natural or ok, for parents to sacrifice SO MUCH of their entire adult lives for their kids? For how many years? It wasn't expected or common until very recently; kids fit into existing adult lives. Not the other way around. I don't want to be that parent. They need to see a model of a wholly realized person who is happy in their own life...don't they?
-but, yeah, that is on me, that I had 5 of them, of course that will be massive and often take over my life completely for long periods.
-and they each have a LOT of unattended, unstructured time. There are just a lot of them, so it adds up quickly when the attention and structure is so often coming from me. I don't have even one overbooked kid who doesn't get hours to do whatever they want at home, every single day. It is truly just cumulative effort because of the number of kids.
-this is going to get harder before it gets easier, I just know it is.
-can we afford a housekeeper?


I don't know how much it plays in, but Grant thinks it's HUGE and not something I'm giving myself enough credit for, that I've been strictly on weight watchers for over a month. I normally (my entire life...) do a lot more food-for-coping. He's probably right. I chew absurd amounts of gum.

I have a couple of hours here alone right now. Before opening this, I was using them to read health psych (heart disease and diabetes chapter). But I am so keyed up, sore, unrested, I don't know HOW to relax.

I don't know HOW to be happy. Like I know all the reasons why I should be happy and I'm not sad, exactly, just frustrated with... I don't even know what :/ "Just" frustrated. Random frustration.

I mean I'm playing Enya, naked, drinking hibiscus tea. Attempting to very leisurely read my chapter's slide show. And I'm a kinked-muscle mess (eventually giving up and composing this entry).


I suppose that, taken as a whole, the problems I have are about getting better in huge ways and transitioning to improvements. I just have to zoom out and see it that way intentionally, at times.

*deep breaths*

One thing I really, really need is more breaks AWAY from my children. ALL of them. Grant's talking about giving me a couple of hours each Tuesday evening. I sometimes have Sunday afternoons, though they are (supposed to be) for studying and cleaning.

I can't do what I did when they were much younger and just stay up half the night by myself every night, any more, and without that break in between the sort of days we have I start to crack up. Maybe I'll use those Tuesday night hours to host a "book" (wine) club, or something that is easy but would actually gain me some adult interaction. I really, really need adult interaction.

My kids are being so funny, just cracking me up. Today for instance Jake (who will be THREE in a couple of weeks, of all the insanity) told me he had to go outside to get his "journal out of the van". I thought I heard him wrong; "Your journal, out of the van?" "Yes!". We let him go look, he found nothing. I thought he might be going after a spiral notebook or something? Then a little while later we figured it out - their Diego megablocks have a tiny little laptop computer that you can stick on a megablock, and the sticker portion that used to show nonsense text on the itty bitty monitor had come off of it. That (the sticker representing words on a computer) is what he was calling his journal O_o I had no idea he was even aware I blogged :p

During homeschool today Aaron asked me, "What did the phonics workbook say to the math workbook? ...It said, 'You've got problems!'"

And as we finished up with dinner, Isaac cleared his space and then started running back and forth across the entire house, waving his hands around over his head yelling "I'm the cops! I'm the cops! I'm the cops!"

I can only imagine the state we'd be in if there was more tv around here ;)

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My latest health worry is my heart. I've had chest pains probably...I don't know...5 or 6 times, maybe more, since last Fall. And, when I first got out of the hospital, I would get really freaked out sometimes because it seemed as though anytime I was laying down, I could feel my heart just pounding and racing in my back. It was very similar to how it feels in late pregnancy when you have all that extra blood, for those of you who know how that is, but you know...I wasn't pregnant, so it was weird. I've had two instances of numb and tingling arm and hand. This all sounds very alarming but spread out over 11 months, feeling otherwise ok, and in and amongst being only 26 and recently really feeling as though I was dying - because I WAS - I don't know, it just seemed easy to let go. It still does, really. But.
-For the past few weeks I've been having increasing shortness of breath. I feel sometimes like I did after I got out of that last bout of general anesthesia, when I couldn't pass the breath test and it was a struggle to talk. It's not usually that bad, but it IS usually something I'm aware of. At first I attributed it to gaining weight and still having to wear this sausage casing-like girdle thing for my ab muscles as it gets EVEN TIGHTER...but I've admitted in the past 10 days or so that I still feel like that even when I don't have the thing on. Then today I found out at my therapist's office reading WebMD magazine that unexplained shortness of breath is one of several symptom of impending heart attack. Along with...
-indigestion. Now, I have been attributing the really weird indigestion I always seem to have since I was released, and never had before, to having an NG tube shoved down because I know that can mess up your stomach lining and at least once it really was forceably shoved down...I woke up flipping out fighting with a nurse from some weird drugged out dream :x Anyway, now I wonder if it is another heart thing, because...
-my heart had to deal with being at 120-150bpm (with me laying semi-conscious no less) for, like...3 solid days. I am only 26, but that complication can make it a whole other ballgame, you know, and...
-I've heard some horrendous shit in the past couple of years around ye olde internet about back to back pregnancies messing up peoples' hearts. There's actually an initiative called "Three to Five Saves Lives" that talks about how women develop blood clots and swollen hearts and all kinds of junk from the rapid, extreme fluctuations in blood volume. I thought this was a lot of bull hockey when I initially heard it but now it's conveniently chiming in with the rest of this cheerful little list.
-And I have and have always had very poor circulation, which is another risk factor.
-And a weird irrational feeling that maybe I don't end up going through labor because God is saving me from certain death as my heart couldn't handle it due to some unknown factor. Eh.

Anyway, yeah, this isn't, like, consuming me, but I am going to make an appointment just to lay it to rest one way or the other. In the meantime I am determinedly NOT googling one damn thing about any of it because, frankly, I'm not up for that kind of anxiety. It's not good for my heart ;)

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Sarah Palin has gone, in my personal perspective, from absentee mother, to great AP'ing-in-office mother, to intriguing cadidate, to HOLY SHIT THIS WOMAN CANNOT BE IN OFFICE.
She is beautiful, and charismatic, and it's great that she has a big family and is not afraid to be honest about her extreme beliefs, as so many politicians are. But...she is so ignorant, so naive, so anti-environment, so ready to set off a nuclear holocaust...I am just really not about it. She is also, the more I dig for information, very small-town politics in the sense of favoritism, leaning her weight on people under her, negative consequences for anyone who tries to get in her way...it's scary. The anti-Palin protests going on in Alaska are really something. The library censorship and book junk? Over the freaking top.

I also learned about things with McCain and his first wife that I didn't know. I am trying not to let it interfere with my opinion of him as a candidate, but it is hard.

More and more I feel like Obama is what the whole world wants to see, NEEDS to see, to like and trust our country again. Obama is what a WHOLE lot of minorities and poor people need to see, to be patriotic and love our nation for the first time in their lives. He's what all the jaded-anti Bush peeps need to rally together, crying over speeches like we haven't since Kennedy. There are things about him I don't like. I am not passionately for Obama the way some people are. But I'm starting to see the "greater good" it will do for our place in this world, for the spirits of the downtrodden, as dramatic as that sounds, and for peacekeeping. Because, let's face it, it doesn't really do the unborn babies any good to be carried to term in a world destroyed by bombs :/

Anyway, that is where I'm at with that, and the McCain/Palin signs I see all over town are starting to frighten me more than anything else. I don't think that the conservative people who are so happy to see their values expressed on the campaign trail are stopping to think about the incredible unrest and anger and upheaval that will be felt throughout not just the left behind in this country, but around the world - from terrorists to governments to medias - when they see what they will perceive as Bush 2.0 elected. I just...can't deal with it. I really think there is potential for the end of the world, through either WW3 or complete environmental decimation. Probably both.

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I had a 2 hour therapy session today. It helped some. The drive up and back, alone, thinking about what I would talk about and what we did talk about, and then rehashing it all tearfully with Grant, were more helpful, but would somehow not be possible without the therapy itself in between, so there you go. "You" being my $200.

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One good perk of being afraid for my heart is the easier time eating better. I'm seriously cutting saturated fats and animal products and it's way simpler than it was just 2 days ago when I was like, "Oh I'm so fat, I have to eat better to lose weight om NOM NOM CHOCOLATE".

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I am far past out of time, and need to get with the getting.

G, the babysitter/nanny, is working out pretty great. Our tentative plan is for her to come on Wednesdays, Thursday and Fridays, from 9-1. So every other week when G is off on Wednesdays, that will give us time to go off on our own and do something together. We also have some Sunday afternoons now that his mom is willing to take them then and they all seem willing to be left there without much drama. Thursdays and Fridays, I'm trying to prioritize...I want to do a lot of schoolwork with A and A during those times, while G's here with the littles, and I'd also like to go swim for an hour at the Y once a week and possibly schedule some of my counseling appointments during her time. Grant really wants me to find a way to write while she's here. I'm having a hard time with the idea...it was such a colossal letdown to NOT get the year or two of full time writing that I've had to shove all that back and just not think about it, again, and so I'm sort of numb to the concept right now and it almost just confuses me when he brings it up. I feel like putting holes in the floodgates for anything less than regular opportunities is just going to have me going nuts with frustration all over again. I'm clinging to the assumption that soon all the kids will be older and I'll be able to write while they sleep, the way I wrote all of Cracked while A and A were in bed at night.

G, though, wow. She talks to them just like I do - no baby talk, and really hearing what they say. She makes eye contact, she squats down, she sits on the floor. She asks leading questions to make them think about things. She also has my exact amount of caution - she's fine with Jake and Isaac jumping on a bed, for instance, but moves in fast if Elise joins them. Things like this were really important to me but I didn't know how to "screen" for them. She handles Isaac so similarly to us, even - last night as she was walking out the door (she'd come later in the day so we could go see "Dark Knight"), Isaac really wanted to open the door for her to go out. But we were doing that hover near the door for half an hour talking thing I always end up doing with guests, before they actually leave, and anytime you open the door Elise makes a beeline for escaping and while you're trying to corral her, Jake shoots out past you. So I told him, G can open the door for herself when she's ready. You can close it behind her. And he was all moody overreacting nonsense, whining and moaning and crying and panicking about it. She said, "You have two choices. You can either close the door behind me like a big boy, or you can do nothing and Jake or I will shut it". He kept repeating that he wanted to open it with a lot of hysterics and she just repeated his options. After the third time, he sucked it up and opted for shutting it. I was impressed.

She also listens to ME, and I really appreciate that...last night she had all five alone for the first time, and I knew Elise would be upset about it at first, and I told her the fail safes for making Elise happy were outside time and the bath. When I got back, I found out she'd cried for the first 20 minutes, off and on, but then G had had her in the (giant) tub with Isaac and Jake or outside with everyone for the rest of the time, and she was fine. Things like this seem obvious but I've had plenty of experience with people acting helpless with one of my stressed kids as if I hadn't given them any options.

My moody and territorial Jake lets her carry him around. She didn't need me to explain about fuzzi bunz or longies because she has plenty of experience with them. She's as comfortable with me sitting there nursing two toddlers as you'd expect a doula who's with naked birthing women every week to be.

It's just really great. We just got two bunnies, and she has one, so it's a bonding point for her and the bigger kids.

She's a lesbian, which is interesting on a few levels. She's in an established, long term live-in relationship and they're planning on her getting pregnant in a year or two via artificial insemination. She'd like to continue working with us long term and possibly bring her own baby along at some point. This is awesome for my weird, insecure self because I don't have to feel any jealousy or insecurity about her around Grant, and yes I am that wack even though I have a completely trustworthy man. It's hilarious because it seems like any time I make a good female friend, all the way back to middle school, they're bi or gay - I even consider "lesbian" to be my musical genre of choice. It's awkward only because we are very obviously practicing, devout Christians. I don't know what G believes, although she's very respectful of our beliefs, but I can't help but hear Ananda's endlessly playing VBS cd through her ears, or wonder what she thinks of some of our art, and wonder if she wonders if I think she's a hellbound freak. It's not something she talks about with the kids, not really because she's actively avoiding the topic but just because it would be weird to bring up your personal relationship with the kids you're watching. I'm sure they'll eventually figure she has a friend and roommate who's a girl, that she mentions here and there to us?

The only thing about her that I don't like isn't her fault at all: it's just strange to have "hired help" with my children. Like, ok, nannies and babysitters do things parents would never deal with, like push a kid on a swing long after the novelty has worn off, or let a preschooler cover them with stickers head to toe and laugh every. single. time. a new one is applied - it's their job, and they go home at the end of it. I used to do these things, when I was a nanny in high school. Play cars on the floor for two solid hours, even though it's just a 30 second loop of play repeating itself 240 times - and never waning in enthusiasm! In a way, this is what I am paying her for and it's how it should be...in another way, I don't know how much I like them being drunk on that kind of power with an adult. Isaac especially cannot get enough of G, this is like his ultimate dream come true.

And, of course, there could easily come a time when Grant and I can't afford her anymore, or just don't need the help anymore, or she could move away or have scheduling conflicts or just get a better gig - basically this is a relationship they're going to get emotionally involved in just like any other, except this is - when you get down to bare bones - a job. She is most likely not going to maintain contact when it's over, you know? It's just kind of strange to me to see my kids all piled on and around someone reading them a story...for hourly pay. It's just weird, like, is she hugging them when she leaves because it's part of the job, or because she wants to hug them? Are there any she's just pretending to like?

Like I said, this is not in any way a reflection on HER, it's just stuff to ponder in any sort of paid childcare arrangement.

I'm still mulling over the idea of cleaning help. I spend A LOT of time cleaning. About an hour out of every day is devoted to floors alone - sweeping, vaccuming, and swiffering. There is at least another hour of "other cleaning" - dishes, laundry, picking up clutter, wiping down counters and tables, all that rot...Once or twice a week I spend 45 minutes just scrubbing the couches and chairs down. The Force Field stain-proofing stuff REALLY works, I've gotten pen marks, lipstick, ground-in cheese that had been stuck on someone's clothing after a meal so it slid past me, all sorts of things out of it - and all with just water and a dish towel! But until I get to it, it really shows every little thing...feet make visible marks on it, sweat discolors it slightly, it's totally gross if Aaron is wiping his nose on things :x I mean, it's beige microfiber, so of course, and yeah it's great to have it looking brand new everytime I clean it, but still it gets old spending 45 minutes going over all the pieces with a fine tooth comb to clean it all off (old stains void the warranty, should you call them about a new stain you can't get out, so I can't let it go or we're out a free couch should we need one...) Sometimes I think I've got it backwards, having hired a person to be my proxy to my kids and then ALSO spending all this time cleaning while they do their own thing later on...shouldn't I be paying someone to clean, so *I* can be mom more often? It's not that simple, though, because I can't afford to have someone coming in and cleaning every day, and they are often doing chores and helping out alongside me, and EVERY cleaning applicant I've had on sittercity is an older lady who can't speak english much, if at all - how in the world can I justify having some 50 year old woman on her hands and knees scrubbing up our messes? And how can I try to convince someone who's been using bleach and who knows what else for 30 years that I don't like chemicals, with a language barrier? I realize they probably really need the work, I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. All of this is just weird, though, having "help" at all is so surreal for me. I really have no idea if I've picked a good schedule out for G or not, as it is - we're both leaving it open for now, to see how we like it...

Counseling is irritating me and making me moody, by dredging up things I don't want dredged up. I think it's for the long term best, but it still mucks up the short term. I mean...it's kind of misleading to even blame "the counseling" when really counseling is gradually fixing things...bah.

I still have a LOT of nightmares. I'm still scared to go to sleep, waking frequently, all that...I'm having the kind of chronic sleep deprivation I've only ever had while Isaac was an infant, or while watching Elise for seizures. And that colors everything, to some degree.

I'm still having trouble not eating my way through every day.

My physical symptoms (discomfort and pain where I had my spinals, tension, sweat and heart palpitations when birth comes up, headaches when I talk about some things, this and that...) are not as severe as they were, but are still there.

The worst ptsd thing, because it's the only thing I can't internalize and deal with by myself, is these crazy ass mood swings that ruin several hours at a time for me/us. It comes out of nowhere, I just suddenly feel so hopeless and bitter and can't even think of anything that would help or make me happy. It annoys me for Grant to try to help, breaks my heart if he doesn't try to help, I want to be left alone and not touched by the kids, I can't stand to stay in but don't want to go out...usually this culminates in some sort of nap (because for whatever reason sleeping during the day is no problem at all), even though I hate that because then I feel like I wasted part of the day sleeping. It's awful. It's never all day long, and it's not every day, but it's a couple of times a week at least and I'm tired of it. Although it seems random, it can also be triggered, and more and more it's triggered by something to do with my diastasis. I increasingly just HATE the thing I have to wear constantly, and yet when I'm not wearing it, I'm so SO aware of this bulbous protruding muscular stuff, and it's all more surgery hanging over my head in the future. It's all the way past surgeries have changed me. It's all scars and violation. I don't yell at people or throw things or go crazy in those sorts of ways...I retreat into mindless cleaning, thinking all the while how I hate it, or find something solitary to do and try to ask all the kids to give me space. I cry at the drop of hat, mostly in a bathroom alone but sometimes in the front seat with Grant. It's ridiculous. don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel

Other than napping, sometimes I can pray my way out of it, and sometimes Elise pulls me out. It's easy to love HER, even when I am in a bad way. I can just lay there passively with my shirt up and her nursing, and she's thrilled. I can just hold and cuddle her, and she's happy and gets me to smile in spite of myself. It doesn't require any explanations, if I'm obviously miserable, and so I often end up not miserable. I love that I am enough for her, as a baby, by simply existing. Also I feel like we have some level of solidarity, having come out of the fire of last year together. Tinaandelise.com, after all...*sigh*

Therapy is basically chronologically moving through my traumas with talking and emdr. We're about to age 11. Divorce, molestation, kidnapping and hurricane, check check check check. I've actually gained a lot of insight and felt lightened and good about a lot of things, regarding the stuff we've already passed. The problem is that now we're dealing with the whole issue of Jud, my x-stepdad, and I know we're moving towards my mother leaving me, and it just all starts to feel like I'm going to drown in it. Like it's a mountain I can't climb. And of course we divert for things as they happen, currently, and things that are bothering me too much to wait about. I'm glad I'm doing it, in the same way I'd be glad I'm getting a splinter out. I have a half-hearted hope that when I'm done, I'll be able to will myself towards getting my abs fixed. But just typing that puts a lump in my throat, so we'll see. This has been...uh...two months? Or three? I'll go with two and a half months of therapy, and we're at age 11. I'm only 26. I imagine the past few years will take a long time, though. Bah. Other than all the chronological trauma crap, we're looking to "change my belief systems" about certain things, like food and whether or not I can sleep through the night without nightmares. I have a homework assignment of sorts that I need to get to at some point. I keep meaning to stay up to date in a paper therapy journal but it hasn't been working out. There's just too much happening.


Everything with Grant is awesome, except for what I put him through when I'm in a funk. Lots of talking and laughing, lots of helping each other, lots of great sex, lots of mutual attraction and mutual appreciation. He makes me laugh, and makes me believe, and it's so great to have these kids together.

I have some pictures I've been dying to post and I will try to get to that soon...I'm on this new laptop, our old computers are still at Grant Sr's house, and this one has neither an FTP prograp or Paint Shop Pro, and those things are usually my picture posting tools.

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I've been thinking some about "my passion for nurturing life". It's so deeply satisfying to me to dig and weed and plant and water, and have filthy hands and sweat all over me afterwards. I love cooking and baking for my family, love nursing and reading to. I love setting up a big pen for the bunnies. It's a good thing. Life, I mean :p It's good to shop for fruit trees in nurseries and to put herbs in my window garden and to see that, somehow, Isaac is writing letters and Aaron is reading books. It's even nice to watch Jake's hair grow back ;)

I think it's really vital to be near kids, once you are no longer a kid. I think it's natural to always have kids around at least in a peripheral way, to remind you of innocence and sincerity and newness. Like Christ said we had to be like little children to see God. I think it's making people cold and depressed, the way it's become normal to spend 10 or 20 years of your adult life around grownups before you decide (maybe) to have a baby. Yeah, I know that's controversial, ask me if I care. People like G our nanny and julierocket make a lot of sense to me, being 20 something childless folks who choose to put themselves around kids as a vocation.

I'd say I'm sorry this is so long, but, well...I'm not.

Yesterday was interesting.

When I first got up I was doing my great torrential hemmorage first period day thing, so I got in the shower. And with some quiet uninterrupted time, after making that big entry the day before, I realized something:

I may have ptsd from the whole emergency c/s, brain injury thing, with Elise.
I may have ptsd from septic shock, small bowel resection and the ICU.

But I DEFINITELY have ptsd from having Jake.

I was looking around doing e-search (can I coin that term? Is it taken? Does it make sense? I like it, by golly) for a long time, night before last, and it seems there are three types of ptsd. There's "avoidant", where you, you know, AVOID thoughts, place or talking about the thing in question, the people connected, etc. There's...uh...ok, give me a minute...RELIVING! That's the second one :p Where you have nightmares, flashbacks, frequently feel back in the situation, etc. And then there's arousal or reactionary or some bs like that, I can't remember what it's called but basically you get super irritable, or have spurts of irrational anger, or both, and things give you heart palpitations and so on.

Well, I spent that whole night (e-searching! haha!) thinking that I see a bajillion symptoms in myself of the second two, but I have no problems with avoiding - I've talked about, thought about and wrote about everything with Elise and the sponge so much!

But then in the shower the next morning I realized how I never talk about or think about Jake. And how it kind of slipped into that entry in a weird way. It was bizarre, I stopped shampooing to feel totally shocked as it all slipped into (very frightening) place.

( Cut for triggering the hell out of me to some ridiculous extent I'm kind of ashamed of, but don't want to have to see on my journal )

I really didn't think it was going to be like that. There are a bunch of other horrible things about that experience that the normal, writing, purging, emotional-exhibitionist part of me wants to go through to justify my feelings, but it's, like...not worth it. Huh.

Alright.

Anyway, the rest of my day was interesting too. And productive. First off, Grant was getting (very understandably) REALLY overwhelmed with the new house...there are just so, so, SO many things to do over there and a lot of it falls to him. I was happy to come up with the idea of walking through the house with him, listing every single thing by room, and then coming home and putting it all in priority order for moving in so that he could say, "Alright. I need to do this, and then I'll move on to that" and check things off systematically. It seems to have worked nicely, since yesterday not a lot happened but today he's over there with an electrician, a plumber, an AC guy and a Lowe's delivery man O_o It was also nice to be there and see things and think about it coming together...the new dishwasher and fridge are installed and working now, and the double oven and toaster oven and microwave are sitting there, albeit on the floor.

Ananda and Aaron did a good chunk of schoolwork. We're doing a lot of intensive spanish right now.

And I focused a LOT of attention on preschool for Isaac, and soccer for Annie...after copious amounts of googling and phone calls, the concensus is:

-Isaac is either not going to go to preschool, or he's going to go to the same private christian preschool I did, but that costs $3200 for the year so it's kind of contingent on several factors. The good public school near me doesn't offer preschool, the ones that do are the worst graded schools in the really dangerous neighborhoods, the freestanding "preschools" are really just daycare that goes up to 4 year olds. Jillene, feel free to stick your tongue out at me, because even the private school vouchers that Florida has readily available in large numbers don't apply until Kindergarden. But this half day program near us is great...they have a snack and play outside, they do art and music and library and computer time, they have bible lessons and they do Abeka all year and come out reading. They have small classes and teachers' aides. It's really nearby, and I went there. Thinking about all this has made me look at all of my kids and think how I will probably send Jake to Preschool and Kindergarden, too. Ananda and Aaron had a lot of weird quirks - she stuttered so badly at Isaac's age, was so shy and self conscious, and yet was totally CRAZILY advanced...Aaron could hardly talk in a "Decipherable to strangers" way at 4, couldn't even listen in a group setting, there was no way. I'm realizing that a whole lot of my intuitively knowing they'd do better at home was about them NOT being "neurotypical". I still think homeschool is the way to go, and that middle school especially is a social disaster in most school settings, but I also think preschool and kindergarden will be great, enriching things for Jake and Isaac that will do them a lot of good. Obviously I don't know yet, with Elise.
-Ananda will start AYSO soccer in the fall, we'll go get her registration done at the Nike Outlet Store in a couple of weeks, and the practice days don't seem to conflict with AWANA. It's only $85 for the season and that includes her uniform, so that's not too bad. I like their "positive coaching" philosophy and their balanced teams and all that. I think it's really interesting how, in studies, the single most important factor in girls waiting longer to have sex as teens, is involvement in sports. Body confidence and good self esteem and all that. Anyway, she's psyched. It was kind of hard for me to let her just let go of ballet after all this time, and we're still sort of considering letting her do it as well, but that might be really difficult...she really wanted soccer more, though, so there it is.

We also watched Brian for 2.5 hour for Laura and Frank, which is sort of a revolution for them - they, like, NEVER leave him anywhere. I watched Brian for an hour once one other time, and that is it.

I've done a whole lot of other crap while typing this, now it's time to get everyone ready and go drop them off at the new house with G and all these experts, so I can go to my ENT appt...I really, really want my ears to be all better. They feel a lot better, and I finished my antibiotics yesterday, so here's hoping, anyway.

Geez, I really have to rush out the door now and didn't even realize this was still open! I made an appt, though...with a therapist, I mean. She's "only" a LCSW, but she's been practicing for 20 years, specializes in ptsd, and is certified for emdr. Mostly, she looks and sounds a lot like Nancy, and I think that's a lot of what I chose her based on.