thankful

I am thankful for many things from the past week.

Occupy New Jersey went off without a hitch.

Our Thanksgiving travels were not nearly as traffic-delayed as I expected.

We spent the weekend laughing with family and eating delicious food.

The weather was a delightful 60 degrees.

There was no barf. No hacking cough. Nary a fever.

And I am thankful for this little corner of the internet where I can send out a desperate cry and someone always, always, always has something to say to comfort me and help me.

Thank you for your comments on my last post. And especially thank you to Deb who read it and asked The Fairly Odd Mother to read it, because she has a daughter who went through something similar. And just knowing that this is A Thing, and not something that's just our own personal puzzle, made me feel so much better. I really can't tell you.

So thank you everyone.

I had a talk with Dr. Everything Will Be Alright. He gave me some medicine to try and the name of an art therapist, who (hold on to your hats) takes our insurance.

(I'll wait while you get up off the floor.)

And after a few weeks, if things aren't better, he wants to do some bloodwork and a more comprehensive GI workup, just to make sure that we aren't missing anything.

But he agrees with me that this sounds like anxiety.

Lordy, it's hard.

She's given up the barf bowl for now. (It did not make an appearance at the Thanksgiving table, thank God.) But there's lots of moaning and crying and well, let's just call it bellyaching.

My patience wears thin. And that makes me sad. It's a hard thing, knowing when to push and when to nestle.

two steps back

I have so many posts I want to write. But here's what I'm doing instead.

Practicing psychology without a license.

My dear little Shout had a nervous breakdown on Friday. Because one of her classmates barfed in the classroom.

Apparently, right after the poor kid barfed, she INSTANTLY felt ill and had to be taken to the office. And it seems that the teacher and the principal were right on when they decided not to call me, but instead they let her chill for awhile with the principal and an iPad. (Can I say how much I love that part of the story?) Eventually they sent her back to class where she was made the teacher's helper for the rest of the day and all seemed fine.

But when we got home from school, she BURST into tears and started shaking. She said "I DON'T FEEL WELL."

Honest to God, she looked like hell.

She wouldn't tell me what happened at school. It took some digging and a few text messages to tease out the whole story.

She was terrified she was going to get the stomach flu again. And she was afraid to even tell me about it. (See those little footprints all over my heart? Ouch.)

She spent the ENTIRE weekend on the couch, with a miserable look on her face, moaning and sobbing about her stomach. Which is completely healthy.

I mean, I think she may have given herself an ulcer, but she doesn't have a stomach virus.

I'm exhausted. It harkens back to the days last summer when she wouldn't leave the family room and held a barf bucket under her chin all day. We're there. Again.

I don't how to help her. I cuddle and encourage and talk about worrying and make jokes and tickle and rub her tummy and none of it helps.

We've come so far since that post in July. We did months of OT which brought me a whole new girl. We started kindergarten (again) and made it through a few rough weeks. Things were looking peachy last week when she won an award for Improvement in Social Interactions! (Yeah, baby! Not everyone would be proud of that one!)

But I'm back to my little lump of fear and anxiety with one little errant barf. I'm going to give it a few days (which will include, you know, Thanksgiving, which should be fun with a kid holding a barf bucket under her chin at the table. Right?) but if things don't improve, I'm back to the drawing board.

I feel completely underqualified.

mommy's little criminals

I got the crooked finger, "Oh Mrs. Laaaaaundry" from the kindergarten teacher at school pick up today.

It seems that Shout took a little trip to the principal's office during recess.

Apparently there was *KISSING* on the playground. Kindergarten girls and *OLDER* boys. (2nd grade) Shout wasn't doing any kissing, but she was found to be chanting "KISS HIM ON THE LIPS! KISS HIM ON THE LIPS!"

I put on my most serious Mom Face and said I would follow up on the "No Chanting about Kissing" Rule at home. And then I bit the insides of my cheeks hard so I wouldn't start laughing.

She came out with the story before we even got to the car.

"Well... I wasn't doing any kissing, but I WAS egging them on. And that's bad."

Yes. Bad. *bite cheeks, bite cheeks*

I asked her, "Were you scared in the principal's office?" (Because dude, I am STILL terrified of school principals.)

"Nope."

"Did you cry?"

"Why would I cry?"

"Are you going to cheer your friends on about kissing ever again?"

"Nah."

Case closed, I think.

Later in the afternoon, I called my mom to tell her the story and meanwhile, the ever diabolical Bounce was in another room teaching Shout to say very fast: SOFA KING FUNNY.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Again. Faster.

So just as I'm launching into my story about Shout's now marred Permanent Record, she bursts into the room and yells at the top of her lungs:

"What's SO FUCKING FUNNY?"

I've got my work cut out for me here, people.

rocky

I'm on Day 8 of dealing with a stomach virus in the house.

Eight.

And I'm starting to fear it will never actually end.

Every one of us has had it. And while the worst of it only lasts for about 12 hours, the tenderness and not-quite-right-ness lasts for much longer. Which is why I've had at least one kid, and sometimes 2 or 3, home from school every day since last Monday.

I haven't slept a full night. I've hardly even been in my own bed. Scrunched up at one end of the couch, a feverish, nauseated kid on the other.

I went stir crazy yesterday and left the house in a fit of exasperation. I just ran errands, but I needed a taste of freedom. Where I wasn't serving saltines and wondering who was going to need me next.

When I came home, they heard my car in the driveway and quickly staged a massacre scene inside the house. It was the first time I laughed in days.


***************



This fall has brought other challenges I can't write about right now. I always HATE when bloggers write that. I SWORE I would never. But I can't find a way to not say it, and yet, I can't actually say it. They are stories that don't belong to me. And I don't feel comfortable sharing them right now, even the parts that affect me. They will come. But for now, they are big and heavy and scary.

I button it all up and shove it way deep down. It lets me go through my day, even though it weighs me down inside. And when I'm alone, and not trying to find my way through a new job, or a new recipe, or another load of puke-y laundry, it all comes bubbling up. Like burning lava.

In the car, after I've dropped off whoever needs dropping, and I'm alone, the stress leaks out my eyes. The other day, my timing was off and I burst into tears when the lady in the drive-thru at Starbucks opened the window to hand me my drink. I laughed and cried at the absurdity of it. She looked alarmed and I just drove away. There was no explaining it. I don't understand it myself.