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if he were a woman

August 18, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Husband informed me tonight that our relationship would teeter on the edge of perfect if he were the woman and I were the man. He told me this in the context of needing to offer a wee bit more for childcare than what I’m currently seeking. But he had 3 solid reasons for seeing it as a rosy role-reversal:

1. I like to use my brain more. I think it’s “funner” (yes, direct quote).

2. He has too much testosterone, which causes him to get more angry (because we all know estrogen doesn’t do that?), so even though he would enjoy staying home with the kids, this hormone apparently renders him exempt. Or inept. Or something.

3. There was a mention of sex drive, but I tuned that out.

It’s hard to believe that nearly 3 years later I’m still battling the internal wars of mommy vs. worker bee. On the one side, I love not rushing out the door and getting to spend time with the kiddos each day. I love making them good food and taking them to the park. Today I even enjoyed our outing to the doctor’s office (everyone was on primo behavior). And nap time. I LOVE nap time.

But I also crave social interaction. And not just the “can I have your recipe for granola bars” type of interaction, but real, meaty conversation. And trivial gossipy conversation. Or work-related conversation. I love common goals and strategy and planning. I love imagining what could be and coming up with ways to get us there. Devising solutions. I’m all about the process as much as the product.

Husband is right: I do love to think and read and create and… well, think. But it’s hard to get real strategic with a 2 year old, even when it comes to potty training. The most vision we have to our days are the promises of something fun on the other side of a good nap. So without these managerial elements, I’m left a bit empty. I have an task-centered, goal-oriented hole in my heart that my kids just don’t fill. And to be honest, when my cerebral itch doesn’t get scratched, I tend to gravitate toward the world wide and it’s web to keep my mind engaged. But while engaged with electronics, my children run amok. Not the win-win we’re looking for.

Fortunately, it might not be up to me to actually try to make a decision about how to balance work and home. We’re a sitter’s worst nightmare: part-time. So by keeping us on board, she’s not able to keep other kids that could be a bigger paycheck. I spoke with one this evening who was absolutely wonderful, but it’s hard to for her to justify aligning with us when the take-home pay just might not be worth her time. She’s even worked with special needs kids before (one with a loss of hearing) and would love to continue working as a “nanny”, but what do I have to offer, other than 3 adorable kids?

Husband has told me there’a a price to pay to keep mama sane, and it’s worth it. But we only need my part-time sanity.

So, until we find the part-time relief, it’s just me and the children during the day. We’ve started to develop rhythm and pattern, and as I said on FB, the kids are more full of sunshine if I get up earlier and get some coffee in my system first. At this rate of progression, perhaps I’ll even brave the grocery store with all 3 by the end of the year.

Or I’ll just send them with the nanny.

wheels on the bus

August 16, 2011 / Michele Minehart

Miss M is currently in that stage where she loves to please us. When we provide instructions and she carries them out to perfection, she revels in the attention and nearly begs for a new challenge to commence. It’s a beautiful stage. I’m shopping online for big girl panties so we can fully capitalize.

H Boy has clearly moved out of that stage.

Yesterday the near-meltdown came when he wanted to take the little tires off of his magic school bus. Husband asked him not to as we would likely only be able to find 2, or at the most, 3 of the tires within 10 minutes. But hell hath no fury in comparison to a two-year-old bent on a mission.

This came after an episode involving a breakfast fiasco. It was 9:30am and we were on power struggle number 3. Have I mentioned how much I love parenting? How convenient it is?

But Husband and I had to ask the questions of ourselves, seeing as how H’s existential capabilities are few and far between, about our role in the struggle. Just because we can use proper English grammar does not make us the automatic winners of the struggles.

The conclusion we came to was… did it matter if we lost the bus tires? Will his childhood be wrecked if he were to own a toy with less than perfect resale value? We decided that the opportunity to learn how fake tires go on and off the bus was probably of more value than trying to a) fight it out and b) convince him the bus was a great toy as-is. Because, really, it’s just a bus. Aside from the removable tires there’s little flash nor flair.

I say this like some sort of parenting professional, but it’s really really hard for me to live this conclusion. To just make the mess, to give up on keeping things tidy, to lose the tire, to risk breaking the X, Y or Z. In all honesty, it’s much easier to have robotic children that listen to your every command, but robots lack something in the creativity category. Come later in life, robots are really only good at taking orders, they’ll just switch masters. While I can sit back and say that I don’t want to raise robots for someone else to order around, in the same breath from the other side of my mouth I say I want children who listen and mind their parents.

Clearly I’ve read too many parenting articles and books. I want my children to question authority until I am that authority. I want my children to be creative and innovative and live outside the box. Until coloring outside the lines looks too messy on my refrigerator. I want to value the arts until I can’t stand the squeal coming from the school-issued recorder or saxophone or, heaven forbid, DRUMS. Or the glitter. Can I value the arts and hate glitter?

I understand that this stage of life is less about the kids and more about how I respond. I can see the world through the eyes of an uptight 30-year-old or I can enjoy the privilege of seeing as a two-nearly-three-year-old, colored by the opportunities for adventure and exploration. This might be the only way to truly find out life’s big questions: how many ways can you play with a piece of string? What does melted crayon taste like? Which is the best medium for drawing a landscape: ketchup or ranch? If I didn’t have a curious kiddo, I might never know. So rather than preventing such wisdom from escaping in the world, I need to read up on just how to endure these explorations without loosing my mind, or my carpet (who puts in WHITE carpet?!). Or perhaps I should just start saving for new hardwoods…

when genes collide

August 15, 2011 / Michele Minehart

The first time a medical professional tells you that your child has tested unfavorably, there’s a bit of shock, perhaps a dose of denial, a battering of questions and a huge learning curve when it comes to “the system.”

The second time doesn’t get much better.

Baby C went for her follow up appointment at the audiologist today after having “referred out” (a nice way of saying, “you’d better test again, she failed this one”) at the hospital newborn screen. My hopes were high that there was fluid involved at her hospital screen, and my large circle of audiological friends have mentioned that the false positive reading on those tests can be high. Surely we wouldn’t have to face this twice, right?

But it was evident in our first round of testing that there was indeed an issue at hand. So going into the diagnostic test (that which tells us exactly what frequency she’s hearing at what levels), I tried to do mental preparation. But it doesn’t really matter how prepared you are. You don’t want to hear that any part of your baby doesn’t work like a majority of other babies do. They comfort with the fact that she hears us when we speak or sing, she’s just not hearing it all. It’s less about volume than it is about the complete range of sound. But the consolation prize isn’t quite what we’re looking for.

When H was diagnosed, our RIHP service coordinator – one of the best uses of our tax money that I’ve met to date – told me about a poem that described the experience as packing and preparing for a trip to one country only to get off the train and find you’ve arrived in a completely different place. You packed up and learned french before you had the baby, but here you are in Japan.

The first time around such notion was adequate. The second time you think, “how the H*&! do we keep ending up in the Pacific?!”

From here begins the long list of questions and appointments. You’d think it’s easier the second time around, and perhaps that’s true if you remain in the same county, but since we moved we get to re-research audiologists, ENTs, find a PCP, get our paperwork in order for the county health nurse, get connected with early intervention services and pray that all the individuals involved (including myself) check all the correct boxes so we can get her aided by 3 months for optimal results. We’ll probably opt for some genetic testing since the results seemed almost identical (waiting on Dr. Z to confirm that one, I don’t have a copy of both in front of me).

Besides the mechanics of dealing with another diagnosed hearing loss, my brain and heart have dumped into overdrive and overthinking. How do I explain this to people? Should we have done the genetic testing after H’s diagnosis, even though a majority of loss is from an unknown source? (My personality goes directly to “what did I do wrong?”). How do we explain to Miss M that she doesn’t need hearing aids although her siblings do? Does that make her the “lucky” one? And what about the future? We’ve intended to have 4 kids (with a much larger break before our next one). Does the increased chances – pending testing – of another hearing loss warrant rethinking that decision? And if we do decide to have another, and s/he lands in the Oticon boat, does that make us irresponsible?

With H, I’ve been able to write off my reactions to “well, this just happens in life sometimes.” There wasn’t much anger at the Creator because my attitude veered toward an understanding that we’re not guaranteed perfection. But on the second time around, the temptation to feel like we’re getting the shaft looms much closer. We’ve had our share of “overcoming”, been given our “chance to learn” and live all those sayings that we can cross-stitch into a pillow. Did we fail our first “opportunity for growth”? Was that just a practice round? Why lump kids with “issues” into one family instead of spreading out the home visits?

So here we are. And whispering in the back of my mind is EB, a friend whose daughter faces far more difficulty and whose life has been much more significantly altered in ways that aren’t easily helped by wearing a small electronic device tucked behind her ear. It could be so much more. Our grief could be much, much deeper.

But, if I’m to be honest – a goal of this blog – I don’t feel like feeling grateful that our diagnosis is less cumbersome than another. I don’t want another diagnosis. I don’t want the visits. I want to age out of HMG and RIHP. I don’t want a reason for the public health nurse to know my name. I don’t want to compare IEPs for the next 18 years. I don’t want the people who are helping us to begin every sentence with “well, you probably know this because of her brother…”

I don’t want my “normal” kid to be the “atypical” one.

But this is just Day 1 of Round 2. Perhaps in the morning it’ll be different. Husband is a firm believer that it’s better to re-examine in the morning, after we have a chance to sleep off the day’s emotions. This is a good time to live by that assumption. So… good night world.

Michele Minehart

Page 202 of 312

if he were a woman

wheels on the bus

when genes collide

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