My Life has reached A New Low

Yesterday I went to the food bank.

I knew last week when I took her to get her ears pierced that I was using precious budget money....but I remembered I had an 'emergency food bag' voucher and I figured now was as good a time as any to suck it up and use it.
It was a crap day anyway, so I am not sure if all the tears after this errand were from stooping so low and feeling the pain and shame of this, or if they were more likely inspired by the accumulating feeling of frustration and dejection which has colored my summer.
Or maybe it was the way the guy who handed me the heavy bag of food said, "This is the last week for this program - the county has cut it - can I help you to your car with that?"

Or maybe it was because, when I got home, I realized that the black and white box of food storage bags the guy had also handed me was not, in fact, storage bags, but a box of government cheese food product.

Yeah, really.

Behold! Poor people food!

Tomorrow I have to decide to send my daughter on a field trip with her brownie troop without the requested $20 so she can dress her newly built bear and risk the wrath of her being the only one coming home with a naked bear.

I also have to figure out how to drive 80 miles roundtrip to work and then drive another 40 roundtrip to get them to visit their daddy: on 1/4 tank of gas.

I will be saying some prayers that the squealing belts on the car won't blow just yet...because I cannot afford to fix the car...again.

Meanwhile, my kitchenaid (professional, my ass) mixer died a horrible death and my traditional stress baking coping skills are severely compromised.

I am trying not to think too much about her upcoming birthday.

The (rescue foundation!) kitten she wants....$150 we don't have.

The requested night away at the beach....not going to happen.

Or how to afford the absolutely reasonably priced yoga classes recommended by her therapist.

Or the flash on my camera which is STILL broken (while he remains in possession of my favorite elph - MINE!!).

Or the burning smell my laptop emits when I turn it on and there is no fan sound...and the fact that I cannot afford the back up hard drive to save my files right now.

Or the fact that if he was paying any of the restitution order or any of the thousands of dollars he owes me, this would not be happening.

Or the fact that Xdude is actively trying to starve me out by not paying the ordered support and waiting for me to have to move....thus proving his point. Which is....well I am not sure what it is....but it's for the greater good of maintaining some control over my life which is no longer his to control. He's already assured the children that if I move, he will follow.

Not to support them of course, but to stalk me 'be close' to them.

Hurting your kids to get to your ex. So unique.

What a man.

Paternity Test, Anyone?

I've been thinking.

I'm not sure anymore, that Xman is the father of our children.

I mean, if he was, wouldn't he feel some obligation to contribute to their health, well-being, and survival?

I know a few families who receive child support payments. Two of them receive $1000 per child per month, and another receives $600 per child per month.
Xman would like to pay less than $250 per month per child.
In California.

Apparently not making the connection that his access to his children is in imminent danger of being restricted by the mere result of forced relocation.


6/7/10 Updated for CYA legal reasons:
I also forgot to mention 2 rather relevant points:
1) Early on, Xdude made me fill out paternity papers with DCSS just to stall the case. His name is on birth certs and he does not dispute his paternity - but it was a fine way to stall with 8 more pages of paperwork and humiliating questions, such as 'when AND WHERE was the last time you had sex with this person?'
2) Xdude MYSTERIOUSLY lost his fabulous, well paying and TRACKABLE job just days after being ordered to pay child support. Now he just takes on contract work so he can hide his income.
3) There has been an order made. An order for back support and current support. He has not paid one cent of the back support, and has not once - not even one single month since being ordered - paid more than half of what he was ordered.
4) There is no doubt in their paternity. I was being facetious.

In Which I Attempt to Sell Myself out for a Mom Car:

So here I go, whoring myself out on the innernets......

Bottom line:

Gwendomama needs a mini-van.

Yes. I do.

Most of you know that Xdude left me with about 4k debt along with some bruises.
There was an amazing fundraising (I bow to you, Shannon) movement, and my family was able to stay in our house because of you.
Now it's a matter of staying in our state.

In November, Xdude was ordered by a judge to begin paying child support in December (noting that he had not volunteered a cent until being ordered by a judge to do so). He ignored the amount ordered for both children and decided to just pay whatever he wanted, which is half of what he was ordered to pay. So he pays about $250/month/per child, which is embarrassingly insufficient in this area of the country. Except I spend approximately $125/month driving them to and from visitation, so it's more like $187.50/month/per child.

Xdude continues to ignore child support obligations, and has also continued to ignore my many pleas, my attorney's negotiations, and the Judge's stern recommendation that he sign over his interest in the car. See, the car is in his name, yet it has already been proven in court that I own 50% of it. Yes, I am embarrassed to tell you that I allowed him to keep the car in his name alone, but not nearly as embarrassed as I was telling you that I allowed the situation of power and control to get to a point where he attempted to kill me (or at least scare me into submission by choking me?) a year ago.

I recently moved into a wonderful little dollhouse owned by friends, who are allowing me to work some of the rent off in childcare trade. I am trying to work as much as possible - even when my children are with me, and I have a number of other families who are interested in paying me to do after school care as well. But I have 'his' damn car- which I hate and it only has three seats suitable for children, as the passenger seat airbag cannot be turned off manually. My children take up two of those seats.
I have explained this to the Judge; Xdude totally knows I want a larger car just so I can work more and do what he is not doing - support our children. (He does, however, live in a fabulously large house.)

Even the Judge pointed out that I needed a mini-van to work more and why would he sabotage my efforts to work more when it could result in a higher child support payment from him. But Xdude feels he is above the law and doesn't need to pay any more child support than he wants to...so he remains unmoved by any requests or persuasion.
I can't sell the car for a mini-van unless he signs over the title.
Nope, he just won't.
He feels no compulsion to do the right thing for his children, because he is incapable of seeing beyond his own anger and vitriol.

I need a mini-van.
So.
If you live in California and can afford to part with a mini-van, please consider me.
I have a friend who can work on Toyotas if it needs work...he is willing to help too.
Maybe you are willing to sell me the van for a low monthly payment and I will turn whatever I get (when he finally DOES sign it over....justice will be served eventually but the wheels of justice are powered by a 2 yr old on a tricycle) over to you when I can sell this damn car.

If you can sell me a mini-van SO VERY CHEAP or consider me a worthy cause for a charitable donation, I will be ever so grateful. I will make you cupcakes. Or chocolate sushi!! Yes, you will certainly be worthy of the chocolate sushi!


Yes, you are right - he SHOULD pay for his kids. Why should I have to ask YOU to help?

Well.....I hate to beg, but I am watching my California residential status become less and less realistic. I can't count on Xdude for anything except a constant argument.
I need to support these kids, I am trying to maintain our family in this area, and he is trying to sabotage any efforts I make to try and get ahead.

Thanks......now I am going to go hurl up the last little bit of pride I had.


3/5/10 EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay, there is kindness in this world.
Some of you asked me to put up a donation button, and now I have.

Three Short Stories

Short Story #1:
A few years ago we were planning a trip to Hawaii for ten days. This was back in the day of ATA and Aloha Airlines offering competitive $300 round-trip tickets from CA to HI.
In preparation, I bought a litter box for my normally outdoor pottying cat, and arranged for a neighborhood girl to check on and feed her every few days, as it was February and I didn't want to lock her out of the house. Xdude disagreed and we had a little argument about it. Compromise was not his specialty, so I just said I was making the executive decision on this one and the cat would not be left out in the rain or leaky garage with the raccoons and coyotes for 10 days.
As we were leaving for the airport, the litter box was nowhere to be found. I searched the garage, which was the abyss of everything he tossed in there to either hoard or hide. No litter box.
We had to leave. So I reluctantly caved to his insistence that we leave her in the garage (with access to outside) for 10 days.

The end.

Short Story #2:
We had a trampoline, but Bubbles is so fearless and feral that I decided to put netting around it. Xdude did not agree - he insisted that netting makes trampolines more unsafe, as he had seen kids always bouncing off the netting when before they would have stayed in the middle. We argued a little bit about it and then said that, while I appreciated his opinion on that one, I had seen more children fly off of trampolines and was therefore going with netting.
After pricing netting for ours, I found a cheaper deal on Craigslist, so naturally decided to go with that one, as it already had netting and it was 14 feet - a great size for a trampoline if you have the space, and we did. Xdude agreed to go pick it up in his truck, came home and set it up.
"Where is the netting?" I asked.
"They don't need netting." Was the reply.
That was supposed to be the end of it, but I didn't take the cue.
"I bought it because it has netting, and I want the netting up."
"No, you bought it because 14 feet is a great sized trampoline."
"No, I bought it because it has netting, and I want the netting up."
He watched me put the poles in for the netting an begin to unravel the netting. I started to put the vertical poles in, checking out the support arch poles, and realized that I was about 5 poles short.
I confronted him. "Where are the poles? You just picked this up last weekend."
"I don't know. Maybe I left them there by accident. I thought they were all here. The kids don't need netting anyway."
"OH MY GOD YES THEY DO! I cannot believe you would do this - this is about the SAFETY OF OUR KIDS and you did it because you just don't want the netting! You did this on purpose, didn't you! You are such a jerk! HOLYSHIT I cannot believe you!"
"I'm not going to talk to you while you're angry."

The end.

Short Story #3:
I just moved to a great house on a lovely property which has room for - a 14 foot trampoline!! Friends who own the property were excited about bringing it over here, and we all agreed to try and get that netting up. I found the manufacturer and started looking for the poles, then decided to wait til we had moved it and then set it up to see exactly which netting support poles were missing. We brought the trampoline over the other day and waited to set it up until the intensely chaotic move was over. On Sunday I was making the rounds of the property for the last time. After living there for nine years, having moved in while 5 months pregnant with Supergirl, there was a lot to process. (Which is another story and it is not short.)
Having spent the better part of a month slowly wading through the accumulated pile of everything he left behind, and everything our kids have acquired (way too much, let me tell you!), sorting and purging or packing every book and every box of everything, and all of it while nursing a broken arm, it was no small task. I was exhausted on Sunday as I poked around bits of toys, mudpie spatulas sticking out of half-baked goods, sheds. I couldn't wait to get out and have my fresh start in my new house. I wanted to start unpacking. I was so over moving out.
I opened up a water heater shed on the cabin which I never use, and happened to look up. It was stinky and ratty in there. But shoved up above the old water heater was, unmistakably, a brand new (although ratty) litter box, scoop still attached.

:::::::::::blink blink:::::::::::::::

My heart pounded. Really? He had hidden things from me before; it wasn't unbelievable. I have said to people how hard it was to put my finger on his absolute entitlement to and ownership of control of everything. Everything.
But here was a tangible item, however ridiculous.
A litter box.

I rummaged around behind an old pool panel (or was it defunct exercise equipment? your guess....) and found something which looked vaguely familiar. I had just moved something exactly like it. Wow. What a score! Five metal poles for a trampoline.
Safety netting poles.

The end.

USAir Hates Families

So, I went back east. The kids came too, since we go pretty much everywhere together.
I needed a(nother) root canal, and Supergirl had a cavity which needed to be filled. No dental insurance + a brother who is a dentist + three roundtrip tickets back east = less money than California dentistry.
Except it turned out that Supergirl actually had insurance. It's just that nobody tried to tell us that when it was relevant and she was covered. Under her father's job. Which he mysteriously lost just days after being ordered to pay child support (which he must have interpreted as one of those 'optional' court orders, as evidenced by my empty mailbox). Strange thing is, he only disclosed the information that the kids were insured when we were about to fly back east. Too bad it wasn't sooner, as in, when they were first covered, because then she probably would have avoided the extraction. Father of the year, I tell you.
When I arrived in the tundra known as Buffalo, NY, it was about -6 degrees. Yes, that is a minus sign before the 6. I would have cried about it, but it was cold enough to freeze saltwater, and tear-sicles are very uncomfortable.
I would like to announce that my children are star travelers. Seriously. People would get on the plane and stare me down when they realized they had been seated near children. But at the end of each flight, those same passengers would inevitably be the ones to praise my children and their good behavior.
In fact, they were better behaved than some of the adult passengers and USAir staff I encountered on my first attempts to fly across the country. When I purchased my tickets I saw that they had seated me rows away from each of my children, aged 8 and 4. I called right away and asked for a seat change but was told they could only help me when I arrived at the airport. I've heard that one before.
When I arrived at SFO, I headed for the nearest agent, even though I had already checked in online. She spent a good deal of time trying to get us seats together, so much time in fact, that I was starting to get nervous about getting through security. She finally said there was nothing she could do, but they would be able to help me at the gate. Again, heard that one before.
By the time we reached the gate, the plane was already boarding. I talked to the gate agent, showed him my tickets, and he replied, "Why did you come at the last minute if you wanted to switch seats?"
"Whhaaaaaat?" I stammered, explaining that I had been at the airport for over an hour! "Why didn't you seat me with my kids?" I fired back.
"I wasn't the one who did that." He snidely replied.
"Ummm.....okay?" I looked at him expectantly.
He shoved my tickets back at me, disgusted. "Those are all middle seats - nobody will want to switch with you and we can't legally force anyone to switch. Plus, there's another family trying to do what you are doing."
"Ummm....okay?" I repeated...."Trying to do what I'm doing? Like sit next to their kids? I can't let them sit 10 rows away from me!! What should I do?"
He waved me on to the jetway. "Good luck with that."
I made my way down the very crowded jetway and down to a flight attendant. She looked at my tickets and said, "There's another family ahead of you trying to do what you're doing."
"So I've heard," I muttered back at her. I felt as if I was being accused of trying to sell cookies and wrapping paper to strangers on the plane. Or worse, was being accused of trying to light my underwear on fire (a joke I could not make in the airport!) ....not just trying to secure seats next to my minor children.
The exasperated flight attendant disappeared and came back to the jetway moments later. "Nobody wants to move into middle seats, and we can't legally force anyone to move from their seat."
I laughed and said, "You have got to be kidding me, right? I mean, okay...I guess it would be fine...I mean I haven't had a six hour break in I don't know HOW long...I guess I can just hand his electronics to the complete strangers sitting next to my four year old and pick him up in Philadelphia (connecting city)." At this point I may or may not have cackled maniacally.
"That's really not that funny." She said, dryly.
"WHAT??" I exploded. I had used up all my patience and humor. "You wouldn't let me put this four year old on a plane without me unless I hired an escort for him but you don't think it's FUNNY that you want to seat him practically in the LAPS of complete STRANGERS?? I think it's fucking HILARIOUS!!"
She handed my tickets back to me.
"Not my policy. Just enforcing it. Sorry, but there's nothing I can tell you. Nobody wants to move."
"That's IT???"
"I'm afraid so." And she left me standing there among a throng of passengers who were relieved that THEY would not be asked to switch seats and therefore sympathetic.
I walked back up to the gate; two kids, three backpacks, one stroller.
"Now what?" I asked the anxiety-plagued gate agent, as I handed back my unused boarding passes.
"Well....we can get you through another city but I have to check and see if I am allowed to do that, since your bags are already on the other plane and it could be a security problem."
"Not MY policy...." I muttered.

And so I was re-routed on another plane, through Charlotte, NC. Where it was a balmy 30 degrees.

So what happened? Anybody else ever experience this?
I have some ideas....
Now that USAir and most other airlines are nickel and diming us to stay in business (pay for bad snack food, pay to check baggage) they have to come up with new and creative ways to make more money than the tickets we already purchased. So some marketing WIZARD came up with the brilliant new plan of charging passengers $5 per flight to reserve a 'premium seat'. 'Premium seat' actually just translates into: A NON- MIDDLE SEAT. So basically, the message is that they hate families. There, I said it. USAir is anti-family. On top of the three full price tickets I purchased, they wanted an extra $5 per family member to ensure we would be able to sit together, instead of placing my children in the virtual laps of strangers.

They call it marketing.
I call it child endangerment.

Please, Don't Insult Me; I Didn't Ask to Be Here in This Place.

I have heard a few of Xdude's friends and/or former friends express their surprise over the fact that he could be violent or confrontational.

I have heard things such as, 'Xdude was Zen and so how could he have done this?' I have heard that he would never be confrontational.

As Xdude has been charged with and convicted of domestic violence, I find this an interesting and challenging question to hear months later. I expected to hear it at the beginning; I had the very same thoughts myself, as I tried to make sense out of what had happened and how we had gotten there and how, though things were degrading from bad to worse, I could never have seen it ending that way. I could have never, in a million years, expected that he would take me down to the floor and choke me, simply because he did not like and disagreed with what I was saying or doing. Simply because, that time, I would not listen to him anymore.

I do know that none of these people has any clue about what he is capable, largely because I have protected him and our family by not saying anything for years.
There was abuse before. And surprise, it was usually the result of some geyser of refusal of confrontation.
Was it visible? My family knew, as did his, that he had chased me around the house with a two month old baby in my arms, demanding that I hand her over because I was going to fly back east to....see my family.
He was embarrassed and wanted to make it up to me. Eventually, I went back.
Was it visible? Being hounded, berated and goaded for (surprise, surprise, Mr. 'I don't actually want to get a vasectomy -I lied') becoming pregnant with his child; weeks of him shadowing me and demanding abortion and justice, and hoping that I would 'see the light'. There was the attempt to get me to see it; the shoulder shaking didn't produce the epiphany he was seeking. The miscarriage, however, did the trick. I didn't have bruises, and he was so very sorry.
I stayed.

Think about it; there is confrontation in everyone's lives, every day. The refusal to accept that at any level is not a trait of any well adjusted adult. There will certainly be some end result to the dynamic of refusing confrontation (ie, disagreement) in one's life. Add to that, the input of a partner to consider. And children. Dead and alive.

The mere act of disagreeing with this person is, historically, taken as a personal assault; he is instantly victimized and/or disregards the offending opinion.

For two years I have known that I wish to not be under the control of this person who disregards my very existence in his presence. For more than two years I have known that I could not save him from his abyss of depression and self-loathing. I could not free him from his guilt, nor unscrew him from the spiral he had dug.
For two years I have understood that there was no respect and we were teetering on the edge of the abyss - there was certainly growing potential for abuse. I never could have understood the path from passive-aggression to direct attack and violence that was about to occur, but there were many times I was afraid for myself and many more times I was afraid for what he might do to himself.
For two years I did not leave, despite my desperation to do so, because I believed him when he said he would kill himself if I did.
I had children to protect from more grief. I had children to support. I still do.

Each time I asked to leave but didn't, I cemented for him that I do not have a say in my future. I take full responsibility for feeding into his sense of absolute control.

For those who know and refer to Xdude as 'Zen', I ask them to recall how much time they have spent with 'Zen Man' over the past 2-3 years. Let's even go back to when Elijah died - the past five years? For me, living with 'Zen Man' at that time was realistically, Xdude hiding behind the veil of accusatory Buddhism so that he could mock me: "You are grieving our son because you choose to grieve. You choose your sadness."

You all know about the statistics of dead baby families, right? They are pretty grim.
If anything, that dead baby glue held us together for longer than it should have. We tried hard to not fall into that pit.


But I speak to an entire community who crops up when domestic violence occurs.
Please don't delude yourselves into thinking that this could not have happened, because it did. And the punishment is what some might consider severe. For a reason.
The biggest mistake I made, was that this was the first time I reported it.

So if you think that it would not be possible for Xdude, (or your hiking buddy, or your old college friend, or your friend's brother, or 'fill in the blank') to become confrontational and violent, I say that you are incapable of believing that things and people change and bad stuff happens all the time.
I wish it had not happened, believe me.
It happened.
I wish it had not ended this way, but peacefully, as I requested for no fewer than 24 months.



But it is what it is; it is not what you remember.

New Post at Hopeful Parents

I wrote this.

Over here.

It's not about dead baby cake, I promise.
Just about dead baby birthdays.

Finally.

I am sorry to say that this month's content has not been - in any way - equal to the emotional (or at times even rational) content in my Nablopomo participation of previous years.

I wish I could say there was some resolution to the haunting by a local tortured soul, alas there is none, and I find myself desperate to seek some rationale, some motive, in the world of her insanity.
There is not: there is only more turbulence.



A few friends ventured to ask me: Why do you do such things? Why do you harken to the flocke and commit thineself?
And I said: Why do you talk such proper nonsensical bullshittinous accuracy back at me, fool?

And therily, Nablopomo was over.
Yet again.

SITUATION Follow-Up:2

Yes, I have plenty to say about roller coasters.

Yes, I am thankful for some people and stuff.

And yes, I was up all night thinking about that little satanic bottom-feeder, Marla.

She won't shut up.
She continues to spew, even after the phone call from the BOS, and she called Nina back to clarify how right she was.
"You didn't know her then!" she defended her accusations repeatedly.
She now has a friend of hers calling Nina to defend her (copycat).

I have tried to let this go. I know that she is C*R*A*Z*Y and that most people will not believe her. But this is not like someone accusing me of flirting with someone's husband, this is not like accusing me of stealing a car:
That bitch is calling me a baby killer.

I am having a hard time letting that one go.

I have many reactions to this, some of them petty.

Petty reaction#1: I want to call her and point out that if she had bothered to reciprocate one-tenth of the favors I had offered her, if she had just one time helped us out when we took Elijah for testing (at Useless Childrens Hospital) or therapy, she would have had a glimpse into reality and seen what was going on for my child. She never could have fabricated or spread this insanity. For the past five years.

Petty reaction#2: Our friendship was over when I could no longer help her. When I was pregnant with Elijah while mothering a one year old, I was not available to help her. She did not know me then. How dare she claim that she was my friend.

Petty reaction #3: This woman claims to be a Christian, and a virtuous one at that. Hmmm.

Petty reaction #4: I hate her. HATE. HER.

Petty reaction #5: is a novel. I will spare you.



Non-petty reaction:

This needs to stop.

Because Humor is What Spares Her Right Now

A friend of mine has a serious illness and was talking about the looming possibility of having her colon removed.
I offered to go rip Marla a new one and donate her colon to my friend.

My friend declined.
"Bad juju!" she said.

I had to agree.

Seriously, if she ended up with Marla's colon, she would probably start talking out her asshole.
And that would just be hard to explain.

What Would You Do?

This one has been rolling around in my head - and heart - for a few days. I keep imagining that I have written about it already; then I find nothing on the computer and realize that I had just thought about it. Again. Over and over. And then again some more.

I have picked up the phone and not made the call. I have gathered the words to confront honestly, the other version in which I belittle, and then the one in which I threaten.


There is a person who lives here in my small community with whom I was friends for many years. (I resisted the urge to insert the word 'stupidly' between 'was' and 'friends'.)
Too many years.
Friends with the community Gossip Queen.
Too many years.
Who would never talk about me that way, right?
Too many years.
For years before I had my own children, I would step in to help Marla with almost anything - firewood in a lean winter, wine on a rough day, emergency childcare for her three children, overnight care for her children to assist her 'on-the-rocks' marriage (now, long over), waived preschool tuition bills, offered my shoulder and sleeve for her tears....to name a few.
Some of these favors continued after I started my own family; the requests were unfailing, but my availability was more limited.
The addition of Elijah to our family brought along a new direction and uncharted territory, involving hours of OT, PT, and testing. With a two year old in tow. I remember calling Marla a few times to ask her to watch Supergirl while I took Elijah to some appointment. By this time, she was going through a dramatic divorce, and her response was always 'This is my alone time - I don't have the kids then, so I need that time to myself'.
Whatever; I didn't really have the time to feel jilted back then.
Then, just four months after Elijah died, I had a surprise pregnancy and an even more surprising miscarriage. Marla's commentary on this event was the wake-up call I had been ignoring for years to call it quits in this give and take relationship (I gave, she took).

"If you were taking better care of yourself and sleeping better and living a more spiritual life, this wouldn't have happened."

I remember walking her to her car and suggesting she get the hell outta my yard that instant.

At that moment, I was free. I was free to resume and maintain healthy friendships with supportive friends and be left with only the residual sheepishness of having been her friend for so damn long. For ten years I had listened to her gossip about every single person she knew, watched her take what she could from her friends, and flirt with every single friend's husband she could get near. Those memories are my cross to bear.
It was over.

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine who is one of the kindest, most patient and forgiving souls you have ever met, had a momentary lapse of reason invited Marla over for dinner out of pity after an impromptu playdate involving their daughters. During this time, Marla proved that she was still quite the chatterbox. She appalled my friend by insulting her husband, and then clawing her way through a list of common friends and their failings. Nina, who has little tolerance for such things, called her on her gossiping, and Marla admitted she 'had a problem'.
Nina then asked her about a specific situation which Marla herself had incited years ago, creating a deep rift between myself and another local woman.
A situation which, even at the time, I knew had to be somehow exaggerated considering the source, but I was so hurt and angered by it that I never explored the source or extent of the malady.
The situation?

The short version is that this woman was a friend of Marla's and threatened to call CPS on us because we lied about Elijah's age in an elevator in Hawaii.

The longer and more detailed backstory is here, and highly recommended if you wish to follow along.

So, Nina asks Marla about this situation in particular, and Marla agrees, "I probably said too much."
Nina presses on and says, "You think so? I know so."

And then, Marla tells Nina something she is sure she didn't already know.
"I know how Elijah died. I had told her too much."

WTF????

"You know what?"

"Well, you know that Gwendomama was in the hospital [on too many pre-term labor drugs to count] for six weeks when she was pregnant?"
"Yes, I knew about the pre-term labor."

"Well, the reason she was in the hospital was because she was anorexic and starving herself and then...well...the baby....you know...."


It was at this point that my friend Nina ended the conversation, then sat on it for two weeks before she could even tell me. I appreciate that she did.
But I am beyond angry. Beyond hurt.

To take the knowledge of someone's past - a painful past which took years of effort to work beyond - and then use it to form some crackerjackass diagnosis for not only me but for MY CHILD -

Oh - I just have NO FUCKING WORDS FOR THAT.

Wait. They are coming.

And then? Then to spread that diagnosis around the mountain like poison oak, because that is what Marla does best....talk....Oh -
Oh!
OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think of the hatred I have carried around for this woman, and now I feel horrible! I can understand why she freaked out if she had believed Marla's backstory.
I don't entirely forgive her for being so fucking superior and ignorant at the same time, but I this whole story is different now.

I think of all the people up here who have looked at me and wondered if her story was true...I want to kill her.

Seriously.

I have not called Marla, I have not shown up at her door (which itself shows incredible restraint since I do know where she lives), I have not exposed her real name, and I have not even sent her a letter insisting that she cease and desist defamation of character.

I don't currently trust myself, so I am giving myself some time to calm down.
Just a little.


So......What would YOU do?

Haters Are All Around Us

To those of you who have asked how I can 'spew hatred' at haters, I say to you this:

This was not a choice about anything other than hate.
People were offered a choice to hate or not to hate. We in California, got to vote for hate or against it.
We were offered the opportunity to vote for discrimination or against it.
Sadly, the vote for discrimination (or fear?) won.

HOW does prohibiting any deserving person from appreciating the same rights as are afforded to you, NOT promote hate?
I CAN accept that others have different viewpoints, but the irony seems to weigh in heavily on the fact that proposition 8 was all about hating, promoting hatred, and promoting homophobia. And it was all justified under the fallacy of 'protection' for a sacred institution of love.

HOW does disallowing two people in love to be sanctioned and or become a family protect your own veil of superiority?

How can the Mormon church - how can any church - propagate such a movement behind hatred when their own beliefs and doctrine of polygamists' superiority were only reformed when their statehood was at stake?

I don't understand.

You who voted yes on 8 deserve every flipping bird and look of disgust that the internet dishes out to you. You, who went out of your way to hurt others, to promote separatism and bigotry?

I promise you that you are deserving.

Actually, have another one.

This is Dedicated to The Ones Who Hate

I am happy to call Barack Obama my president.
I am looking forward to a day when patriotic means something positive again.

With all sweet victory comes a bitter edge.....

But to those of my fellow Californians who voted YES on Prop 8.......this is for you.

You are ignorant, petty, bigoted, joyless, spiteful, angry, misinformed, desperate, and possess none of the qualities which makes a person a Christian or just a decent human being.



Thanks, Jen, for the inspiration.


I tag 8 bloggers to offer their own angry face response to this result:

1. Jen
2. Grace
3. Lin
4. Denise
5. Cindy
6. Tricia
7. Deb
8. Badger

Pre-IEP Trauma

So, the school psych (who has never met my child in person, ever) and the principal (also superintendent) sent me to observe a preschool which they thought perhaps, may be perfect for my son. Perfect, why?
Perfect because this is (apparently) a preschool for children with communication disorders. I wasn't fooling myself, I knew what realm of behaviors that could imply. But I was hoping it really could offer more than something I had ever seen. It would have to be that good, because I love the preschool Bubbles has been attending since September, and his language has improved impressively in that time.
The school I visited might be an appropriate school for children on the spectrum. With communication issues, such as: using your body to hurl at someone instead of your words to ask for a turn. Not so much on the language issues.
I spent two hours there, and it seems to me that the teachers needed to spend an inordinate amount of time deflecting aggressive behaviors between the students, which leads me to believe that very little teaching can happen. I also did not observe any positive re-enforcers for positive language skills, and this would be a drastic transition for my little guy.
I do believe that this would be great place for my child to learn unacceptable behaviors more than appropriate articulation, which is why I do not wish to send him there. To remove him from his inclusive preschool environment in which he is successful and has attentive teachers, to put him into a special education classroom would not be a step forward.
However, when I stepped into the parking lot of the preschool to discuss this issue with the resource teacher from our school who had joined me on the site visit, she told me a little story of some previous student of hers whose parents would just not listen to the words 'special day class' and the 'severe nature of his deficits', and suggested that I 'sleep on it'. 'It', presumably being, the experience.
So after I 'slept on it' I woke up with swollen eyes from crying all night and feeling REALLY PISSED OFF ABOUT EVERYTHING. And, I had a wedding to attend. With very puffy eyes. Which made everyone else jealous, because they thought I was baked. (The wedding was in Berkeley.) But then the wedding was so damn touching that my puffy eyes looked right in place pretty soon.

ANYway, there is much more to this, of course.
But I have been rather emotionally pre-occupied, and a teensy bit sad, and feeling very alone in this struggle.

Very.
Alone.

FUNDAMENTALLY, I have to mention something....

There's a new buzzword for the McCain campaign.

First we heard from GW that the fundamentals of our economy were strong.

Now, in an interview with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, McCain repeatedly
(and very angrily) expresses how he 'fundamentally disagrees' with the implication that SP is inexperienced and he fundamentally disagrees that the American people don't like her. (I guess he also fundamentally disagrees with actual polls).

***weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!***

Did you hear the dogwhistle? Everytime I hear that word *fundamental* on the news, I imagine someone at the McCampaign claps their hands together and claims to have reclaimed another wayward liberal Christian, diverted on their path by visions of change, inclusion, faith, and love.

They are flailing, they need something...I get that, I really do.

But it just seems like another one of the talking points cheap trick distraction methods (LOOK, A PUPPY!) that the uber-conservatives have used to hijacked Christianity. This isn't news to people like my mother, and many good friends who have watched in jaw-dropping horror as 'their religion' has been abducted and absorbed into the conservative vision, re-invented and spewed back out in the form of Fundamentalism, Evangelism, and supremacy.
A political party religion which preaches intolerance, judgment, exclusion, racism, ignorance, hatred, fear.
While I know this is more prevalent in other parts of the country than this (thankfully) liberal bubble surrounding us (called: our region), even local friends who happen to also practice Christianity are feeling this separation of church and church. I wonder if that has anything to do with the frequent infusions of politics into faith. Hmmmm.....

Oh, and let us not forget how they have also managed to own 'life'! That is impressive.

If only a 'culture of life' could be further embraced by the American people.

Seriously. WTF IS THAT?


Tick, tick, tick....can you hear it?

I may be looking forward to the debate this evening just a teensy bit too much.

And now, I am new and improved...with twice the amount of spite!

This is my Early Intervention Speech

Hello, Choir.
I will be your preacher today.


Let's do a quick vocabulary review, shall we?
Early: 1.in or during the first part of a period of time, a course of action, a series of events, etc.: early in the year.
Intervention: 1.the act or fact of intervening.

Oh, that didn't do it for you? Still not clear?
Let's try this:
Extra Early Childhood Education With Experts For Free (or nearly).

Does that make more sense?

Because if I hear one more parent of a two year old tell me that they are going to 'wait and see', or even worse, that their doctor told them not to worry, and let's take another look in a few months....well, I am going to stick ice picks in my ears to ease the pain.
A few months.
The difference of a few months may be the difference in your child's ability to learn for the rest of their life. The difference of a few months could mean the distinguishable difference in your intelligence as a parent.

Here's something you should know.
You can self-refer your child for an assessment at your local Regional Center. You don't have to wait for Dr. MeansWellButIsMisinformed to agree with your concerns or your gut.
You don't need a prescription or a referral. You just need to call.

Here's something else you should know.
Early Intervention ends at age three, at which time your precious flower will be thrown to the wolves attended to by an emotionally bereft and financially strapped school district. The funding for Special Help ends at age three. My son will likely go from six hours a week of speech therapy to 1/2 hour (or one hour, if I have to pull out my sabre-teeth, I will).
So don't miss the Early in Early Intervention. You may be sorry you did, but you will still be screwed.

I am an advocate for EI, this is true. Which is why it makes me absolutely batty to hear parents who I love, parents who are watching our path with Bubbles, dismiss EI as an option for their child. No, not every child needs EI. But some do. And when a friend, a mother, asks me how many words her child 'should' have at age two, and the answer is clearly a number much higher than what she has recorded, and then her response is to muse out loud, "Well, I guess we'll wait a bit and see..."
IT REALLY FREAKS ME OUT and puts me to the test. Can I resist the podium? Can I stop myself from sounding like a bandwagon driver if she merely thinks I am trying to get her to jump on mine?
So far, I am silent. But it is a test. (Silence itself, is a test for me.)
I will answer her questions, but I will not sound the alarm. I will not be the one she remembers as She Who First Suggested Imperfection.

But, by giving her this space, this respect for her own realizations and her own timetable, I contend with my own guilt. This guilt over the betrayal of a child somehow, with the knowledge and firm belief that It Would Help.

I understand her hesitancy to ask for help, her reticence to need help.
Fear is nothing to be ashamed of, and it is legitimate. But the fear lies in the discovery of something else; not so much in the help.

Who among us as parents, are able to push beyond the fear, through the fear, to a place of just being? To a place of allowing our children to be who they are, and then walking that fine line between maintaining the acceptance of our childrens' capabilities, and wanting to show them that the possibilities for their potential may be limitless.


Teach your children well.

Thoughts on Jealousy, Trolls, Love, and Sharing

When I first starting reading Tanis's writing, I had to take many breaks for sobbing. Yes, sobbing for Tanis and her family, because I am not a heartless bitch. But also? Sobbing for my own little pity party.

Sure, it's one thing to scream at your baby "DON'T YOU STOP BREATHING" as they lay dying in the backseat of the car which is hurdling towards the hospital at breakneck speed.
It's another thing entirely to write about it.

It's one thing to feel your child take his last breath, give CPR to him for forty minutes, and then plead with invisible forces to bring him back as you hold his suddenly still body for hours.
It's another thing completely to share that.

For some, the writing starts as a form of therapy, a way to process, vent, analyze, cope. Sometimes it takes on a new form; one that was unexpected. The words which were so hard to string together are suddenly making sense to someone else. This person is a stranger, but they share with you their intimate thoughts and thank you for your words. They may have even found them helpful. Your words, your process, your pain. Helped someone else!
Someone may write to you to tell you that you reminded them to kiss their babies an extra time that night, to hold them close, to read them just one more book. To be grateful for them.

Once upon a time, a mother with too many tears, a mother with very few ties to a normal life left, needed to reach out to share the son who had just died. She was afraid he would be forgotten, and wanted to share the year of his life, and the time passing after his death. She joined some email groups. Groups which were full of other bereaved mothers and fathers and anger and fear. Military losses, murdered children, and the babies and children like hers. All gone too soon. Everyone reached out, every parent reached for a hand to pull them out of the shitty quicksand into which they had fallen the day they walked away from their breathless child. Nobody could save them. Nobody could save her. They were all in the quicksand together; not one of them had the energy to save another. They told their stories over and over, and received more silence. They could only read about how another child had died, how the little girl had accidentally wrapped herself up in the window blinds cord and strangled, how the mother helplessly watched her husband run over her baby in the driveway in his raised truck as his stereo blared and she screamed. They could only gasp and sob more and run up to check on their living children and cut all the goddamned windowblind cords.
After I realized I could no longer let my three year old out of my sight and forced her to accompany me to the bathroom every single time, I figured out that these email lists were not helping me, not one bit.

Once upon a time, a mother with too many tears decided to write a blog. She did not understand the rules, courtesies, or mechanics of The Blog, but she wanted to write. She needed a place to write it all down, the words which made no sense while they swirled about in her head, looking for an exit. She started to write about her pregnancy, and that was fine. She wrote about baby names and funny little stories which her daughter would provide, and this was also fine. But then she wrote about her son and his death. Nobody commented, but that was okay. She wrote it for herself. Then she wrote some more about him and how, in the aftermath of his death, it was difficult to cope with the stupid things people would say. She wrote about her feelings of loss and hopelessness.
Suddenly she created a stir. She must have offended someone or six, because she was put right in her place by the person people everyone knows as 'Anonymous'. Anonymous told her that she was a real downer, and who the hell did she think she was bumming everyone out like that? Who did she think she was talking smack about well-intentioned people who made the innocent mistake of saying the wrong thing. She was lucky anyone even said anything to her at all! She would be lucky to have any friends left at all after being such a depressing bitch. She should get some prozac and a therapist.
She thought seriously about quitting this whole writing gig.
That mother had skin which had been thinned by the loss of her child, and could not, at that time, access her quick-thinking responses, so she deleted these comments and then closed anonymous comments on her blog. Even though she had closed the anonymous comments, she was still hurt by this revelation that she was a big downer, and just took a break from writing about her dead child. She looked for others writing about their dead children, but found nobody. Actually, not true. She found many women writing about their miscarriage losses, but however multiple or far along those miscarriages were, she felt separated from these women. She had experienced miscarriage firsthand before, and since losing her one year old child, the separation felt too wide...these were the stories of the loss of a dream, while she had lost an actual, living, breathing child. She found nobody who had taken the risks to describe their own losses and trials and how they got the fuck through it. Nobody who talked about their dead child in terms other than 'angel babies sliding on the rainbows of heaven', not that there's anything wrong with that...it's just...not...me.
So yeah, that mother is me. Was me, and still is me.
One day, with thickened skin and on a whim, I turned the anonymous comments back on. My friends were still reading and supporting me; even some strangers. It had been a while; and I figured I could handle it. I understood what a troll was, at least.
I decided to try and trust the internet again.
Some of the first anonymous comments came in, and they went something like this: 'I wept when I read your story/ My own child died and my family doesn't understand why I cannot get over it/ Thank you for sharing your thoughts on hurtful platitudes, I will put more thought into the words I say when I know not what to say/ Thank you for reminding me to cherish my children...' etc.
I was astonished. But gobbled it up. The internet did love me! I loved the internet and it was actually loving me back!
Around this time, I discovered Tanis. I laughed til I cried. Then I discovered her archives. I cried til I laughed. And when I read about how she started writing about losing her Bug and went from feeling cold and alone to warm and cyber-hugged and surrounded by supporters when she shared her story (and his), I cried.
I cried for myself. I had a big old pity party and wondered why I sucked so bad that people actually took time to reach out and tell me that I was depressing. And why didn't I go on prozac and get a therapist and shut up? (That last one, with a few years between us as distance, is the funniest one to me - since I did see a grief counselor for six months after Elijah died...until she suddenly died.)
I loved Tanis from the beginning, but I was insanely jealous of the fact that she got the big hug. Of the fact that her writing was accepted, her process was acceptable, and she was lovable. Of course when I met her last weekend, I had to pour my heart out to her and apologize for my misplaced (and to her..umm...invisible?) jealousy. At least I felt better. (And I re-directed my jealousy to a more appropriate arena, like her hot bod and consistently photogenic face.)
I had an interesting conversation about this with a far more seasoned (spicy, even) blogger friend last weekend, and she made me feel better with her enlightened take on it. She saw a shift over the years, from primarily troll commenters, to primarily groups finding each other and supporting each other. Wow. Simply bad timing on my part.
I got over it, obviously. I rarely get comments like that anymore when I write about Elijah, and I do feel the hugs.
I feel supported and I take the strength that readers offer me. I don't pray, but I accept prayers.
There is a huge gift in the realization that, when I woke up yesterday all FREAKED THE FUCK OUT, I could write, share, and get that damn hug I needed.
Thank you. You inspired this post, and this list.

I am starting a new links list on my sidebar.
A list of bloggers who are writing about loss as well as what they have. Parents who have lost children. Writers who write about smelling the flowers and wading through the piles of shit. Sharing their paths of grief and finding their way back to living a life.
They may need your support, or you may need theirs.
Find each other.
If you know of anyone who should be added to this category, please let me know, and I will.

To start with, I have:


Turtle and Monkey

Tanis, at Attack of the Redneck Mommy and Missing My Bug

Loralee, of Loralee's Looney Tunes

Kate, of Sweet/Salty
and co-founder of Glow in the Woods

Julia, of I Won't Fear Love

The Hardest Question to Answer

Most often I am asked the question: How did Elijah die?

There should be a straightfoward answer, but there isn't. Not because it is hard to talk about - really, ask me anything about Elijah; I don't mind!! - but because it is hard to come up with an answer. It blindsided us at the time and I never really figured it out. (Not for lack of trying, or re-living over and over and over.)

Here is the story of his death. That is 'how' he died; 'how it happened' in literal words. But the story of losing him isn't really the same as 'how he died' (which usually means, 'from what did Elijah die?').

If you are just looking for the quick answer, scroll down past all the emo stuff to the bottom of this post.

I realize that I never really specified the actual 'how', which could also mean 'why', in which case I certainly don't have an acceptable answer. It's when I start thinking about the 'whys' that gets my anger juices flowing.

I do remember, after he died, being in a frame of mind which, when resembling some coherence and not a heap of soggy snot and tears, was the Gwendomama equivalent to benevolence. I was at peace. I was sitting with Mother Theresa.

I didn't need the bad, there was no bad; only good all around us and us taking it all for granted. I was changed; how could I not have been?
I could not change the outcome; it had been pre-determined by the permanence of death and loss. I was determined to make something good out of this. I would wear the rose colored glasses; I had drunk the koolaid and swallowed with it my former angst-ridden self. I swallowed her and peed her out.

So I thought.

In the direct aftermath of Elijah's death, nothing was clear. There was blurry vision obscuring every moment, every action, every sunrise and sunset. It was easy then to maintain being peaceful. I pretty much had two moods: Mood A - Sniveling in bed and refusing to get up for 24 hours, or Mood B - My new 'beauty is all around us and all we have to do is see it' stance. Mood A took alot of energy, and I was usually so wiped out after a bout with Mood A, that Mood B was a welcomed respite. It required so little of me. I think people who knew me before thought I was on high doses of valium (which, in retrospect, may have been a preferable choice).

Eventually and very gradually, barely noticeably, the fog became less thick and my vision became less blurry. And what I saw and heard made me angry. I tried to pretend it didn't - for the only thing that scatters a social gathering faster than a straightforward dead baby conversation is an angry bereaved mother wanting to talk about her dead baby. I smelled the flowers, I smiled graciously behind clenched teeth while I endured the many many emotionless platitudes I was offered, I traced his face in photographs and cried wistfully.

But inside I was undeniably angry. And one day, ((surprise surprise)) the anger began to bubble up and leak out. I snapped at someone who told me my baby was in a better place. I barked at the (other) SIL who said Elijah was watching us from a cloud, waiting to send just the right little angel down to us. For months, people would ask us how we were doing. There was a prescribed answer to this question, I soon found out. If I deviated from the scripted answer (I am ___, DH is ___, Supergirl is ___) by using my dead son's name or having the audacity to mention how much we missed him, I would be met with the universal eyes glazing over, staring past me to the shiny object that would save them from the rest of the conversation.

This too, made me angry. "WHY DO THEY EVEN FUCKING BOTHER TO ASK?" I would go home and cry to dh, who, stewed in his own paralytic thick grief, could only nod blankly back.

Pretty soon, everyone avoided me. I was too angry. What if they said the wrong thing and I lashed out at them? What if? What if the conversation we had about my dead child caused them to think about the possibility of losing their own child and how painful that would feel? It was better to avoid me. Best to avoid the possibility of reaching out and being brought the fuck down.

To this end, the blog and all of its grudges were born. The rose colored glasses were crunched underfoot. And I have written both angrily and wryly about these bumbling fumbling exchanges.

But what I have not written about is the most painful of all of these exchanges and the completely unexpected fallout of losing my son: my family's reaction and my now strained changed relationship with (some of) them.

My mother is so sad that I am angry. She is also very sad that I cannot forgive. I am the first person to admit to being slow to reach for the olive branch, but I also maintain that sometimes, it's better to fuck the forgiveness and shoot it straight to someone who continues to utter stupid and painful comments and shows no sign of letting up soon or ever.

It hurts my mother to see me so angry about this and she is disappointed in me for not being able to forgive or let it go.

WTF?

"Mom," I said, " Maybe instead of constantly telling me to forgive the mouth which spills idiocy, you could possibly hear that what I am saying is that I am repeatedly hurt by this statement and maybe you could stop defending the person who delivers it."

No. It is my 'job' to forgive. To forgive what will never ever stop unless I stop it myself. Which would be 'wrong' in my mother's opinion. Because it would hurt someone else's feelings, as she never intended to hurt me with her words. Not only that, but she would be disappointed in me if I asked my sister-in-law to please stop saying that and why. Because it would mortify my sister-in-law to know that she had hurt my feelings (even though it will continue).

Mmmkay.

What is it that is 'so horrible' that I have not yet written the source of the angst?

This simple statement, which I have heard repeated (by the same person) at every family gathering in the past four years in which someone has the balls to mention Elijah's name:

"I can't help but feel that he was spared."

If that sounds benign to you, then you have never lost a child. Or maybe you're just a bit slow (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Think about it. Elijah wasn't dying of a degenerative disease. He did not have a fatal brain tumor. He was not in pain; he was conversely, quite blissful. If he was 'spared', then what life was he 'spared'? That of being constantly loved on and entertained by his adoring mother, father, and sister?

There is no truth to that statement, there is no real thought behind that statement.

It is a platitude and a stupid one at that. And I am sick of hearing it.

Not too long ago, a reader sent me a comment about an article in the SF Chronicle about children with an enzyme deficiency whose story reminded her of Elijah. She wondered if she was 'too intrusive'. She was not intrusive at all. In fact, I think she may have been spot on.
So much, that it became Too Big to write about for a while.

These children looked mind-blowingly similar to Elijah, while we (and doctors claimed they) had never seen a child who looked like him before. The enzyme deficiency was a real possibility.

check out the adorable baby on the right...

...who looks so much like my adorable guy:

We were supposed to go to a specialist at UCSF to take Elijah for testing for metabolic disorders. We had been through hell with another nearby world-reknowned hospital; Ivory Tower and Useless Childrens Hospital. And we had not only gotten nowhere, but we had actually met up with some severely deficient physicians who, although they themselves could not diagnose Elijah, refused to refer him out to any other specialists. It took until Elijah was eleven months old to even get an appointment with an endocrinologist.
But at each and every appointment at IT/UCH, and without fail, the next 'specialist' we saw would react the same way.

• Shock. (OH MY! He is HOW old? He is SO VERY SMALL!!) (duh)(maybe we should see a doctor for that...)

• Concern. (Family history intake - again, though it is at their disposal on the computer nine inches from their elbow.)

• Tests. Run Some. (This is not an arguable suggestion for doctors, but each and every time, the doctors would ask us what tests had been run already -again, see above re: computer- and then order more tests to run...and then? NOT TELL US what tests would be sent to the lab, so that when we went to the next 'specialist' we could: Repeat the entire process over again.)

It got to be tiresome. So our kind (yes, part of me can still say she was kind, even if another part of me knows she made a stupid mistake at the cost of our child's life) pediatrician recognized the lack of cohesion or guidance for what it was instead of her alma mater, and decided to refer us out to some endocrinology Experts. She had arranged for a coordinator who would work with us at each visit, and handle Elijah's records and walk us through each department as necessary, in efforts to avoid the redundant idiocy and condescension of the previous fabulous hospital.
We were supposed to start taking Elijah to UCSF Medical Center in May of 2004.
He never made it to the first appointment.

When I saw these children at UCSF receiving enzyme replacement therapy, I cried pitifully. That should have been my child. My child should have had the time and the opportunity to receive not only a diagnosis but also treatment.

I felt cheated all over again. I started to feel depressive just thinking about it. What I didn't anticipate was, when I shared this article with family members, I would be 'called out' by my own mother as 'difficult, angry, and unforgiving'. I certainly never thought that sharing the article with my family would warrant the 'I can't help but think that he was spared' response yet again.
I thought wrong.

Again, I ask you. SPARED WHAT?


The only answer I can justify in my mind, is that the only real person who was spared, was my sister-in-law. The sister-in-law with her own four healthy children and a baby obsession, yet who could hardly bring herself to hold Elijah when he visited her home. I have concluded that her sentiment of being 'spared' is more about her than it is about my son's actual life. Because if it was based in reality and about my child's existence, then she couldn't be more wrong.

But yes, it's a bit of a downer to have your own mother defend and protect someone's intentions over her own daughter's raw feelings.

This has been going on for years. I am getting worn down by the loss of not only my son, but family members as well. My brother (married to afore-mentioned sil) is another post entirely. We used to be close. Very close. But he's now a smattering of libertarian, and when he told me that Elijah really 'should never have lived' because of our lack of health insurance coverage....well...that changed our relationship rather permanently. (tmi? tuf.)

There was so much more to lose than what was obvious upon his death. Behind the scenes, you could say. But I am done with that. The lenses of the rose-colored glasses were smashed years ago. This is me.
This is my reality.

Death is not pretty. When your worst nightmare comes true, it's hard to pretend that you are living your dream.

So, how did Elijah die?

Okay, I am going to try to answer this one. Because, like I said...Not clear. Even to us.

• There was the growth hormone he was on which appeared to debilitate his metabolism. That was right before he died.


• There was the bronchitis he got from the visit to the pediatrician's filthy waiting room when we went to discuss the growth hormone.


• There was the tracheomalacia.


• There was the fact that we lived 30 minutes from a hospital and he should have been admitted with bronchitis.


• There was the pediatrician who didn't put it all together.


• There were those last moments of recognition. He looked at me desperately and I could not give him air or save him.
  I know, I was there.
  

Officially? I don't know. I don't even know what his death certificate says. Oddly, the ashes did not come with one.

I think it says 'heart failure'.


But it was mainly bronchitis+tracheomalacia+bad call doctor.


So there. Now that's answered.

Legoland Pirate Shores of Doom

Before I can tell you how much fun we had at Legoland, I need to get unburden myself of my personal blog-clog. I have plenty to say about our memorable tourist activities and just how fabulous, in general, San Diego is. But because I tend to be obsessive I tend to compartmentalize when processing, I have to surf this scary motherfucking wave all the way in before I can tell you about the happy waves we caught before this one. Legoland is geared towards families with younger children. This said, there are plenty of rides that are fun for adults and older children, but the majority of attractions are designed for children under 14 (I am being generous here). This also said: I do not have a problem with teenagers, so don't get all 'your ignorance is blissfully entertaining to me, oh mother of smallish children' on me. I do have a problem with children of any age who have not been taught to:

1. listen to adults
2. respect others
3. physically control themselves

Legoland has a small area of the park which is a waterpark. Emphasis on small. I am not sure how new this feature is, but it seems they have not quite gotten the rules straight. They do seem to be strict about keeping the wet and dry parks separate, evident by our witnessing ejection of a ten-ish year old girl from the line for a boat cruise for wearing just a bathing suit.

The information offered on their website regarding small children is unceremoniously simple: Please note that swim diapers are required for all children under 4 years of age.
Because of some height-restrictions on the rides, we split up for a while so Supergirl could ride some thrill rides without sending her thrill-seeking brother into cataclysmic exclusion tantrums. I took him over to the Pirate Shores (of DOOM) and switched out his regular diaper for a swim diaper. I put his shorts back on over his swim diaper, because like most mothers whose brains were working that morning, I of course put many changes of clothes for the children into the backpack.
I wound through the entrance crowded with strollers and put the excited and wiggly boy down. He made a beeline for the water, but we were stopped by a teen attendant who asked me to take off Bubble's shorts to show that he had a diaper on underneath. I wrangled the shorts back off of him, then put him back down to explore the fountains and slides, but was stopped by another teen attendant who demanded that I put his short on over his swim diaper.
WHAT THE?
Okay, fine. Yes I rolled my eyes at her, which may have set the precedence for reciprocation, but I mentioned the website's sparse rules which had mentioned nothing about the need for more layers. She snapped back at me, "I didn't write the website! What do you think?" She gained momentum with the interest of some nearby guests, "I made that all up myself? I'm not responsible for the website!"
I didn't really care to argue this with her, so turned my attention to whatever it was that made Bubbles want to be there. This was, apparently, a small red waterslide. To reach this waterslide, one must first navigate through waterspouts up the steps of the play structure. Which is exactly what Bubbles was trying to do when he was kneed by some very large kid right off the steps and onto the ground.
Bubbles is not a wimp; he picked himself up faster than I could reach him and scrambled back up the steps. Meanwhile Power-Hungry Teen Girl in Important Looking Red Shirt was still enjoying her audience and much eye-rolling ensued. She seemed to have really liked me and was trying to get on my good side, evident by her attention to detailing my every move.
I started to walk closer to the slide - I didn't like the looks of the large pack of wild, running children headed back around their circuit, with my son directly in their path. I watched as they knocked over 2 small children and then headed for mine.
"HEY! Maybe you should do something about this?" I shouted at PHTGILRS as I pointed up at the pack and ran for my son.
She then grabbed my wrist and yelled in my face to take off my shoes. And something about parents not being allowed up there on the slide.
Again, WHAT THE?
I yelled back that I was not going to take off my damn tevas and she should let go of me right now. I literally shook her off when I saw Bubbles get knocked over face-down into a puddle of water, nearly trampled by the kids who knocked him over (again, no reprimand for the kids), and as I ran to lift him out of the puddle, the dumps-every-ten-minutes THREE HUNDRED GALLON bucket of water dumped on us, pinning him down further. At least I was over him at this point. When I got up I was soaked and stunned. Bubbles was screaming. I walked away in a daze as PHTGILRS had an indiscreet giggle. I considered walking over to her just to kick her in the shins, but changed my mind since I really just wanted to get my baby out of that danger soup.
We remained in the park for just another hour after that, dashing from ride to ride to squeeze it all in. I am glad we didn't leave right after that - It surely would have ruined our experience to have left on that note.
Did I write letters? You bet I did. I actually talked to the safety supervisor at length this morning. She assured me that 'the appropriate steps had been taken' with the employee. I can only hope that this means her PHTGILRS wearing ass has err...walked the proverbial plank.
More to come on the legoland fun, but consider this your PSA of the day: Keep your small and defenseless children away from Legoland's new and ill-planned water park area. The rest of the park is far more fun, and I would place bets as to how long until they close this new 'attraction'.

Why yes, I am feeling sensitive, thank you for asking.

Not surprisingly, dh and I have processed our grief about Elijah in completely different ways. In my opinion, he did what most fathers in his position would do - he jumped off the emotional cliff. I wallowed in it. He didn't want to talk about it; I needed (still need) to talk about it. He has a low tolerance for my need to process the details over and over, and so I rarely process with him. But he also has, on occasion, taken this sort of superior status on his process, as he condescends to me in my grieving path. For instance, you do realize, that I choose this pain, don't you? I choose to hold on to this grief. But he, because of his buddhist leanings, is not holding on to it! See? Simple.
But I don't judge him or tell him that I think he is full of shit and grief. I just let him do it his way. Who am I to say what works? Dead babies don't get you some sort of special manual, you know.
So, with that in mind...this very recent conversation pissed me off:


me: Have you seen the medical reords?

him: The what?

me: Elijah's medical records. I had them out the other day. I want to scan this picture of his MRI and compare it to a 'normal brain' side by side.

him: Oh. I see.

me: What. where is it?

him: I don't know. but you are 'doing the work.'

me: What???

him: It's the stage when you take grief and turn it...(wait for it)...into something else.

I had to go away and cry for a moment. At his daunting level of transcendence.