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A continuation of my original blog, "Surviving Motherhood". |
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Welcome to my world of middle school, high school, and motherhood. The life of a mom is never easy, especially as children grow, and especially when you have a special needs child. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| The middle school has genius marketing for fundraising for the school. They don't require the middle schoolers to bring home any catalogs or chocolate bars, sell candles or wrapping paper. Instead, they create school dances. For just $5 a student, your kiddo can get into the dance, and be social. Around this age, with so many kids wanting to attend a dance and meet up with friends in a safe but fun environment, it's GENIUS. You figure the school holds about 1100 kids, even if only half of them want to go, that's a boatload of money right there. They also ask parents for donations of drinks and candy, so they can sell those, as well as pizza, and trinkets at the concession stands. When Ryan was in middle school, he wanted NOTHING to do with the dances. We couldn't even talk him into going to his 8th grade formal, and all his friends went. Ryan did not ask to go to homecoming this year (which is good, because he doesn't have a suit, and I don't have $30 to give him to go in), and I have a sneaking suspicion that unless he's dragged or he gets asked, he's not going to be attending any proms either. He's as stay put as his father is. Whereas Ryan didn't, and still doesn't, buy into the shiny....Journey does. My girl has decided she is ALL ABOUT the dances. So far, she's attended every one that's been thrown. Don even chaperones the night time PTA ones so he can be there with her while she goes. It's insanely awesome. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I think my autistic daughter would be interested in loud, crowded, overstimulating dances. According to those who give me feedback (because Journey won't really talk to me about the dances), she rarely actually dances, but she does socialize quite a bit. Sometimes with kids she knows, sometimes with kids she doesn't know. Don said she was talking to some 7th graders this last dance on Friday. I was shocked!! This is all new, interesting information to me. This is another side of Journey that I've never seen before. She's willingly going out of her comfort level to be social and have fun after school hours, and meet with new people. Believe me when I say, that music is LOUD. You can hear it outside the school. But, she seems to do fine while it's on, and it doesn't keep her from doing whatever it is that she wants to do while she's there. I love it. I love that she's unabashedly herself, and that she chooses to do these things, even if they're out of her comfort zone. I love that she goes in there, even without a bestie, and just has a great time. Grace is the closest thing to a best friend Journey has ever had, and Grace wouldn't be caught dead at one of those things. She's just not that type of girl. Journey is. Journey doesn't really care if people she knows are going or not, she just wants to go. I say, as long as we continue to have $5 for her to go, she can keep going. If this is what helps her remember her middle school experiences fondly, then so be it. I want to help her carry that on. |
| For what feels like the first time in eternity, I think we're back on track again. I feel like we've been playing loads of catch up for the last I dunno how long, and it's been driving me insane. Ryan made all county honor band again this year, and now things are starting to feel a bit more familiar. Don't get me wrong, shit's still kinda weird. This whole "Up at 6 am" dealy has got me baffled. My day has suddenly stretched and morphed into something I can't quite recognize, and my body is still trying to figure things out. (I'll get to that here in a little bit though). We were all just thrown into this new, faster ballgame. I thought I was ready. I thought we all were. I was wrong. Way wrong. But that's how you adapt. You get thrown into it, and you just start trying to swim any way you know how, and try to keep moving with the pace. I'm very proud to say that we've done pretty exceptionally at staying afloat so far. I think it was easier to swallow when Ryan went to middle school because Journey was still in elementary. We only had to deal with one new component. Now suddenly we have to deal with a shit ton, and I find myself trying to find ways to cope. Why is it I can't remember my own high school years being this frazzled and crazy? Perhaps it was just a simpler time for me? I dunno. The sprint is always so much more hard when you're doing it with your kid. When it's just you, and you're young, you're a little cocky, you think you've got this, you bolt, and you never look back. This is harder, because I'm not as in good of shape as I was back then, and now I've got to contend with this for him, not for me. But at the same time, it doesn't matter for me to be sprinting to the finish-it matters for him. How do other parents do this?? Are they just less involved, or do they not carry everything around, or are they busy with their own things? I dunno. I've never ever been to this point in my life before. I will never be at this point again. Time's march is probably one of the most confusing things to live through. Interesting how all of us do it uniquely. Anywho.... Sometimes I worry about Journey, and her grades, and how things are actually going. She's quite charming, and teachers tend to fall in love with her, which makes me kind of worried that she does this as a defense mechanism so if her grades ever get bad enough, they'll never get THAT bad. I hope that's not the case, and I hope I'm wrong. I know the teachers find her very relatable, sweet, and kind. I appreciate that they think so sweetly of her, and I agree, she's a doll, but I also need her to be a more responsible, advocating doll. She's got this thing where she doesn't seem to want to ask for help even though she's in desperate need of it. For some reason, she's not asking. I keep getting on her about it. Her math teacher is noticing it too, and leaving comments about it in correspondence. When I offer my assistance in any way, I don't get an answer back from either the teacher or Journey. I just don't want this to fall into the same trap over and over again. I want Journey to actually be given a chance to prove that she's capable. And then I need her to actually PROVE that she is. I feel like sometimes she just defaults back to being sweet and lovely, so people are more congenial with her and will cut her some slack. I'm afraid she's going to run into the teacher that finally won't accept that kind of currency, and Journey is going to suffer and pay the consequence at some point. That's when I'll really be worried-once that hits the fan, I'm worried she won't want to return to school anymore. I don't know how to get her into the habit of asking for help, and how to be more of an advocate for herself. I don't want her to just slide by the seat of her pants. I think tomorrow I'm going to give a call to her caseworker, who sees her every day, and talk to her about this. I can see the cycles already, and I don't want it to happen and make things worse. Strangely though, in this way, with these attachments, she seems to be networking her way through middle school, and turning it into a positive experience. I'm impressed, and I also hope that this isn't just a facade. She's actually taken to middle school better than I thought she would. I didn't expect this. I'm thrilled it's this, but it's definitely not what was expected. I'm not sure what to make of it honestly. Most of me says to take it at face value, and just go with the flow. The other part of me knows that she can hide things really well, and she will wear that mask until her hands fall off. The only thing I can think to do at this point is keep my door open, keep my eyes open, take her at face value, and pray she opens when or if something happens. I'm pretty sure if it was something relatively big in size, she wouldn't hide it from me. I don't know if she could, and I'm kind of happy about that honestly. Journey is taking to her middle school role better than Ryan takes to his high school one. Journey's interested in going to the dances, and meeting all these new and exciting people. Ryan likes to keep to himself. I was hoping he'd have a little more high school pride, but he just seems kind of...indifferent. I didn't expect him to be Mister Johnny High School, but I thought since it was going to be his home for the last 4 years of free public education, he'd be a little more into it. Maybe he's not that type of kid though. It's so strange how he's morphed. When he was little, he was running for president, and he would tell anyone that listened who he was, what he was about, what he was interested in, etc. He would talk your ear off for days. It's like he's found a hermit crab shell and climbed inside now. When he was 6, he was very sociable. Now that he's 14, he doesn't really care about being social at all. I hardly hear anything about friends. I think he has a few...he gets invited to birthday parties...I dunno. It's like his social life doesn't exist, and it kinda freaks me out, because he was so social as a little kid, and now suddenly he's not at all. Is that just part of growing up? I just started noticing it gradually happening, from 4th grade on....his birthday party guest lists just started shrinking to nothing. This last year, he didn't even have a party. Not that he didn't try though. I dunno. sometimes I worry about them, and hope that things are okay. Sometimes I want to pick their brains and find out what's going on in their worlds for a bit, but sometimes, I find that I don't want to upset them or get them worried or suspicious if I'm constantly questioning them. That's when I tell myself to calm down, and if there's something that needs to be said, hope they say it to me. Is that where I'm wrong? Anywho.... So, I got lazy and a bit out of hand with my diabetes, which is NOT a good thing. It was scaring my primary care physician so much that she begged me to go to an endocrinologist in case my system was getting wrecked way worse than we thought it was. The last time I went to an endo, she decided to retire, and left a horrible person in her place of a nurse practitioner. That woman almost single handedly ruined my life, as I refused to go back to that office until she was gone. My body is an anomaly. My body has never operated the way it's supposed to, in a myriad of different fashions. There would be times where I was overdosing myself in insulin just to get some sort of relief from high blood sugar, and nothing would happen. I sat high for quite awhile, which scares me, because I was sitting high for awhile before I went into ketoacidosis back in 2005. That's a one week ICU trip I'd rather not ever relive. So, I went to the new endo, and she gave me a lot of good tips. She also kind of regenerated my insulin system, and we reconfigured when I needed what most, and what to put where. I started back on my regimen, and I have to tell you, it feels like I've taken back over my life again. I feel like I just woke up out of hibernation, like I was foggy and dazed at first, and now I'm starting to find some semblance of normal again. It's almost a surreal feeling. Because of all this stopping and restarting though, my body is finding it a bit hard to keep up. Back when I was high, I didn't really feel any sort of pain or anything. Now that I'm normal, I do. I feel it to my bones. And though that's not preferable, I'd rather be normal and feel all the pain than be high and not feel anything. That kinda actually scares me. Two weeks into my new regimen of insulin doses and adjustments, my back decided that my top front is much too heavy to lug around, and thus, my back went out. I've been wearing a brace for the last I don't know how long now, trying to get my back back into place. It's a slow process, and I feel like sometimes recovery is never going to come, but at the same time, I can feel there's progress there, and I'm starting to get there again. A few weeks ago, I went on a girl scout camping trip with Journey, and I went above and beyond, like what I was used to doing, and by the end of that weekend, I was in shambles. It took me almost a week and a half to recover. My body doesn't seem to bounce back the way it used to. I thought doing all this walking to and from the bus stop would help me lose weight and get me nice and healthy, and all it really did is expose just how unhealthy I really am. There were a couple of days I had to ask a neighborhood friend to pick up Journey from the bus stop at the firehouse, because my back just couldn't take it. These days, over a month into the new insulin regimen, I'm starting to feel my strength build a little more at a time. I can get to the corner I stand at quicker now. I can do it without losing too much breath. There are days when I feel I can go even farther than where I'm at...but I don't want to risk my health by trying and then set myself backwards. Resets require copious amounts of sleep for me. There are days when I just need a nap, all day. I'll get up, get Journey ready for school, see Ryan off to school,, go fall asleep. Wake up, get something to drink, go to the bathroom, test my blood sugar, get something in me, catch up on some news, talk to Don through email for a little while, then need to go pass out again. Sometimes I wake up, go to the bathroom, then go lay back down again. I always make sure I get up in time to get to my corner to pick up Journey though. Slowly but surely. |
| Journey and I were upstairs talking the other night, not about anything in particular, but all at once, I had the urge to tell her about Santa's existence. I know I had said that i was going to share with her when Don was around, and I'm sorry that it didn't work out that way, but these things just tend to lead off from different places. I wasn't prepared for it to come at first, but when it did, I realized, it came at just the right time. The kids' first Santa, Russ, has moved away. He's been writing out the Santa tags for the last 10 years now. There's no one that can replace him. I explained to her about how Santa's person himself no longer exists, as he was very old and passed away at some point. I told her how Santa's magic and Santa's work carries on year after year, and how once we are old enough, we learn about becoming Santa for those that deserve some Santa in their lives. At first she was very broken hearted about it, and I cried that it made her cry. But, she took it in stride, and she's understanding of it now. This isn't how I pictured it playing out, but I know that kids like to be jerks and ruin it for everyone else, so I decided to take the opportunity to let her in on the secret before someone could ruin it for her. Every day, my kids are growing more and more, no longer being small. Though right now, I'm glad that I don't have to wrap presents again for awhile, I'm sure in a few years I'll be wistful an miss the Santa days. Journey had just barely started to understand Santa and a Christmas wish list when she was 5. In that sense, I wish I would've given her more time-but it is what it is at this point, and we can only move forward. Expenses are getting bigger and bigger these days. I have yet to start Christmas shopping for anyone right now. It's just not in the cards, what with bills going up, and classes having fees, etc. I feel like there's never enough money left for anything, especially things like laundry. Trying to squeeze us through one week to the next is proving harder and harder, and our rent was just raised by $63. I will do whatever I can to make that happen, but still, that seems like such a big amount of money. There are so many things I haven't had the chance to pay for yet, and so few things I actually have. I didn't even get a chance to get Ryan brand new shoes like I hoped we would-that money went to pay for his tuition to SMYOC. I didn't get a chance to get Journey those two books for Christmas, that money went to buying her a gym uniform. Had to pay chorus for chorus fees, and luckily chorus and band are cutting us a break, where one is only charging us for a uniform rental, and the other for the performance fee, but still, more money we have to find. We still need to find a way to get him a tuxedo shirt to wear with his uniform. I don't even know where to look for a decent one of those for a a small price. Maybe Walmart? I don't know. But that's more money we're going to have to find in order to get him something else he needs more than new shoes, which honestly, he's had these shoes for 2 years now, he really does need a new pair. I just can't seem to find a way to get them paid for. It's not like we're throwing money away left and right here-most of the time, we eat dinner at home. We don't splurge on silly things like a morning coffee (although Don would if I let him), etc. But yet here we are, trying to stay afloat against the tide, getting spun around and sloshed at every side, just trying to hold on enough to make it to the next paycheck. The sad part is, when we make it to the next one, that one is already spent. There's very little wiggle room within any of these checks for anything. Sometimes I'll get lucky and can pull out a few dollars for some hand soap and some toothpaste. Sometimes, I can afford to get a new bag of litter for Dixon. Sometimes, I can afford to get $10 in quarters to do laundry. I just can't afford all of these all the time. There's rarely ever a time when I look at my account and say "oh wow, we could do something fun!" I want to be able to look at my account and say "Here's the money Ryan needs for new shoes. Here's the money Journey needs for new gloves. Here's some money to get some household items. I have enough money to stock up on items. Here's a little extra money in case a meal doesn't go as planned, so we can go to the grocery store and try again." Just when I think we're going to catch up and start feeling that small bit of "look at this, we have some extra money left in the bank...I wonder if we can do laundry with it?", I get kicked in the stomach, and an extra $60-$90 later, I'm left wondering what the hell just happened, and realizing, not only do I NOT have extra money for things like Christmas, but I don't even have extra money for necessities like shoes. One day, I'd love to know how that feels. I'd love to be able to say "Hey Ry, you need some shoes, why don't we go get you some?". Stuff like this is utterly depressing. Makes life harder. I really do hope that by the start of January, things will start to look up a little more. I hope by that time, things will start being paid for, and we can start moving some stuff around and have some breathing room for things like shoes and higher rent. |
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