I had a regularly scheduled checkup with my PCP today. I arrived, checked in at the desk and found out my provider had left some three months ago and hadn't I gotten a call about it to cancel and reschedule me? I hadn't gotten a call, of that I was sure. Later, another person said maybe they had physically mailed patients about the departure. And then there was another person who thought it was email they had sent to the patients.
It didn't matter much at that point as I was standing there in the office and was hopeful I could be seen. There happened to be an opening a half-hour later with a doctor I'd never seen before. They got me back in much less than a half-hour and I had a very nice time meeting her and discussing the relevant points of my medical history. I was out about the time I would have gotten out with my original appointment and I had a new doctor I quite liked.
I needed to schedule another follow-up in six months and had been sent back up to the front to the check-in area to reschedule there. As I came out I saw a man quickly ushering a woman with a blind cane into the office. He positioned her at the front of the line (as there was no one else there) and then tried to leave. She asked him some questions about what she needed to do and where she was in the office and he said something like, "you just stand there and they'll call you up."
She was clearly confused. Or wait, I shouldn't say that. To me, I understood her confusion. To the man, he had no idea, because he didn't have experience with blind people. He didn't realize she was just thrust into a space of unknown size with unknown furnishings, obstacles or layout. She didn't know which way to face or what was going to happen other than, "they'll call you up."
I walked up to her and said, "Hello, my daughter is blind. Can I help?" She gently grabbed my hand that I had placed on her arm and asked me if I would make sure she didn't lose her place in line. I explained she was first and I'd help her get to the counter when they called her. She and I chatted for about another minute before one of the staff called, "next" and then we walked to the counter together before I backed away for her privacy.
She said in a kindly yet worried way, "don't leave." I said I wasn't in any hurry and I'd wait until she was checked in. I was called next and made my appointment while she gave credit card and identification as well as answered questions to the person beside me.
When we were done we took seats beside each other and talked about my daughter and discovered both she and my daughter had lost their vision starting with an infection. Ultimately she had to have both eyes removed. In one, she had a prosthesis, the other socket remained empty. She was wearing regular sunglasses so it wasn't apparent.
I talked to her about how my daughter didn't like to use her cane. She told me to tell her she should use her cane! It was at that point we realized we hadn't introduced ourselves. She said to tell my daughter Brenda Rodgers said to use her cane, that it was a good thing.
Brenda has a guide dog and we discussed how it was looking more and more like my daughter would want to have one when she's old enough. He love of animals and desire to own a pet store when she grows up makes me believe she will love to have a companion with her that also functions as a way to keep her safe. We have about ten years to go before we'll know for sure.
About that cane: if Brenda hadn't had the cane, I wouldn't have realized she was blind and wouldn't have offered to help her. The cane is definitely important. Brenda's name was called just then and as she stood up the nurse asked if we were together. We said no although I said I was available if she needed help. I wasn't needed at all though because the nurse knew just what to do, asking Brenda how she preferred to be guided back.
In the car later in the day, I told my daughter about Brenda and her eyes and how she had lost them to infection. My daughter has never heard of someone losing their eyes entirely before. She asked some questions. And, of course, I passed on Brenda's message that she should use her cane.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Picky Conversation:
My daughter is having difficulty with EVERYTHING. I tell you, it's only getting worse. More on that in a future post. Tonight she was bemoaning the dessert choices (there were many options from the freezer, her favorite dessert location). My son said, "for Christmas I want Reese not to be picky." My daughter retorted, "you can't choose my attitude!"
Monday, October 7, 2019
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Grandma’s on Facebook!
I do "tech support" from time to time to various people. I have a Computer Science degree and worked in the software development industry prior to having children which means that while there are many, many things I don't know, I do know enough to help at times.
Not all tech support is fun. For someone who works in the field, it's a lot of "not fun" because you have customers calling who are upset things aren't working. You have to fix their problem while being subjected to what are largely not happy people. The support I do is to family members and friends and is all elective. It's nicer that way because I've chosen to help and even want to help. There is no obligation.
It's nice to be able to help someone and they are always appreciative. That doesn't always make the support fun, but it's not a drudgery either. This weekend, however, I got to do some fun tech support.
My mother had noticed when my aunt visited last that she was playing solitaire with a deck of cards and had thought it might be fun for Aunt Martha to have a computer or tablet she could play solitaire and other games on. My mother asked my husband and me about it and through a series of conversations back and forth with us considering and then throwing out ideas, we came to the decision to go with an iPad.
This decision was largely due in part because we had an old iPad we weren't using anymore. When Aunt Martha came to town we told her of our plan and she was excited. But were we sure? Didn't we need the iPad? We assured her it wasn't a new model and that our technology-heavy family wasn't going to go without an iPad as a result.
Then the fun began. Aunt Martha has an iPhone, so an iPad was convenient. When we got it configured her pictures (she loves taking pictures on her phone) all appeared on her iPad and could be viewed in much larger form. We configured Skype and Facetime and got her email going.
I installed weather and map apps and showed her how text messages showed up on her iPad as well as her phone. We looked at how Gmail worked and she sent and received emails to my mother and me. She had never had email set up on her phone before. And this was all fun. It was fun to me and fun to her because it was new things to do.
And of course, there were the games. We found games that didn't need to be connected to the internet because she doesn't have WiFi at home. Would she be interested in WiFi at some point if she really enjoys the iPad? Possibly, she said, but for now this was enough new to learn. I was impressed with Aunt Martha. She was so receptive to the new things and she was quick to pick up on them.
And everything was free. I explained how companies made money from advertisement revenue similar to how magazines and television shows do. Companies also, I told her, make money in some cases by giving you a "try and buy" version of a game that's less functionality than the full game and yet can still be lots of fun. We talked about Micro-Transactions and how the vast majority of money that game developers make is from in-game purchases. And that that huge portion of the money comes from about three percent of the game players. And that means the rest of us can enjoy the game for free.
I had one more thing to do though before she left. I wasn't sure what she'd think about it though. I asked her if she wanted to be on Facebook? She is my father's sister and I'm friends with her children and some of their children. Facebook was not only free, but you also didn't have to ever post on it. You could sign up and just see what friends and family were posting.
She said sure and while she took some luggage to the car I got her signed up. When she got back she scrolled through the list of people Facebook wanted to know if she wanted to be friends with based on her contacts (and other Facebook data mining algorithms). She sent a friends request to lots of people.
By the time we completed inviting people she was already getting notifications people were accepting the invites and posting something. It was exciting times. We looked at her feed and one of her grandchildren had sent a big message saying, "Grandma's on Facebook!"
I told Aunt Martha I was going to be checking in with her over the next week or so, making sure everything is going well and answering any questions she might have. Some tech support is fun. This was the best kind, in my opinion.
The Big Boy Update: My son is going to see his psychiatrist tomorrow for the required six-month check. My son said everything is going well with the Adderall when I asked him tonight. He even said, "It's helping me with my Mystery History research project."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is going to see an infectious disease specialist tomorrow for her recurring bladder infections. She has one again I think now or did a few days ago before I put her back on the antibiotic. I really hope we can get some answers.
Not all tech support is fun. For someone who works in the field, it's a lot of "not fun" because you have customers calling who are upset things aren't working. You have to fix their problem while being subjected to what are largely not happy people. The support I do is to family members and friends and is all elective. It's nicer that way because I've chosen to help and even want to help. There is no obligation.
It's nice to be able to help someone and they are always appreciative. That doesn't always make the support fun, but it's not a drudgery either. This weekend, however, I got to do some fun tech support.
My mother had noticed when my aunt visited last that she was playing solitaire with a deck of cards and had thought it might be fun for Aunt Martha to have a computer or tablet she could play solitaire and other games on. My mother asked my husband and me about it and through a series of conversations back and forth with us considering and then throwing out ideas, we came to the decision to go with an iPad.
This decision was largely due in part because we had an old iPad we weren't using anymore. When Aunt Martha came to town we told her of our plan and she was excited. But were we sure? Didn't we need the iPad? We assured her it wasn't a new model and that our technology-heavy family wasn't going to go without an iPad as a result.
Then the fun began. Aunt Martha has an iPhone, so an iPad was convenient. When we got it configured her pictures (she loves taking pictures on her phone) all appeared on her iPad and could be viewed in much larger form. We configured Skype and Facetime and got her email going.
I installed weather and map apps and showed her how text messages showed up on her iPad as well as her phone. We looked at how Gmail worked and she sent and received emails to my mother and me. She had never had email set up on her phone before. And this was all fun. It was fun to me and fun to her because it was new things to do.
And of course, there were the games. We found games that didn't need to be connected to the internet because she doesn't have WiFi at home. Would she be interested in WiFi at some point if she really enjoys the iPad? Possibly, she said, but for now this was enough new to learn. I was impressed with Aunt Martha. She was so receptive to the new things and she was quick to pick up on them.
And everything was free. I explained how companies made money from advertisement revenue similar to how magazines and television shows do. Companies also, I told her, make money in some cases by giving you a "try and buy" version of a game that's less functionality than the full game and yet can still be lots of fun. We talked about Micro-Transactions and how the vast majority of money that game developers make is from in-game purchases. And that that huge portion of the money comes from about three percent of the game players. And that means the rest of us can enjoy the game for free.
I had one more thing to do though before she left. I wasn't sure what she'd think about it though. I asked her if she wanted to be on Facebook? She is my father's sister and I'm friends with her children and some of their children. Facebook was not only free, but you also didn't have to ever post on it. You could sign up and just see what friends and family were posting.
She said sure and while she took some luggage to the car I got her signed up. When she got back she scrolled through the list of people Facebook wanted to know if she wanted to be friends with based on her contacts (and other Facebook data mining algorithms). She sent a friends request to lots of people.
By the time we completed inviting people she was already getting notifications people were accepting the invites and posting something. It was exciting times. We looked at her feed and one of her grandchildren had sent a big message saying, "Grandma's on Facebook!"
I told Aunt Martha I was going to be checking in with her over the next week or so, making sure everything is going well and answering any questions she might have. Some tech support is fun. This was the best kind, in my opinion.
The Big Boy Update: My son is going to see his psychiatrist tomorrow for the required six-month check. My son said everything is going well with the Adderall when I asked him tonight. He even said, "It's helping me with my Mystery History research project."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is going to see an infectious disease specialist tomorrow for her recurring bladder infections. She has one again I think now or did a few days ago before I put her back on the antibiotic. I really hope we can get some answers.
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Anxiety
I had a discussion with Dhruti today about my daughter. After posting yesterday I sent her a message with a quick summary, saying I had an appointment with the psychiatrist next week and I knew she had been wanting to talk to me about how things were going. I wanted to talk to her about my thoughts as well.
Dhruti and I talked today and she told me about some of the things she's been seeing with my daughter and what they meant and her thoughts about things overall. First, my daughter has been wanting to play "hide and seek" games in the playroom. This is rather silly in that there is nowhere to hide in the small room and Dhruti can see her no matter where she is. My daughter knows this intrinsically, but there is an underlying message. She wants to be "found". She feels lost.
She told me about social issues my daughter is having at school. Aditi, her close friend who is also a VI student, is frustrating my daughter. Aditi doesn't want to do everything my daughter suggests. She sees this as Aditi not wanting to be her friend. Brooklynn, however, is willing to do anything my daughter wants to do, so my daughter feels closer to her right now. Most of her other friends don't want to be controlled in the way my daughter has a need to control them, which is causing social tension.
At one point in the session, Dhruti made the mistake of using the word "see" when describing something. My daughter snapped at her saying, "seeing is not my thing and you should know that." That's not something my daughter would say to Dhruti, or anyone, typically.
Dhruti sees my daughter being defiant about everything and how, no matter what choices are offered and how good or fun something might sound, my daughter is resistant. She said to her, "it must be very scary to do something when you don't know what that something will be like." My daughter admitted it was.
She said my daughter knows she's being mean, rude, hurtful in her words, but she doesn't know how else to be. She's dealing with a lot of fear right now. I told Dhruti I planned to have my daughter see the psychiatrist she had recommended for my son a year ago because she seems to be sad or unhappy or angry and willing to fight everything out, perhaps because of this fear of the unknown, or maybe because she's trying to accept the blindness but fighting that internally. For whatever reason, I thought it was time to take that step.
Dhruti said she didn't disagree. She said she was reticent to see her put on an antidepressant at her age and that Dr. Snow may feel the same. I said I wasn't set on medication, but I wasn't against it either. What I wanted to do was get her in, have her evaluated and get his opinion. That, and once we had her as an established patient, we could go to him in the future if there was a need.
Then Dhruti said something that was like the proverbial light bulb going off. She said she thought she might do better by being treated for anxiety and not depression. Anxiety. Of course. She has so much anxiety about everything it's causing her to resist, try to control her surroundings, including people and the negativity associated with all of those things combined, is causing her to be depressed. Or perhaps not depressed, but down, sad, upset, negative, frustrated, etc.
Anxiety makes so much more sense. A low dose of anxiety medication may give her some mental peace she needs right now so she can cope with things while she processes and accepts the blindness. Why didn't I see it? It makes so much more sense. The upside is anxiety medication is a much better option for a child her age. It doesn't have to be weaned off of in the future and can be taken as needed. And it doesn't affect her developing brain in the same way.
It was such a huge relief when I heard Dhruti explain it that way. She is going to contact Dr. Snow on Monday morning to discuss my daughter with him. And everything will be subject to his evaluation and recommendation. He may have other ideas entirely. I'm glad to be having her seen by him though. If we can give her some peace, it will be a good thing. She is having difficulties at home, at school and socially. I'd love to help her calm her mind, let her just be a child instead of living in a perpetual state of flight or fight, mostly fight, from fear and anxiety.
The Big Boy Update: My son is currently at the symphony with his father. Tonight's performance is of video game music. I'm wondering what songs they'll play. I'm guessing the Super Mario theme song will be one and probably the main Tetris theme. I wonder if my son will know a lot of the songs. I have a feeling my husband will know all of the songs.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came home after ten o'clock last night with Morgan. They had been working for two days on Halloween cookies. There were two large containers of them. They had made sugar cookies and then iced them with all sorts of colors, designs and sprinkles. There were probably three batches they had made so many and each of the cookies was uniquely decorated. This morning we shared some with Madison for her family next door and Ellie, to take back to her three siblings and parents. We still have loads left, even after eating them throughout the day when we should have been eating more healthful food.
Dhruti and I talked today and she told me about some of the things she's been seeing with my daughter and what they meant and her thoughts about things overall. First, my daughter has been wanting to play "hide and seek" games in the playroom. This is rather silly in that there is nowhere to hide in the small room and Dhruti can see her no matter where she is. My daughter knows this intrinsically, but there is an underlying message. She wants to be "found". She feels lost.
She told me about social issues my daughter is having at school. Aditi, her close friend who is also a VI student, is frustrating my daughter. Aditi doesn't want to do everything my daughter suggests. She sees this as Aditi not wanting to be her friend. Brooklynn, however, is willing to do anything my daughter wants to do, so my daughter feels closer to her right now. Most of her other friends don't want to be controlled in the way my daughter has a need to control them, which is causing social tension.
At one point in the session, Dhruti made the mistake of using the word "see" when describing something. My daughter snapped at her saying, "seeing is not my thing and you should know that." That's not something my daughter would say to Dhruti, or anyone, typically.
Dhruti sees my daughter being defiant about everything and how, no matter what choices are offered and how good or fun something might sound, my daughter is resistant. She said to her, "it must be very scary to do something when you don't know what that something will be like." My daughter admitted it was.
She said my daughter knows she's being mean, rude, hurtful in her words, but she doesn't know how else to be. She's dealing with a lot of fear right now. I told Dhruti I planned to have my daughter see the psychiatrist she had recommended for my son a year ago because she seems to be sad or unhappy or angry and willing to fight everything out, perhaps because of this fear of the unknown, or maybe because she's trying to accept the blindness but fighting that internally. For whatever reason, I thought it was time to take that step.
Dhruti said she didn't disagree. She said she was reticent to see her put on an antidepressant at her age and that Dr. Snow may feel the same. I said I wasn't set on medication, but I wasn't against it either. What I wanted to do was get her in, have her evaluated and get his opinion. That, and once we had her as an established patient, we could go to him in the future if there was a need.
Then Dhruti said something that was like the proverbial light bulb going off. She said she thought she might do better by being treated for anxiety and not depression. Anxiety. Of course. She has so much anxiety about everything it's causing her to resist, try to control her surroundings, including people and the negativity associated with all of those things combined, is causing her to be depressed. Or perhaps not depressed, but down, sad, upset, negative, frustrated, etc.
Anxiety makes so much more sense. A low dose of anxiety medication may give her some mental peace she needs right now so she can cope with things while she processes and accepts the blindness. Why didn't I see it? It makes so much more sense. The upside is anxiety medication is a much better option for a child her age. It doesn't have to be weaned off of in the future and can be taken as needed. And it doesn't affect her developing brain in the same way.
It was such a huge relief when I heard Dhruti explain it that way. She is going to contact Dr. Snow on Monday morning to discuss my daughter with him. And everything will be subject to his evaluation and recommendation. He may have other ideas entirely. I'm glad to be having her seen by him though. If we can give her some peace, it will be a good thing. She is having difficulties at home, at school and socially. I'd love to help her calm her mind, let her just be a child instead of living in a perpetual state of flight or fight, mostly fight, from fear and anxiety.
The Big Boy Update: My son is currently at the symphony with his father. Tonight's performance is of video game music. I'm wondering what songs they'll play. I'm guessing the Super Mario theme song will be one and probably the main Tetris theme. I wonder if my son will know a lot of the songs. I have a feeling my husband will know all of the songs.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came home after ten o'clock last night with Morgan. They had been working for two days on Halloween cookies. There were two large containers of them. They had made sugar cookies and then iced them with all sorts of colors, designs and sprinkles. There were probably three batches they had made so many and each of the cookies was uniquely decorated. This morning we shared some with Madison for her family next door and Ellie, to take back to her three siblings and parents. We still have loads left, even after eating them throughout the day when we should have been eating more healthful food.
Friday, October 4, 2019
Depressed
There is a lot going on with my daughter. I've written about it here a good bit and we're working through it at home and with the professionals my daughter sees. I know she's processing the blindness, and I know it's hard. It's trauma and not mild trauma at that. It's trauma that's happened again and again as she's had insult after insult to her eyes and vision.
The surgeries, doctor appointments, drops, medications, restrictions in activity, limited activity because she can't see, having to realize again and again she can't do things other people can do and the vision loss as a whole has a huge impact on her mental state and her life.
We try to help my daughter feel as capable as possible whenever we can. It's not always something we can do though, because she is definitely limited by her blindness. I don't know how she feels about being capable, happy or normalized because we have to deduce things from what she says (or mostly doesn't say) in how she acts or reacts and what we're hearing from her therapists and teachers.
Emotionally, I think this is the worst she's ever been. Not everyone can see it because, as my mother told me this morning, she seems so happy. Yes, she can seem happy at times but those times are short in duration and typically when she's having her every whim catered to by an adult playing with her where she directs the play and gets to do what she wants.
Food—it's all awful, she doesn't want to eat anything. Entertainment—almost everything we suggest is rejected as a matter of course, saying it's boring or she just doesn't want to do it. Daily responsibilities—getting dressed, having her hair done, getting in the car to go wherever, doing something the family is doing when it isn't exactly what she had pictured in her mind as the thing she wanted to do—it's all negative. All bad. She rarely seems happy about anything.
The words coming out of her mouth are angry, accusatory, negative and hurtful at times. For apparently no reason at all in most cases. She is a very angry child. At what would appear to be most things in her life. She is more aggressive with the dog, trying to control her. She tries to control friends, getting angry if they don't do what she thinks they should be doing. She wants to control every aspect of her life, even when it doesn't make sense. It's like she's desperate to have something go her way because nothing has for a long time. Or nothing major at any rate.
Everything is a fight with her, and that only increases the amount of negative she's experienced in her life, and that's not good. This morning I had a candid conversation with her. It was only candid because I got very upset at her repeated bombardment of hurtful and angry comments towards me as I was carefully doing her hair.
This morning when I was preparing to do her hair, I had gotten some "Floof" out for her because she had said she wanted to play with it. It's like kinetic sand only lighter and airier. But then I didn't hand her the crab cookie cutter the second she wanted it. I didn't stop and drop the partially completed braid, to go get scissors to open the second bag of Floof the second she wanted it, even though I said I'd be done in two minutes and would help her. I was hurting her. I always hurt her (I was being exceptionally careful and gentle with her hair). I was the worst, the meanest, why did I make her do her hair (she had said she was interested in the fishtail braids only minutes before.)
And that was just for the hair braiding for the day. The morning routine and breakfast was abysmal. After resisting and rejecting everything, making ultimatums and stating she hated everything she was ultimately ordered to the car so we could leave. She could stay in the car and miss breakfast at Biscuitville if she didn't change her attitude and I was sorry there was nothing there she liked (she had no idea if she would like any of it and yet she was certain, because she didn't like anything I told her about—a common theme.)
That's how our days go with her a lot lately. But back to the candid conversation we had. I broke down and cried, explaining I was trying the best I could as her mother to do everything I could. That parents only want the best for their children. That we try so very hard to make our children's lives the best the can be. I was embellishing the crying a bit because I was trying to connect with my daughter on an emotional level. Sometimes this works. I have a lot of things I've tried with her and sometimes she needs a reality check that she's not the only one with feelings.
What surprised me was when I was talking about parents wanting their children to be happy, she said, "I'm never happy." She didn't want to talk about it but I made her. She tried to change the subject, pretending to be interested in something or other that made no sense but was a distraction from the main topic. I acknowledged the additional thread in the conversation but didn't let her off the hook, continuing to come back to her unhappiness.
She'll be eight-years-old in a month, but she's still very much a child. She doesn't have the capacity to verbalize what's happening to her the way an adult can. I got, I think, that aside from brief periods where something fun is happening, she's really never happy. It all clicked in my head. All the behaviors speak to not only unhappiness but depression. Real depression, not the, "I'm depressed I missed the sale at Macy's this weekend" because that's not depression, that being sad. I think she may be clinically depressed.
Dhruti had told me she wanted to talk, needed to talk to me soon. I'm going to talk to her, but I think it's time we take my daughter to a psychiatrist. I think we need to consider options outside of therapy. I talked to my husband briefly about it today (he's out of town) and left Dhruti a message. But I'm firm in this at this point and it's going to take some serious dissuading with good reason to convince me to cancel the appointment.
My daughter doesn't talk about how she really feels often. Today was, I think, a few words with a huge amount of weight behind them. The tone of voice she said, "I'm never happy" in. The resignation in her voice. The despair. The hopelessness. I asked her to elaborate, which she obviously didn't want to do, but I pressed her hard, telling her I would get her some help if she was really never happy. I even told her who I was going to have her see (she's been in the office that day we all had Influenza A). She said she didn't like him (no surprise there).
And yet she didn't say no. She wants help. She's had so much "help" in the way of doctors, surgeries, medical practitioners and all that's come of it from her perspective is she's gone more and more blind. I can't imagine she has much hope. I told her I was going to do everything I could so she didn't have to feel unhappy all the time.
This is breaking my heart. It's worse in a way than the blindness. Strangely, she's never really been that upset it seems at the loss of vision. She just keeps adapting. This is different. This hurts worse than becoming blind. And it's coming out in all directions from her—the pain.
There is the part of me that says she's just a child wanting to get her way. That she's spoiled and we've raised a brat. But I know in my heart that even with all the failings we've had as parents, this isn't just being a headstrong child. This is real. I'll keep you posted on what we end up doing—going to the psychiatrist or not—and what comes of it.
The Big Boy Update: My son was looking forward to having some screen time when he got home today. When I left to pick him up I had to run three errands, one of which was walking a neighbor's dog and then bringing the dog back to our house. I brought his Switch in the car and surprised him when we drove off-campus. He said thank you and that I was the best mom ever in the universe or something like that and then happily sat in the car with the dog while I ran into the drug store, dog store and walked the neighbor's dog before loading him up in the back of the car to head home. He's still on his Switch now, which is good, because I haven't had a chance to do anything with him. It's working on eight o'clock. I suppose I should feed him at some point. He hasn't noticed it's way past dinner time yet he's been so engrossed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's told me when she got in the car from school before track out, "do you know what thalantropy is? It's when you give money to people." They've been talking about philanthropy apparently in her class.
The surgeries, doctor appointments, drops, medications, restrictions in activity, limited activity because she can't see, having to realize again and again she can't do things other people can do and the vision loss as a whole has a huge impact on her mental state and her life.
We try to help my daughter feel as capable as possible whenever we can. It's not always something we can do though, because she is definitely limited by her blindness. I don't know how she feels about being capable, happy or normalized because we have to deduce things from what she says (or mostly doesn't say) in how she acts or reacts and what we're hearing from her therapists and teachers.
Emotionally, I think this is the worst she's ever been. Not everyone can see it because, as my mother told me this morning, she seems so happy. Yes, she can seem happy at times but those times are short in duration and typically when she's having her every whim catered to by an adult playing with her where she directs the play and gets to do what she wants.
Food—it's all awful, she doesn't want to eat anything. Entertainment—almost everything we suggest is rejected as a matter of course, saying it's boring or she just doesn't want to do it. Daily responsibilities—getting dressed, having her hair done, getting in the car to go wherever, doing something the family is doing when it isn't exactly what she had pictured in her mind as the thing she wanted to do—it's all negative. All bad. She rarely seems happy about anything.
The words coming out of her mouth are angry, accusatory, negative and hurtful at times. For apparently no reason at all in most cases. She is a very angry child. At what would appear to be most things in her life. She is more aggressive with the dog, trying to control her. She tries to control friends, getting angry if they don't do what she thinks they should be doing. She wants to control every aspect of her life, even when it doesn't make sense. It's like she's desperate to have something go her way because nothing has for a long time. Or nothing major at any rate.
Everything is a fight with her, and that only increases the amount of negative she's experienced in her life, and that's not good. This morning I had a candid conversation with her. It was only candid because I got very upset at her repeated bombardment of hurtful and angry comments towards me as I was carefully doing her hair.
This morning when I was preparing to do her hair, I had gotten some "Floof" out for her because she had said she wanted to play with it. It's like kinetic sand only lighter and airier. But then I didn't hand her the crab cookie cutter the second she wanted it. I didn't stop and drop the partially completed braid, to go get scissors to open the second bag of Floof the second she wanted it, even though I said I'd be done in two minutes and would help her. I was hurting her. I always hurt her (I was being exceptionally careful and gentle with her hair). I was the worst, the meanest, why did I make her do her hair (she had said she was interested in the fishtail braids only minutes before.)
And that was just for the hair braiding for the day. The morning routine and breakfast was abysmal. After resisting and rejecting everything, making ultimatums and stating she hated everything she was ultimately ordered to the car so we could leave. She could stay in the car and miss breakfast at Biscuitville if she didn't change her attitude and I was sorry there was nothing there she liked (she had no idea if she would like any of it and yet she was certain, because she didn't like anything I told her about—a common theme.)
That's how our days go with her a lot lately. But back to the candid conversation we had. I broke down and cried, explaining I was trying the best I could as her mother to do everything I could. That parents only want the best for their children. That we try so very hard to make our children's lives the best the can be. I was embellishing the crying a bit because I was trying to connect with my daughter on an emotional level. Sometimes this works. I have a lot of things I've tried with her and sometimes she needs a reality check that she's not the only one with feelings.
What surprised me was when I was talking about parents wanting their children to be happy, she said, "I'm never happy." She didn't want to talk about it but I made her. She tried to change the subject, pretending to be interested in something or other that made no sense but was a distraction from the main topic. I acknowledged the additional thread in the conversation but didn't let her off the hook, continuing to come back to her unhappiness.
She'll be eight-years-old in a month, but she's still very much a child. She doesn't have the capacity to verbalize what's happening to her the way an adult can. I got, I think, that aside from brief periods where something fun is happening, she's really never happy. It all clicked in my head. All the behaviors speak to not only unhappiness but depression. Real depression, not the, "I'm depressed I missed the sale at Macy's this weekend" because that's not depression, that being sad. I think she may be clinically depressed.
Dhruti had told me she wanted to talk, needed to talk to me soon. I'm going to talk to her, but I think it's time we take my daughter to a psychiatrist. I think we need to consider options outside of therapy. I talked to my husband briefly about it today (he's out of town) and left Dhruti a message. But I'm firm in this at this point and it's going to take some serious dissuading with good reason to convince me to cancel the appointment.
My daughter doesn't talk about how she really feels often. Today was, I think, a few words with a huge amount of weight behind them. The tone of voice she said, "I'm never happy" in. The resignation in her voice. The despair. The hopelessness. I asked her to elaborate, which she obviously didn't want to do, but I pressed her hard, telling her I would get her some help if she was really never happy. I even told her who I was going to have her see (she's been in the office that day we all had Influenza A). She said she didn't like him (no surprise there).
And yet she didn't say no. She wants help. She's had so much "help" in the way of doctors, surgeries, medical practitioners and all that's come of it from her perspective is she's gone more and more blind. I can't imagine she has much hope. I told her I was going to do everything I could so she didn't have to feel unhappy all the time.
This is breaking my heart. It's worse in a way than the blindness. Strangely, she's never really been that upset it seems at the loss of vision. She just keeps adapting. This is different. This hurts worse than becoming blind. And it's coming out in all directions from her—the pain.
There is the part of me that says she's just a child wanting to get her way. That she's spoiled and we've raised a brat. But I know in my heart that even with all the failings we've had as parents, this isn't just being a headstrong child. This is real. I'll keep you posted on what we end up doing—going to the psychiatrist or not—and what comes of it.
The Big Boy Update: My son was looking forward to having some screen time when he got home today. When I left to pick him up I had to run three errands, one of which was walking a neighbor's dog and then bringing the dog back to our house. I brought his Switch in the car and surprised him when we drove off-campus. He said thank you and that I was the best mom ever in the universe or something like that and then happily sat in the car with the dog while I ran into the drug store, dog store and walked the neighbor's dog before loading him up in the back of the car to head home. He's still on his Switch now, which is good, because I haven't had a chance to do anything with him. It's working on eight o'clock. I suppose I should feed him at some point. He hasn't noticed it's way past dinner time yet he's been so engrossed.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter's told me when she got in the car from school before track out, "do you know what thalantropy is? It's when you give money to people." They've been talking about philanthropy apparently in her class.
Thursday, October 3, 2019
You Can Have Your Hour Back
This no screens during the week is working out well for my son. He definitely looks forward to the weekend, but he's not realized he's lost a good bit in the way of screen time privileges for the week overall, which is a good thing, because he's an annoying little negotiator, even when he has no chance of swaying our decision about something. The annoying part is he doesn't give up easily.
This afternoon after school on the way home he was calculating how many hours it would be until he could have screens again. He was doing some nice math calculations, figuring out how many hours to subtract for time sleeping, then the hours he'd be in school tomorrow. He removed time in the morning due to travel to school and then there was breakfast. He got to the answer the longer way around than if he'd done the calculation in reverse, figuring up hours of "leisure time" he'd have to find something else to do with himself other than screens, but it was a good exercise and took most of the ride home.
Tonight he asked me if I could warm him up some soup as he sat in the chair at the bar. I watched him go through a conversation with Alexa to select which episode of Dora the Explorer he wanted to watch. Dora has suddenly become interesting to the children again even though she's a bit too young for them on account of the new movie that's come out with a much older Dora. A movie they haven't seen.
I finished making his soup, served him, took some compost down to the way back yard and upon returning to the kitchen informed him he had lost an hour of screen time tomorrow because he knew he wasn't allowed screens today and he knew it.
He was upset. He cried. Or maybe he wailed. He was pretty upset but didn't even try to say he'd forgotten because he knew I wasn't going to buy it. About three minutes later I told him, "Okay, I'll give you a chance to earn your hour back. You know those white ear pods I wear in my ears when I'm on the phone? Well, one has gone missing and I can't find it. If you find it for me, you get your hour back."
He perked up and told me he was excellent at finding things. He launched into the, "where was the last time you used them?" line of questioning. I told him I had been sitting on the bed when I was talking to the pharmacy. I typically only have one earbud in, but in this case, I had two. I later used only one for a call about an hour later, but when I went to put the lone airpod in, the other one was missing from the case that was charging on my nightstand.
I had looked all around. Those little airpods are expensive and easy to lose and I don't want to lose them. So far, I've never misplaced one because I always put them right back after making a call. I had looked through the trash can because I'd been going through some things while on the last call. I'd looked on the bed, under the laptop, iPad, phone, other iPad and phone I'd been setting up for someone else, checked in the dog's cage, looked at the dog to see if she looked like she'd chewed something expensive. I looked in the car, in the kitchen and anywhere else I thought I might have set it down without thinking.
My son, upon hearing I was on the bed when I'd last used the missing airpod, raced into the bedroom and not three seconds later yelled out, "see, I told you I was good at finding things!" He rounded the corner to the kitchen holding the airpod up high with a huge grin on his face. "Where was it," I asked him? "Under the bed" he proudly exclaimed. I had looked under the bed, but I don't have eight-year-old eyes apparently. I took the airpod from his outstretched hand and said, "You can have your hour back." I was glad to give it to him.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Presidential Hair Product Misunderstanding: My children were getting out of the tub this evening and I was going over the things we needed to do before going up to bed to read more of the story we started last night. I was explaining to my daughter I wasn't going to dry her hair tonight and I was going to see how this new product, Morocco Argan oil, would do on her hair instead. My daughter asked me four times what I was saying. After the third time I explained it was from Morocco and it was an oil from there. My son yelled out from the tub, "Barack Obama oil?" We all laughed at that, including my son. And that will forevermore be what we call that hair product in our family now.
This afternoon after school on the way home he was calculating how many hours it would be until he could have screens again. He was doing some nice math calculations, figuring out how many hours to subtract for time sleeping, then the hours he'd be in school tomorrow. He removed time in the morning due to travel to school and then there was breakfast. He got to the answer the longer way around than if he'd done the calculation in reverse, figuring up hours of "leisure time" he'd have to find something else to do with himself other than screens, but it was a good exercise and took most of the ride home.
Tonight he asked me if I could warm him up some soup as he sat in the chair at the bar. I watched him go through a conversation with Alexa to select which episode of Dora the Explorer he wanted to watch. Dora has suddenly become interesting to the children again even though she's a bit too young for them on account of the new movie that's come out with a much older Dora. A movie they haven't seen.
I finished making his soup, served him, took some compost down to the way back yard and upon returning to the kitchen informed him he had lost an hour of screen time tomorrow because he knew he wasn't allowed screens today and he knew it.
He was upset. He cried. Or maybe he wailed. He was pretty upset but didn't even try to say he'd forgotten because he knew I wasn't going to buy it. About three minutes later I told him, "Okay, I'll give you a chance to earn your hour back. You know those white ear pods I wear in my ears when I'm on the phone? Well, one has gone missing and I can't find it. If you find it for me, you get your hour back."
He perked up and told me he was excellent at finding things. He launched into the, "where was the last time you used them?" line of questioning. I told him I had been sitting on the bed when I was talking to the pharmacy. I typically only have one earbud in, but in this case, I had two. I later used only one for a call about an hour later, but when I went to put the lone airpod in, the other one was missing from the case that was charging on my nightstand.
I had looked all around. Those little airpods are expensive and easy to lose and I don't want to lose them. So far, I've never misplaced one because I always put them right back after making a call. I had looked through the trash can because I'd been going through some things while on the last call. I'd looked on the bed, under the laptop, iPad, phone, other iPad and phone I'd been setting up for someone else, checked in the dog's cage, looked at the dog to see if she looked like she'd chewed something expensive. I looked in the car, in the kitchen and anywhere else I thought I might have set it down without thinking.
My son, upon hearing I was on the bed when I'd last used the missing airpod, raced into the bedroom and not three seconds later yelled out, "see, I told you I was good at finding things!" He rounded the corner to the kitchen holding the airpod up high with a huge grin on his face. "Where was it," I asked him? "Under the bed" he proudly exclaimed. I had looked under the bed, but I don't have eight-year-old eyes apparently. I took the airpod from his outstretched hand and said, "You can have your hour back." I was glad to give it to him.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Presidential Hair Product Misunderstanding: My children were getting out of the tub this evening and I was going over the things we needed to do before going up to bed to read more of the story we started last night. I was explaining to my daughter I wasn't going to dry her hair tonight and I was going to see how this new product, Morocco Argan oil, would do on her hair instead. My daughter asked me four times what I was saying. After the third time I explained it was from Morocco and it was an oil from there. My son yelled out from the tub, "Barack Obama oil?" We all laughed at that, including my son. And that will forevermore be what we call that hair product in our family now.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Maturity
When I was young I believed you had to grow up and become, "mature". I think I initially believed you became mature when you turned eighteen because that was the age when you were seen as an adult. You could vote then and, at that time, you could also drink alcohol at that age.
Alcohol, to take a bit of a sidetrack on this post, was something that changed when I was young. Changed in that the age you were old enough to purchase and drink it was a shifting thing right about the time I was approaching eighteen. When I started high school eighteen was the age at which you could legally buy wine and beer. You couldn't purchase hard liquor until you were twenty-one, but since I didn't drink yet, it seemed not very different to me.
As I approached eighteen the age limit moved to nineteen. Then, in less than a year I believe, it changed to twenty-one for all alcohol. I had friends who could legally buy beer, then they couldn't, then they turned nineteen and could buy it again for a short period and then they couldn't again as the age limit increased a second time. I was too young to hit any of the age limit changes, but it was frustrating to some of my friends at the time.
Alcohol aside, I thought you were fully mature by the time you went to college. In my sophomore year in college, I took a psychology class in which I learned we continued to mature throughout our lives and that eighteen wasn't really that mature as far as most youths go. It was a bit surprising to me that I probably wouldn't be that mature until years after I was out of college. I felt mature, living all out on my own in college. Today, I know how very much I had to go in the way of maturing.
I think though that I still believed there was one way, one path, one final goal when it came to being mature. I used my mother and father as a guidepost on what it looked like to be mature. My parents have always been mature as far as I was concerned. My mother is a lady in the true definition of the word. I wanted to emulate her, to be like her. I was like many children in that regard.
It was a long time before I realized there was more than one path to being mature. And even longer to accept and be comfortable with what I was in that I'm not my mother. I am like her in many ways, but our generations are different enough that what counts most in my generation isn't necessarily the same thing when it comes to maturity.
I will never meet the standards of "prim and proper" that I see in my mother, mostly because it's not me, but also because the expectations of what is proper of my generation are different. I'm not going to explain this well, because it's largely esoteric. There is less formality, more casualness. For example, I learned how to set a table, how to write a thank-you note, how to take people's coats when they arrived at your home, formal introductions and what conversation topics and words were and weren't appropriate in polite company.
Some of those things still apply, but not always. I felt for the longest time that I was somehow less than mature because those things weren't as valued or important with the company I kept both in business and socially. But the older I get, the more I think it's not as much me as it is a combination of current cultural norms combined with the generation I grew up in.
It took me a long time to realize that I wasn't necessarily less mature simply because many things didn't have the same level of formality that I had grown up thinking was the only way things had to be. It took me longer still to be not only okay with that but comfortable about it, happy about it even.
I can fit in socially in almost any setting. My personality is one that lends itself more to less-formal, more casual, even humorous at times, poking fun at myself. I don't get the sense that I'm less mature as a result. Hopefully, I am mature. I think I am relatively so for my age. I don't think I'm done maturing, but I'm happy with the path I've taken, even though it's not taken me to where I thought I'd be when I was a child, picturing myself as an adult.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been saying swear words. He's asked permission to sat them a few times, telling him the words are not allowed out of this house, even if he hears his parents (that'd be me) saying them. He's hit an age where it's cool in his mind to be able to say them. Today he said some very bad words to his father and lost a good bit of his allowance as a result.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today I went to the Girls Run Club with my daughter. It was with students from her elementary school. There was only one other child there she knew, but all the students were very nice to her, wanting to be with her even. She wasn't able to run as fast as they could (in the ninety-five degree weather) but her team supported her even though it caused them to run slower as the teams had to stick together. I was so touched by all of the students who were more interested in working together as opposed to "winning" or being in first. Her team leader, Louisa, a fourth-grader, was so mature in leading the four of her team to find a cone hidden around the campus with a piece from the game "Operation" taped under it. When we got back with the piece, they helped my daughter feel the piece and then feel the board game to see how the pieces fit in. The next step was selecting someone from the team to put the piece in the board and if you touched the side when you did, your team had to run a penalty lap. My daughter wanted to do it, and even though they were likely going to have to run an extra lap, they supported her when she said she wanted to try. When my daughter dropped the piece in without touching the edges everyone cheered and then we decided to do planks and squats to get extra exercise since we didn't have to do the lap around the track.
Alcohol, to take a bit of a sidetrack on this post, was something that changed when I was young. Changed in that the age you were old enough to purchase and drink it was a shifting thing right about the time I was approaching eighteen. When I started high school eighteen was the age at which you could legally buy wine and beer. You couldn't purchase hard liquor until you were twenty-one, but since I didn't drink yet, it seemed not very different to me.
As I approached eighteen the age limit moved to nineteen. Then, in less than a year I believe, it changed to twenty-one for all alcohol. I had friends who could legally buy beer, then they couldn't, then they turned nineteen and could buy it again for a short period and then they couldn't again as the age limit increased a second time. I was too young to hit any of the age limit changes, but it was frustrating to some of my friends at the time.
Alcohol aside, I thought you were fully mature by the time you went to college. In my sophomore year in college, I took a psychology class in which I learned we continued to mature throughout our lives and that eighteen wasn't really that mature as far as most youths go. It was a bit surprising to me that I probably wouldn't be that mature until years after I was out of college. I felt mature, living all out on my own in college. Today, I know how very much I had to go in the way of maturing.
I think though that I still believed there was one way, one path, one final goal when it came to being mature. I used my mother and father as a guidepost on what it looked like to be mature. My parents have always been mature as far as I was concerned. My mother is a lady in the true definition of the word. I wanted to emulate her, to be like her. I was like many children in that regard.
It was a long time before I realized there was more than one path to being mature. And even longer to accept and be comfortable with what I was in that I'm not my mother. I am like her in many ways, but our generations are different enough that what counts most in my generation isn't necessarily the same thing when it comes to maturity.
I will never meet the standards of "prim and proper" that I see in my mother, mostly because it's not me, but also because the expectations of what is proper of my generation are different. I'm not going to explain this well, because it's largely esoteric. There is less formality, more casualness. For example, I learned how to set a table, how to write a thank-you note, how to take people's coats when they arrived at your home, formal introductions and what conversation topics and words were and weren't appropriate in polite company.
Some of those things still apply, but not always. I felt for the longest time that I was somehow less than mature because those things weren't as valued or important with the company I kept both in business and socially. But the older I get, the more I think it's not as much me as it is a combination of current cultural norms combined with the generation I grew up in.
It took me a long time to realize that I wasn't necessarily less mature simply because many things didn't have the same level of formality that I had grown up thinking was the only way things had to be. It took me longer still to be not only okay with that but comfortable about it, happy about it even.
I can fit in socially in almost any setting. My personality is one that lends itself more to less-formal, more casual, even humorous at times, poking fun at myself. I don't get the sense that I'm less mature as a result. Hopefully, I am mature. I think I am relatively so for my age. I don't think I'm done maturing, but I'm happy with the path I've taken, even though it's not taken me to where I thought I'd be when I was a child, picturing myself as an adult.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been saying swear words. He's asked permission to sat them a few times, telling him the words are not allowed out of this house, even if he hears his parents (that'd be me) saying them. He's hit an age where it's cool in his mind to be able to say them. Today he said some very bad words to his father and lost a good bit of his allowance as a result.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today I went to the Girls Run Club with my daughter. It was with students from her elementary school. There was only one other child there she knew, but all the students were very nice to her, wanting to be with her even. She wasn't able to run as fast as they could (in the ninety-five degree weather) but her team supported her even though it caused them to run slower as the teams had to stick together. I was so touched by all of the students who were more interested in working together as opposed to "winning" or being in first. Her team leader, Louisa, a fourth-grader, was so mature in leading the four of her team to find a cone hidden around the campus with a piece from the game "Operation" taped under it. When we got back with the piece, they helped my daughter feel the piece and then feel the board game to see how the pieces fit in. The next step was selecting someone from the team to put the piece in the board and if you touched the side when you did, your team had to run a penalty lap. My daughter wanted to do it, and even though they were likely going to have to run an extra lap, they supported her when she said she wanted to try. When my daughter dropped the piece in without touching the edges everyone cheered and then we decided to do planks and squats to get extra exercise since we didn't have to do the lap around the track.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Vegetarian
I had an idea a week or two ago. It's been an idea I've had before, I just haven't done anything about it. This time I thought I'd do a test. If you know me, or my mother, or my father, you know we like to quantify things.
My mother has longitudinal studies of things going back decades with her and my father. I bet if you asked my mother on average, year over year, their water bill increased since 1979, she could get you the data you're looking for faster than you could call the water company to find out they didn't keep records back that far.
My mother is exceptional in her record-keeping, data tracking, and information mining. She is an organized mathematician with a penchant for statistics. I have some of her inclinations, but only on certain subjects. The subject has to strike me as interesting. Or worthwhile.
In this case, because the title of the blog post gave it away, I've been thinking about vegetarianism versus, well not being a vegetarian. People become vegetarians for different reasons. My husband has been talking a good bit lately about the carbon footprint and negative impact eating red meat has on greenhouse gasses and the environment.
We had a friend ask about what they could do to help the environment. I think they were expecting my husband to say put solar on their house or get an electric car or keep your house hot in the summer and cool in the winter. What my husband said was, "don't eat red meat. It is the single most impactful thing you can do when it comes to the environmental impact on greenhouse gasses."
My husband would like to stop eating red meat only he really likes steaks and hamburgers. But he's cutting back. I don't particularly crave any meat. Well, I don't think I do, I could find out that's incorrect. What I thought I'd do is try going for a month as a vegetarian and see how much meat I would have eaten without thinking about it, and see if I miss it at all or if a bean burrito is just as good as a beef and bean burrito.
Last night we had my parents over for dinner and we ordered pizza. The month of October hadn't started yet, but my husband decided to get a pizza with cheese on one half and mushrooms on the other half. My son, an avid pepperoni eater, suddenly doesn't like pepperoni. My daughter insists on cheese pizza, so getting a meat-free pizza last night was an easy decision
My parents are always flexible, but I noticed my father looking longingly at the pizza box as he asked, "is there any with pepperoni?" Next time we'll get some Pepperoni for you, Gramps, I promise.
I'm going to mess up this month and eat meat, which is sort of the point—to realize I'm eating meat without even thinking about it. I'm looking to build more awareness of what meat I eat, prefer, don't care about, miss, etc. I almost ate the ravioli this evening my son left in his bowl when my husband reminded me I'd gotten chicken and cheese ravioli. My daughter very sweetly left me one shrimp from her hibachi meal, having no idea I wasn't eating meat and since it was such a kind gesture, I ate it and thanked her.
I'll report at the end of the month on how it goes and what I discovered about me and the meat in the food around me. Thanks in advance to my husband who has already tried to figure out what he's going to do for meals he cooks at home—a good percentage of them—as he usually centers them around a meat-based protein. I told him to not coordinate around me, I'll just eat the other things. Besides, it'll be a good test to see if I care about meat more than I think I might.
The Big Boy Update: My son has finished reading an entire book on his Mystery History notable person. He'll be working on writing a paper in the next week or two and then he'll practice saying what he wrote, memorizing it, so he can present it on Halloween to other parents of the students in his class. The paper will be written in the first person so when my son speaks it, he'll also be dressed up as the person and will end the presentation with, "Who am I?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had a good eye update today. Her pressure is maintaining with the one-drop and pressure valve in her eye. She was happy about it and she and her father went to a hibachi restaurant for an early lunch. They were under renovations and the two of them had a private meal with the chef all to themselves. My daughter came home and finished up her leftovers for dinner.
My mother has longitudinal studies of things going back decades with her and my father. I bet if you asked my mother on average, year over year, their water bill increased since 1979, she could get you the data you're looking for faster than you could call the water company to find out they didn't keep records back that far.
My mother is exceptional in her record-keeping, data tracking, and information mining. She is an organized mathematician with a penchant for statistics. I have some of her inclinations, but only on certain subjects. The subject has to strike me as interesting. Or worthwhile.
In this case, because the title of the blog post gave it away, I've been thinking about vegetarianism versus, well not being a vegetarian. People become vegetarians for different reasons. My husband has been talking a good bit lately about the carbon footprint and negative impact eating red meat has on greenhouse gasses and the environment.
We had a friend ask about what they could do to help the environment. I think they were expecting my husband to say put solar on their house or get an electric car or keep your house hot in the summer and cool in the winter. What my husband said was, "don't eat red meat. It is the single most impactful thing you can do when it comes to the environmental impact on greenhouse gasses."
My husband would like to stop eating red meat only he really likes steaks and hamburgers. But he's cutting back. I don't particularly crave any meat. Well, I don't think I do, I could find out that's incorrect. What I thought I'd do is try going for a month as a vegetarian and see how much meat I would have eaten without thinking about it, and see if I miss it at all or if a bean burrito is just as good as a beef and bean burrito.
Last night we had my parents over for dinner and we ordered pizza. The month of October hadn't started yet, but my husband decided to get a pizza with cheese on one half and mushrooms on the other half. My son, an avid pepperoni eater, suddenly doesn't like pepperoni. My daughter insists on cheese pizza, so getting a meat-free pizza last night was an easy decision
My parents are always flexible, but I noticed my father looking longingly at the pizza box as he asked, "is there any with pepperoni?" Next time we'll get some Pepperoni for you, Gramps, I promise.
I'm going to mess up this month and eat meat, which is sort of the point—to realize I'm eating meat without even thinking about it. I'm looking to build more awareness of what meat I eat, prefer, don't care about, miss, etc. I almost ate the ravioli this evening my son left in his bowl when my husband reminded me I'd gotten chicken and cheese ravioli. My daughter very sweetly left me one shrimp from her hibachi meal, having no idea I wasn't eating meat and since it was such a kind gesture, I ate it and thanked her.
I'll report at the end of the month on how it goes and what I discovered about me and the meat in the food around me. Thanks in advance to my husband who has already tried to figure out what he's going to do for meals he cooks at home—a good percentage of them—as he usually centers them around a meat-based protein. I told him to not coordinate around me, I'll just eat the other things. Besides, it'll be a good test to see if I care about meat more than I think I might.
The Big Boy Update: My son has finished reading an entire book on his Mystery History notable person. He'll be working on writing a paper in the next week or two and then he'll practice saying what he wrote, memorizing it, so he can present it on Halloween to other parents of the students in his class. The paper will be written in the first person so when my son speaks it, he'll also be dressed up as the person and will end the presentation with, "Who am I?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had a good eye update today. Her pressure is maintaining with the one-drop and pressure valve in her eye. She was happy about it and she and her father went to a hibachi restaurant for an early lunch. They were under renovations and the two of them had a private meal with the chef all to themselves. My daughter came home and finished up her leftovers for dinner.
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