on muddling through

Ups and downs of the new school year, Elan's first day of Pre-K,

September 2011

A friend called me recently. She was having one of THOSE moments – in the line at Trader Joe’s, with her baby (who’s not been sleeping much lately), in a rush to make it to a celebration at her son’s preschool, her line was moving the slowest and she was frustrated, thinking about all the things she needed to do for the business she runs (her full-time job squeezed into part-time childcare), a work slip-up she had made, and when she finally got through the line, she realized she didn’t have her wallet with her. She had to abandon ship, leave the groceries, and flee, holding back the tears.

Wow, do I get this. Capacity maxed out, brain spinning, trying to make up for not enough sleep with caffeine, frustration and anger are quick to surface. Sometimes it’s directed at my kids, but more often at myself. Recently, I discovered, on one of those exhausted-at-7-p.m. nights, that I had made a stupid mistake in my work life, one of those things you can describe as a “brain fart” if you’re being uncouth. Thankfully, it didn’t have any major repercussions, but it made me look incompetent, not together. I couldn’t believe I had made such a sloppy error; my laundry might sit in the basket unfolded for a week, but I try to be – and usually am – extremely organized and responsible in my work life. However, it was immediately clear to me why it happened: I was maxed out. The error happened back in June, when Mikhail had just recently started his new job, and I was scrambling to figure out childcare, juggle projects for two different work clients, and be on my own with both kids for the first time when Mikhail traveled for work.

If you’re anything like me, the response to this kind of slip-up/overwhelm moment isn’t usually compassion and understanding for yourself. It’s more often anger, frustration, thoughts of why can’t I make this work?, a tendency to look around at other women juggling family and work and projects and households and think she’s got it all together and she’s happy too, what’s wrong with me? Which is why I find it so important to burst that bubble, to talk about Real Life, with all its messy moments when you have to flee Trader Joe’s in tears, because, in my experience, we’ll all have those moments, whether you’re having one today or not.

The first few weeks of September were really rough for me; I had lots of THOSE moments. Coming back from an insane amount of travel, I was stressed out. Elan was adjusting to his new pre-K class with lots of meltdowns at home, Emry and Mikhail had colds, I had two weekend trips back to back after two solid weeks of traveling to two different states, and, on top of that, my babysitter situation combusted – I had to decide what to do about an untenable situation with my sitter, let her go, and find a new one, all while trying to unpack and repack four times in a two-week period. It wasn’t pretty.

In the midst of all this, I decided for several weeks that my goal was simply to muddle through. If I could just manage to muddle though the chaos, that would be good enough. I didn’t have to be particularly patient, happy, or living in the moment; I didn’t have to be good at things or do things well. I just had to muddle through. And you know, it did give me some freedom. Whenever my blood pressure would start to rise as Elan lost his #$%^ yet again, or when the thought of packing up another suitcase would make me want to sit on the floor and cry, I would think just muddle through. Acknowledging the difficulty of the situation did help. Lowering my expectations of myself helped too.

And now, October begins. The fat fall spiders are stringing their giant webs through the bushes; the leaves on the trees are rusting and crinkling at the edges; the sunlight is weaker, coming later and fading earlier. My little family is settling into its autumn groove, and I am finding that I can once again expand out from muddling through. I can aim my sights a bit higher again, and that feels good.

Emry crawling through a tunnel, September 2011

And I can once again fit into my old size 6 jeans, which feels really good, but that’s another post.

We Should Rent Him Out To NASA

I might have mentioned before that Elan is a problematic sleeper. At this point, after more than 2.5 years of sleep training, he often goes through good spells of sleeping through the night. He never wakes up at what Mikhail and I would have considered in our B.C. (before-child) life to be a reasonable hour. But let's not get me started on that right now.

Elan has a clock in his head. And it is a very reliable one. It knows, for instance, exactly what time to awaken to really piss off Mama (that would be anytime before 6 a.m., the time I have somewhat kind of a little bit made peace with). When we travel across time zones, he shows an eerie ability to almost instantly adjust to the new time. For instance, he might "sleep in" till 7 a.m. local time the first morning back east, but after that he's back to his usual wake-up time sometime around 6, even though that's actually 3 in the morning back home.

Mikhail and I joke about how we should rent him out to NASA, in case all the clocks in the entire world ever go blank at the same time. We could just put Elan to bed and then wait until he wakes up in the morning. BAM! Instant reliable time-keeping.

For a while, we tried to counter the permanent early setting on Elan's internal alarm clock with an external alarm clock. We figured we could capitalize on his love for numbers. It worked for a while. There followed days of blessed sleeping-in until 6:20 a.m.! That's a whole twenty minutes past six, people! After a few weeks, he started to think that if he just screamed loud enough, the clock would change. At that point I threw the clock out the window (not literally, but I would have liked to).

Lately Elan has been creeping his wake-up time ever earlier, until 5:45 a.m. We've been kind of skating along with this one, not wanting yet ANOTHER round of screaming in the darkness. It's easier, in the moment, to just bring him into bed and try to sleep another few minutes. Not that that actually works though - long gone are the days when he would snuggle in and sleep with us.

He's been getting up occasionally in the night too, like last night at midnight, at the exact moment that Mikhail had finally settled into a deep and restful sleep. Thankfully he settles down fairly easily in the night, but not in the wee hours of the morning.

(And YES, we've tried putting him to bed later, and NO it does not work. NOT EVER.)

It is amazing, knowing what I do about my son's internal clock, that I could be blind-sided by his response to the time change as I have been. I was actually looking forward to the end of Daylight Savings Time because I figured I would feel more awake in the morning if it were light sometime in the two hours after I awoke. However. The small and difficult one has gotten up at 4:45 a.m. the last two mornings. And he is completely resistant to going back to sleep. This morning, I was treated to 45 minutes of screaming, the first 15 at a pitch loud enough to wake birds sleeping in trees in yards across the street. And finally when I gave him a bottle and put him back in his crib, he did quiet down for a half-hour, but I am pretty sure he didn't go back to sleep. And then at 6:30, he tried again. Now can I get up? I'll be really charming and cute. Except after being up for nearly two hours when it's just getting light outside, charming and cute don't really register in my brain. All I am aware of is ugly, ugly thoughts that go something like where can I stick this kid so I can go back to sleep? Maybe inside the washing machine...

And that is why Mikhail was woken at 6:30 on his birthday and told: Take. The. Child. Now.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

And now the small and impossible one is not napping. This wouldn't be so bad if he were not acting like a pile of exhausted toddler before going into his crib for naptime. But he was, cause HE'S BEEN UP SINCE 4:45 IN THE MORNING. He's in there calling out Mama five thousand times. And I'm in here trying to pretend like I can't hear him. And trying to pretend like it's not making me crazy. Oh, and look - I'm failing. I score an F in pretending my kid is not pushing every button I possess.

Mikhail said last night that there's probably no way to get him back on track without a lot of screaming. So it looks like it's time to bring the neighbors a bouquet of earplugs. It might be an ugly one.

Now I have a new realization about the end of Daylight Savings Time. I am not for it. Can't we just go back to the mornings being pitch-black until 7 a.m.? That wasn't so bad, really.

P.S. In case you work for CPS, I was kidding about the washing machine. It's a joke. The dryer is really much more pleasant.

Spin

refi paperwork what's the rate today? goddamn is that cat pee again? workout at the gym. pay at the meter. lunch cancelled. roofer's here. shit the baby isn't napping. beautiful day for a stroller walk. why aren't you sleeping? lunch rescheduled two weeks out. playdate on. no off. no on again. roofer needs to talk. for forty minutes. see that dry rot? go to sleep. can't tell if it's cat pee. use the expensive cleaner and hope. how many points if the house reappraises for how much less than we bought it for? do you have time to talk? now he's screaming mad. bank balance and bills due and i need to make some money. old doggie can't come just fluffy doggie. roofer report in the email inbox. shit, the baby still isn't sleeping. not that he's a baby toddler. consulting calls i can do this. two a.m. nightmares of rattlesnakes and wayward policeman and. who turned up the heat? old doggie didn't get the toddler to nap today. why is it so hot in here? kick the covers off and dream of toddler in trouble and wake up with the birds singing secrets and a fresh start it all over again.

Sniff Therapy

On my walk today, there was a street that smelled like wet pepper. A huge pepperwood towered over the block. Some kind of cherry-like trees bent over the sidewalk dripping their lacy white blossoms onto my head. Across the street was a gangly bush wild with orange flowers of a nearly neon hue. I walked slowly down that street, bathed in the scent of sweet wet blooms. 

A good antidote to the stink of cat pee that greets me everytime I open the door to our carport. The cats have launched a new offensive. Someone appears to be getting a little too used to the heat-and-motion sensor-triggered ultrasonic noise emitting CatStop that we had to install back in October. We do not have a cat. We only have other peoples' cats, and I have to say that, while I haven't been a big fan of cats since mine tried to kill my father, the repeated markings of Elan's stroller and my beautiful new washing machine have brought my feelings for the furry creatures of the neighborhood to a new low.

I'm going to save the rest of this rant for when I have more time and energy, as I'm still only partially unpacked from our trip. For now, I'm going to think about lacy blooms and wet pepper. But do not be fooled, cats of North Berkeley. You have not won.

Quick, Before My Righteous Indignation Fades

The amazing thing is: we are some of the lucky ones. We have health insurance. We pay over $500 a month ($6,000 a year) to cover Elan and me on Mikhail's plan through his employer. I would consider our coverage to be middle-of-the-road. It's not anywhere near as good as - say - a teacher's. But it's not just-in-case-you-get-hit-by-a-train either. 

However, in the last few months, our little family of three has endured a run of bad luck health-wise. Maladies include: head colds too numerous to count, 2 cases of conjunctivitis (pink eye), 3 cases of chronic nasty cough, 1 sprained chest wall muscle from said cough, 2 standard stomach bugs, 1 case of undetermined gastrointestinal illness, 1 broken finger (Mikhail's, from soccer), 1 Staph infection in eyelid (also Mikhail's, also from soccer), 1 other kind of infection of eyelid (this time Elan), runny and congested noses that never end, and so on and so forth. And that is just since January.

Thankfully, these are all minor illnesses, par for the course of a toddler-containing household. However, you wouldn't know that from looking at the stack of medical bills currently residing on my desk. This morning I spent an hour on the phone with a very nice lady from Blue Cross who explained very patiently to me that, yes, it is true that our health insurance is total @(#*$! Actually, she put it much more diplomatically than that. It was more like - yes, ma'am, it is true that your health insurance does not cover the following:

• routine vaccinations for children under the age of 7, until you've met your deductible (in our case, $500 per year PER PERSON) and then only partly after that;
  
• routine annual physical exams and associated tests (such as general bloodwork, pap smears and mammograms for women), performed by your doctor, unless you go to a special clinic which no one ever mentioned before, and even then it still costs extra; and
  
• routine prenatal care (for the next time I am pregnant), until we've spent that pesky $500 per year.
  

Nice Lady and I did not even get to talking about Mikhail's broken finger issues, X-rays and physical therapy appointments that will likely blow right past his $500 deductible (then we'll only have to pay 35% of the ridiculousness... WHEW! WHAT A RELIEF!). I can't even hazard a guess for what the finger will end up costing us. Could be $700. FOR A FINGER! ON HIS LEFT HAND! AND IT'S NOT EVEN A BIG ONE! But it is his left ring finger. Meaning his wedding ring has been sitting in a little dish in the bathroom medicine cabinet while we wait for the swelling and bruising to go down and see if the digit will allow itself to be straightened back to the point that the ring will once again fit. 

[By the way, the reason Nice Lady and I didn't talk about Mikhail? Because he hadn't signed a special paper that allowed me, his wife & Payer Of All Bills, to ask questions about his insurance benefits, even though I'm on his plan and receive the exact same benefits. May I just say: Oy!]

But of course we're going to do the X-rays and the physical therapy. Of course I'll get on the phone once said piece of paper is mailed and signed and sent back and put into the system and advocate as best I can, and then we'll suck it up and pay the outrageous bills. And while I sign the checks, I'll glance at the cost that it would have been had we not been some of the lucky ones who have a job that provides our family health insurance, and I'll be grateful.

Just like of course we will not allow our health insurance company's disincentives to vaccinating our child to influence our decision about whether or not to vaccinate him. But that is because we can afford to pay approximately $40 out of pocket PER SHOT (and if you don't know how many shots kids get, keep reading). If we simply didn't have the money, as so many in our country don't at this time, well then, I guess he wouldn't get the shot. Or maybe he just wouldn't eat quite as much. At a time when so many parents are choosing not to immunize their children because of vaccine safety concerns, do we really need to be providing yet another disincentive?

I'm going to do some quick math here for when Mikhail and I decide to procreate again. According to the CDC's standard vaccination schedule, a child receives 24 shots in his or her first 12 months (18 pokes if you do combo vaccines). That means Mikhail and I will likely spend about $1000 out of pocket to vaccinate our next child IN THE FIRST YEAR! Better hope we don't have twins. This of course does not include office visit co-pays ($35 per visit, well or sick) or any other tests, medications, or illnesses. And it doesn't include the cost of my pregnancy, a number which gives me symptoms-resembling-morning-sickness just to contemplate. 

This is the part that makes me completely crazy: insurance companies penalizing people for trying to be proactive about their health and the health of their children. CAUSE IT'S SO MUCH CHEAPER TO TREAT A CASE OF THE MEASLES!

Nice Lady from Blue Cross asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I said, "I don't suppose fixing our nation's completely broken health care system is in your job description, is it?" She laughed. And agreed with me.

After Nice Lady and I hung up, I congratulated myself on maintaining my sense of humor. Then I turned my attention to today's mail. And there, lurking in the pile, was a bill from a lab in Southern California that had been forwarded to my new Berkeley mailing address. For a test done when I was pregnant. With my son. Who is now two years old. I called the lab and talked to a very not-nice man. When I questioned why I was getting a bill from SEPTEMBER 2006 now, in March 2009, he told me they had been trying to reach me all this time and it's my fault for not providing my correct insurance information TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO. I will spare you the rest of the details. Suffice it to say that Not Nice Man and I went back and forth for quite a while. He would not listen to my explanations that I had only moved six months ago, and that I had never, in the two years I lived in San Diego after this test was performed, received any mail from this lab at all. He was sure he was right. And I was sure he was a total @$$&%*#. Finally, I agreed to try to find my then-insurance card from two and a half years ago. Cause most people keep those lying around. Forever.

Oh well. While I comb through my old files, I'll just keep being thankful that we're some of the lucky ones.