Christmas Crap: Resisting the Temptation to Buy More

            Enter any room in my 2100 square foot house and you will step on, trip on, or kick a toy. Not only do each of my girls have closets full of toys, but we have an entire loft area dedicated to a play room, a screened-in lanai with toy bins and a garage full of toys dedicated to outdoor play. I have a chest full of games sitting in my living room and an office overflowing with craft materials. Basically, my girls have too much crap!

So much crap that I have spent the last two months sorting unused and unwanted items. I have already taken two huge loads to Goodwill and have another large load sitting in my living room waiting to go. Despite my efforts, I find discarded items in every room of the house. I am currently looking at three of Lu’s stuffed animals scattered around the family room floor. The chaos is overwhelming and attempts at cleaning and organizing are fruitless. 

I worry about the message we are sending our girls; the potential for raising spoiled, ungrateful little wretches. I worry that their values lie with things, as opposed to people. I worry that they lack empathy for those less fortunate. And I worry that all these things are breeding entitled brats who believe the world owes them these material goods.

Therefore, before the Christmas season began, I swore that this year we would be having a “small” Christmas; that though my girls would receive gifts, I would purchase half of what I have in the past. I even had a conversation with Lucy, telling her that Santa and I had a conversation regarding the number of gifts she would be receiving this year because she and Lily have more than enough toys.

Honestly, I thought buying little would be easy. My plan was to purchase one large gift for each girl and then four or five smaller gifts. I swore not to purchase crap gifts, in other words those small toys that get played with for a day or two then either break or are dropped on the floor or thrown in a basket and forgotten. I also swore not to purchase toys just to up the number of gifts under the tree. My gifts would require thought and be high on the girls’ lists of most wanted.

Sticking to these rules, I finished my Christmas shopping in one day, and quite frankly, was extremely proud of myself for keeping my own promise. However, within the last day or two the pressures of materialism have begun to weigh on me. I have started to think that what I bought is not enough. As catalogs have inundated my mailbox, I have browsed their pages finding one more item Lily would love, one more craft Lu would enjoy. I have also felt a tinge of sadness that I crammed the whole Christmas season into one day while sitting on my couch, that I missed the shopping experience by buying everything online. I have had to resist the temptation to run to Target for another item or two.

The point, however, is that I have resisted the temptation. That every time I have thought I should buy another toy or craft supply, I have looked around the house at the girls overflowing toy bins and stopped dead in my tracks. I have also looked at my bank account and felt good about the results of having a small Christmas. In the past, I have put considerable strain upon it, or have wondered where the money for Christmas is going to come from. This year, my bank account is thanking me.  I can only hope that on Christmas day the girls will be thanking Santa for their well thought out gifts, and one day be thanking me for teaching them the true meaning and value of Christmas.

Being Present

 My greatest struggle in life is being present. Present for myself, my children, my husband. Present in my own life. Of course, some days are easier than others. Today, however, I have struggled.  I felt the vast distance between my life and me the minute I woke up this morning.  Whether the result of a poor nights sleep, the daunting task of unpacking my house, or a lingering loneliness in this town devoid of support, I know not. However, tears have threatened all day, spilling over once or twice in moments of frustration, anger, and sadness. I took an unusually long walk this morning, in an attempt to clear my mind, to feel some ounce of normalcy. It didn’t work. As a result, I wandered around the house, staring at boxes, unsure of where to begin, therefore, not beginning at all.

 Exhaustion sets in on these days. When I wasn't wandering around the house lost, I spent my time sitting on the couch staring absently at Facebook, while Lily watched her IPad. I finally fell into a half slumber after picking Lu up from school. The girls, sensing my mood, sat quietly sharing Lily’s IPad. After several pleas from the girls to go outside, I forcefully pulled myself up, my mood less than amicable. I found myself snapping at Lu about the heat and my exhaustion when she asked me to play badminton, unable to give even the smallest ounce of energy and myself.

On these days, I forget to eat or eat inordinate amounts of refined sugars, only enhancing my exhaustion and bad mood. Today was the latter. My lunch consisted of a chocolate croissant combined with Hershey kisses dipped in peanut butter. I still feel toxic despite eating a healthier dinner, one that consisted of salad and a chicken and broccoli roll.

The worst part of these days is my inability to connect with my children; my inability to interact in a positive manner.  I am overcome with guilt and sadness, as I watch these days pass. I feel a distance between us, even as they long for love and affection, and I worry that this distance will grow and become an unsurpassable chasm. It is my greatest worry and a source of great pain.

My only hope is that tomorrow will be better, that tomorrow I can feel more present, more positive, more energized. I pray that these days don’t negatively affect my relationship with my girls, that they know how desperately I love them and how desperately I want to be present.

This Exhaustion Called Motherhood

I don’t write much about this thing called “motherhood”; this thing that consumes ninety nine percent of my time, energy, and effort. I periodically touch upon it in my writing, but generally avoid making it my main topic for a couple of reasons. First, I never wanted to be a mommy blogger. Starting my blog, I felt, and still feel, that writing solely about motherhood limited my writing. I wanted my blog to be a place to discuss varied topics, recall varied memories; a place to express varied emotions. Second, being a mommy consumes the majority of my life. I wanted, when creating my blog, a place, a space, to express that part of me that is wholly separate from “mommyhood.” A place to recapture “me.”

            On a day like today, however, when being a mother feels more like a burden than a joy, my reasoning for avoiding that which consumes seems flawed and ridiculous. Homeschooling Lucy, on top of constantly managing Lily-Anne’s diabetes, has left me unusually drained. Today, I feel like running away, but seriously lack the energy and motivation to do so; an unstoppable treadmill ensues. I run. I tire. I keep going out of necessity, even though my greatest desire is to stop moving my feet and fall flat on my face in surrender.

            I feel like kicking Sleeping Beauty’s ass out of bed, putting up a “Do NOT Disturb” sign and sleeping for 100 years. I feel like kicking my own ass in an attempt to jump-start my motivation. Unfortunately, I don’t have the physical, mental, or emotional energy to do so. I feel like fleeing, screaming, crying, and collapsing in a monumental tantrum of two-year-old proportions. I feel like curling myself into a protective ball and blocking out the world. Hibernation seems like a good option, since I don’t even have the energy to eat.

             The problem I face is that two little girls depend upon me. Two little girls depend upon me, for not only their physical needs, but also their mental growth (literally their education), and emotional well being. I have two little girls seeking love and affection. I have two little girls who need a mommy, one who is present and able.

            Unfortunately, I often forget or forgo my own needs in order to meet theirs. Like all mothers, I wish I could be everything to them, to everyone, but end up right back in this place of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion when I attempt to do so.

            So how do I solve my problem? How do I get of this speeding treadmill long enough to recover? The absence of family, a support system, makes my struggle more difficult. My exhaustion hinders finding and implementing a solution to my problem.

            So instead, I focus on a moment. The moment Lucy told me Lily watches too many Arm and Hammer commercials because she (Lily) told me that loving her meant I was big and strong. I laugh. I laugh because Lucy is funny, and I laugh because of the truth behind Lily’s words. Loving my children does mean I am big and strong, especially during my weakest moments, on my most difficult days.

The Daughter I Love with Diabetes

Lucy is at art class. I have an hour to kill. While Lily-Anne stares, fixated, at episode after episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog (whom she identifies as blue when asked – so much for educational TV), I sit searching the Internet for writing prompts; my attempt at freeing my mind from what seems to be interminable writers block.

            Do I invent a monster and describe it? Convince someone why music or art are important to me? Or do I make-up a tall-tale, exaggerating an actual event? None of the hundreds of options touch me or inspire me. Not even depicting the zombie apocalypse jump-starts my imagination.

Instead I choose the mindless act of browsing Facebook, hoping to find something new, different, interesting, or inspiring. Surprisingly, it is the American Diabetes Association’s post asking, “Who do you love with diabetes?” That gets me thinking, and writing.

My 2-year-old daughter, Lily-Anne, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was 19 months old, just one week after we finalized her adoption. A positive diagnosis of diabetes initially seemed like a cruel joke on a child who had faced challenge after challenge since the time of her conception.

Born into the foster care system to a mother who tested positive for drug use during labor, Lily-Anne spent the first 6 months of her life in the supervised care of her birth mother, who was physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of caring for her. Three months prior to arriving in our household, Lily-Anne was being housed with her birth mother at the Lund Center, a home for troubled mothers.

When we received Lily-Anne, at six and half months old, she was developmentally delayed by several months. She was also very flat, showing few emotions and even fewer expressions. She seemed to have resigned herself to an unhappy fate. I remember standing over her one day, tickling her toes and raspberrying her belly in an attempt to coax a smile or a laugh from her. Instead of reacting with joy, she sat staring at me with little expression on her face. Horribly disappointed and worried that she was, somehow, permanently damaged by her short past, I began to cry.

It took time, love, and a lot of support, but Lily-Anne did, eventually, come out of her shell. With the help of occupational and physical therapists she caught up developmentally and after a year of being unofficial parents we were able to officially make her ours. We celebrated both her adoption and baptism with friends and family over the course of a long weekend. Never did I imagine that a week later all the joy we felt adopting her would quickly turn into terror when she became seriously ill.

I knew, on a gut-level, that Lily-Anne was diabetic even before her diagnoses. Two weeks before her adoption, I had expressed concern to her doctor about her waking from her naps shaking with tremors. I had assumed that she was suffering from low blood sugar during these episodes. My assumptions were confirmed when I would feed her immediately upon waking and the tremors would stop.

My concern progressed to worry when the weekend before her diagnosis she began having unquenchable thirst, even waking in the middle of the night begging for water. She was simultaneously leaking through diapers every one to two hours. Knowing that both were signs of diabetes, I intended on speaking with her doctor about them during my scheduled doctor’s appointment that week. However, it was the onset of vomiting and lethargy that drove me to the doctor before our scheduled appointment. Worried and somewhat frantic, I asked the doctor to test her sugars resulting in my suspicions being confirmed and a positive diagnosis of diabetes. After hours in the ER, and days at Dartmouth in the PICU, where we were given a crash course in the care of diabetes, we were sent home to begin life in a whole new way.

I spent a lot of time crying the first four months after Lily-Anne was diagnosed. I cried from exhaustion (waking up at 2am every night was physically draining), from frustration at her constantly fluctuating sugars, and from grief for the life we had hoped for her, the life we had now lost (a spontaneous life, unhindered by a strict schedule and worry about every crumb that passed her lips), and the very uncertain future that now existed for Lily-Anne’s health.

It has been a little over a year since Lily-Anne was diagnosed and much has changed, not only in our attitudes towards her disease, but also in the management and therefore ease of her disease. I no longer cry for the changes her disease has ushered in, I personally have found an inner strength I didn’t know existed. However, I will admit to having moments of jealousy when I see parents happily feeding their children snacks without thought to the time, number of carbs, insulin delivery, or affect on those little bodies. I do not have the luxury of keeping my child happy with snacks so that I can leisurely browse through a store. We have to maintain a fairly strict meal schedule in order to prevent lows but our day now revolves around those meal times.  We now test Lily-Anne two times a night, once at midnight, and once at three am, but I no longer look at these testings as an exhausting burden (at least not all the time) but rather part of the routine necessary for the health of my daughter.

Upon initial diagnosis, Lily would fight and scream at being tested and receiving her shots.  Now before being tested herself she likes to test her dolls, declaring, “91, perfect.” Lily-Anne has gone from receiving 4-5 shots a day to being on a pump that painlessly delivers her insulin continuously and when needed at meals. She is coming to know when her sugars are low, and what to do to treat those lows. She is a happy, healthy, little girl, who knows no other life than one with diabetes.

I both look forward to and dread the day Lily-Anne is old enough to manage this disease herself.  I pray that we can provide her with a normal life, one full of fun and fitness. I pray that she never sees herself as different, awkward, or incapable because her diabetes. I pray that the rebellious teenage years pass by quickly and without consequences to her health, both mental and physical. I pray that she understands the importance of healthy living so that the long-term side effects of this disease fail to affect her. I pray that she surrounds herself with people that support her endeavors to remain healthy. But mostly, I pray the same prayer all parents pray for their children, that she should live a long, healthy, happy, and meaningful life. One in which she feels loved and accepted despite her disease.