Update And Other Stuff

Ok, we're lazy, I admit it. We haven't been doing much that's drastic to follow through with the psychiatrist's recommendation. All I've done is to keep what I learnt about how is brain thinks in mind. Which is helping - me, if anything. I did go and buy some candy to use as an incentive to get him to go to bed easier, and it works somewhat. I guess we're both dreading the whole "taking everything away" issue.
But the other day, we had another incident. L was playing with a homemade bow and arrow. He had made it himself, probably a year ago. At one point, I was making dinner, and he came into the kitchen moaning because the wood had dried out and the one end had snapped. I suggested he just retie the wire he'd used for the string part, but that was shot down.
"It won't work!" he screamed, and cracked the bow in half and threw it into the garbage. I ignored him, thinking to myself of how childish this behaviour was (and in hindsight, yeah, duh, he's a child!)but I guess he was more upset than that. He stormed off to his room.
DH came home shortly after, and I asked him to coax L downstairs. He said L wouldn't acknowledge him. So I went up a bit later, and found him sitting on the floor, next to his dresser with craft wire wrapped around his neck and tied to the dresser handles! It was a bit shocking, to say the least. I won't go on with all the details, but as soon as I called DH up to come and see what was going on, L untangled himself quick as could be. I suppose it was alright for mom to find him in that state, but not dad.
At this point, we both had a big talk with him, which now that I think about it, wasn't the right thing to do I don't think. We're not supposed to dwell on the details, on the negatives, but that's difficult when you find your son in that situation! He was trying to strangle himself!
Now, this psychiatrist said that kids this young don't really know how to kill themselves, but I beg to differ. He was definitely on the right track!
At this point, I told L that I couldn't continue to leave anything in his room that could be harmful to him. I said I wanted to be sure that when he's quiet upstairs in his room, it's because he's busy or asleep, not hurting himself. I then gathered all his invention bits and pieces, his hammer, his scissors, all the wire, and anything else that I could see as potentially dangerous, and put them all in my room under my bed. The thing is, that he didn't even get mad about it. Either he was too busy being upset about whatever his brain was dwelling on, or he was genuinely relieved that I had taken harmful things away from him. The second choice scares me to no end.
DH and I tried to discuss with him that we knew that his brain was telling him lots of bad stuff, but that when he felt this way, he needs to let us know. DH suggested he could even just say a word, or hand us some sort of token, if he couldn't find the right words to say. And we would do our best to try to help his brain get back on the right track.
I managed to redirect his thinking enough to get him to come downstairs and make his stir fried veggies for dinner. After that, he cheered up. The redirection thing works, it's just figuring out how to redirect him; I can't always let him cook or hand him candy.
So that wasn't so great, I'd thought we had moved on from the "I'm going to kill myself" stage. But at least now I have his invention stuff in my control.
Last week I also had an appt with his psychologist. That left a sour taste in my mouth. DH had taken him to the first meet-and-greet appt, and then the second was a two hour test they do for seeing if they have LDs and whatnot. So this appt I didn't bring L, since I was just getting the results of the test.
This woman didn't seem to know much. She said there wasn't much "wrong" with him that she could see. She said that he's above average intelligence, and aside from the troubles with his writing and (in my own opinion, not hers) reading, he could have been considered for an enriched program. Well, while its always nice to hear from someone else how smart your kid is, I just don't swallow all of that. He'd never have the drive to participate in an enriched program. And yes, I know how smart he is. He amazes me every day with the things he says. And so does R.
But there's nothing wrong? Really? Because I just don't get how he can't spell "could" and "use" and simple common words like that when he was supposed to know them in grade one or two.
This is how he wud rite if he wuz riting this now. He can't remember the "theres", he can't remember the "yours", I'm looking at a paper right now on which he wrote "atacers team" (attackers team). I'm actually surprised team wasn't spelled teme.
How is this not a problem? He's mid-grade four! The woman suggested Kumon, which I have briefly looked at on the Internet, and woah, it's pricey! There was no mention by her at all about his behaviour, and part of the session was her telling me about her own son and his friend! Do I care? Uh, NO!!
I'm going to pick up the test results on Friday,or rather the write-up, and view them myself with DH. Then I guess we'll show them to the school.
On a completely unrelated topic, I just found out my mom is going to visit my nan in England next month. She'll be there on Mother's Day. Is it selfish of me to feel glad about that? I always feel so much guilt on Mother's Day, about how I'd like the day to be about me (and really, it never is) and how I have to choose between making my mother happy or DH's mother happy, because its too difficult to see both on the same day (again, what about me?) This just takes some pressure off me!

The Guilt Complex

Why is it that ever since I became a woman, I feel guilt ALL the time? Is it like some sort of pre-requisite for being a woman or what? Men don't seem to suffer from this complex as much, or at least they don't show or voice it.

Take for example, tonight. I was putting R to bed, and as is the routine I was reading to him. Yes, he's nine now and can read to himself, but we both enjoy it and it's a nice end to the day (we do the same with L, DH and I switch back and forth between the two when we can). The usual lights-out time we aim for is 8:00, give or take a few. I was anxious tonight to watch House, one of my favourite shows. So I was trying to get it all done before then, but at the point that I said goodnight, R complained vehemently. We hadn't actually finished a chapter, and when I said I wanted to watch my show, he looked at me with glassy eyes and said that it made him feel bad.

GOD! The guilt! That I would put my own selfish needs to watch a show before him...So of course I stayed, read more of the book and missed my show. Oh well.

Then there's Mother Guilt. And I'm not talking about the same mother guilt as above, the kind when you feel guilty for every action you take in regards to your children because you feel like you're f*ing up their lives royally and feel bad for it. I'm talking about Mother Induced Guilt - my OWN mother. I'm not sure how I end up feeling guilty about the things that are wrong in her life, but I do. I guess it's because she's done so much for me in my life (raising me, taking care of me, feeding me, clothing me, giving up things to buy me stuff, being there when my own kids were born, you know, small stuff like that!) and I'm not there for her when she needs someone. It's not really possible most of the time, due to the (geographical) distance between us and time constraints. But this coming weekend I have chosen to spend my birthday weekend with the boys at their Scouting camp (DH is going too as he is a Beaver leader, and the parents are allowed to come for Beavers) instead of going to my mother's as she suggested. This decision was made partly because I still want to spend my birthday with my boys (as much as I don't wish to celebrate turning 37), we wanted to go camping this summer but never got to, and another friend/mom who said, "Awwww, come on, it'll be fun!!" Yeah, sure, spending a night in a cabin with 50 other people and one (?) washroom sounds like a disaster waiting to happen blast.

So I feel guilty about that. That once again I'm not going over to see my mom. Here's the funny thing - She has one Friday a month off. That Friday happens to fall this week (tomorrow). My birthday is Sat. She had said she was going to come see me on the weekend for my birthday, however since I've chosen to go to the camp, she obviously won't. Then I asked her about her off Friday. I asked her when it was, and she confessed that it was this week. I asked her if she would come over then, but she has to take the car in, and then she is going out to celebrate a friend's 70th birthday. So why am I feeling badly about not seeing her when A - it's my birthday and B - she's choosing to celebrate a friend's birthday over mine? Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about that, really, I'm not. I'm happy she has friends, and I know she really needs those relationships. Plus I am still harbouring guilt (again with the guilt) about not going to see her on her birthday this year due to a cotttage trip, so I kind of feel like I deserve it. But I just wish I could stop feeling guilty about it!!

Let's not even get started about the other kinds of guilt I feel. Guilt for having a crappy looking garden in the front of my house that doesn't look even close to as nice as anyone else on my street, guilt for throwing out things in the garbage occasionally that should have been separated for recycling, guilt for using non-environmentally friendly cleaning products, guilt for not taking my kids to the dentist, guilt for not taking them to (take your pick here), guilt for not paying more attention to the dog when he was around, guilt for not donating enough to charities, guilt for not being able to go on field trips or volunteer in the classrooms etc, etc, etc.

I once read a book about motherhood and the pressures that mothers feel in this day and age as compared to say, the 50's. It had a lot of info about guilt. It said that we need to rephrase in our heads anytime we feel guilt for things. For example, when you think, "I feel so guilty for dropping him off at school upset," you simply rephrase "I regret dropping him off at school upset" and if it makes sense to you phrasing it that way, then you take steps to change that. If not, stop the guilt and accept it for what it is. Guess I need to remember that.

Mother's Day 2010

I haven't blogged for a few days, and seeing other bloggers' posts about Mother's Day, I felt I should chime in.
I had a pretty good Mother's Day. Better than other ones in the past, that's for sure. I had informed DH that I was going to purchase my own present this year, seeing as how I was tired of hinting and never receiving what I hinted at, and always getting a couple of cards and a bunch of flowers from the local grocery store instead. So this year, he FINALLY took the hint (that was blatantly obvious) and asked me what it was I was going to purchase. R filled in the details there (at least someone listens!)
Lo and behold, I finally received my very coveted iPod touch! I have drooled after this for a long time, and I am loving it! I immediately went out that afternoon and purchased a pink cover for it, and spent much of the afternoon perusing apps on the iTunes website.
For breakfast that morning, we went out to a popular breakfast restaurant called Cora's and met my MIL, FIL and Grandmother-in-law there. Afterwards, R had a ballhockey game that L and I chose not to attend due to the crazy cold weather and snow! (what was up with that??)
Later in the day, DH was supposed to have a hockey game of his own, which left us without plans for dinner. But due to a mis-scheduling, he didn't actually have a game, so we got to go out again for dinner to another of my favourite restaurants, East Side Mario's.
So all-in-all, a pretty great day! I didn't get to sleep in at all, but oh, well.
I came across this really cute story on another blogger's website http://outnumberedbykids.blogspot.com/ If you know the books "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" or "If you Take a Mouse to School", then you'll recognize it.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

If you give a Mom a muffin
She’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She’ll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She’ll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She’ll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She’ll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her
She has to plan dinner for tonight.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She will look for the cookbook (101 Things To Make With A Pound Of Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for her checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She’ll smell something funny.
She’ll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring.
Her four year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee on Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.

And chances are…
If she has a cup of coffee…
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.