struggling - part 2

Heath thinks I should seriously consider getting a job. He thinks I would be happier, because I wouldn't be driven nuts by the kids all day, and instead (theoretically), I would miss them and be refreshed to see them in the evening. (I think he forgets here how he is often not overwhelmed with delight to see them when he come home from work exhausted.) He also points out that it wouldn't necessarily shift the full load of housework to the evenings and weekends, since a lot of our current load of housework is created during the day by the kids' play and simply from the process of living and being in the house all day long.

As for me, I think it would probably make our lives crazier.

struggling - part 1

I find myself too often in the position of really not liking my children. I feel horrible about this. But they really are just jerks sometimes. They demand and beg and nag, and then don't listen to me or obey the rules, don't even give me a response when I speak to them much of the time! They whine about my rules and fight against them; Ethan throws huge tantrums, Jacob pouts. They inflict shocking frequencies and degrees of violence on each other with complete disregard for my pleas to stop. What is there to like sometimes, honestly? Yet, I know my job is to love them when they are undeserving of it, to be faithful to them and to honor the deep connection we share, as well as my commitment to them as their parent. And I will do so. In the meantime, I need to find a way to live with them and maintain an example of peace and love, rather than a display of anger and attempts to control which I cringe to see them repeat on each other. I really am not sure how to become that example of peace and love and to stop displaying anger and trying to control by force. But as part of the process, I am going to write the things that they sometimes do or are which remind me of my deep love and affection for them. (And I guess I'll pray these characteristics would start coming out more than the negative ones again!)

meddling with mood meds

It seems that my depression, anxiety, or whatever it is you want to call my struggle with my emotional state, is no longer responding to my meds. This is really frustrating. I started going to a specialist for my mood meds, rather than just my regular doctor, shortly after Samuel was born three years ago. I had maxed out my dose on Zoloft during the pregnancy, since I seemed to need more as my blood volume and weight increased. But after Samuel was born, even the max dose didn't seem to be working. The psychiatric ARNP put me on Effexor, and with follow up the dose was increased slightly past the manufacturer's max dose (the psychiatric community recognizes that more than the max dose can be safely used and is necessary for some people). Some time later, when it seemed that Effexor was still controlling most symptoms, but I was experiencing a sort of bleed-through on certain symptoms, she added Wellbutrin to address those specific symptoms. It seemed to work reasonably well. One can't really expect symptoms to vanish 100% with antidepressants. The medicine is supposed to help level emotions so that they can be dealt with constructively, not to prevent ever feeling any negative emotions.

So, I've been on this Effexor/Wellbutrin combo for a while (a year and a half, two years?), and I had decided it was probably the best regimen available for me for now. But lately, it doesn't seem to be working at all. If it is actually improving my emotional stability and moods, then I can't imagine how I would be acting and feeling without any drugs.

my "new" couch

So, here's what we ended up doing for a "new" couch... We found a better used one, much less used, for $75, and put our old couch cover on it. However, the old couch cover was not large enough for the new, longer couch, so I went online and found a new couch cover on clearance ($30!! Can you believe that?? I think our other one was $100 new.) I am very, very happy with the "new" couch. The cover is awesome, fits great and is soft, and the couch itself is way more comfy than our other one ever was.

Heath, Ethan, and Samuel demonstrate how long the couch is - it had to be long enough for Heath to stretch out, head to toes, or I couldn't buy it.

eww!

Thought you all might be interested in the pathologist's report on my gallbladder. :-) This is straight from the report. Warning: It still makes me shudder with revulsion to read it, even though it's referring to my gallbladder.

silly struggle

I am having this struggle lately with wanting to buy new furniture. Struggle, I say, because we can't really afford it, at least not to pay cash for it. I usually distract myself from this temptation by remembering how wonderful it is that we've had to buy hardly anything for our home -- it's almost all been given to us, either as wedding gifts or as hand-me-downs from family or friends. Such as...

lost sense of humor?

I feel like I don't have anything interesting to blog about anymore, and I don't know why that is. I look back through my old posts, when Jacob and Ethan were preschoolers, both before and during the first year after Samuel was born, and it seems like life was full of funny antecdotes. Do I not see them anymore? Have I become so accustomed to how kids act that it doesn't amuse me the same way anymore? Am I too focused on myself to notice their cuteness, the humor in sometimes exasperating situations? Has my attitude toward it all changed, darkened?

Well, I don't know whether those things are true or not, but wouldn't you know that as soon as I noticed that I wasn't noticing cute or funny things my kids do, I noticed something cute Samuel did. So, despite not having many funny stories to share lately, here is one:

wonderful things

I have decided that minimally invasive surgery is one of the most wonderful modern inventions. It's hard to believe that two days ago, a surgeon cut into my abdomen in 4 places and inserted tools by which he, essentially, dissected my internal anatomy. Granted, the incision sites are pretty sore, like one would expect, but I am still amazed that I can be sitting up and walking around so shortly after surgery! Also amazing: modern painkillers. I let the pain medicine run out a bit yesterday morning and realized just how much it was helping. I am back on schedule and determined not to stretch the time between doses again for another day or two.

surgery

Those of you who I see somewhat regularly have already heard about this, but there are some of you who might not have heard yet. I'm having my gall bladder removed this week, on Thursday. I had a couple of "attacks" last month, and upon investigation, they diagnosed me with chronic cholecystisis, which is basically inflammation of the gallbladder. No stones were visible on the sonogram, but the wall of the gallbladder was thickened (6 mm versus 2-3 mm normally), indicating chronic inflammation, which (according to what I read) can cause the gallbladder walls to thicken and become stiff.

my journey through faith and science

I'm wondering if I can even write this post with my spectrum of readers in mind... My uncle who has earned his living from science for the past 30 years or more on one end of the spectrum, and the most conservative of my Christian friends on the other end of the spectrum. Sprinkled in the middle are the rest of my friends and readers, a group which consists, as far as I know, almost entirely of devoted followers of Christ, yet with varied opinions on the issues that make one a "conservative" or "liberal" Christian. Yet I will try.

For some time now, I've been wrestling with whether or not it is really possible to fit a belief in evolution into my faith in God.

photo shoot - always an adventure

parenting our children's intelligence

Intelligence is a funny thing - not only do we desire to have it, but frequently, to know how much of it we possess in relation to others. This urge reveals our desire to possess intelligence not merely for its usefulness, but also as some sort of reassurance of our value.

This morning, Heath and I attended a meeting with the school psychologist, gifted teacher, and Jacob's regular classroom teacher to go over his test results for the gifted program. Although he tested very high, he was a few points shy of qualifying for the program. He will continue to receive extra work in the classroom to challenge him and will continue to participate in the weekly "Talent Pool" program for the second graders who tested in the top 2% for math on the NEA tests.

As we drove home, I told Heath that I'm really not surprised, since I was tested in high school to be labeled as gifted and did not qualify. I hadn't thought of this in relation to Jacob's testing until this morning.

Easter Egg Hunt

Samuel talking

Samuel's language development has really grown over the last two months or so. He has said some really cute things that I wanted to record here so we didn't forget.

The first thing I remember that I wanted to share was when we were at the bank to sign our closing papers for our refinance, and the closing officer came out to meet us. She introduced herself, and then Heath said, "Hi, I'm Heath," shaking her hand. Samuel jumped up and said, loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear, "I'm me!" Of course he assumed she'd want to know who he was, too! At that time, he had recently started telling us, "I'm me." Now he says, "I'm Samuel," but not clearly enough yet for someone to understand his name if they didn't already know what it was. So, he's understanding the concept of names versus pronouns, but he still says, if we ask if he's happy/sad/excited/sweet, "No, I'm Samuel!" Right, but is Samuel happy/sad/excited/sweet? "No, I'm Samuel!"

Another thing that happened just recently was when I told Samuel in the van that he'd have to wait to pee until we arrived at the grocery store, that he'd have to "hold it." He said, "All day?!??" Then in a worried voice, "I pee Mommy's car!" I assured him that it would just be for a little bit until we got to the store. We ended up forgetting to go right away at the store, and he held it all the way until after we checked out. What a big boy.

There are so many cute things he says every day, it seems like. These are the two that are stuck in my mind right now. He is becoming more understandable to people outside the family, now, too, which is a lot of fun. He asks us each night to pray about "big cars" - i.e. that he won't be woken up and scared by loud cars driving by. This has actually happened two or three times, after which he asked us to pray for it one night, and now he brings it up every night, maybe just as a comforting (or perhaps prolonging?) part of the bedtime routine.

I looked back through blog entries from when Ethan was the age Samuel is now, and it was fun to remember the things he would say at this same age. This is when he called people "Dute-doo," and when he labeled many things as "dee-one." Samuel uses his words for "this-one" quite a bit when he wants to refer to something he doesn't know the word for, too, but Ethan used it so liberally it was entertaining. You can read my original entry about it here. This was also the age that Ethan called Jacob "Bubba" still, and yelled out to Jacob when he was performing in a program at church, "Hi Bubba! Hi Bubba!" until Jacob finally acknowledged him. Then yelled "Good job, Bubba!" when it was over. Ah, the love. :-)

Happy Birthday, Sweet Ethan!

(If you'd like to see the captions, click on the video to go to my Picasa page.)