Done with 2015!

2015 has been hard.  Some great things happened, but there was a lot of hard stuff, too.

We found out SS was cutting, which is probably the hardest thing I've ever gone through as a parent. I think we have this resolved, and SS seems to be in a much better place now.

We had my mother's last illness and death, which affected me more than I anticipated. Between MIL and my mother, who both seemed to try to set record hospice stays,  I've slept more at hospice than most people who die there.  No one should be as well acquainted with hospice as we are.  And then there were family dynamics that made the whole situation just so much harder than it should have been.

Oh, and then the rosary for my mother, where the priest was late and when he did show up, he just sat in the back and did nothing and I was left to run my mother's rosary and I'm not even Catholic.

And the twins got lice in the middle of the whole mother dying thing, leaving me picking through their hair in hotel rooms.

My remaining grandparents are declining rapidly.  These grandparents were always my rock.  I didn't have the best parents, but my grandparents were always there for me, always engaged in my life and my kids' lives, always made sure we had everything we needed.  They were the ones I called if I was ever in trouble. They were the ones I called with good news.

Now they both have Alzheimers.  My grandfather developed it first, but my grandmother has declined  much faster. Every time I call or visit I end up just want to cry.  It's like they're already gone.  My grandmother doesn't remember anybody any more.  She's like a child. My grandfather remembers us, but we have the same conversation over and over.  He swears no one ever comes to visit, when I know that's not true.  He's angry and argumentative, and just not the Popa I grew up with.

And PS was deciding on and applying to colleges.  The pressure on her was enormous and started affecting her health.  And we spent most of our fall taking road trips every weekend to visit schools.

And then PS totaled her car while she was driving her sisters to school, which is the scariest phone call I've ever received. TT ended up with a concussion, but she seems fine now.  We had the fun of dealing with insurance and buying her a second car this year (car shopping is pretty close to the top of my list of least favorite things.)

And then PS passed out at school. We determined it was low blood sugar, because she never eats.  So it is a constant battle to get her to eat.  I don't think she has an eating disorder--at least not a typical eating disorder.  She's thin, but  not eating disorder thin. She's just extremely picky and can't/won't eat in the mornings.

And then I got butt shingles with a little strep on top.  Enough said.

And DH's workplace is being rather assholey.  DH worked his ass off for a good part of the year to help pull off a massive product launch.  Which apparently went so well, that the company is now looking at selling.  So they won't commit to any bonuses or salary increases until at least March (if they don't sell before then).

I know DH will be fine.  He's built a good network associated with the platform he uses.  He's been asked to speak a few times and his website has been featured a big conferences a couple of times.  But he's frustrated at putting in so much effort and then getting the shaft from his employer. And this change is particularly concerning since I am now technically self-employed and we are looking at all the financial uncertainty with PS going to college next year. I'm not sure we have the stomachs for us both to be self-employed.

But the year did end up ok.

TT is doing so much better.

PS got into all the colleges she applied to, got the scholarships she needed to make them doable, and seems to have made a decision. She has been so happy lately, now that all the pressure is off.  She can pretty much just phone it in for the rest of the year, and enjoy her senior year now.

And my partnership.  I needed this professional step.  Plus having an associate to hand stuff off to has been huge. Work has been going really well and has been the least stressful part of my year.

Next year will be a year of professional changes for both of us.

We'll see PS graduate from high school and go on to college.

We'll get more time to focus on the twins, which I have really been looking forward to. 

We have no other big plans.  No major resolutions.  Just hoping that it is an easier year than the last and that all of our transitions go well.

Twenty

DH and I celebrated our 20th anniversary on December 30th. We've now been married half our lives.

This is one of my proudest accomplishments.  We're not together because of the kids or finances.  We actually still like each other! And a lengthy marriage is particularly impressive in my family where divorce is the norm. My parents and most of my aunts and uncles were on their third spouses.  Even my grandparents divorced, long before I was born. I'm glad I made a good choice the first time around.

A lot has happened over the last twenty years.  We've both lost our mothers, and we've lost 5 grandparents between us (DH has one grandparent left, I have one pair and a step-grandparent.) It is a little sad to look back at our wedding pictures.

We've gone from poor starving college students (we were married when we were juniors in college!) to professionals with graduate degrees.

We've had three kids and gone from babyhood, through childhood, and are now squarely in the teenage years.

I'm excited to see what the next 20 years will bring. Our children will become adults.  We will (hopefully) become empty-nesters, with the freedom to travel and pursue our own interests. We likely become grandparents, which sounds like a great gig.

I look forward to seeing my girls grow into adulthood. I look forward to DH and I being able to meet for dinner or drinks after work and not worrying about having a choir concert or robotics practice that night.  I look forward to taking off for the weekend whenever we want.

But I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now, too.

First Female Patner!

Soooo, I made partner!  It wasn't exactly a surprise.  My firm has been talking about it for the last two years, but the timing wasn't right, for reasons wholly unrelated to me personally. I think the thing I am proudest about is being the first female in my 30+ year old firm.

Commercial litigation remains dominated by men, despite women taking over the majority of law school grads.  And women are even less common in my niche industry. My area is fairly particularized, and the same names and firms tend to pop up over and over. I can count on one hand the number of women in my state in that group. (There are certainly more, just not that are well known, whereas I could probably name 3 dozen men just off the top of my head.)

So there are big changes coming.  Being a slightly control-freaky planner, I am a bit anxious about how this will affect next year's budgeting and tax planning.  I think it's time to hire an accountant.  Tax is definitely not my area of expertise.

In other news, PS is 4 for 4 with her college applications!  She applied for early action at her top choices, knowing that there would be plenty of time to apply elsewhere by the regular decision deadlines if those didn't pan out.

We're still waiting on the number from the last one, but she got very nice merit scholarships from the other three.  The best one brings her close to in-state tuition rates.  She knocked all of the in-state public schools off her list early, and focused on small, private liberal arts colleges, so I am thrilled that the financial end is working out as well.  Getting in is only half the battle. So many people (mostly the ones who don't have any post-high school education) think we're nuts for looking at private schools.  They don't understand that you can't just look at the sticker price.

Anyway, the pressure is off now.  She can enjoy the rest of her senior year and has the luxury of picking which of her top 4 choices she wants to attend.  Woo hoo!

Finally, DH and I are headed out for a quick trip to NOLA this weekend! Out 20th anniversary is on the 30th, but since we're not the kind of party animals who actually want to be in NOLA over New Year's, we bumped our celebration up a bit.  So looking forward to some grown-up time and some good music, good food, and good booze!

Butt Shingles and Strep

I have a crap-top of work to be doing at work, but today I am wallowing in my bed, feeling sorry for myself as I shop online and watch Netflix.

I have shingles.  On my butt. Really, where my upper thigh meets my butt. This has to be one of the 5 worst places to get shingles, because it is pretty much the pressure point whenever I sit. Not cool.  And then there is throbbing pain from my hip to my knee.

But I could deal with all that.  I was knocked on my butt (or in my side, since I can't sit on my butt) by what I assume is strep, gifted to me by PS.  I've had a call in to the doc for 5 hours to see if I need to come in or if he will just call in a scrip, since I was just there with PS on Tuesday.  No news yet, and I'm about to lose my window to get an appointment.  Argh. I don't usually catch my kids' germs, but I think the shingles has my immune system down.  Bah humbug.

I don't even feel like talking on the phone or sending email, even though I have five million people demanding responses from me, and a limitations deadline on Friday, and a response due to the mediator who did not settle the case that I spent all day yesterday in mediation for (painfully sitting on my butt).

On the bright side, I did order a dress for DH's Office Christmas Party.  I put it in my cart earlier this week, and when I checked on it today, Modcloth was having a 1-day sale with 25% off dresses.  I got a cocktail dress for me, a retro dress for PS and a cute t-shirt for $106. Score!

Long Time, No blog

So my blogging can only be called sporadic at best these days. Our fall has been jam-packed. PS is a senior now, and we are deep into the college application process.  Despite my pleading to start visiting schools a year ago, she just wouldn't focus on it until school started this year.  So now we are visiting a school nearly every weekend.  She has eliminated the big state schools.  While my wallet would appreciate the tuition break of an in-state school, I knew all along that a state school would be too big and she would be too anonymous and it would never be a good fit.  So now we are focusing on small liberal arts colleges. Progress!

After visiting a half dozen campuses, she finally found one that she likes.  It's tiny (1200 students, half the size of her high school!), her stats are good (so she should get merit aid!), it's three hours from home (the perfect distance!), and it's only 20 miles from a super-fun city that any college student would love and that should provide great opportunities for an art student.  Still, we're not putting all our eggs in one basket.  She has interviews scheduled with that school and two others next week, and more visits coming up.  Plus, she goes back to her top choice next weekend for an overnight visit and portfolio review.

I feel like the college search has taken over our lives, between the visits and the interviews and the applications and essays (yes, she's doing it all, I'm just helping edit the essays.) Fortunately, she's applying for early action to all but her safety schools, so she should have all of her apps complete today and we should have decisions soon after the first of the year.

Meanwhile, TT and SS are freshmen, and seem to be adjusting well to high school.  TT, without any theater experience whatsoever, tried out for the school play and actually got a speaking part!  This is huge for a freshmen in a large school with a competitive theater department!  She seems fit in well with the theater crowd and is making friends there.  (I was really worried about this kid finding her "thing" and making friends in high school.)

SS, I think accidentally, ended up on the newspaper staff, and seems to be enjoying that.  She's also joined the Writer's Club, which is a great fit for her.  This is a kid who has about 10x as many views of her fan fic that I have had the entire 10 years my blog has been up.

In other news, PS totaled her car a few weeks ago on the way to school with her sisters.  There is nothing more terrifying than getting that call when all of your babies are in the car.  Thankfully, the girls were mostly ok.  TT had a mild concussion, but so far seems ok.  But I've rejected the insurance company's settlement offer because it's just to early to be sure that there are no lasting effects.

Professionally, things are going well.  Work has picked up a lot, and my book of business is growing.  And I finally got an associate!!! Having an underling has improved my disposition dramatically. He's a brand new lawyer, so there's a lot of training involved (which I have somehow been charged with), but he's quick and smart and has already made life easier.

Overall, things are going well--just not much downtime.

My Mother

Today is her birthday. Or was.  Usually I was filled with dread over the expectation that I call her. So that didn't happen today.

It's been about two months since she died.  I'm still processing it.  We didn't get along and her death impacted me more than I would ever have guessed.  I'm bothered that when I was put on the spot at her funeral, I couldn't think of a single generous thing to say about her.  I've been thinking ever since about what I should have said--and I still haven't come up with anything.

Maybe I should have just faked it and said all the stuff people expect you to say about your dead mother.  But I've never been the faking type.  I say what I think and I always have. Although I have learned to be silent when necessary, I'm incapable of saying something I don't really mean.

So I still haven't come up with any stories or examples of why my mother was a good mother.  Maybe they will come later. Her mother became bitter and unpleasant during the last years of her life, and it was some years after her death before I began to remember the stories of how much fun my grandmother was when we were young.  Maybe the same think will happen with my mother.

But since I can't think of anything generous, I will at least tell her story.  For prosperity, or my children, or just so that I've said something about her.

I don't think my mother had a happy life.

Her dad was a bit of a charlatan (maybe more than a bit, he actually went to federal prison), and they moved around a lot as kids, disappearing from little towns once the rent payment couldn't be put off any longer.  Her dad finally disappeared when she was a teenager, only to show back up with a love child in hand on the eve of my mother's wedding. The child's mother had committed suicide.

I will never understand what attracted my parents to one another--that fit just never made sense. She came from a big noisy family and was talkative and outgoing.  He came from a small family of introverts and is more than a little anti-social. Even physically, my mother never seemed like my dad's type. She was taller than him.  Of medium build--neither particularly slender or particularly overweight.  All of his subsequent wives have been tiny, petite women.

My parents divorced when I was 9, after he cheated on her. She went out of town on business and he dragged my bother and me to multiple women's houses. Not too long after that my parents and I were an event in separate cars.  I begged to ride home with my dad, and he finally relented.  But then he dropped me off in front of the house and told me to tell my mom that he went to buy a loaf of bread.  Yes, really.  And he never came home that night.  And she grilled us about what went out when she was out of town.  And we drove 'round and 'round the neighborhood while she demanded that we point out the houses we visited.  Of course we couldn't remember.

So he moved in with his girlfriend and my mother became depressed and pretty much ignored us. She had always worked, mostly as a retail store manager.  She worked late several nights a week, and we hated those nights, being stuck at a babysitter's house until 10 p.m.  She was never particularly discriminating about our child care providers, and there were some terrible ones.

In the mornings, I was charged with getting my brother and myself up and out the door for school.  If she didn't have to be at work early, she slept in. We would pour our cereal, happy if we had real milk and didn't have to sub in powdered milk, and walked the block-and-a-half to school.

Eventually she started dating, and she dated a lot. She dated men with money who could have given her a better life, and men who weren't well off but were at least decent people.  She settled on the worst possible choice.  A construction worker who always had some reason not to work.  And he was an asshole.  An asshole she would learn soon enough was physically abusive.  We told her that we didn't like him and she brushed it off, saying we wouldn't like anyone she married. No, we just didn't like him because he was an asshole.

I remember walking into the bathroom of his apartment before they married and seeing a cup shaped like a breast with a bright pink areola.  That was enough to convince me he was an asshole. That and the stacks of porno magazines everywhere.

So she married him against our protests.  And he proved to be the asshole that we warned against.  He beat her regularly.  He held her hand against the open flame of our gas stove.  One time she ended up in the hospital while we were at school--she said she just passed out and hit her head on the counter.  Yeah right.  One night he was strangling her in the living room.  My brother and I came out of our rooms as he was screaming that he was going to kill her.  She told us to run to the neighbors, and we fled out the back door and over the fence in our pajamas, banging on the neighbor's door and waiting for the police.

He would use switches on my brother's bare ass, and she never stopped him.  He hit me once, and open-handed slap that slammed my face into the refrigerator.  I told her it was him or me.  She chose him and I moved in with my father.  That was pretty much the end of our relationship.  Her refusal to stand up for herself or her children.  Her choice of this horrible asshole over us.

She finally divorced him when I was in high school, still living with my father. Shortly thereafter, she broke her hip.  She was in her early 40s and had had rheumatoid arthritis for nearly 10 years. She also had osteoarthritis--and the steroids for the RA contribute to low bone density.

I moved back in to help take care of her any my brother. She healed, and lost a ton of weight.  For the first time ever, we could wear the same size clothes.  She started dating again, and this time made a good choice. Someone who was both kind and could take care of her.  She broke her hip in December and was married by July.

The next few years were probably the happiest of her life.  She was financially secure.  She traveled often with her new husband and he showered her with jewelery. I had gone off to college.  My brother lived with them and was pretty much ignored.  He was drinking and doing drugs and skipping school.  He got a girl pregnant, and I held my niece at his high school graduation. Once I was gone, there was no one to pay any attention to anything he did.

Her health continued to decline over the next several years.  She had many more joint replacements--every major joint was replaced twice--and she was frequently wheelchair bound.  Before I had kids, in my early twenties, was when we got along the best.  I could do grown up things like drink and go shopping and didn't have any baggage, like kids.

Once I had my kids, we were too much to deal with.  She didn't want us to visit and made no effort to see us.  Three kids is just too much.  DH would complain that when we did get together, she would want to take off somewhere with just me, leaving him and my stepfather with the kids.

Eventually her health became critical.  She came to my Big City for major surgery.  She was here for nearly a year, and I was solely responsible for her while she bounced from hospital to rehab facility and back again.  I visited her every single day because there was no one else who was going to.  I rearranged my schedule to attend her doctor's appointments and surgeries.

And I never got a single word of thanks.  Christmas came in the middle of all this and she told me of all the online shopping she was doing for everybody.  And how she had found the perfect gift for this person and that person.  And I got nothing.  It sounds and feels selfish to write that.  I'm not a stuff person--I really don't care too much about things.  But it was so hurtful that she didn't think I was important enough to do anything for when I was busting my ass with a busy job and three kids and taking care of her.

I was so relieved when she was finally able to go home.  I pleaded with her to move into a senior apartment where there would be more help.  And she complained to every one she knew that I was trying to throw her into a home.

We resumed our habit of barely speaking to one another.  And then came my brother's wedding, and it was the last straw.  She just didn't show up.  He had a place set up for her right in front and had ensured a wheelchair-accessible venue.  And she just didn't show up.

We didn't speak for another year and a half.

And then last year, right after Christmas, we were in Hometown for  DH's grandfather's funeral.  I was having lunch with my brother when my aunt called and said they were recommending hospice care for my mother.  My brother and I decided to go see her together.  She was glad to see us.  She looked small--much smaller than I had ever seen her.  But our visit seemed to perk her up, and within a few days hospice was no longer being talked about.

But she never left the hospital, and by April she had declined again.  My Aunt told me they were moving us to hospice, and within just a couple of days she had declined rapidly.  I was told to come immediately.  And when I arrived, I really did think she would die within a day.

It was not my first hospice experience.  We had already been down that path with MIL.  I knew nothing was predictable, but I also knew all of the phases a person goes through before death--I had seen it first hand.  And when I arrived in Hometown, I believed my mother would be dead within 24 hours.  So did everyone else, including her doctor and the hospice chaplain.

I stayed the night with her.  Despite our difficulties, I didn't want her to die alone.  And I woke up again and again during the night, staring at her to see if she was still alive.  Sometimes going and standing over her because I couldn't tell if she was breathing.

Within a day she had perked up.  She was wakeful and would talk to us.  But much of what she said was nonsensical and became more and more bizarre as the week wore on.  One day we spent hours talking about her horse named Nettles.  Her siblings said she had never had a horse and they didn't know anything about Nettles.

I continued to spend the night and continued to wake and check on her repeatedly.  And her body continued to show improvement, while her mind continued to declined.

Against my wishes and, in my opinion, good judgment, my stepfather moved her out of hospice and back home after a week.  I went back home. I had stress dreams every night and couldn't remember if I was at home or at hospice.  I would dream of my mother and that I needed to check on her breathing.

Three weeks later, she passed away at home.  I did not go back until her funeral.

She died on a Sunday, and I though I could just go into work on Monday and be fine, but I wasn't.  I cried a lot. I drove in for the funeral and headed straight for the funeral home so that we could set up a slideshow for the rosary that night.  She was already laid out, and I was glad that I got to see her alone.  I hate open caskets, and even more I hate the spectacle of funerals and everyone else witnessing your grief.  I immediately went and got my brother, so that he, too, could see privately.

I don't know how I feel anymore.  My greatest fear is still that my children will have the ambivalence toward me that I have about my mother.

Pavlov's Dog

Bob the dog is furry living proof of Pavlov's theory.

Whenever I close my laptop or turn off the tv, he knows I'm moving my lazy butt off the couch and he runs to the back door.

Bob sleeps with TT every night.  TT has a Tardis noise as her alarm.  When the alarm goes off, TT gets out of bed and lets Bob outside.

Now every time the girls watch Doctor Who and the "whomp whomp whomp" noise starts, Bob runs to the back door to be let out.  He's going to be so confused the next time they have a marathon.

***

In a somewhat related story, the girls went to work with me a few weeks ago to do some manual labor around the office.  I was on a call while they were being supervised by the file clerk.  While on my call I started hearing the weirdest noise, and I could not tell where it was coming from.

I finally got off the call and found SS's phone in her backpack in the corner of my office.  Her alarm was going off, "whomp whomp whomp."

The One Where LC is Hit by a Drunk Driver

We are all ok.  The damage to the car is very minor.  But we were literally one second from catastrophe.

I drove PS and soon-to-be freshman TT to an off-season robotics competition in Cool City, about 3 hours away, Friday night.  We arrived about 8 p.m. with no plans that evening, so we decided to wander a university campus that is a prospect for PS in the fall.  It was hot, but many of the buildings were open--and blessedly air conditioned--and it was a worthwhile visit of a very nice campus.

We decided to end our evening by grabbing renowned and delicious ice cream before heading to our hotel, about 4 miles away. I briefly considered letting PS make the short drive to the hotel, because we are trying to get her used to driving in new places before she goes to college, but all of the crazy bike paths in Cool City were confusing to me, so I continued at the wheel.  My best decision of the evening.

So we were heading east toward our hotel.  There was a split in the road we were taking and I was trying to read the signs to make sure I was in the right lane for the highway that we needed.  I haven't driven much in Cool City and did not know my way around at all.  Oncoming traffic was coming from the hill that we were about to drive over.

As I was focusing on the signs over the hill, I saw headlights coming straight toward me.  Like they were aiming for me.  I jerked the wheel right as hard as I could, heard a thump, and saw the minivan that hit us continue to swerve down the wrong-side of the road behind us.  We came to rest in the middle of the V where our road had split.  Thank god for that V, which kept me out of the next lane of traffic and gave us somewhere to go.

I put on my hazards and a big truck pulled up behind me--which ended up being a firetruck.  The nicest firemen in the whole world got out to check on us  We looked at the car--I wasn't even sure I had been hit.  We had heard a thump but hadn't really felt an impact.  But the car showed two minor scrapes.  The firemen had seen everything and were nearly hit as well.  They got my contact information and then took off after the lady who had hit us.

I figured it was a lost cause and tried to drive back to the hotel, but I was so flustered I couldn't pay attention to my GPS or figure out which road to take and ended up just driving in circles. 

Within 5 minutes, the awesome fireman called me and told me that they had found the lady, the police were there, and to come back to the street I was on.  Several people had already called in about her and the police were already looking for her.

In hindsight, I would love to know how they stopped her.  Can you be pulled over by a firetruck?

Since I had only managed to drive in a circle, I was about two minutes from our starting point, and by the time I got there the fire truck, two police cars, and an ambulance were already on the scene. We were there for 1.5 hours while the police investigated.  My girls got a nice criminal procedure lesson, and the police and firemen both talked to them about drunk driving. I hope this is a life lesson that will stick with them.

We watched them do the walk test and the one leg test.  Finally they gave her a breathalyzer and two-second after that they cuffed her. We saw them search her vehicle. She was a minivan driving mom--a couple of years older than me.  Someone who should definitely know better. She was not one of the college students from the campus that we were blocks away from.

If I had reacted even one second later, the result would have been catastrophic.  She was probably driving 50 mph.  I was going 35--the speed limit. If I had been distracted by anything I wouldn't have been able to react in time. I couldn't have seen her any sooner because of the hill.  If I had let PS drive, she likely wouldn't have reacted in time or appropriately.  There's something to be said for 20 years' driving experience.

It all could have been so, so bad. And I just keep seeing those headlights heading straight for us.

Conversations at LC's House

TT: "Dad, do you even know how lizards work?"

This is my new favorite quote. Said as TT was trying to capture a tiny gecko that got into the house. DH told her to just grab its tail, and she pointed out that losing its tail was a defense mechanism and she would be left holding a tail with no lizard.

She was trying to catch it to throw it back outside because it surely wouldn't last long in the house with two cats and a dog that all like to hunt geckos.

***

Me: "Cara Deblahblahblah has too many eyebrows.  And that's saying a lot because I have a too many eyebrows."

PS: "Mom, do you even know how English works." 

***

Me: "I thought he was gay."

PS: "What? Where did you even get that?"

Me: "I thought you told me."

DH from the other room: "Who's gay?"

Me, already hearing the song in my head: "Johnny."

My perfect DH, "Who's Johnny?"

Me: "...she said, and smiled in her special way..."

PS: "What is even happening here?"

Then we had to play the song because she's not old like us.

***

And, a text convo. with PS who was at a robo meeting with TT:

Birthday Season

It is birthday season at LC's house.  DH turned 40 last week. We intended to celebrate with a trip to New York (to compliment the cruise we took for my 40th earlier this year), but my trial calendar forced us to push our trip back to mid-August.  So we still get a vacation to NYC, just not on DH's birthday.  And since it is a big one, it seemed like we needed to do something big on his birthday, so we went indoor skydiving.  He has always wanted to go real skydiving and I have always used my veto power to insist that my husband not jump out of a perfectly good plane while we still have children to raise.  So indoor skydiving seemed like a good compromise.  It was a ton of fun, and I think made him feel not quite so old.

And the twins turned 14 today.  I have no idea how 14 happened.  All three of my girls will be in high school next year.  It's so hard to believe.

Don't worry, I don't dress them alike anymore.  As soon as they were old enough to express a preference I let them dress how they wanted.  Right now TT  has bright blue hair.  She looks just like Joy from Inside Out.  SS has long brown hair with purple tips. PS has reddish hair, and we bleached the tips, so its an ombre fire look.  We bleached with the intention of dying the tips hot pink, but the unintentional fire effect was too pretty to cover up. Sadly, they will all have to go back to boring brown once school starts.  The cool colors are so much fun I wish I could do it.  I don't think that would go over well in court, thought.

Anyway, SS got a turntable for her birthday and she was thrilled.  She also got concert tix and a bunch of CDs.  She is all about music right now.

TT is a budding YouTuber.  She saved her money forever and bought a camera a few weeks ago, so we got her a lighting kit with backdrops and a green screen.   Her room is pretty much a YouTube studio now.

Tomorrow I will haul a car load of their friends to dinner and a movie. PS and her boyfriend are going to a concert (boyfriend?  how did that happen?).

I went way overboard with the birthdays this year.  Maybe because its kind of been a shitty year. Or maybe because I just paid off three big bills (yay!) and was feeling flush. But they seemed so happy, and that's a hard thing to create with teenagers.

Love Tanks

Being the parent of three teenagers is...challenging.  We've gone from the crazed toddler days of demanding constant attention to spending most of their time ignoring me.  They will sleep well into the afternoon when allowed and spend hours behind closed doors listening to music or watching YouTube videos.

But, usually late in the evening, they will emerge from their caves. They will be chatty, and once again demand attention.  DH describes it as needing their tanks filled.They will watch a show with us, or sometimes just all pile on our big bed and talk.  Often I am tired, because their nightowl schedules do not mesh with my early-riser schedule.  But I cherish these tank-filling sessions and will hang with them for as long as they will hang with me.  Because tomorrow they will hide in their rooms until they need me again.

Last night was a tank-filling session.  I got home late and exhausted and laid down with my iPad to read the news of the day's events.  One by one the girlies wandered in.  And we talked about the historic day.  And how befuddled they were by the negative commentary they saw on FB.  They have been raised in a liberal enclave surrounded by extreme conservatism.  They didn't understand why the right to marry who you love is even an issue and were surprised by the negative feedback (and amused by those threatening to move the Canada where gay marriage has been legal for some time). And we talked about the myriad legal rights tied into marriage and why it went so far beyond just a symbol of love and commitment. They usually eschew any law-related discussions, but I had found a topic that interested them.

So the teenagers got their love tanks filled, I got my mommy tank filled, and justice finally won.  It was a good day.

Summer!

School ended yesterday.  Woohoo!!  I am always happy about the lazy, low(er) stress summer days. This year has sucked so far, and I feel  like summer is a chance to reset.

I thought that I had this parenting thing down pretty well.  My children and kind and smart and well-adjusted.  I am frequently complimented on them.  We seemed to be getting it right, for the most part.

And then I found out that one of my children was slicing through her own flesh to deal with her emotional pain.  So it doesn't seem like we were getting it right at all.  There's not much that could make me feel like a bigger failure.

And then PS.  She is so, so smart, and has so much potential, but her grades have sucked for the last two years.  We redid her schedule last year because she was so stressed that she was making herself sick.  This year seemed more about a lack of focus.  She lost focus on school, and even on robotics.  She over-extended herself, and didn't follow through with all of her commitments. And she got a boyfriend (which may well be the source of the lack of focus).  I harped on her that this is THE year that colleges look at. But I can't get her to focus on college.  She is now, officially, a senior, but she has no clue where she might want to apply.

I always had high hopes that she would have the opportunity to attend a great college, but her grades have pretty much foreclosed that option.  Her grades aren't bad--they're all A's and B's (sometimes by the skin of her teeth).  They will get her into a good school--just not a great one.  Which I guess doesn't really matter, because she doesn't seem to want to wander too far for college.  I don't know what that says about my parenting.  I wanted as far away from my parents as possible.  She'd be happy taking online classes and never leaving her room.

There are plenty of good-not-great schools within a few hours from home.  They just aren't what I ever envisioned with her, and I am struggling to realign my hopes and dreams with her choices and desires. She's a good kid.  She's smart and has a ton of talent.  She will be fine no matter where she goes to school.  I just feel like I've worked my ass off so that my kids can have better opportunities than I did, and they aren't taking advantage of it. I need to get past this.

And then the whole situation with my mother, that hit me harder than I expected and the unnecessary family drama that arose with it. 

And then work has been a cluster of clusterfucks lately.  And I am trying to figure out my long-term goals, because I am not very happy with the way things are right now.   I still don't have that figured out yet, but DH and I have been discussing out long term financial goals, which include ensuring that I have the financial flexibility to make professional changes.  We were very close to buying a new house early this year, and it was one of our resolutions from the previous year.  We had taken a lot of steps toward that end before we stepped back and looked at what we really wanted.  In the end, we decided to live with our modest home and our modest mortgage for a while longer, for myriad reasons.

So anyway, summer! The kids finished out the year ok--PS got the highest grade in her class on her Pre-Cal final--the class that has been her biggest struggle all year.  SS seems better.  She is drawing in sketchbooks and sometimes on her skin instead of cutting through it.  The sun is finally shining, and we are moving forward.

And so this happened....

So the rosary was 6:00 pm  Friday and the funeral Saturday morning.  My awesome DH put together a really nice slideshow to play while everyone was being seated before the services.

So we arrived for the Rosary and the slideshow was playing, and people started coming in and sitting down.  I stayed near the door to greet guests.  No sign of a funeral director or priest. 

By around six, I sat with my family and the slideshow kept playing.  By 6:05 most everybody had seen it at least twice and there was still no priest.  So I left to go find out the plan.  Nobody had a clue where the priest was.  There was no funeral director there.  There was basically no one in charge.  My step-father was in a daze. And my family is not Catholic and had no clue how a rosary was supposed to proceed. I had no script, no planned readings, no musicians, no prepared eulogy.

I remembered that my mother's confirmation sponsor (the person who led her through her classes when she converted to Catholicism) was there, so I went and pleaded with him to lead the rosary.  He was reluctantly agreeable, but did a lovely job and we were able to proceed. I felt so bad for putting him on the spot, but I had no idea what else to do.

The rosary took 10 minutes or so and then it was back to me.  I told a lame story--more about my brother than my mother.  And then someone in a collar appeared and sat in the very back of the chapel.  I asked if he was the father, and he said he was and came up and said a prayer and then disappeared to the back again.

So I was up again, asking (begging) anyone who wanted to, to speak or tell stories about my mother.  A couple of my uncles stood up, and then people felt more comfortable and several more stood up and told nice stories.  When it seemed everyone was about done I was again left with shitting things down.  And so I basically had to ask the priest to again come from the very back row and say a closing prayer.

It was so bizarre--definitely not like any rosary or wake I have ever attended.  I never expected to have to run my mother's wake., but  I somehow managed to pull it off and not look like a total idiot.

That evening, we called DH's uncle, who is a deacon in the church and pleaded with him to come to the services on Saturday in case the priest flaked again and to make sure things flowed a bit more smoothly.

Fortunately the priest was on time Saturday and DH's uncle caught him before the services to discuss how everything should flow.  I think it was a huge help, and Saturday went much better. I did a reading that the priest hadn't asked anyone to cover.  A dear family  friend with the most gorgeous voice sang How Great Thou Art and What a Wonderful World. And my cousins handled the eulogies. 

Family drama was kept to a minimum, although we headed back home shortly after the services. I really just wanted to spend Sunday at home instead of on the road. I am so glad that's done.  At least that part.  The had reciprocal wills, so I don't expect that much needs to be done with the estate.


*To be fair, I think this was probably this priest's first funeral.  He has only been in this country for two years and he was the chaplain at the hospital.  My step-father specifically requested him because she had been in the hospital so much over the last few years he is the priest they had the closest relationship with. My step-father was attending mass at the hospital even  when she wasn't staying there.  I think this priest was just better suited to more informal, intimate settings.

Progress?

So today was not much better than yesterday.  The drama continued.  It wasn't pretty.

My brother thinks I've gone insane and contacted my husband directly. I think I've gone insane.  I feel unhinged.  And I hate it.  I am used to being in control and being the strong one and being the one who always keeps her shit together.  And I am emotional wreck right now.  I have never been so weepy and out of control.

The good news is that I went to the doc today.  On top of everything else, DH and TT have had strep.  DH actually has scarlet fever and is covered head to toe in a bright red rash.  SS spiked a fever and sore throat this morning, and I decided to book a concurrent appointment for myself.

I lost it in the doctor's office, but I left with anti-anxiety meds. I hate asking for help.  But the dread I was feeling over having to go to the funeral was overwhelming.  I was truly praying to get the flu.

Hopefully this gets me through this week.  I really hate taking meds.  Asking for them was huge for me.

The End

My mother passed on Sunday.  It was a terrible end and it was time. I truly would not wish her last days on my worst enemy. Now if I can only survive the family drama.

My aunt has done everything possible to ensure that I have absolutely no control over the arrangements. I had started arrangements when I visited last month and she just undid it all and did what she wanted.  I don't know why I care, but it royally pisses me off.  Mostly because she's trying to run roughshod over my step-father.  He is a traditional Catholic.  My family is not Catholic (although my mother converted when she married her husband), and my aunt basically thinks that if she doesn't agree with all the Catholic rituals they just shouldn't happen. I don't really care what kind of service we have--I'm an atheist after all--but I don't want to see her stomp all over his wishes just because she doesn't agree with his religious choices.

I was asked to write the obit.  And then she bitched and moaned and trashed it. I'm just so angry at her actions, and  I can't get past it.  Once my brother told me they were redoing the obit--the only thing I was allowed the slightest involvement in--I just lost it.

I was at work when all this was going down.  I didn't want to miss another full week and she had already unilaterally decided that the funeral would be next weekend to make sure the rest of her siblings were there, so that they could throw a big, drunken wake. (I was there for a week a month ago, spending every night at hospice when it was touch and go before she rallied while all of her siblings went and partied every night.)

I knew I was getting emotional, so I left for lunch.  My rosacea is flaring, which means the slightest bit of any emotion turns my face bright red. And so I went to my car and lost it.  Anger makes me cry, and once I started I couldn't stop. And then I couldn't stop psycho-analyzing why I was crying.  FFS my mother just died, I'm allowed to cry.  But it's not like we had a normal relationship.  After nearly an hour I was a soggy mess and  gave up all hope of going back to the office.

I don't know why I'm so angry.  I don't really care what they do with the service, but I'm pissed at my aunt's intentional exclusion and my brother's inability to stand up to her. Maybe I'm angry that everyone is pretending that my mother was the wonderful person now that she's dead.  She wasn't a wonderful person and I'm not going to put that she was an amazing, loving mother in her obituary. 

Maybe I'm angry that I didn't have an amazing, loving mother.  She wasn't an addict and we weren't abused or neglected (by her, her second husband is another story).  She just didn't really seem to want to have children.  We were just there--a burden she had to bear. And she told us of all the things she couldn't do because of us. 

Maybe I'm angry that my kids don't have any grandmothers.  The only one who paid them any attention died 5 years ago.  They had virtually no relationship with my mother.

Maybe I'm angry because Mother's Day is being shoved in my face.  I hate Mother's Day in any year for the above reasons, but this year it's just an emotional clusterfuck.  Her funeral will be the day before.

Anyway, I'm angry.  Two glasses of wine has not quashed my anger. And my head hurts.  And my eyes hurt.  And I just want to go to sleep, but when I try the anger just wells up and the adrenaline starts and I can't sleep.

And I'm not being nice to my brother and it's not really his fault.  His wife just had a baby on Friday and she is still having complications. He doesn't need my raging on top of everything else.

This is long and rambling and nonsensical.  But I think you got the gist.  I'm angry.

Update on my crappy life

The last month has been one giant nightmare. It feels like a black cloud is handing over my head and I can't get away from it.

My mother is still here.  When I arrived in Hometown, I honestly though she wouldn't make it another 24 hours (and so did the doctor, the hospice staff, and everyone else).  But all of her family flooded in and she rallied.  As in she started being awake and eating.  But her speech is completely nonsensical.

I think everyone around us expected some magical healing of our relationship.  There wasn't. There won't be. Closure is a myth.  But I'm ok with that.

I returned home after a week--but at least we got funeral arrangements made, because despite her poor health she and her husband had made no arrangements (he also has cancer).

She has held steady since, but has reportedly declined again in the last couple of days.  Apparently she's trying to beat my mother-in-law's record setting hospice stay.  Her condition is abysmal and too grotesque to convey.  I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to continue living that way.

To add to that nightmare (which is really enough on its own), my cousin died in a hotel room while in town to visit my mother.  He had a terminal illness, but was very young, and the timing of his death was unexpected and complicated by being 400 miles away.

The lice situation took forever to deal with and was a total pain in the ass.  The thing is, everyone I've talked to will admit that they've dealt with it one I bring it up, but nobody every talks about it otherwise.  It's like America's dirty little secret. 

My car was hit by another driver, and his insurance company is denying the claim--without even bothering to look at the damage.  Hello, Progressive, quit being assholes!  I so do not have time to deal with this shit right now, and I'm not about to turn it in on my policy because I have a brand new teenage driver on my policy who makes my rates unbelievably astronomical.

Teenager hit another car in the parking lot at school the first week she started driving her new (used) car.  Fortunately, it didn't damage the other vehicle and the other kid brushed it off, but it left a nice welt on her car.

I've got a bunch of family begging for help with their legal issues and I just don't have the fucking time to deal with it.

My secretary quit.

I've boarded two separate planes that I subsequently had to vacate because of mechanical problems, and spent much more time in airports than necessary.

DH has scarlet fever and is covered head to toe with a funky rash all over his body.  TT has strep. SS had to go to the ER a couple of weeks ago after getting weird shooting pains in her gut. (It was, thankfully, nothing--but it's not the kind of pain you can ignore and the ER bill cleaned out our FSA, which I am thankful we had available to cover it.)

On the positive side,

The cutting seems to have stopped (but who knows--she could certainly be covering it up). She likes her therapist and it seems to be going well.

PS's robotics team made it to the world championships again and did well.

PS has a car!  She still doesn't like driving, but her self-sufficiency is huge for me.  I love her being able to haul herself around and help out with her sisters.

Only a month left of school.  I love summer so much, and I am so ready for the break from all the craziness.

My Life is a Clusterf*ck

We spent the weekend at an out-of-town robotics competition for PS. (They won, yay!)  The competition was a couple of hours from Hometown, so my aunt came down on Friday, and DH's family came down on Saturday to hang with us and see the 'bots.

Aunt told me that my mother would likely be going into hospice soon.  If you are a longtime reader, you might remember that my mother had a serious surgery in my City a couple of years ago that required her hip, knee, and femur to be replaced.  The replacements did not take, she never regained any kind of mobility, and she had her leg amputated a few months ago.  She's been in the hospital 90% of the time for the last 2+ years, and should have had it amputated long ago.  She has had continuous massive infections and is completely resistant to just about every antibiotic known to man.

You may also remember that I don't get along with my mother at all.  She is toxic and I do my best to avoid contact with her.  I speak to her a couple of times a year.

So I didn't get too worked up about Aunt's news.  Partly because the day we arrived in Hometown for DH's grandfather's funeral in December, I got a call that she was being moved to hospice.  My brother and I both went to see her, and miraculously, by the next day they determined that hospice wasn't necessary. 

So this time around I just told Aunt and Brother to keep me posted.

When we got back to our hotel on Friday night, TT told me that her head was massively itchy. SS reminded me that they had been doing rollerblading in PE, which requires helmets.  And then TT mentioned that two of her closest friends had mentioned lice in the last week. FML.

So we get back to our very dimly-lit hotel room and I commence inspecting TT's hair.  Sure enough, I find nits.  Gag!  This is the first time we have ever encountered lice, and of course it had to happen while we are traveling and all sharing a room and pillows and beds and hairbrushes.

DH and I rush to the nearest store at 10:00 pm to buy a lice kit and flashlight, and we are up until 12:30 washing everyone's hair and using the lice comb.  TT has very long, baby-fine hair and it took forever.  And , of course, there is no way to change out or wash our linens.

 I am highly disturbed by doing all this in a hotel.  Hotels already skeeve me out, and the thought of other people doing this just  makes it worse.

We do the best we can, and I plan on another round of nit-picking once we get home on Sunday.

So we're up and at 'em early Saturday morning.  By that evening Aunt is saying that my mother is declining.  Brother visits her and he thinks it is serious this time and not a false alarm like at Christmas. I talk to DH and plan to go down next weekend.

We headed home Sunday morning--a 6 hour drive.  Within an hour after we arrive Aunt and Brother are calling to tell me to come ASAP.  I am  not entirely trusting that she is declining as rapidly as they are telling me.  I ask Aunt to talk to the hospice nurses to get a better idea of how things look.

We have been down this path before.  MIL practically set a hospice record and we made multiple "you must get here now trips."  But MIL was fighting like hell to stick around as long as possible.  I can help but feeling like my mother is still trying to manipulate my sympathies.  And I know that makes me sound like a terrible person.

And I am exhausted.  Sleep has been minimal this weekend.  The hospice nurse us noncommittal about a timeline. But my brother needs me.  I am the only one who understands our ridiculous relationships with our parents.  And he has always been more sensitive than me.

There is no way I can hop in the car again.  I grab the first flight that I can reasonably catch, which doesn't leave until 9:00 tonight.

So now I'm pulling together a suitcase and work files.  DH will have to deal with what's left of the lice situation. He did inspect my head and found nothing, so finger's crossed that he didn't miss anything.  Because the only way this situation can get worse is if I start spreading lice around hometown.

Monday

Today way hard.  Everyone at work was tiptoeing around me.  They know something is wrong, but they have no idea what. I don't know if their imaginations can conjure up something worse than reality. Right now I can't imagine anything worse than this.

I holed up in my office. I'm just one giant frayed nerve.  I was bitchy to our IT guys, and  anytime someone is nice to me I'm on the verge of tears.  Please don't be nice to me--real lawyers don't cry.

The evening was better.  SS hung out with me for a while and seems happy.  Real happy, not fake happy.  Maybe getting caught lifted a weight off of her.  I hope so.

We talked about summer camp options.  The summer worries me.  With PS's internship, it will just be SS and TT home alone most of the summer.  I think we'll be looking at lots of camps.

Coping

This weekend has been one of the hardest of my life. I just can't stop thinking about it, and that I've failed my child. I'm a giant ball of stress and have developed a perpetual tension headache. I can't sleep.  I did manage find a therapist and she met with DH and me Friday evening and SS on Saturday morning.  So at least we're moving forward there.

In the meantime, DH and I are trying to figure out how to proceed from here, with technology and privacy and alone time and balancing time between three kids. We know that a lot of our attention is devoted to PS right now, and we need to refocus a bit.  January through April are the busy months for robotics, and DH is a mentor for the team, so he is often at school with PS until late. And there's just a lot going on with her right now that gets a lot of attention.

On the other hand, I worry about shifting too much attention to TT, and SS feeling like she's getting the short end of the stick. DH took her out for ice cream tonight for some one-on-one time and to praise her for coming to us about her sister.

We were scheduled to be out of town next weekend for a robotics tournament, leaving the twins with a caregiver, but have cancelled that trip.  PS will go with her team and we will have the weekend at home with SS and TT.  There's another robotics tourney the following weekend that we are taking SS and TT to, because its near  Hometown and we'll get to see some family, and then we have a short trip to one of the twins' favorite places scheduled for Easter weekend and a trip over Memorial Day weekend for TT's state solo competition that we're turning into a mini-vacay.

So we'll get lots of family time over the next few weekends that will hopefully right any right any lopsidedness in attention.  But at the same time, I know that it's not all about attention.  She's told us that this has been going on for a while, and the heavy focus on PS has really only been the last few weeks.

I also question whether she was ready to get caught, and we just missed the signals.  She had asked a couple of weeks ago to go bra shopping (teenage girls might ask to go to Hot Topic or shoe shopping, but not bra shopping) and I delayed because we've just been busy.  In hindsight, I think she was asking because she knew she would get caught.  I just didn't catch the signal.

The good news is that she doesn't seem angry at us.  She willingly went to the therapist.  We did go bra shopping yesterday and she seemed to have fun (I'm sure it helped that we bought a ton of spring clothes.) We spent a couple of hours this evening doing our nails.  So she's not folding in and closing us off.

Failure

There is so much going on around here lately.  Lots of decisions, and changes, and many good things. And then yesterday my whole world was brought to a screeching halt.

One of my kids is cutting.  Her sister saw the marks when they were goofing around and immediately texted me. I flew out of the office, broke many traffic laws on the way home, and tried to figure out how in the hell I was going to handle this.

The thing is, I wasn't surprised. This kid has definitely been through some changes over the last several months.  She went from my glittery pink girly-girl in love with a Disney-made boyband to a too-much eyeliner wearing teen who only wears punk rock t-shirts.  Her friend group completely changed--from kids I liked and whose families I knew well to kids I knew nothing about and didn't particularly like. But those kids won't be going to her high school next year, so I was just holding my breath and trying to wait out the next three months, knowing her friend group would likely change again when she started high school in the fall.

And I had heard her mention cutting--talking about her friends or band members who cut.

I saw a scratch on her arm a few weeks ago--talked to her about it, bought her excuse, and made a mental note to keep an eye on things.  But she wasn't showing signs of depression.  Her grades are great.  She seems happy--actually the happiest of all my kids. I spent virtually all of last weekend with her--she had a solo contest (and qualified for the state competition!), and we did some shopping and celebrating  and watched Grease (her first time and my millionth).

So I wasn't surprised by the text, but I guess I expected it to be superficial teen experimenting. I was shocked by what I saw.  It wasn't a few scratches.  It was scores.  Completely covering her abdomen and upper thighs.  Places I would never see.  And it's obviously been going on for a while.

She immediately 'fessed up. Showed me all the marks.  Told me what she was using (she had 5 utility knives in her room!).

I talked to her, calmly, and mostly kept it together.  Then I sent her to shower and went downstairs and collapsed into sobs.  My child is broken.  I don't know how to fix her.

Once I pulled it together, I started researching. Did she need to immediately go to an inpatient facility or was outpatient therapy sufficient?  I tried calling a counselor that we had seen once before.  Of course, nobody ever answers the fucking phone there (seriously, can you imagine running a practice without a live operator?).  I got a voicemail back hours later saying, "we have a waiting list, if this is an emergency please call 911."  Could you be any more fucking useless? How about a fucking referral?

Meanwhile, I concluded that I did not want to go the route of inpatient therapy and am desperately trying to find a counselor.  But it was too late in the day yesterday to reach anybody and apparently at least 50% of counselors don't work on Fridays.  And all the ones in my town seem to have waiting lists.

I'm working from home today because we're on spring break and I'm not about to leave her unsupervised at this point. I've got all of her electronic devices, trying to figure out a plan for closer monitoring.  I don't want to punish her by taking them away, but I need to control communication with this new friend group, which seems obsessed with suicide and self-harm. (Yes, I have been reading her chats since all this came to light.  Also, we had to get involved when one of her friends was threatening to commit suicide a few weeks ago.) 

I really need to talk to a professional about how to respond appropriately. My irrational side wants to make her change schools and cut off all communication with the outside world.  My rational side knows this is a terrible idea. I am so lost right now.