The Art of Whining

Most people would assume this would be about my rugrats, and while they all have whining down to perfection, especially my Four year old (Right down to pitch, length, and endless repetition), nope this one is about grown ups.

I'm in pain. Lots of pain. I'm not going to compare it or give it a number, because well pain is such a relative thing. But trust me, this f*cking hurts.

I learned about 6 months ago that I have arthritis, after about 5 months of progressively worse pain in my left hip and an increasingly bad limp (or "cripple swagger" as my friends and husband have dubbed it). At first they didn't really know what was going on, and they threw around phrases like "lupus" "lyme disease" and most often "rheumatoid arthritis". Not THAT one scared the hell out of me - though I tried to keep a stiff upper lip and a positive attitude, inside I was kind of shitting my pants. And I later learned, so was my husband, for all his supportive comments and upbeat attitude. Good to know that we will always lie to each other in times of crisis, whether that's to keep each other's spirits up or because we really can't stand each other's respective whiny sides, not sure.

Turns out it was just good ole generic arthritis, unusual to start at 30, but it happens. So sometimes I'm limping around and other days you'd never know. Some days the pain is excruciating, and others just a dull ache. I had a compression fracture in my low back when I was 14 so that is acting up due to the weird limp. But my days of sexy shoes are gone, which is really fine, because its impossible to feel sexy with a limp, trust me. I won't even get into the awkward sexual moments involving trying to find a position that does risk my hip giving out mid-fun. The doctor told me I will never be able to jog. I laughed, and explained that since JOGGING hasn't been in my vocab since I was forced in high school gym class, I didn't think that would be too much of a lifestyle change. Also, recently I've been having shooting pain from my neck to left elbow and numbness in my lower arm. Going to the doc tomorrow to figure out what the hell that is about. Most likely a nerve thingy to do with being a secretary for 11 years.

So yes, I'm in pain, and I hate it, and its taken over a healthy chunk of both my life, my thought processes, and that of my family's. So this brings me to the whining. There is that fine line between filling someone close to you in on what's up when they ask and turning into what others see as a whiny drama queen completely wrapped up in her own weird medical issues and who answers a simple "How was your weekend" with a detailed description of how much it sucked, complete with a list of everything she wasn't able to do because of said weird medical issues. But when every waking minute is taken up with dealing with varying levels of pain, you do eventually realize that you don't have much else to talk about.

If I become that person (whiny drama queen mentioned above), please, please smack me upside my head. Or knock my bad leg out from under me. Then hold me down and tattoo "Drama Queen" on my forehead.

There is the time and place to fill in concerned family friends and co-workers, but you start to get paranoid that people are thinking you're exaggerating for attention, or that you're just plain making it all up so you can be lazy. Because I'm not bleeding or in a cast, and it comes and goes, I worry constantly that people think I'm some silly hypochondriac. People say "Wow you're still limping?" or "Oh no, what's wrong with you now?" and I feel the need to explain that it REALLY does hurt and I have MRIs to prove its not in my heard, and then immediately apologize for…..I don't know. It probably doesn't help that I work for a defense law firm – the ones whose job is to prove that the lady with thousand of dollars in chiropractic bills is really just a drama queen who is exaggerating some soft-tissue injury.

I am really overthinking this. I talked to my brother though, who has had years of neck issues and when I brought this up, it all spilled out and he said "Oh my god, I know exactly what you mean. I feel like such a WHINER sometimes, but when you're in constant pain, its really all you can think about". So either I am overthinking, or being a whiner runs in my family. I am starting to cringe when anyone asks me how I'm doing with my "hip thing". Because do they REALLY want to know? Or are they secretly thinking "Geez, here she goes again".

So just putting it out there, bring on the hip jokes, the old jokes, the gimp jokes. Laugh at me, joke with me, ridicule my limp – just please, please, PLEASE don't ask me how I'm doing. J

Tita made me do it

So my sister in law stumbled upon my blog and she made me feel like maybe I should be doing this still. She's right. And she said I should be writing cause I'm GOOD AT IT. I used to be? So rusty now. Maybe I'll post some of my old writing from high school to inspire myself! I need to stop using the excuse that I'm too busy with my life to do things for ME, that help me, and also happen to flex my brain muscle. My brother seconded the motion and I'm pretty sure that might be legally binding. So if I don't start doing this again I'm going to have a feisty Mexican to answer to. Shit. She can be scary, trust me.

I pinky swear Tita that I will start doing this again. If I don't, you can give me a wet willy.

me

I am at a point in my life where I not only like who I am, but I am proud of what I do on a daily basis and where I've found myself.  A million choices and leaps, supposed wrong turns and decisions led me to this place, my life as it is now.   And its beautiful.

Yet I don't like who I was at places in my life.  Its a learning process to forgive yourself for things you can't fix, and forgive people who never said "sorry".  I'm finding its important to understand who you were and why, or you can find all the changes you've made within yourself are like a new house built on a bad foundation.  I think if I fell from here, I would be in a worse place than I ever was.  All of this around me - MY LIFE...the more you have the harder it would be to lose it. 

Not that I think any of that will happen.  I guess I just woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't sleep...laid there and went over in my head again and again and again mistakes I've made in my life.  Regrets.  Things I wish I'd done differently, or not at all.  Words I wish I could take back that I said in anger to my husband, my family, my friends, or my kids.  Times I wish I would have been stronger.  Found myself cringing in shame, or mentally smacking myself in anger.  Why couldn't I have been BETTER?

I lay there punishing myself for all these things I can't change - curling away from my sleeping husband who always reaches out to pull me back in his sleep.  Feeling more and more like shit about myself, for really no good reason than I guess a part of me still doesn't think I deserve all of this.  And then I literally sat up and shook my head.  STOP.  Why I am I doing this to myself?  Who do I always do this to myself in the moments where I let myself be alone with ME in my own head?  In the middle of the night...thinking about all the things I want to forget.  Going over past hurts that I thought I was over, but really I've just avoided thinking about.  That's nothing, no progress. 

I need to just ACCEPT all of my life, all of me -- past present and future.  Accept and move on.  See it for what it was, what it is, and just BE -- for what will be will be.  I can only "do" NOW not THEN or ONE DAY.  Its okay to be happy.  I have to take away the backwards regret and the forwards worry and then I can finally just chill and enjoy the moment, or survive it, whatever the moment calls for. 

I am who I am and that's cool. 

Ask yourself, if you were someone else -- would you want to spend a day with yourself? 

No Pants

I don't know if it's the OCD gene from her father, her stubbornness from both of us, or just being a difficult toddler – but my 3 year old is insisting on going commando. She insists that all underwear give her "wedgies" and no amount of adjusting will convince her otherwise.

After weeks of trying new underwear, different pants, being firm with her, bribing her, and eventually pleading with her, my mom finally told me to just let it go. "Pick your battles honey, if its not going to hurt her, its probably not worth it. The more you push, the more she'll push back". She was right. But with Miss Bella, there are so many battles to choose from. My sweet baby girl is wonderful in hundreds of ways – she's smart, has a funny little sense of humor, loving, and can be sweet as can be when it suits her. She is also ridiculously stubborn, extremely vocal when it comes to not getting her way, a professional tantrum thrower, has a bit of a violent streak, and can swing from mood to mood with not much notice. I love her spunk, but sometimes I just have to breathe ten times, close my eyes and repeat "this is just a phase, this is just a phase". A phase that started at about 13 months and is still going strong, but I'm not giving up hope yet.

So where was I? Oh yes, my daughter being the Britney spears of her daycare and refusing boycotting underwear. (Since she's also very curious about boy/girl differences right now, I am a bit worried – but that's another story). So okay, I can let this go, fine don't wear them.

Now she refuses to wear pants. We try on EVERY SINGLE PAIR OF PANTS she has, and she insists that each of them is either too small, too big, or gives her a wedgie.

And now even putting on her socks is a 10 minute ordeal as she insists they "aren't right" or are "on the wrong foot" (WTF???). My dad is watching her this week and I get a call beginning with "Okay, what's up with the socks thing?"

I've tried telling her to fix them, to pick out different pants or different socks, and no matter what approach I take, it always ends in a complete meltdown. Last night she spent 35 minutes at the top of the stairs yelling down at me to fix her pants, while we all just ignored her.

I am a veteran parent. I've been doing this for over twelve years. I've been stumped before, but who would've thunk it would be undergarments that would finally have me beat?

Cupid comes in unexpected ways

My (almost) 12 ½ year old daughter gathered her family in our bedroom yesterday and had everyone sit down. She then opened up a battered shoe box and reaching inside, handed us each a bundle, sometimes wrapped with notebook paper, or stuffed in an old reused gift bag, whatever she could find. She literally bounced with excitement and couldn't stop grinning. She had my husband and I open ours first and inside my notebook paper bundle was a gold colored locket and a letter saying how much she loved me and that she's sorry if the picture inside isn't perfect since it was hard to get it in there, but she hopes I'll wear this little picture of her so she knows she's always close to my heart.

My husband's gift was a tiny stuffed dog that lit up with rosy cheeks when you squeezed him and he barked "I Woof You!", plus a letter that began "Dear Dad…" Since my husband is her stepfather this meant more than anything. That little puppy will have a place of honor on his dresser for years I know.

For her siblings it was little toys she'd picked up for them, or as in her sisters case, a hat and purse of hers that her younger sister had always wanted. She had saved her allowance, and at some point that neither my husband nor I can figure out (and she's not telling), she bought these gifts without any of us knowing. She said "I hope you like it mom, I know its not fancy or anything, but yeah, well I hope you like it…." Oh my Kaia Marie, its worth to me than any fancy thing in this world.

To top things off she then called her three year old sister over, and knelt down and whispered "Bella, do you remember what we made for momma and daddy? Now its time to give it to them" And my toddler marched over all grins and handed us a valentine her big sister had helped her make for us, on which her scribbles could barely be made out to read "I love you mommy and daddy". Plus we found out she'd had Bella make a valentine for the daycare lady and her grandparents.

I looked at my daughter, on the verge of teenager-hood, and maybe soon to be at that age where she will pull away from me, and my heart just about burst with love and pride for this child, my child. I must have done something right to be lucky enough and strong enough to have raised a girl with such a huge heart. I grabbed her face and hugged her and told her "No one, no one in this world has a bigger heart that you do baby girl. You heart just shines" She got embarrassed as she always does when she does something like this, the praise is always brushed aside, since I really don't think that's why she does this. I wish I could somehow have her see herself through my eyes at a moment like that, because I really don't think she realizes what this means to me and what an example she is setting for her younger brother and sisters.

And so there it was, my Valentine's Day moment. Completely unexpected, unmanufactured, and perfect. Flowers, shiny gifts or cards – I don't need a thing today, cause I already feel that warm and fuzzy feeling all the way to my toes. And a shiny gold colored locket to remind me all day long how lucky I am.

cold

Nothing is more depressing than February in Minnesota -- Its freaky cold, like that type of cold that makes it hard to breathe, where any part of your body exposed starts to ACHE after just a few seconds.  And by thismonth, I'm so sick of winter, I have moved past cabin fever into winter depression.  But today is supposed to warm up.  That will help, but once it really warms up, then comes the SPRING THAW.  The worst time of year for an owner of two (large) dogs.  Approximately 4-5 months of frozen poop layered in the three foot drfits of snow in my yard....just waiting to melt into a yard covering sludge.  Awesome. 

I know Valentines day is this month...but I personally feel that it is probably the most unromantic month there is.  Besides above-mentioned winter blues, its too cold for any real loving.  My giant fleece sleep pants, fluffy socks that make me look like I have muppet feet, dry winter hair and skin, and my old red bathrobe = COMPLETELY COMFORTABLE, not sexy.  Plus I just don't have the motivation to shave in the winter....which I'm sure doesn't help.   Ugh.  And since I haven't had a cigarette since new years -- I've gained like 10 pounds.  When I mentioned this to my sweet husband, his response was "at least you'll be warmer in the winter".  Huh.  Thanks.  Apparently he HAS been listening to my never ending complaints about the cold. 

Anyway, other than hating this month and this state, things are pretty decent.  Every day is pretty much the same right now, so not much new going on, but here's a few tidbits:

• Very concerned that Anjolie's eyebrows do not seem to be growing back.  Upside is, I no longer burst into laughter every time we have a face-to-face conversation.  And she doesn't seem too bothered by it, and hey they are HER eyebrows. 
• The kids started hip hop dance class.  I think its quite cool that with three kids from different sets of parents, and when Chris and I have no musical talent, somehow we ended up with such talented kids.  Kaia plays the drums, and can sing damn good, and is the choreographer extraordinaire.  Eddie can dance like you've never seen, and can sign his little butt off.  Anjolie is an amazing dancer too, loves to sing, and can write like somehow three times her age.  Now when are my talented little midgets going to make me a millionaire?  
• Eddie started Cub Scouts.  So cool to see him bonding with his daddy over pinewood derby cars and power tools. 
• Chris loves his job!  YAY!! I hate mine!  Boo!!!  Okay not always....today...yes.
• I lost part of a tooth eating wasabi peas.  No cavity, it just broke.  You can't REALLY tell, but my husband still delights in calling me his hillbilly wife.  
• I got my new ring!!!  My kick ass hubby got me a new wedding band and ring setting for my diamond -- I turned out to be allergic to my last one (yellow gold) and he surprised me.  And he even got down on one knee to give it to me since he forgot the last time.  Before you go "awwww" I should mention we were sitting at the coffeetable eating subway with the kids.  Still adorable though :) 
• Bella insists her nipples are her "other bellybuttons".  She also is boycotting underwear since it gives her "wedgies".  *Sigh*  That child is the single most stubborn person I have ever met in my life.  

I tend to ramble.  I got some ramen noodles to slurp down, so there you have it.  February (kind of) sucks.  Bring on the spring thaw!   

I suck at this

I have the attention span of a mosquito.  I really wanted to keep up the blog.  I still do.  I still might.  *sigh*