Sandra Tayler

This past weekend was pretty stressful. I didn’t realize exactly how stressful until last night after I put the kids into bed. With no kids needing me to be strong I wandered into Howard’s office where, two minutes into an unrelated conversation, I burst into tears. Once the storm was over I was able to realize that all during the medical crisis I’d bottled up my emotions. I put them away so that I could manage things. It should not surprise me that when I pulled the cork out emotions went fizzing all over the room. Howard held me and told me it was all okay and that I’d done a fantastic job. In times of crisis it is important that I be able to shove emotion out of the way. It is equally important that I deal with the emotions later.

I’m still sorting through my feelings and thoughts this morning. This medical adventure will probably cost us 2 months worth of living expenses because we carry a pretty high deductible on our insurance. This would have thrown me into a financial panic two months ago. But Howards press match book arrived this morning, we’ll be opening pre-orders sometime today or first thing tomorrow. The sale of the book will change our financial future. The loss of two months expenses doesn’t much affect the fact that the future of Howard’s cartooning depends on the sale of the book. However the sudden medical expenses do force me to take a close look at the tightrope we’re walking. Our savings net is nowhere near big enough. Right now I really want to book to sell well so that I can stash money and build a bigger net. Today life feels a bit more precarious in more ways than one.

I’m not the only one who feels like life is more precarious than it was two days ago. Patches also had a delayed reaction last night. From his perspective mommy just disappeared for 36 hours. I don’t even think I told him goodbye when I departed to take Gleek to the doctor. Then daddy left too and he was left with Chalain and Chaliren. This was followed by an overnight stay at his cousin’s house. At the time these things were happening he was happy to have the adventure. He told me he had fun and wasn’t sad at all. However, when we came to pick him up from his cousin’s house he did not run away and beg to stay. He came right to me and hugged me tight.

At home things reverted to normal. Patches played happily with his siblings all afternoon. He even went to bed without arguement. But alone in his bed in the dark the new found insecurities preyed upon him and he began to cry. Like me, his cork came loose. Fortunately I was just done venting when he began. I scooped him out of bed and asked him what was wrong. He couldn’t tell me. He didn’t have words for what he was feeling, but he clung tight to me. At Howard’s sugguestion I tucked Patches into bed with me. This made him happy. He lay next to me in the bed and chattered about his day while he played with a glow in the dark star. I have to confess that I kept drifting off to sleep. I was so exhausted.

After awhile it wasn’t enough for Patches to just be in bed with mommy, he needed me to hold him too. So I tucked him into the snuggle spot and he lay there snuggly-safe and continued to play and talk. Patches only snuggles when he needs comforting. When he is playing he wants his own space. I talked to him a little to see if I could help him work through what he was feeling. Unfortunately he’s not really old enough to analyse his thoughts and feelings. I could only watch his reactions to my conversational sallies to find out where the sad spots were. As I suspected, he loved having Chalain and Chaliren over, he loved having a slumber party with his cousin, most of what happened was new and interesting for him. But when I said “was mommy gone?” his face crumpled a little and a pout began to emerge, then he grabbed his blanket hugged it and changed the subject. I didn’t persue the topic. I wanted this to be a snuggly-reassurance time not a delving difficult emotions time. Patches continued to talk and play for awhile and I began drifting off to sleep again. Finally he began to feel sleepy and he scooted out of the snuggle and over onto his daddy’s pillow to fall asleep.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to see delayed reactions from Patches. Probably, because he now lives in a world where it is possible for mommy to disapear without warning. I’ll have to be extra careful and nice to both Patches and Gleek today. Hopefully if there are other repressed emotions or delayed reactions I’ll recognize them for what they are.

It’s been a rough couple of days. Now I am home. I’ve upacked all the stuff that was packed for Howard and I to use at the hospital. I’ve unpacked all the stuff that the kids hauled over to their aunt’s house for the suprise sleep over. I’ve made Gleek bathe so that she doesn’t smell like sick or hospital anymore. I’ve made kids pick up the floors of their rooms so I can walk without tripping. I’ve even begun running laundry through the washer. Life is starting to feel normal again.

I finally have time to be incredibly grateful. I am grateful for modern medical science without which Gleek would probably have died this week. I am grateful for all the wonderful medical personell who were so kind and helpful. I am grateful for friends and family who dropped everything to watch our other three kids. I am grateful that this wasn’t any worse. I am grateful that while the medical bills will be painful to pay, we CAN pay them. I am grateful for Howard, because I was able to focus on taking care of Gleek and know that he would arrange for everything else to be taken care of. I am grateful that I still have my Gleek and that she is feeling better.

Yesterday morning I took Gleek to a local instacare center. She’d been running a high fever for two days and during that time had done nothing buy lie still on the couch. I left the house at 8:30 am. By 10 am we’d seen a PA, ruled out ear infection and strep, drawn blood for testing, and peed in a cup for urinalisys. Based on the results the PA sent us to a hospital for an ultrasound and a CT scan to check for apendicitis. By noon we’d been handed a diagnosis of appendicitis based on the CT scan. We moved Gleek to another hospital where there was a surgeon who was good with kids. By about 2 pm the surgeon had examined Gleek, discussed the CT with a radiologist, and declared that he didn’t believe it was apendicitis. By 4 pm Gleek had been examined by a pediatrician who agreed that it wasn’t apendicitis and believed we were dealing with a kidney/bladder infection. He decreed that we get another urine sample for testing and then start IV antibiotics. Gleek was dehydrated and didn’t pee until 7 pm, it was almost 8 by the time the antibiotics were started. By midnight Gleek’s fever was gone. By morning she felt well enough to sit up in bed. We were out of the hospital by noon.

I stayed at the hospital with Gleek all night. They had a roll away bed for me. The sleep was pretty interrupted because Gleek needed to potty twice and the IV drip beeped several times and the nurses had to come in and take vitals a couple of times. At first I was so exhausted that I just fell back asleep after every interruption. But around 3 am I lay awake for an hour playing What Could I Have Done Differently, and Did Anyone Make A Mistake, and Could This Have Been Avoided. Bladder infections are fairly simple to treat once they’re diagnosed. I’ve had several and all they involved was a trip to the doctor and a trip to the pharmacy. Unfortunately Kidney infections are a bit harder to deal with. I landed in an ER with one of those once. So could I have diagnosed this earlier and avoided ultrasound, CT scan, and hospitalization? After about an hour of circling this question I think the answer is no. Howard and I made the very best choices we could make based on the information we had at the time. All of the doctors did the same. But the next time Gleek lands on the couch with a 103 degree fever, I’ll much quicker about hauling her to the doctor’s office.

Another thing I mused on while listening to the hum of medical machinery at 3 am, was my belief in a cosmic parenting scoreboard. I realized that one of the reasons I was obsessing about the questions in the previoud paragraph, was because I felt like if I’d contributed to a misdiagnosis I would have failed somehow. I wondered if things I’d said led that very first PA to consider appendicitis when she might not have otherwise. If I hadn’t led her astray would we then have been sent home with an antibiotic and Gleek on the road to recovery 12 hours sooner? Did Gleek really need the hospitalization or was that just a side effect of the apendicitis misdiagnosis? In retrospect, she was pretty dehydrated. Her fever was running over 103, but her hands and feet were cold, even bluish. She wouldn’t eat or drink more than a sip in an hour. Her body was beginning to shut down. Within 30 minutes of starting the IV drip she looked worlds better. But she wasn’t that bad on Friday night. Do I lose SuperParent points for not recognizing that she needed a doctor on Friday? Do I gain SuperParent points for recognizing that she needed one Saturday morning? Why do I care about SuperParent points anyway? No one else is keeping score, just me. There is no cosmic scoreboard, so why am I spending so much mental energy second guessing the events of the last 48 hours?

I’m not looking forward to sorting out all the medical bills. Why is it that every single person who even walked by Gleeks hospital room will bill separately? I’ll bet we even get a bill from the surgeon who didn’t operate.

Howard pondering aloud the evening’s proposed entertainment:

“I think I’d like to crash a few cars before we Throw Momma from the Train.”

Monday is my day for accounting. I pay bills, reconcile statements, enter reciepts, and all sorts of other number matching and account keeping activities. I do this for both the business and the family budget. I graduated with a BA in humanities. Math was my least favorite subject all the way through school and I haven’t had any formal mathematical education since halfway through my senior year of high school. If someone had told my 17 year old self that I would enjoy accounting, I would have laughed.

I probably wouldn’t enjoy being a professional accountant, but I do enjoy doing the family and business accounts. I love making all the numbers match and categorizing all the expenses. I love walking into the CPA’s office with the right tax reports and reciepts. Budgeting is satisfying because there are categories for all the spending and all I have to do is make sure that we don’t over spend in any of the categories. Or if we do I make sure that we shift money from other categories to make up for the overage. I love the fact that it all stays exactly where I put it from one week to the next. It isn’t like dishes or housework that gets undone the moment my back is turned.

Not everyone feels this way about accounting. They face paying bills and managing budget with a dread that borders on fear. I can understand that because when I first began learning how to manage accounts I felt some of that dread. I was always afraid that I was doing things wrong and that the sinister IRS would swoop down upon me and tell me that I had accrued a bill so large that they were going to auction off the house to pay for it. I can’t say when I stopped fearing the IRS. It was probably sometime after the second or third time that a CPA commented positively on the organization of my accounts and reports. At some point I realized that I was good at small business and family accounting. It is nice to have something I can point to and say “I’m good at that.” It is also nice to realize that I have a set of skills that would quickly land me a job in a workplace if I chose to seek one.

With the upcoming release of Schlock book 1, the business accounting is about to get more complex. I’m relishing the coming challenge. I’m not relishing the wait until the challenge arrives. I feel like Inigo at the top of the cliff while the man in black climbs from below.
“I hate waiting.”

Hey lookit that. I survived last week. Next week has no major events in it, just the normal accumulation of minor events, so hopefully life won’t feel so crazy.

When life gets really busy I don’t take time out to write journal entries. But this does not mean that I stop collecting things that I want to write about. Instead the ideas sit in my brain taking up space and adding to the general clutter which impedes clear thought. I’m going to try to work my way through some of this backlog. Some of the thoughts really need entries of their own, but some don’t and so I’m throwing them into a pile here. Feel free to pick through and see if anything interests you.

I saw an interview with Geena Davis where she was talking about the organization she’s founded called See Jane (www.seejane.org). This organization was founded because of a study. The study showed that in G rated programming 3/4 of all characters are male. It didn’t matter if they were counting speaking parts, appearances, or just people in crowds 3/4 of them were male. There were a few shows/movies that were gender balanced, but by far most were not. See Jane’s goal is not the have a crusade demanding rectification of this, instead their goal is to make people aware of this. They particularly want parents to be aware so they can discuss with their kids the unspoken messages that this imbalance may send. I’m all in favor of parents discussing values with their kids, so I’m impressed with See Jane and Geena Davis.

The other day a friend was picking up her daughter from my house and let me know that there was a fantastic sale on cold cereal, poptarts, and juice boxes at a local store. I thanked her and appreciated the thought, but I did not hop into the car to take advantage of the savings. For me those items are pure luxury. We don’t need them, they aren’t really good for us, so no matter how cheap they get, I won’t be buying them. I remember when I did buy convenience foods like those all the time. I also remember when my grocery budget was three times larger than it is now. Advertising works folks. The number of ‘essentials’ continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Honest, it is possible to feed kids without buying juiceboxes or snackpacks.

A conversation in the car:
Gleek: (trying to come to grips with possible futures) “When I turn into a mom, you’ll turn into a grandma.”
Me: “That’s right.”
G: “When I turen into a grandma, our grandma will be dead.”
M: “Probably”
Patches: (Trying to join what he percieved to be a game) “I turn into a puppy!”
G: “No! You’ll turn into a grandpa!”
P: “No! I be a puppy!”
G: “No!”
P: “Yes!”
G: “We don’t turn into puppies!”
P: (trying to make peace) “When I’m older I’ll turn into a puppy.”

I’m still not very impressed with the organization of our local soccer leage. After cancelling games 3 times in a row we finally had our first game today. Only they sent us to the wrong field and two people were under the impression it was their turn to bring treats. Link had fun, which is the important bit. Even better he actually got into the middle of the action rather than hanging around the edges. I saw him make a few really good kicks. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to score a goal at least once before the season is over.

When Howard is gone I have a hard time going to bed. I keep finding ways to distract myself from crawling into bed without him. This means I was sleep deprived today. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that I shorted myself on sleep all week long. And with the evening activities the kids were short on sleep as well. It was most obvious with Gleek who went ballistic with every small irritation. When Gleek is that cranky I need to be at my best to try to prevent conflict. That wasn’t happening today. Fortunately the kids spent the majority of today outside. This means that they were thoroughly worn out and dropped off to sleep without arguement. So now I just need to make myself go to sleep on time and tomorrow can be a much more peaceful day.

Soccer leagues should not schedule, cancel, and reschedule games three times in a row. They should not do this the night before the game and then leave messages on answering machines. I should be more conscientous about checking voicemail, particularly when the existence of a message is brought to my attention.

Gleek should not be allowed to answer the phone. She particularly needs to not pick up the phone and hang up on Howard when he is at the soccer field with Link and a cooler full of treats trying to figure out where everyone else is. She needs to not do this when I’m at a meeting with Link’s teacher and she is supposed to be playing in the backyard under the supervision of my neighbor. Even more important, after hanging up on her daddy, she needs to NOT turn off the ringer on the phone so that Howard calls repeatedly and recieves no answer even though I’ve arrived back at home.

This series of errors only came to my attention when Howard came storming in furious at spending hours buying treats and hanging around the soccer field waiting for people who never showed up. The bright spot in all this is that the cancellation of the game allowed the entire family to attend Kiki’s big presentation. That was a joy for her.

I was at Link’s school today and I noticed a vending machine in the hallway. My first thought was frustration that they were making treat food so readily available to gradeschool kids. Then I got closer to the machine and realized that it was full of books. Yes books. For $3 or less kids could buy popular/trendy children’s titles. I love that idea. I wish more places had book vending machines.

If I’d thought about it in advance I would never have picked this week to turn over a new leaf in childcare and housekeeping. But the leaf needed to be turned and in fact will probably save my sanity this week. I cannot possibly handle this many large projects without being more focused and organized than I have been recently.

Major events this week:
Soccer season begins— for the next 5 weeks I’ll be ferrying Link to practices and games thrice per week.
cub scout space derby— they handed out the rocket kit a month ago. We were supposed to be working on it carefully to create the perfect rubber band rocket. We opened the box this evening so now we have construction and painting and sanding to do. Howard said he’d help with this, which is good because I’m in a “get it done” mood rather than an “enjoy the process” mood.
preschool at my house— this happens every five weeks, so it isn’t new. I just wish it didn’t coincide with everything else. At least I don’t have to juggle NotMyBaby during preschool anymore.
dance lesson registration— this will be Gleek’s second dance lesson and the first where I have to register her and plunk down money. Not a big stress, but one more thing to do.
Meeting with Link’s teacher– Nothing major, but I wish it weren’t this week.
Images of Greatness— this is Kiki’s presentation on Thursday night that is a culmination of two months of projects. When this huge project was handed out I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. She had to create a poster, write a 7 paragraph essay, write a poetry riddle, create an issue of time magazine with multiple articles, create a poster size venn diagram, find and mount 4 math poems, write a journal as if it were written by her chosen mathemetician, create a display with all of these things on it, and do a memorized presentation. We’re down to the wire and significant pieces are still yet to be done.
drama, knitting, first aid— these are all afternoon activities that Kiki attends this week. None of them require much from me other than picking her up at a different time, but they do use up time that won’t be available for frantically finishing images of greatness.
potty training— I’m not stressing this right now, but I need to not let it go completely either.
Howard leaves for a convention— On Friday Howard has to leave for a convention appearance. Between now and then I need to catch up on all the laundry, help him organize his portfolios of art for sale, and help him pack.

And when all of that is done I need to not fall into a pit of introversion where I ignore house and family until the chaos reaches levels beyond any sane person’s tolerance.

The good news is that because of my leaf turning, today has been a good day and I feel like I can actually juggle all of these things.