That's What I Mean

"Hey, you forgot your medicine this morning," I told my son as he got in the car.

"Yeah, I figured that out."

"What do you mean?"

"When I wasn't paying attention in class.  Well, I was paying attention, but, you know, not the same."

"You were having a hard time paying attention?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

Had I not noticed that his 7-day pill box was not laying out on the kitchen counter like it usually is in the morning, I still would have known.  The teenager that often takes a nap on the 30 minute drive home was wide awake...wide awake and fidgeting with everything in his reach.  He messed with the visor, looked in the mirror several times, played with my water bottle, drank my water, pretended he knew the words to the classic rock songs on the radio and sang along, badly.  Through all of this there was commentary on everything under the son, including a conversation of how I still had to work when I got home while he could relax.  Well, at that point work sounded a bit peaceful!

I asked him if he got in trouble for anything.  "What would I get in trouble for?"  I just gave him the "you know" look. Before we went the medication route I got notes and phone calls from school fairly regularly about his constant talking.  In the back of my mind I always just thought "At least he's getting some of that out on someone besides me."  I do wonder today whose ear is worn out.

At his last neurological appointment, his doctor asked him if he wanted to try to lower or go without medication as he's been on it quite a while.  It only took him about a split second to say "No, I want to keep it the same as now."  His doctor told him that was fine, some people still prefer to take it as adults.

I think he made the right decision.  He's not a bad kid without it, I don't like him any less, he's actually quite funny and entertaining when he's in constant chatter mode. However, he's scattered, and it bothers him to not be able to focus, and today showed us that he still needs the help the medication gives him.  His medication actually wears off shortly after he gets home from school, but his evenings are more enjoyable because he isn't dealing with frustrations he might have otherwise had during the day. He's matured enough to be able to figure this out himself.

ADHD, it's not made up.  It's not an excuse used by parents.  My son, he will happily explain to anyone who asks how it makes him feel, clearly if he took his medication, a bit scattered if not, but he will tell you.

Believe him.

That's why they have wine.

A Toast To Friendship

I don’t have a huge list of friends, especially female ones.  I’m an introvert and happy with that, I enjoy my own company.  I don’t like the drama that many female (and some male!) relationships can create.  I don’t believe in rushing to the defense of someone no matter what, I believe in holding to my values and in being honest when I think someone is out of line, and this is not what leads you down the road of popularity.  I’ve my whole life been more “one of the guys” than the sorority sister type.

This is not to say I have no friends of course, there are some I hold very dear, and each holds a special place in my heart.  There are the few moms I’ve met through baseball over the years who I get together with probably not often enough, we all are busy, and, well, I need to be texting them for the next get together, it’s been a few months.  There is a friend who I see rarely, but who was there for the birth of my child and whom I know will always be there for anything I need. There are male friends I’ve met through the cigar lounge my husband went to long before I married him, who text me helpful or funny or silly things during the week and who I really enjoy hanging out with on weekends when we all go to the cigar lounge.  There are friends from work with whom I instant message during big meetings (we work from home) to discuss the things that way-way-up-there-disconnected-from-our-day-to-day-jobs people tell us about our jobs, who also get together periodically to connect in other areas of our lives. There are friends I know from high school and college, and thanks to the internet we've reconnected and see each other occasionally. There are friends I know from online forums, including a parenting page I used to help admin.  There are friends from the neighborhood or mom's of my son's friends and various other random places.

And then there is a friend who, well, just really, really gets me.  She is close to my mom’s age, she lived across the country until this year, and I actually met her on a Disney message board!  One day, over 10 years ago, she posted asking about something she had heard of, a “Monorail Drink-a-thon,”, in which you take the monorail and get a drink at the 3 resort stops.  She never expected her post to turn into a phenomenon, and I never expected a post to turn into a long friendship, but, well, that is what happened.  The post became a thread where we formed friendships and actually all met at Disney one day to do the Monorail Drink-a-thon.  We hit it off when we met, and the rest is history.  We’ve met up at Disney at least a dozen times since, even sharing a room sometimes at the resort, she came down from Chicago to attend my wedding 5 years ago, and she now lives in a home she bought in Orlando.  She holds one of the biggest places in my heart, and I just wanted to acknowledge that.

That’s why they have wine.  And she is always there to toast with me, even if she sticks with Bud Light!

It's Hard, and I Don't Care if I'm Not Supposed to Say So

I sit here exhausted, finishing the dinner I prepared, writing this blog to give me a little more time before I have to go clean the kitchen.

Running through my mind, competing for space with a particularly clingy song, “If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain…”, which has been driving me crazy for the last few hours since hearing it picking up my son from school, is a blog I read a few days ago.  It was a great blog, a validating blog, one that made me think, “Yes, thank you!”  It was a blog that started out saying that all moms have a lot to do, we’re all deserving of accolades, but that particularly wanted to give kudos to working moms, the moms who others often think “How do they do it all?”  You actually don’t see a lot of those, and the reason why could be easily seen in the majority of the comments. 

Comments that say working moms aren’t good moms because they abandon their children to be taken care of by strangers so they can have the luxury (luxury???!!!) of going to work.  Comments that express psychologically damaging offense because it is implied being a stay at home mom isn’t a job in itself.  Comments about how much harder it is to be a stay at home mom because working moms have so many helpers (helpers???!!!) Even comments about how we shouldn’t commend working moms if we aren’t going to do the same for working dads in the same sentence.

Well, I’m going to do something very unpopular.  I’m calling BS.  Bull-Freaking-Crap.  (Well, I guess technically that is BFC, but hey, I’ve had a long day.)

The truth is that married stay at home moms, single stay at home moms, married women without children, single women with no desire for children, single working moms, married working moms, moms that work from home, women without children that work from home, and any other group who is going to be offended because I didn’t call them out specifically, we all have very different lives.  We all have hard things in our lives, we all have stressors, but they are likely to be very different things.  This is the truth, but per political correctness, this is the only truth that this full time work from home for a major company, married, mom to a teenager (one with a few issues that require neurologist appointments and medication) is supposed to say.

I’m going to now move on to what we’re not supposed to say.  Let me preface this by saying that in my 49 years of life I have been a member of many “groups.”  I’ve been single without kids, married without kids with no intention of having them, a married mom, a single mom, and always a working mom but for the twelve glorious weeks where I was on disability and therefore a stay at home mom to be, and stay at home mom.  I do get what it’s like to be all of those.  Being a working mom has been the hardest stage of my life, and I'm not going to apologize for saying that.

First of all, yes, being a stay at home mom is a lot of work.  I know this well, because I also changed diapers when my son was little, taught him to tie his shoes, I take him to doctor’s appointments, I drive him to school and pick him up everyday, I take him to sports practice, I help with homework, I pack lunches, do laundry, volunteer at school and for sports leagues, buy groceries, fill prescriptions, cook dinner, do housework, and am there when he needs a shoulder to cry on or advice or to help figure out why his computer won’t boot up.  Working moms actually don’t have these mythical helpers we all hear about.  I kind of picture them as being a bit like Santa’s elves, and I could really, really use a few of them, but alas I missed the memo on how to get into this secret world.

Second, working moms don’t go to work to relax and socialize.  I’m laughing so hard right now I’m having a hard time continuing my thought on that, but thanks, I needed that laugh after my work day.  I go to work so that I can make my car payment, pay tuition, pay for quarterly neurologist appointments and expensive medication, pay the electric bill, pay for the food we eat.  My job is not the least bit relaxing, it is stressful enough that it’s causing me problems with my blood pressure.  I get up at 5:30 am, get ready for the day, and start my mom job by driving my son to school – a 70 minute round trip if there are no accidents, and then I work from 9 am to 6 pm at my paid job, using my lunch hour to again do my mom job and pick him up, and in between there I juggle meetings and figuring out how the heck website A lost it’s formatting on a page while running an update on website B and coworkers asking me questions about websites C and D, while the websites E-Z are wondering why I haven’t gotten back to them yet.  That would be the extent of my “socializing,” unless you count saying “Thank You” to the mailman who brings a package to the door.  After 6, then I start the rest of my mom job, starting dinner, throwing in a load of laundry, hopefully get back to making dinner before something burns, clean the kitchen, pack lunches, go to get school and sports uniforms ready for the morning only to realize I forgot to put them in the dryer, put clothes in the dryer and start another load, feed the pets, again go to get the school and sports uniforms ready for the morning, help my son find the misplaced baseball cap, pour a giant glass of wine, sew a button back on a pair of shorts, sort through the day’s mail, realize I forgot to pay a bill that is due and go pay it online, hear the alarm on my phone go off telling me it is time for my son to go to bed (yes, I really have one!  When you are trying to get everything done you are not paying attention to time), go tell him goodnight, take the trash out, get myself ready for bed, heat up my dinner that I forgot to eat, and I finally get to sleep around midnight.  Relax and socialize, ha!  There is not time for that silliness.

Lastly, we don’t think we are better than anyone else, though probably a bit busier.  However, we are understandably annoyed when someone downplays our life as some kind of choice to let other people raise our children so we can go hang out and party at the office.  Personally, I’d love to be a stay at home mom, it just doesn’t fit my budget, but I don’t believe that being one would make me better than anyone else either.  There are benefits to both – I would have less stress and less blood pressure problems and would get a little more sleep if I stayed at home, I have a little more money and health insurance because I work, for example.  When someone writes a blog about the sacrifices of stay at home moms, I have no issue with that.  When someone writes one that says they understand the struggles of working moms, please, just let us have that for a minute.

That’s why they have wine.  And it’s about time in my schedule for that large glass.

The Myth of the Superheroes

We all know someone in our life that we sometimes think must be superwoman or superman.  You know, that person that does so much it exhausts us to even think about it, that person who will help when you ask, that person who often puts everyone and everything before themselves, that person who takes care of children (maybe even those with special needs), customers at work, elderly parents, volunteer work, and still is there to hear you vent for an hour and give you a hug when you are having a hard time.  We often think these people have it all together and really have control of life, and never need any help.

It’s not always true.

I know.  I’m one of those people.  I get up at 5:30 in the morning so I can get my son to school before starting work, and sit down in the evening at 10:00 after picking up that same son from school, working till 6 or later, getting groceries, making sure everyone has dinner and has lunch and clean clothes for the next day, cleaning, taking care of pets, making sure we have all the necessities for a school projects and home repairs, answering emails, going to baseball games or at least picking the kid up after one, helping my mom or a friend or a family member get something done…It’s at this point I usually eat my own dinner, and try to wind down.  I go to sleep about midnight, get my 5-1/2 hours of sleep and start all over again. 

I’m stressed.  Seriously stressed.  Stressed so much that my blood pressure is staying high even though I take medication for it.  Stressed so much that I broke down in tears at my doctor’s office earlier this week talking about it.  Stressed so much I was prescribed an antidepressant/antianxiety medication to help with my mental health so it doesn’t keep affecting my physical health. 

Stressed so much, and no one even noticed.  When I told my husband, the person who knows me best, that my blood pressure was high due to my stress, he asked me “Why?”  Granted, he works evenings so doesn’t see me much during the week, but honestly that is one of the reasons why - he’s not here to help me with all the things that need to get done, and apparently not here enough to notice I was falling apart.

That person that you know you can always depend on when you need something, who is there to help talk though your problems, who will take your kid to practice, who will volunteer to tackle a problem at work, that person that you wonder how they are doing it all...Take some time to ask them how they are doing.  Don’t just say “Wow, I don’t know how you do it all,” say “Wow, how can I help you?”  Maybe sometimes we are too proud to ask for help, but we still need it, and just the offer can mean a whole lot.

And that, my friends, is why there is wine!