Welcome to Holland

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

And that's all I have to say 'bout that.....

"Ha Ha Ha, Biff. Guess what? After we go to the drug store and the post office, I'm going to the vet's to get tutored."

I've always been a huge fan of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons. This particular comic is one of my favourites. Today it seems strangely fitting somehow.......

Lexi - (wandering around the kitchen, hands raised, perplexed expression on her face)

Me - "Lexi, what are you doing?"

Lexi - (angelic expression on her face, looks up and asks innocently) " Mommy, where the hell are my shoes??"

Eesh. It's one thing when they simply repeat things that they overhear and really shouldn't have. It's entirely more difficult to get rid of once they figure out how to take said "unspeakables"and put them correctly in a sentence on their own. I wish I could say that this is the only one she uses but that wouldn't be entirely true. I also wish that I could say that it was Trent's fault, but that wouldn't be true either. I guess it's time to clean up our act a bit....which while not a bad thing, isn't exactly the easiest thing to do.

".....well, she can be an extremely overwhelming sort of child...."

Hmm, you don't say? This was from a conversation with Tatyanna's occupational therapist, who I'm positive might feel completely in over her head most of the time but does an amazingly remarkable job during their hour together nonetheless. The appointment with the developmental pediatrician was considerably less productive. She started the assessment using all the standardized method of testing and within half an hour could go no farther. She tried doing the usual "copy my drawing" test to which Yanna's response was "draw a horse!!!" she moved on to the block test. Tatyanna felt that she should then make a horse from the blocks. Within half an hour we had to remove Yanna from the room as she was pretty much climbing the walls. The rest of the appointment was spent conducting a patient history. At the end, the ped. announced that she wasn't really sure what was going on as she couldn't fully conduct an assessment and that she wasn't willing to officially diagnose Tatyanna with anything but would refer her to a neurologist, children's special services and the pediatric autism organization. It was entirely frustrating and Trent and I left the office wondering if perhaps she had obtained her credentials from one of those online study institutions. I get a lot of spam in my one discussion forum that promise a PhD in 3 months or your money back. Perhaps those people really can get jobs!!

Ironically, she is closer to being like the old Tatyanna that it doesn't bother me a bit. It's funny how your perspective can change so drastically in such a short time. I would much rather have her tearing apart the house, emptying the pantry and antagonizing her siblings than have her barely able to function as a result of continual seizures and side effects from medication that just isn't working. I realize that this reprieve may be short lived as medications but I will take it and enjoy it.

urgent, schmurgent

Apparently my definition of the word urgent is significantly different from that of our local imaging department at the hospital. Over a month ago Tatyanna's pediatrician finally sent away a request for her to have an MRI. The request was marked as being urgent....not an emergency exactly but with a higher degree of importance than a regular, standard request. We were told to expect a 7-10 day wait. We waited patiently for the first two weeks. We waited impatiently for the following 2 weeks. After a month of living in limbo I decided to give the diagnostic department of our local health centre a call.

***

Me (using my grown-up sounding, ex-call centre voice)- Hello, this is ----- calling. I was wondering if you could tell me if Tatyanna Z. has been scheduled for her MRI yet. Dr. E sent the request away about a month ago.

Them (that would be the people who sit at the desk and make the appointments)- Oh, Tatyanna......

Me - feeling optimistic at this point! Hey, it sounds like they at least remember the name, and that's a good thing right??!!

Them - ummmmm, hmmmm.....

Me - not feeling quite so optimistic anymore

Them - How old is your daughter again?

Me - She's 4 (I could hear them typing so either they pulled up her file and don't fell like doing math to figure this out or they are playing an exciting game of Stratego while we are talking)

Them -Oh....you don't think she will lay still for this do you?

Me - (trying not to sound as boggled as I feel and wondering if perhaps the person is kidding) No, I don't think so.

Them - Are you sure?

Me - Yes. I'm sure.

Them - You're sure she won't lay still.

Me - I'm 100% positive that she will most definitely NOT lay still! At this point I'm wondering if this woman has ever been exposed to children let alone have any of her own. I don't know a normal 4 year old that will sit still for 30 minutes. I'm not sure how they figured my 4 year old ASD child was going to lay still for that long with out moving a muscle while they insert her body into a tube and loud noises thump around her head. Perhaps I'm underestimating my child, but I really think not.

Them - (sounding rather irritated) Well she'll have to be out under then (no, really???) We'll have to send you and her doctor more paper work before we can go ahead and schedule her in.

It's probably best that I don't actually put in writing how I felt at that particular moment.

***

Today we see the doctor so that he can fill out his share of the paper work. I'm not really sure why this wasn't done in the first place.

18 lbs. In just a couple of hours, the kids managed to collect 18 lbs of sugary goodness. I'd love to tell you that I was kidding or maybe even exaggerating just a little, but out of a sick sense of curiosity I put all the loot in garbage bag and tossed it on the bathroom scale. This particular scale also weighs in on the light side, but I keep it around because it makes me feel better. So in actuality, we probably have more like 20 lbs of candy. Lexi weighs 20 lbs. How does one even begin to hide that much candy? And I will hide it, you can be assured of that. The thought of 4 kids bouncing "snitch" like off the walls doesn't really hold much appeal for me. They were a little disappointed to hear that I wouldn't be using this as an exercise to teach them some self control. Right, good try though guys!

Lexi has discovered a new game. Normally, I can appreciate something like this. This time, notsomuch. I will admit that it was kind of cute the first time and maybe even the second time. But it's starting to get a little old really fast. It also leaves me re planning my day simply to avoid said game.

What is the new game you ask? It begins with Lexi standing at the laundry room door with a glint in her eye that can only mean that havoc is about to ensue. She then yells "Soccer pets!!!!" and runs into the laundry room kicking over the piles of clean laundry, giggling at their unfortunate demise...perhaps a little drunk on her own power and mastery over the wobbling towers of clothing (yes, I like to pile them high, it's my own personal game). Then, she runs out and it is over as quickly as it started, leaving me sitting there staring at the wake of destruction, shaking my head and wondering what just happened.

On a totally an unrelated note, the spell checker on this program felt that perhaps the word notsomuch should be replaced with the word nudism. As much as I can appreciate nudism, I'm not sure that it would be appropriate in this place. Thanks anyway spellchecker.

You know you need a night out when....

-the only peaceful cup of coffee you have is in the bathtub...with your two younger kids and a collection of floating farm animals

-you actually take your two year old out wearing a plush unicorn costume....with wings...because at least it means she's finally wearing something

-you find yourself saying things like: "I'm sorry that you flushed Pooh (as in Winnie) down the toilet but he's not coming back"
"I know you're being very gentle but I don't think the puppy likes it when you pet him with the hammer"
"The rule in this house is no hitting but if you're determined to beat the crap out of each other...do it civilly...the swords are on the mantle"

More life lessons......

5. The day you work really hard cleaning the house and doing laundry and dealing with cranky and children and are so tired that you can't wait to crawl into bed somewhere in the early hours of the morning is also the day that you find that your child, who has fallen asleep in your bed, has also peed all over your favourite comfy sheets.

Life lessons learned over the past week...

1. Just when you think your child's current medication is truly terrible, her pediatrician will change the prescription to double the amount of an even worse tasting substance

2. The person with the bare feet always finds the dog poop in the dark

3. The moment you are done killing all the flies in the house a child will then leave the back door open as they run out to play.

4. People with crocheted afghans in the rear window of their cars always drive VERY slowly.

the dog days of summer....

Perhaps it was a combination of heat and stress finally causing my brain to crumble in on itself thus rendering any sort of logical thought process obsolete. Perhaps it was a sense of guilt on my husbands part that caused him to agree so quickly. It might have been the fact that the moment we arrived at the farm we were instantly greeted by swarm of wiggling puppies, each of them looking up at us with their liquid puppy eyes and a sense of expectation of fun things to come. Up until that moment Trent and I thought that we were "just looking"....that we would be able to drive away empty handed if we so desired. But one look at Tatyanna, sitting in the dirt surrounded by a mass of black and white fur and we knew that our immediate future would involve sleepless nights, ruined shoes and shouts of "NO!!! OUTSIDE!!" followed by a hasty mopping up of whatever mess was left behind. As she sat there, the look of awe and the sparkle in her eye was reminiscent of a little girl that I haven't seen in quite some time and miss dearly. How could we say "no" really?

Unfortunately when we asked what she thought, her answer was "2 puppies!!!" and we left the farm 2 dogs richer with that vague feeling of "what did we just get ourselves into??"

Since then, life has settled down once more into its usual state of elevated chaos. The older two weren't upset that we took the liberty of making such a "monumental decision" without their presence and were quite excited to chose names for each of the dogs. Keirnan, the car fanatic, named the little black puppy Shelby, after the Mustang. She has a "racing stripe" so he felt that it would be an appropriate name. Sharing a name however, is where the similarity ends as this Shelby has a physique more comparable to an army tank and would prefer to laze in the sun than race around the back yard with her feistier sister. Skylar named the black and white puppy with the border collie like markings. We were a little concerned at first because she has some truly bizarre naming tendencies but after we all vetoed the name Ivanna, she settled a more fitting Feya; which she stuck with even after finding out that it was Hebrew for "poufy". It will be interesting to see how this all goes. It's been a while since we've had a puppy in the house.

You know it's bad when your husband notices that his own mother is completely ignoring you. This weekend can not be over soon enough.

Another day, another trip to the pediatrician, another medication to try.

Seizure count: lost track after 40 both today and yesterday. *sigh*

It's kind of disturbing how one can go from being an awesome mom to one deserving of little more than a good tar and feathering. Friday night, I rocked. I don't have a problem saying it. I even patted my own back for this one....I was discreet about it, of course. Friday, Trent and I had a "date night" with our son. (We were orginally supposed to take Skylar as well, but she opted to stay with the younger two for some "grandma time".) We went out for appetizers at a local upscale establishment and tossed in some creme brule for good measure. We then spent the rest of the evening at the Harry Potter book release. We had a blast checking out the various costumes and listening to the band and discussing what we thought would happen in the final installment of the series. After surveying the scene for some time I made an educated guess as to where exactly the pre-order line up would be starting. With fingers crossed, and whispering urgent prayers I casually suggested that we relocate to a new vantage point. If I was right, it would put us exactly where I thought they would be doing the pre-orderd transactions; if I was wrong, it meant leaving our place near the beginning of a line up that was already nearing the end of the block. My guess work paid off and we ended up a the very front of the line up. Keirnan was giddy with anticipation, you could feel the excitement. I think it might have been better than Christmas. The media got ready, the last few seconds were counted down and there was a flurry of picture taking while he handed over the ticket and received the first book sold in our city. It was one of those moments that you don't forget. It was pretty cool.
Fast forward to tonight. The magic of the Harry Potter moment has faded. *insert groan here* The once cool mom has just realized that she has forgotten that her son had a birthday party to go to this afternoon. It was her son's best friend's birthday. Said son does not make friends all that easily and this is only the second party he's been invited to all year. Mere words to not describe how utterly and completely wretched I feel at this moment. Despite all the stress that we've been going through, there are no excuses. I can not believe that I just did that.