Food

So, Cream of Potato soup yesterday, and pancakes this morning --what's going on with me?

I've not wanted to cook for so long, and now suddenly it doesn't seem like that much work. I'm not sure why --Emma has asked me to make pancakes many times for breakfast, and I always refuse, because I didn't want the hassle. Today she didn't ask (she's given up) and somehow the idea of making them seemed so easy. They're made, eaten, and cleaned up, and I don't feel like I'm done for the day. I don't know why, but I appreciate it.

After reading about them on a couple of food blogs I read, I bought an immersion blender. Wow! It works wonderfully! I boiled some potatoes and carrots in chicken broth yesterday, then blended them right in the pot, added a bit of milk, and voila! Cream of Potato soup --Rob and I thought it was very yummy. Emma said "I'm not the biggest fan." I wonder where she gets that turn of phrase?

Next up: Cream of Cauliflower and Cream of Broccoli soups!

Anticipation

So, yesterday was A's birthday party. Emma was really looking forward to the party. A's mom offered to take Emma straight from school, which was really nice, although of course it made me more anxious. But it made Emma feel special. Until, of course, the morning of the party, when I found out that A's mom was actually taking several of A's friends (including F) straight from school. I told Emma this news before giving her a kiss goodbye outside the classroom --I knew it was bad news, but I figured it would be better to be prepared. (I asked her if I was right to tell her right away, and she said yes.)

The party was at an indoor water park. Because of Emma's allergy, we decided that I would show up after they'd finished swimming, so I could bring her an alternative treat to the cookie-cake she couldn't eat. This meant that I was at the party during the time the kids ate and A opened her presents. I hope that A had a good time, but from this parent's perspective it was not a very successful party.

First, there were too many kids. In the party room, the kids were separated into two tables --but the birthday girl can only be at one table, automatically making the other kids feel a bit less special. Emma was not sitting with the birthday girl. The table with the birthday girl had all girls from the upper class, so those were the kids that A sees every day at school. Some of them are in their second year in that upper class, and this was an interesting introduction to the age difference between early tweens and late tweens. The two second-years had what looked like smart phones out (is there something similar to an iTouch that is not also a phone, but not an iTouch?) playing trashy music through tinny speakers that no one could really hear, and dancing around. These kids were generally pretty loud. A was not really, and neither was F (who was, of course, sitting right next to A). Even though they have moved up, they haven't quite moved up into the almost teenager behavior yet. In fact, I'm always impressed with A's behavior --she seems so confident in who she is, and doesn't seem to be strongly influenced by her peers. I don't really understand F's behavior --she always seems a bit morose, and that was also true when she and Emma were close, several years ago.

I don't think most of the kids even noticed when A opened her gifts.

After the gifts, cards were distributed to the kids with a certain amount of "chips" that were good in the attached arcade. Emma is never good in that setting, but neither of us could really summon up a decision to just leave, so she played some of the games. Unfortunately, flashing lights tend to make her nauseous, so she probably would have been better off leaving without doing the arcade thing. By the time we left, she was exhausted and unhappy, and dying of thirst. The thirst we could take care of, but the rest of the stuff required a lot of talk and some tears. It was a long drive home.

Mentally Tired

Over the last few days, with Rob really sick with the flu, and Emma fairly sick with a head-cold, my anxiety has really kicked in. I actually had a panic attack the first night it was clear that Emma was sick, finding myself compelled to get up and check her forehead for a fever at midnight, and then trying to calm a hysteria I knew was irrational with deep breaths while sitting on the edge of the bed.

My overall anxiety level has been higher than normal too, spiking a bit each evening, even as I write this. I haven't felt like this in a few years, since I started taking anti-anxiety meds. It's not a feeling I want to return to.

I've been wondering --and hoping, actually-- if this is just a reaction to separate situations that happened to coincide. Rob has the flu; Emma has asthma. Each year I have to ask myself if she should get a flu vaccine. In general, I think those vaccines are pretty useless, and that healthy people rarely get the real flu (lots of people think a bad cold is the flu, but it's quite different). So I try to balance the negative effects of too many vaccinations with the chances of Emma actually coming into contact with the flu virus. Last year, we both got flu shots. This year, I decided against it. Since Rob woke up last Saturday morning with a fever that wouldn't let him get out of bed for ibuprofin, I've been afraid that Emma is going to catch it. That raised my anxiety level. When she showed signs of not feeling well, that edged the anxiety up. The panic attack happened that night, before I was confident that Emma had a cold, not the flu. Additionally, I started my period on Saturday, and there are studies that show that the hormone fluctuations associated with that (and god knows I'm in the fluctuating stage!) can decrease the normal effectiveness of anti-anxiety meds. I'm hoping that's all it is --just a lot of things at once.

Emma has her best friend A's birthday party tomorrow after school. She's healthy enough to go now, and I'm hoping that after that's over, my anxiety will recede again. Rob is finally feeling a bit better today --after taking an unprecedented three days off. Maybe if things get back to normal, my anxiety will too.

Bad Chicken

So, several days ago I had taken some chicken out of the freezer, and today it was defrosted and ready. So, I baked it, along with some carrots, olive oil, broth, salt & pepper. It smelled fabulous as it was cooking. That must have been the olive oil and carrots, because the chicken was AWFUL!

My daughter has really enjoyed chicken when I've made it in the slow cooker. Today, she requested only chicken, but of course I also put carrots and couscous on her plate. She took one bite of the chicken and asked about it. She said "it's slimy and doesn't taste as good". She was correct. It was slimy, and it tasted terrible to me. I told her she didn't have to finish it, and I didn't eat more than a couple of bites of mine (the cat liked it just fine). I don't know if it was the chicken itself (part of me has been waiting all day for all of us to start puking), or if it was just the difference between the cooking methods, but it's going to be awhile before I want chicken again.

Being Positive

I've been working, over the last few months, on being more positive.

Although this bout of domestic illness is testing me, I have found that trying to be more positive is really a good thing. My life really does contain many good things, and many good people. It is helpful to concentrate on these, and leave off thinking too long about the negative. This new phase came about because of a new colleague of mine. Actually, she's not terribly new anymore, since this is actually her third year (as part of her tenure committee, we've just recommended her for tenure, which is a three year process at my college). But she is consistently upbeat and positive. She highlights the good in her life, rather than the bad --in everything from personal conversations to facebook posts.

By this change, I'm not implying that the hard or bad things in life shouldn't be thought about and discussed --there are things that we need to deal with, and sometimes it's very helpful to talk these difficult things over with a friend, or just write about them in a journal or blog. But it seems easy to allow those negative things in our life to dominate, when they really don't need to. After awhile you begin to view every new event with a cynical eye --how is this bad for me? To assume that every decision that is made above you is intended to annoy you, whether it's made by a boss, colleague, or the government.

The outside world has had a few bad years --more than a few, really. Between eight years of Bush, and six years of Chip, both the country's government and my college's government took a really bad slide into the ugly. These things started to frame the way I see my world, and they shouldn't be dominating the picture.

I think, for me, it takes a conscious decision to push the negative to the background and allow the positive to dominate my thoughts. I want to look at my colleagues and supervisor in a positive light --I want to start with the assumption that their decisions are actually intended to make things better, even if their decision is flawed. Just changing how I view their intent changes how I view them --giving them the benefit of the doubt, as people who are trying to do their job well. Approaching people in this way makes both of us feel better.

I have found that this approach has spilled over into my life at home, as well. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but I find that I'm much more willing to engage with Emma in an activity because I feel a bit more energy at the end of a day; that I try to put myself in Rob's head when I get a message from him that hits me in the wrong way, because I know that his intentions are always good, even if he's frustrated with something I've done.

Normally, just the thought of getting whatever flu and cold he and Emma have would make me depressed. The thought of being sick in the future ruins my present. So I've been doing some self-talk --to talk myself into being more positive about the future, which after all could still go either way, and to try to enjoy the things happening in the present. When I write it down it seems so silly --how can a cold or flu play such a large part in your life? And yet, it can. But it's a choice. I want to choose the positive outlook.

When Mom Or Dad Is Sick

Ah . . . . just the kind of weekend you love, when your husband comes down with the flu. And we're not talking the stomach virus here --no, what appears to be a full blown flu, or if not, a REALLY bad cold. He started feeling poopy on Friday --I'm sure it didn't help that Emma's school closed that day, so he had a day full of interruptions, rather than the relaxing day he was hoping for. "I think I'm coming down with a cold." he said. Lying beside him as he tossed and turned (and kept me awake) that night, I was thinking "flu, not cold". He was hot as anything, and he never fell into a deep sleep. He's normally a pretty deep sleeper, but that night he seemed right on the edge, the whole night. Sensing he was not really asleep, I even asked him in the middle of the night if he'd taken a fever-reducer. He mumbled something and turned over. He was too out of it to even realize that an ibuprofin might make him feel better.

He tossed and turned until 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, then called for some help. I got some ibuprofin into him, and left him for it to take affect. He's slowly getting better, but he's not going to teach tomorrow. I'm wondering if he'll force himself to go in on Tuesday --probably, and he probably shouldn't.

And Emma --suddenly she's not such a happy kid. I'm not sure if it's because I was significantly worried about Rob, or if it's just that she felt the attention shifting in a way that doesn't often happen. She's usually my first priority, and most often her dad's first priority too. I worked hard both yesterday and today to try to keep her occupied, both so she would leave Rob alone, and also because if he really has the flu, I don't want her to catch it. (She has asthma.)

But it's an interesting phenomenon that I've noticed before. If one of us is sick, she seems much more needy, even though she's not actually sick. And I've wondered if it is that she unconsciously misses the attention, or is actually anxious about a parent not being "normal". I wonder if this is a common behavior at 10 years old. I sure wish I had more memories of my own childhood. Of course, with three siblings, I didn't get nearly as much attention as Emma does, so maybe I wouldn't have noticed the lack of parental attention as much. But given that the stability and predictability of home is so important for kids, it could well be that a parent being sick knocks that out of balance, which knocks the kid out of balance as well.

Either way, she started coughing yesterday --but I've noticed that she's not really coughing much when she's occupied. Again, I really don't think she's consciously making herself cough, but I wonder if she's just thinking of coughing when she's not otherwise occupied, and it makes her cough. She has a pretty busy week this week --choir on Tuesday after school, but then her best friend A's birthday party on Thursday. The party is at a pool, which means more time and energy expended than a normal birthday party. I so want her to be well for that --it would break her heart to miss it.

Who's Smart?

Emma goes to a small, secular, progressive school. It has multi-age classrooms and a 12:1 student to teacher ratio. She's currently in her third year of "Middle Elementary", and during this time she has had the most fantastic teachers. However, last year a new student joined her class, and this new student (A) and Emma became very good friends. (I hesitate to use the term "best friend" because I think the BFF thing is a problem, but maybe I'll write about that another time.) Emma's previous good friend (F) was jealous of the new friendship.

Emma and F had already drifted apart the year before --F is gifted with a photographic memory and her reading/comprehension skills shot way ahead of Emma's during their first year in the ME class. Emma wanted to branch out to new friends, while F, I think, was having difficulty dealing with her own new-found abilities, and clung to Emma as something familiar. They ended up treating each other badly and hurting each others' feelings. When A came on the scene the next year, and Emma and A became good friends, F was very jealous. The three girls spent a lot of time together, but F's way of dealing with the jealousy was to let Emma know, frequently, that she just wasn't very smart. This was easy to do because A is also gifted (mostly in math) so Emma "felt dumb" next to her two friends, as she told me more than once. It's really hard to hear your child say this, when you know they are perfectly smart and on track for their age. How do you explain "gifted" without saying the gifted child is smarter than a non-gifted child?

So, F and A both moved up (a year early) to the Upper Elementary class at the beginning of this school year. Emma is left in her ME class feeling socially isolated. There are other third year students, but they all have their "best friends", and as any parent of a daughter knows, girls can be incredibly cliquish and exclusive. Emma makes friends pretty easily, and has a group of first year students that she spends a lot of time with now --one girl, K, is the daughter of a good friend of mine, so she has known her since she was born. One of the group is a boy, and he is actually her favorite friend this year. But there is a difference in the kind of friendship you have with younger kids, compared to a friend of the same age.

Emma does fine at school, but she'll often break down after school, so sad that she doesn't have A in class to confide in about various things that happen, and doesn't have A's company during the day. It makes me so sad, and yet there is nothing concrete that I can do --all I can do is offer advice and get them together for playdates. I know, intellectually, that dealing with things like this will help my daughter become a more compassionate and empathetic friend down the line. But it's so hard to be mom when you can't solve all the problems. Mom's should be able to solve all the problems.