The lack of structure of Summer worried me before school was out, so I made lists and schedules and tried desperately to stick to them no matter what. Monday through Friday, breakfast at eight, followed by get dressed, make beds, math books, errands for the day.
It wasn’t all drudgery, afternoons were scheduled fun, Monday, Wednesday, Friday swimming lessons, Tuesday, library, Thursday, park. I thought I was being fair. As with all things, execution of the plan became a problem. Days kept getting crunched with dutiful things like doctor’s appointments and haircuts, grocery shopping and dry cleaning. Summer became an endless list of daily to do’s with fun scheduled and crunched around the efficiency of getting things done.
Then we had a four day weekend with my birthday sandwiched in the middle. Discovering my inner sloth, I reveled in the laziness of the whole first 48 hours. Paper plates, cake for breakfast, leftovers for meals, no laundry, it was bliss. The problem with that sort of binge is the mental hangover that follows. I got up that Saturday and considered whether I could justify one more morning breakfast of birthday cake.
“You should exercise.” My head told me. “You should start the day healthy.”
I wanted desperately to ignore it, but my brain then began an impossibly long screed of nags –do the dishes, clean the rooms, read a book, eat vegetables, run the errands, make a list, be responsible…the scroll at the bottom of the screen within my brain seemed to have no repeats, just an endless parade of no fun activities for me to finish, tackle, or do daily. Was this what my mouth sounded like to my children every day? No wonder they wanted to tune out and play Nintendo. Heck, I wanted to right now too.
Feebly muttering, “It’s my birthday week.” Didn’t hold. It kept spewing out to do items…update blog, write for Catholicmom, get your daughter to write thank you notes…I wanted to turn off my ears. “Alright! Alright!” I snapped and marched into the TV room to find an exercise DVD.
It wasn’t that my brain was wrong to say I should work out or that these tasks should be done. It was a question of balance. It was summer. It should be a time of celebration and cake and play and whimsy. I needed to strike a balance, a one-to-one ratio at least for the weekend, tasks to fun, seemed reasonable. A two-to-one ratio on week days, would allow for a good bit of kid and adult down time alike. I wanted to find the serenity of a cheesy martial arts instructor from a low grade movie, where there was serenity and order, and impulsive moves were paired with careful planning. Grabbing the DVD and feeling better for it, I thought about the rest of the day. This sort of habit would take diligence and practice on my part. “Best to start now.” My mollified superego urged.
My oldest son came into the room. “Hey son?”
“Yes?”
“Rock Paper Scissors to see who takes out the garbage?” I thought he’d be tickled at the chance.
“Mom. Taking out the garbage is nothing.” He grabbed the bag and took it out.
And I was left almost stammering. “But I wanted to play…”
The kids were watching TV. I brought out the Nintendo, and offered to play Mario Cart and place a bet. If I won, Math books for everyone for two pages. If I lost, another round of games. You know that scene in movies where all the kids stare at the adult whose suddenly done a 180 and come around to their way of thinking and it weirds everyone out? It’s really scary when it happens in real life.
“Mom?”
“Are you okay?”
“If you want us to do our math books, just say so.”
“Yeah. You don’t need to bribe us.”
The four children trooped out of the room, grabbed pencils and started in on their summer books. I was left again wondering, “What happened here?”
Sitting in the living room, waiting for my children to be free to play felt boring and even a tad pathetic. I went to the kitchen to do dishes. The baby crawled over and pulled on my leg. I began to play ball with her or try. She decided she had crawling to do and happily ambled off. I meekly finished the dishes. Didn’t anyone want to play with me?
The kids finished their math books. They had fired up the Nintendo. There wasn’t an open slot for me to play, but one of my daughters brought me my laptop. My enlightenment about summer had not changed the focus or ballance, it had just put me out of sync with my kids more than usual. I fumed silently.
“Mom? Since everything is done, why don’t you sit down and relax?” She asked, offering me my computer. My second son brought me a diet coke. I accepted the gifts, feeling both touched and sad. I went back to the kitchen to get one of the last pieces of birthday cake. Cutting it and placing it on a plate, my oldest daughter caught me serving it.
“I don’t think you should eat that. You really should exercise.” She chided. I put away the cake. “It’s good for you Mom. What did you write today?”
“Well I…”
She pointed to the computer.
Apparently, this grasshopper has much to learn.
For humor that has moved beyond the apprentice level, seek the wisdom and wit of humor blogs!>Humor-Blogs.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sticking it to me
On Monday, I received the results of my 1 hour glucose test. Actually, they phoned on Thursday July 3rd I had made a specific request not to be notified on my birthday if the results were unfavorable such that I could eat my cake in peace, so I waited to call back until after the 4th of July weekend.
My insurance offered me the opportunity for a three hour glucola test, meaning for the sheer joy of it, I could agree to fast for 12 hours, hire a babysitter, drink the glucola pop and drive to the lab to have my blood drawn, then sit for three hours and have it drawn again to be told emphatically, I did have gestational diabetes and then drive home to pay out thirty dollars for the privilege of being able to starve alone for three hours in between blood tests. I opted out of that privilege. Just hand over the glucometer I told the lab nurse.
Not so fast.
My insurance, in its infinite wisdom was not grateful for my sparing them the additional cost of a secondary test. They wanted me to call the training nurse’s office about getting the needed equipment. The Nurse office said to call the insurance to ensure that I was covered and could get a glucometer. Then I should call back.
“But the test said I need one. Why wouldn’t I qualify?”
“You have to call.”
The insurance said I had a choice of two companies with free glucometers to hand out. I just needed to call. I called the first company. The line was busy. So I called the second. They checked to agree that yes my insurance covered the glucometer and I’d have it in two days but I needed to call my doctor’s. My doctor would have to call the pharmacy and order the strips for the glucometer.
The pharmacy refused to take the order until they verified that the insurance company would cover the glucometer strips and that the company had sent a machine to me. I’d have to have them call the pharmacy after I received the glucometer. Then I’d have to call the nurse that started this mess because the insurance required that I receive training from the nurse before using the machine. I called. The nurse said they could schedule a visit but it would take a few weeks and asked if I could wait on hold for a scheduling consultant.
Pointing out that I knew how to use a glucometer, had experienced gestational diabetes on more than one occasion and knew the basics did not discourage them from 1) refusing to allow the doctor to call the pharmacy for strips until I got trained or 2) persuade them to up the training schedule from some time after never, to soon. The scheduling consultant was out at lunch. They’d call me back later in the day to schedule a training day sometime in the next three weeks. My baby is due in 11 weeks. Twenty one days seemed a bit long.
So I went to my obgyn’s. She’s known me for years. I told her about the mess. It would make a good article she told me as she handed over sample test strips to hold me over. I wasn’t sure anyone wanted independent verification of reality being that difficult, but agreed to stick myself four times a day. The nurse called and my training would occur in 17 days. In the meantime, I was to watch my sugar.
So I settled into sticking myself four times a day, but this was a new glucometer and so I actually needed some training. I thought there was something amiss because the readings were supernaturally low. Over the phone with my doctor's office, the nurse and I figured out I needed to recalibrate each time I started a new small canister of strips, so three days of sticks at least were invalid. Joy.
My doctor also then advised me it was time to get a Rhogram shot and to come in and get the prescription. No biggie. I’ve been getting them ever since my first child sensitized me. It’s my own fault for not having a positive outlook, bloodwise speaking. Picking up the paper from the doctor, the prescription required I be tested to see if I needed Rhogram.
“Why do I need to be tested? We know I need a shot. I’m B negative and I’ve had the shot with all prior pregnancies…”
“The insurance requires…”
So next week, I get to go to the lab. Have my blood drawn. Sit (You cannot leave for the two hours the test takes to get the results, otherwise the results are deemed invalid), and then get a shot in the rump. I’m bringing all eight kids. We’ll find out how true the two hour wait is…and whether the nurse really wants to have me in the waiting room that long. I’ll let the kids bring snacks. It will be a pain for sure, but probably worth an article or too.
The things I suffer for my children and my art.
For more fun than fooling with insurance, blood sugar and shots that aren't alcoholic in nature, try www.humor-blogs.com! May my sugars run low and my ranking with humor blogs, drop more than if I took a double shot of insulin...wait...that doesn't sound quite right....okay, I'm shooting for the top 50! Go rank me already.
Humor-Blogs.com
My insurance offered me the opportunity for a three hour glucola test, meaning for the sheer joy of it, I could agree to fast for 12 hours, hire a babysitter, drink the glucola pop and drive to the lab to have my blood drawn, then sit for three hours and have it drawn again to be told emphatically, I did have gestational diabetes and then drive home to pay out thirty dollars for the privilege of being able to starve alone for three hours in between blood tests. I opted out of that privilege. Just hand over the glucometer I told the lab nurse.
Not so fast.
My insurance, in its infinite wisdom was not grateful for my sparing them the additional cost of a secondary test. They wanted me to call the training nurse’s office about getting the needed equipment. The Nurse office said to call the insurance to ensure that I was covered and could get a glucometer. Then I should call back.
“But the test said I need one. Why wouldn’t I qualify?”
“You have to call.”
The insurance said I had a choice of two companies with free glucometers to hand out. I just needed to call. I called the first company. The line was busy. So I called the second. They checked to agree that yes my insurance covered the glucometer and I’d have it in two days but I needed to call my doctor’s. My doctor would have to call the pharmacy and order the strips for the glucometer.
The pharmacy refused to take the order until they verified that the insurance company would cover the glucometer strips and that the company had sent a machine to me. I’d have to have them call the pharmacy after I received the glucometer. Then I’d have to call the nurse that started this mess because the insurance required that I receive training from the nurse before using the machine. I called. The nurse said they could schedule a visit but it would take a few weeks and asked if I could wait on hold for a scheduling consultant.
Pointing out that I knew how to use a glucometer, had experienced gestational diabetes on more than one occasion and knew the basics did not discourage them from 1) refusing to allow the doctor to call the pharmacy for strips until I got trained or 2) persuade them to up the training schedule from some time after never, to soon. The scheduling consultant was out at lunch. They’d call me back later in the day to schedule a training day sometime in the next three weeks. My baby is due in 11 weeks. Twenty one days seemed a bit long.
So I went to my obgyn’s. She’s known me for years. I told her about the mess. It would make a good article she told me as she handed over sample test strips to hold me over. I wasn’t sure anyone wanted independent verification of reality being that difficult, but agreed to stick myself four times a day. The nurse called and my training would occur in 17 days. In the meantime, I was to watch my sugar.
So I settled into sticking myself four times a day, but this was a new glucometer and so I actually needed some training. I thought there was something amiss because the readings were supernaturally low. Over the phone with my doctor's office, the nurse and I figured out I needed to recalibrate each time I started a new small canister of strips, so three days of sticks at least were invalid. Joy.
My doctor also then advised me it was time to get a Rhogram shot and to come in and get the prescription. No biggie. I’ve been getting them ever since my first child sensitized me. It’s my own fault for not having a positive outlook, bloodwise speaking. Picking up the paper from the doctor, the prescription required I be tested to see if I needed Rhogram.
“Why do I need to be tested? We know I need a shot. I’m B negative and I’ve had the shot with all prior pregnancies…”
“The insurance requires…”
So next week, I get to go to the lab. Have my blood drawn. Sit (You cannot leave for the two hours the test takes to get the results, otherwise the results are deemed invalid), and then get a shot in the rump. I’m bringing all eight kids. We’ll find out how true the two hour wait is…and whether the nurse really wants to have me in the waiting room that long. I’ll let the kids bring snacks. It will be a pain for sure, but probably worth an article or too.
The things I suffer for my children and my art.
For more fun than fooling with insurance, blood sugar and shots that aren't alcoholic in nature, try www.humor-blogs.com! May my sugars run low and my ranking with humor blogs, drop more than if I took a double shot of insulin...wait...that doesn't sound quite right....okay, I'm shooting for the top 50! Go rank me already.
Humor-Blogs.com
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Ten Percent Mental
Experts say that a woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy by 10%. I don’t believe it. According to science theory, matter cannot be destroyed or created, only transformed…and to my way of thinking, grey matter is no different than any other matter for that matter.
But it is a convenient excuse.
So I am torn morally and mentally…I could wave off my shirking of intellectual responsibility for my own continued education based on hormones. I could rest on my dusty laurels of academic achievement by claiming to be intellectually incapable of managing. But pregnancy eventually ends. That means I’ll have to assume responsibility at some point for my own mental faculties faultiness.
The problem is, I’m a vain little thing. I dislike thinking that there is something I "can't" understand or master. I don't even like the word "Can't" in my vocabulary. And it isn't just a case of being unwilling to acknowledge the barriers of my own brain, it's with respect to the body as well. I have kick boxed at 8 months pregnant, just to show it was possible. Don’t ask me who I was showing, we all know it was me.
It’s a very simple case of pure self delusion. I dislike limitations on my intellect, talent and physical ability and seek actively to disprove them whenever they pop up. Once, I spent three days on a super hard Sudoku just because I wasn’t going to be defeated by a mental puzzle even if I had to Xerox it three times and start over to eventually get it right. I am annoyed whenever I fail to guess who done it in a mystery novel. My brain IQ may not be Mensa worthy, but my ego says it is, and that it’s just that I don’t test well.
So I don’t want to surrender even that 10% to pregnancy, no matter the facts. I have to own my sloth and slacker ways and keep trying to prove I could have been a mental contender. For example, I keep checking out Joyce’s Ulysses from the library, and trying to read it so I can then nail the book on a wall like a stuffed boar’s head trophy with the date it was successfully endured engraved on a brass plate. I never get very far before I have to return it. If I bought the damn thing, it would eliminate my exculpatory excuse for not finishing.
Every summer, I make great plans to learn Spanish and master American history the way my husband and son can recite it with love and accuracy, and settle for memorizing the list of presidents in chronological order, watching a few PBS historical documentaries and having suffered through two or three sides of a language tape, two Spanish, one French. (It’s all I could find in our collection of cassettes). Then I sniff out loud, mollifying my wounded self that is chaffing at all the work and my unwillingness to persist at the same time, “Well, I took Latin anyway, so it’s reasonable that I don’t know French or Spanish.” As if I could actually say anything in Latin.
And I eat smart food like blueberries and pomegranates and fish when it’s fresh. I read things that bore me and listen to classical music or jazz, straining in my disingenuousness to prove somehow, I’m urbane, sophisticated and elite intellectually, and not a mere suburban house mom. I want to be the kind of person who would get the jokes in the New Yorker so well, she never bothered to read them. “Too telling.” I’d sniff.
Oh. How I’d love to be able to know enough to be a snob about something; wine, politics, literature, baseball, music, art, anything at all. Someone who gets “it,” whatever “it” is.
In the meantime, I’m just assuming, whatever it is I haven’t learned or mastered, it’s because of that missing 10%.
To find the other ten percent, click on over to http://www.humor-blogs.com if you liked this post and give me a smilie...it will molify my ego which clearly is in need of some serious praise, and if not, well, humility is good for the soul.
Humor-Blogs.com
But it is a convenient excuse.
So I am torn morally and mentally…I could wave off my shirking of intellectual responsibility for my own continued education based on hormones. I could rest on my dusty laurels of academic achievement by claiming to be intellectually incapable of managing. But pregnancy eventually ends. That means I’ll have to assume responsibility at some point for my own mental faculties faultiness.
The problem is, I’m a vain little thing. I dislike thinking that there is something I "can't" understand or master. I don't even like the word "Can't" in my vocabulary. And it isn't just a case of being unwilling to acknowledge the barriers of my own brain, it's with respect to the body as well. I have kick boxed at 8 months pregnant, just to show it was possible. Don’t ask me who I was showing, we all know it was me.
It’s a very simple case of pure self delusion. I dislike limitations on my intellect, talent and physical ability and seek actively to disprove them whenever they pop up. Once, I spent three days on a super hard Sudoku just because I wasn’t going to be defeated by a mental puzzle even if I had to Xerox it three times and start over to eventually get it right. I am annoyed whenever I fail to guess who done it in a mystery novel. My brain IQ may not be Mensa worthy, but my ego says it is, and that it’s just that I don’t test well.
So I don’t want to surrender even that 10% to pregnancy, no matter the facts. I have to own my sloth and slacker ways and keep trying to prove I could have been a mental contender. For example, I keep checking out Joyce’s Ulysses from the library, and trying to read it so I can then nail the book on a wall like a stuffed boar’s head trophy with the date it was successfully endured engraved on a brass plate. I never get very far before I have to return it. If I bought the damn thing, it would eliminate my exculpatory excuse for not finishing.
Every summer, I make great plans to learn Spanish and master American history the way my husband and son can recite it with love and accuracy, and settle for memorizing the list of presidents in chronological order, watching a few PBS historical documentaries and having suffered through two or three sides of a language tape, two Spanish, one French. (It’s all I could find in our collection of cassettes). Then I sniff out loud, mollifying my wounded self that is chaffing at all the work and my unwillingness to persist at the same time, “Well, I took Latin anyway, so it’s reasonable that I don’t know French or Spanish.” As if I could actually say anything in Latin.
And I eat smart food like blueberries and pomegranates and fish when it’s fresh. I read things that bore me and listen to classical music or jazz, straining in my disingenuousness to prove somehow, I’m urbane, sophisticated and elite intellectually, and not a mere suburban house mom. I want to be the kind of person who would get the jokes in the New Yorker so well, she never bothered to read them. “Too telling.” I’d sniff.
Oh. How I’d love to be able to know enough to be a snob about something; wine, politics, literature, baseball, music, art, anything at all. Someone who gets “it,” whatever “it” is.
In the meantime, I’m just assuming, whatever it is I haven’t learned or mastered, it’s because of that missing 10%.
To find the other ten percent, click on over to http://www.humor-blogs.com if you liked this post and give me a smilie...it will molify my ego which clearly is in need of some serious praise, and if not, well, humility is good for the soul.
Humor-Blogs.com
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