Author: Doris

I feel much better today. If I didn’t know that the room had been spinning for me most of the day yesterday, I don’t think I would have thought much about today, but I do have some tiny residual swaying here and there. I needn’t have worried about sleeping last night. Despite sleeping all day on Thursday, I managed to sleep like a rock last night. This week, I ordered too many pairs of shoes searching for the right hospital shift shoe. I think it should be the Saucony Jazz, but I can’t quite decide the size and/or the color combination. Or even if I like them very much. I don’t usually do this (buy and return) but here I am.

Edda got new old person kicks too. The same as the last pair, but much whiter. This essay made me cry today: here.

Vince went to the Drexel and UC Davis receptions at school today. His impressions are that Drexel is an extended co-op program (18 months in an engineering co-op) which is both kind of cool, but also kind of just jumping into work and not college. He asked about clubs there and they said everyone was really busy and off campus, so the club scene was not so vibrant. UC Davis is a big biking campus (though Vince dragged his friend Sam to the session and they laughed because Sam doesn’t know how to ride a bike despite efforts by Vince to teach him how to) and they have a lot of cows on campus. Or that their unofficial mascot is a cow. And UC Davis is into tube socks. (I’m like tube socks? People at UC Davis like tube socks? huh? ) It’s interesting what Vince comes home to tell me. He’s on a scout campout this weekend and so he’s sous viding chicken thighs for the cookout later.

Had ramen dinner with my dad tonight. And now I’m home alone with Edda for the next 27 hours or so. May the force be with us. Jeremy told me last night he was going to drive a combine today and harvest some soybeans. I hope that went well.

I woke up this morning with a bout of vertigo. I almost fell down the stairs first thing. That would have been bad. After Ning got Edda on the bus, I had her help me do the Epley maneuver which is suppose to reright the misplaced rocks in my head that tell my brain about balance. I’m glad she was there for the first maneuver because, though it only takes about 4 minutes to do, I was dizzy the entire time and by the time I was done turning my head every which way, I was sick to my stomach and just wanted to go to bed. The internet says that this maneuver has a very high cure rate the first time, so I naively thought I could do this and then go about my day, and although I was never as sick from the maneuver as I was the first time, I did have to repeat it throughout the day and sleep. It’s almost bedtime now, and I do feel much better – the room no longer spins rapidly when I turn my head, but I can still feel some tippyness and queasiness. I have two thoughts about today: 1. ugh. I wasted the whole day I got nothing done. 2. I slept all day and it was glorious (and dizzy).

Look, my motherhood dreams do come true. Vince snuggling up to me texting friends and showing my funny memes.

And me reading a book with Edda. One of the things I was looking forward to after being a full time nurse was to restart my two-person reading group with Vickey. We haven’t been able to restart it because we haven’t been able to agree on books. She’s more into character development and language and I want plot-driven books. Hopefully someday.

Vince’s senior year in high school is like my senior thesis of motherhood. I know there are going to be many more mothering challenges, but this year feels like a graduation requirement of motherhood. A senior thesis where you bundle decades of experience into one concentrated, concerted effort. All of my life experiences and lessons that I’ve learned about what is important and what is not important are pulled into play everyday. It is tricky, things that seem important – college applications, test scores and what people think about you are not as important as things that do not seem as important – having lunch with friends, working out disagreements in working groups and service & acts of kindness. It’s not that I don’t feel the draw of the non-important things, I do (very strongly) and Vince does too. It’s just always to remember what is the core goal. And the only core goal is love. As frustratingly amorphous as that can be. After all, it’s not as if you can write down “love” on a to-do list and cross it off after you are done with it. It is something that you try at every day and a lot of times you can get it right, but a lot of times you can fail spectacularly, but if you are lucky, you get to try again tomorrow.

For years, I’ve been on the lookout for the strong Lee depressive streak in Vince. He’d always seemed a happy-go-lucky kid, lots of friends, lots of activities and he’s a boy and not as much commanded by the monthly hormonal cycle, though I am not fooled or lulled into thinking that men do not have complicated emotional lives, they are just often more hidden. I was hoping he had inherited Jeremy’s more even-keeled and steady temperament. (Jeremy, when I asked about his teenage angst levels assuming they were low or non-existent, pulled out a photo of him smiling with friends holding a tattered book by Camus in his hand. I certainly had my moments he said.) But this is not the case. We are all high-functioning depressives, so he’s going to school, doing all his work, seeing friends and feeling bad. What to do with all the negative voices in one’s head? I can barely remember what it was like in early adulthood because I think I’ve blocked it from my memory. I thought all my terrible moods were situational – that I was a bad student, that I wasn’t good enough, that people hated me. They would cycle every 2-3 years or so and then kind of dissipate after a few months reinforcing, in my head, that it was a reasonable response to whatever stressful thing was going on in my life. It was only after I got married and Jeremy was living with me that when I cycled through one of my moods and Jeremy was shocked. Shocked! Like what is this? Oh, this? This is just one of my moods, it’ll go away, it’s totally normal. This is not normal- not the crying, the inability to get out of bed, etc. etc. And Jeremy dragged me to see a doctor, a therapist and made me get out of bed to play Trivial Pursuit every day. We still have that board game and pull it out every once in a while to play early ’90s trivia. So Vince is often in tears these days trying to tell me that everyone hates him and that he’s not smart and then I have to tell him, those voices you hear in your head are strong, but they are not true. They are not your true self talking to you, it is some trick of the mind. You know there is a quiet voice inside you that tells you good things or tells you when you are doing the right thing, you have to find that voice and listen to that one. That is the one to believe. You’ve heard that quiet voice before, I know you know exactly what I’m talking about. Can I quote the Indigo Girls here? I think I will. I love the Indigo Girls. Well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable, And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.

Of course, this is overlaid with our constant chatter about college applications. There is the slow and slightly agonizing realization by Vince that he probably isn’t going to get into his dream college Carnegie-Mellon. One could say that this die was cast 4 years ago when he declined the offer to take the magnet track at the high school. Or one could say that the die was cast 12 years ago when he didn’t want to pursue any of the sports that I tried to get him interested in. Soccer! Swimming! Fencing! Ping-pong! (sorry, table tennis!). We were filling out the app for CM and right after they ask for your address and your gender (agender, female, gender fluid, gender non-conforming, gender queer, intergender, intersex, male, or non binary. Vince picked male.): , they ask these series of questions: I have taken the AMC 10 Test (optional). , I have taken or plan to take the AMC 12 Test (optional), I have taken or plan to take the AIME Test (optional). and then they asked for the test scores. I’m like – what are these tests? I’ve never heard of them. They are the American Mathematics Contest test and the American Invitational Mathematics Examination. Vince looked at me and said, I’m not getting into Carnegie Mellon am I? I sighed and looked at him with sympathy. What’s the point of even applying? he asked.

I failed to mention that Jeremy traveled to Chicago this week. He texted in the middle of all this last night and I ignored the text. Only after a bit when I was ready to try to go to sleep at 10pm did I read his text which read: “I had a minor crash on my bike ride.” He had his bike slip out from under him on a flat gravel road at relatively high speed and he hit his knee, hip, hands, shoulder and (helmeted) head. We’re almost sure he had a minor concussion because it took him a little while to reorient himself and walk back to the hotel. I told him to go to the hospital if he started getting a headache or anything started being weird. He said he would, he’s at a conference where he knows a lot of people so after the bike crash, he did go to a reception and put people on alert if he needed help during the night or to act if he seemed out of sorts anytime during the week. He seems fine this morning (head-wise) though he is sore (joint wise). I was urging him to not bike for the rest of the week. I did not manage to fall asleep until well past midnight.

Vince and I are sloooowwwwly stepping through all the college applications. It is tedious and repetitive. On Sunday, we walked/talked through all the activities section for the common app. This took approximately three hours. This has to be repeated for 5 other websites, hopefully taking less than three hours. I tried to coax him to write one of the many essays he has to write. Topics including: a story about intellectual curiosity, or describing service to others, or how one is going to add diversity to the campus, or how his character was shaped by having a long-term belief challenged, or describe an experience regarding discrimination or what book/movie/music have you recently enjoyed and how did it move you. But he looked at me and said, not today, I don’t like talking/writing/thinking about myself or whatever accomplishments I’m suppose to have done. I can only do it for so long and I’ve done enough for today.

As we move through this season, I’m regressing to an earlier form of motherhood. I don’t want to spend my time with Vince going through college applications. I just want to spend my time sitting next to him watching youtube videos and combing his hair and talking about absolutely nothing and laughing and sharing Doritos and spending the whole afternoon that way. I want him to let me rest my head against his shoulder while I’m reading a book while he is texting his friends and laughing and intermittently showing me funny memes they send each other.

On Saturday Vince woke up a bit on the earlier side and said – hey mom, I’m going to the zoo with a bunch of friends for a bio project and then I’m going to the U of Oregon reception downtown. I’ll be home in the late afternoon. I can bike to the metro, but it’d be nice to take the car. I said – check with your dad if he needs the car and then he was off. On his own with his own Saturday plans.

A postcard to the U of Oregon reception had been sent in the mail and it was to be held at a fancy Italian place downtown (fancier and more meat-based than I thought U of Oregon would have liked it to be, but what do I know?). I told him there was going to be free food. He was interested and he went on his own. He was OK with the school, the people seemed nice enough, he said the food was good. I said if he went there, it would be about being outside on the weekends and exploring the northwest and that he’d need a car. And then he thought, I could drive across the country. We have our priorities set for college. He’d do chemistry there with a minor in food science.

Sometimes I get blue when I think of the sameness of Edda’s days. When we went to her IEP meeting a week ago, they are working on the same goals they’ve been working on her whole life. In some ways I’m grateful, we aren’t sliding backwards, but in other ways, it’s hard to hear your kid isn’t making progress. (I love progress! Improvement! Edda has taught me to be more accepting of the here/now.) But it wasn’t the same for Edda this week. It was homecoming week and with one enthusiastic teacher and one very enthusiastic student, Edda had a fantastic homecoming experience.

I’m not a homecoming fan. I might be an anti-fan. It’s mostly that I don’t know how to be a girl. I don’t know about shopping, makeup or hair. But I got advice and help from Edda’s cousins, Vince’s girl friends & Edda’s caregivers. And we made it work. Kitachi and I found the perfect outfit on Wednesday. This was everyone’s favorite, including Edda who looked at it the longest and let out a yelp when we held it up for her to consider. A jumpsuit!

During the week, I bought some flowers for Edda’s hair and on Saturday, Nat (brought her hair spray and curling iron) and Ning did Edda’s hair and makeup.

Sparkle eye shadow!

Ready to go!

My children 🙂

At drop off. There was only one other kid from Edda’s class who was going to homecoming. He is quite the dancer and stayed the whole night. I was thinking Edda might last an hour or so. I should have gotten better shoes.

The teacher encouraged us not to go to the dance because it would be easier for the high school kids to get Edda included without parents around. This is the president of the Best Buddies club who spent part of her homecoming including Edda in the hub bub of the party.

And then Edda fell asleep at homecoming. I was getting live texts from her teacher who – at 8:30 said she was still going strong, but by 8:40, she was asleep.

Thank you Ms. Miller for encouraging us to try something that would have never occurred to us and for helping Edda be part of the Wootton community.

I wonder if she’s going to go next year. I only wonder because I think there is no way I’m going to be able to outdo that fabulous white jumpsuit. It sets a high bar.

Vince was suppose to go to the dentist on his own yesterday, but ended up not feeling very well. So he took the day off of school and I drove him to the appointment. I did drop him off (though Vince called me while I was pulling out onto the main road and said – they say you have to be here! and then I pulled over and called him back and said, can I talk to them? and heard him walk back into the office and hand the phone over to the receptionist and told her – I signed all the paperwork last week! and she said, oh yeah, that’s right and then I could do my errands) and ended up running three errands while he was getting his teeth cleaned. Getting groceries, going to the UPS store and buying fake flowers for Edda’s hair for homecoming. 30 min, back to pick Vince up. Vince taught me about Memojis a few days ago. And then what VSCO girls are a few days before that. What am I going to do when he’s gone?

Edda’s going to homecoming this weekend. On her own. Edda has a very enthusiastic teacher who is chaperoning the dance. And there is a Best Buddies club with students who want to include the special ed students more into the community. The teacher insists that Edda’ll be in the mix on the dance floor and not off to the side. It’s very sweet. There is only one other kid from Edda’s class who is going, we’ve not met him, but he’s a social butterfly and loves dances. I’m not sure if Edda is going to love it or if she’s going to be determined to fall asleep in her wheelchair. Kitachi and I took Edda to Montgomery Mall to find a good outfit since we had the day off for YK. I was a little surprised that the girl teens that we know suggested Macy’s as the place to go (it seems unhip to me, but what do I know?) and we found a *fabulous* outfit for Edda (though they forgot to take the don’t-steal-me sensor off and I’ll have to go back tomorrow). I’ll show you the ones we didn’t choose. You’ll have to wait for the big reveal on Sat.

I’m calmer about college applications these days – maybe even a bit excited instead of worried. Vince went to the Rutger’s visit to his high school and came back enthusiastic about it and then promptly wrote down the times when the other schools were visiting to try to make it to those sessions. He’s planning on going to a UOregon reception downtown this weekend. He’s interested in chemical engineering, chemistry and food science. Maybe microbiology? The food science is an interesting angle to me.

Saturday, we met up with Joe at Rockoberfest in downtown Rockville. I chided them for not buying the beer steins, but they said that they were $10 and you saved only $.50 per 24 oz of beer, so that’s a lot of beer to drink to recoup costs.

Jeremy took Edda downtown (where was Vince? oh yes, recovering from the last round of SATs that morning, pretty much the very last date to take them. I did not pay for SAT prep, but I certainly paid for many rounds of SAT taking. This time he realized he was losing points for not knowing: your & you’re & there & their, etc. omg. vince.) while went for my run and I met them in downtown to say hello and take Edda home with me. I forget that I look ridiculous in my running outfit and that I needed something warmer once I stopped running. I borrowed Edda’s jacket.

That night, I had a lovely dinner with my father and relatives with Edda at Founding Farmers (no photo!) and Vince and Jeremy went to the scout’s outing to the corn maze.

I worked on Sunday and Monday at the hospital. I realized (finally! after more than a year) that my watch does not accurately count the number of steps that I take during a shift because I spend a lot of time walking and hauling my computer around on this little wheeled workstation and when I’m grabbing it, the watch is unable to count those steps because my arm isn’t swinging. For a whole year after each shift, I’m like these steps seem kinda low for the amount of walking that I’m doing and then I’d shrug and try to go to sleep. So I’m excited to strap my watch to my ankle for the next shift and see how many steps I get in because I literally do not stop moving the whole time. I got an IV in on Sunday which I was really proud of because when it infiltrated 24 hours and I had to call the IV nurse, it took her three tries to get it in. It was a challenging two days, but I had some of my favorite coworkers on those shifts.

Today we went to Edda’s IEP meeting. It’s our second year at her school and it’s nice getting to know people.

We took Edda to her regular dental appointment today. Last time I went just by myself and it was really hard to get a good cleaning. You really need 4 people. I straddle her legs while she’s sitting in her chair and hold her hands, Jeremy holds her head steady and then the dentist and hygienist can do their jobs without worrying about her body. Only her teeth. She can bite and bite hard, but I think the dentist has a lot of practice keeping her fingers clear from chompers. It went well. We’ve gone through phases where we’ve been worse at cleaning her teeth, but we seem to be in a good spot now. Vince has an appointment next week, I signed all the paperwork so that he can drive himself to the appointment and do it on his own without me – that’ll be fantastic. Then the scheduler said, let’s make the next 6th month appointment which will be in April. She mentioned that I won’t need to sign the papers then because he will be 18!!! I have less than 6 months. And I mentioned this to Vince and he said – OMG, I’m going to have to find my own doctors and dentists in college, right?

I think Edda’s going to homecoming this year. I think she might have a date. Kitachi and I are going to go shopping for a dress next Wed when the schools have off for Yom Kippur.

I’m still in a weird mood. I’m fighting productivity. I usually love writing checklists and crossing off the items, but now I’m resenting it. I just want to sit around and do the NYTimes crossword puzzle (I subscribed to the app. Fantastic.) Vickey recommends the game Cooking Craze, but I’m scared to download it. I think I would never work again. At the with the crossword puzzle, you finish it and then you have to wait a whole ‘nuther day for a new game.

Jeremy rode to work this morning and sent me this photo. He’s the one who is motivated enough these days to wake up in the dark and start biking at 6 am. I like to sleep in when I can which was today! I was at the hospital yesterday, it was a fine shift. Busy, but completely manageable. I sent three people to surgery and got them back (lap chole, lap appy, removal of an infected permacath). I really need to learn Spanish. 2/5ths of my patients spoke only Spanish. I have no time this fall. Maybe this spring. I only have to have to memorize about 10 different conversations. The shift before was really terrible and when I have a terrible shift, the shift right after the terrible shift gets me anxious.

On Rosh Hashanah, the kids were off school. Kitachi had Edda for the day and she went to her mom’s house and her dog, Waku loved to sit on Edda’s lap. I want a dog like this. A dog that will sit on Edda’s lap all day. Maxi is actually a little bit anxious and aloof. Not a snuggler. I miss that from Ruby.