Maui, baby!

The last couple of days have been so tiring but so fun! When we landed in Maui, local time was 9:55. Making it 12:55 back home. Then it took like a half hour to get my bag from baggage claim (that seriously sucked!) and we ended up stopping at the beach on the way to my dad's house. We probably got to my dad's sometime around midnight. Making it three in the morning back home. Bubba was so exhausted that he was terrified of the water. It probably didn't help that it was dark, as he's not a huge fan of the dark. He insisted upon sleeping directly on my chest our first night here.

The next day was better. We didn't have to spend the entire day cooped up! Hooray! It was bubba's first time at the beach, and it was exactly as fun as it sounds! He's such a water bug, you can't keep him away from it. He also loves the sand. He was building sandcastles just yelling "yay! yay! yay!" the whole entire time. When he decided he was exhausted, we went home and took a three hour nap. When we woke up, we drove to the other side of the island because some friends of my dad's had come in for the day off a cruise and we were driving them back, so we went to dinner over there and I got to see the largest tree in the United States! It was planted in 1857 to celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the first Protestant mission to Maui (by order of the Queen!), and today has, if I remember correctly, 16 trunks not including the main one! Every time a branch gets too weak, the tree shoots another branch into the ground to hold the weak one up and it keeps growing! Isn't that cool?! No, just me? Okay then.

Today was super cool also. I learned to surf! Okay, not really. I learned to stand up on a surf board though! I got 31 seconds before I fell off, that was my best time. I did it until every single muscle in my body was shaking with the effort. I never realized the amount of just full-body strength that a surfer has to have. You have to get going (it makes it easier to get up) by paddling and trying to get a wave to carry you. But you have to paddle with your arms, and that hurts. Then you have to push yourself up (using your arms!) to a standing position, then your legs have to steady you while the ocean tries to kick you off your board. It's exhausting and exhilarating. I kept trying to look at it from a scientific and mathematical perspective, because every thing in life boils down to math. But I had to let go of that and fight off my basic instincts. When my brain was screaming "do not try to stand up! this board is wobbling and halfway underwater and if you try to stand up you will fall and hit your head on a rock and die!", I stood up anyway. And I didn't fall immediately. Once I did, I didn't get hurt. I gained more by taking the chance than I would have if I hadn't. It was beautiful and wonderful and amazing.

I can't think straight with all of the excitement in my head, so I'm going to leave this where it is.

Also Merry Christmas!!!!

I lost some, but I gained more.

Two posts in one night, is it Christmas?! Well, kind of. I decided I wanted to post a follow-up to my "coming clean" post on December 7th.

I was right. I said in it that I would lose people, and I was right. The very next day, someone I considered to be my best friend posted some very rude things on Facebook about me, closing with "everyone has problems, I guess yours are just more important."

That wasn't the goal. The goal here is to destigmatize mental illness by talking about it. It's not that mine is more important than anyone else's, it's that I decided to open up in the hopes that it would help others open up.

So I erased her from my life. And I erased everyone associated with her, because I don't have to have friends who are going to sit there and listen while she talks bad about me. I faced some serious backlash. Angry messages, people blaming me for my friendship with her ending. I ignored it all. I know I made the right choice.

I lost six people that I considered close friends, even more that I liked. Do you want to know what I gained?

BETTER friendships. Less than a week after posting that, I had a lovely brunch with a friend that I rarely get to see but love dearly.

And then there's my best friend. My sister. We've battled everything together. Our parents got divorced around the same time, we got a surprise sibling within six months of each other. We also battled mental illness together. We're still battling it together. We both know that, though we live in different states, we can call each other when things get bad and the other will drop everything. In April, she was having a hard time and was really depressed (she also had a cute parasite living in her, and now he;s my cute nephew). I walked in my mom's room at midnight on Monday and said I didn't care what it took, I needed to be there. Friday at midnight, I knocked on her door.

My last post was about holiday anxiety and my son's food allergy. I followed that up with a petition. In a break from cleaning, I checked Facebook and saw that she shared it. And I started crying.

My old friends hadn't even known about bubba's food allergy. Forget about caring. But not my sister. She wrote that it was important because her nephew has a life-threatening food allergy. She doesn't live it every day, but she cares enough to help me change it. Knowing that you have someone, even one person, who cares is a beautiful thing.

So yeah, I lost friends. I lost a lot of friends. But the friendships that I do have are stronger because I opened up to the people I love. The people who love you will stay. The people who won't don't belong in your life. As with all things, quality is more important than quantity. I'd rather have the few wonderful friends that I do, than have lots of people who don't care.

Every single day... "I get by with a little help from my friends."

<3

Holiday anxiety/food allergies

This past week has been a little crazy. Every year, my wonderful job gives us two weeks off at Christmas, because we're a Lutheran school so we celebrate very openly. This can sometimes put parents in a bit of a rough spot, trying to decide between taking time off work or maybe hiring someone they might not fully trust to watch their kids. This is where I come in. Early in the year, I let parents know that I'm 100% available to watch their kids when we're off -- any time we're off. I admit, my reasons for doing this are selfish. I love the kids I take care of. Two weeks with no contact from any of my kids is torture after seeing them five days a week. So the past three days, I've had a total of four children that are not my children. Plus my own. Oh, and I have I mentioned that I had my sweet baby sister? Yep. Six kids, in my tiny apartment, ages from less than a year to ten years old. I LOVED IT. Each child that I watched is absolutely wonderful (including my two, I love them to biitttttssss) and they each have their own distinct personalities, and that is so beautiful to me.

But now I'm off. No more kids for me (insert frowny face here) BECAUSE.........

I'M GOING TO HAWAII FOR TEN DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

While I'm absolutely ecstatic about this opportunity, I'm also a little anxious. Okay, a lot anxious. The holidays are always a time of anxiety for me (ahh, I forgot to buy so-and-so's kid a present and I know I never ever see them but now they'll hate me forever and I should just crawl in a hole and die), but they're even more so. Why? One word.

NUTMEG.

I mean, yes, there's the anxiety about flying from SLC to LAX for our connecting, then landing in OGG at 9:55 local time (aka one am our time) and then a three hour layover in Denver on our way back, WITH A TODDLER who does not like confined spaces. And then my step-brother, who has never flown before, is seated away from us (please let people be nice and switch seats). I'm anxious enough for the entire plane, I'm pretty sure. But there's nothing I can really do from the air. The main thing I'm worried about is once we land.

In other cultures (the lovely people of Hawaii included) they use exotic spices to flavor their food. I learned that the hard way when I made homemade curry. I have been absolutely obsessing over making sure I have all of bubba's medications. Both sets of epipens? Both his inhalers? A back up for both his inhalers? His singulair? His benadryl? His zyrtec? Motrin and tylenol, just in case? Does my dad have a humidifier? How am I going to use bubba's essential oils? WHAT IF HE HAS AN ALLERGIC REACTION BECAUSE HIS INSURANCE BASICALLY DOESN'T WORK OUTSIDE OF THE SALT LAKE VALLEY?! That's something I just learned, so that's fun. I'm trying to remain calm.

The reality of having a child with severe allergies that don't have to be listed as an ingredient is that you can be as prepared as is humanly possible. You can pack all the medications you want, check every single label before you let something near your child, and ask every single server or cook to tell you exactly what is in anything you order, but it still might not be enough. Maybe the label-er didn't put any of your known panic words (aka words that indicate the ingredient your child is allergic to) on the label, maybe it's a pre-mixed package of spices like at KFC and the cook doesn't know exactly what's in there. Something could still happen.

This is why it's so, so important that everything be labeled with EVERY. SINGLE. INGREDIENT. Guess what, Coke manufacturers? I don't give a damn about your secret recipe, or if it remains a secret. I care about my child staying alive, rather than dying over something that could have been prevented.

Yep, I'm still on this crusade. I created a petition, aimed at the FDA, to require companies to label every ingredient they use.  Besides being used in food and drinks, nutmeg is also made into an oil and used in medicines and cosmetics. Every time I buy chapstick or fill a prescription, I'm gambling with my son's life. Please take a minute to sign the petition and share it. It doesn't hurt you at all, and it could save my son's life one day.

Coming Clean.

The contents of this post aren't pretty. I'm not going to sugar coat anything in this post. This post is going to be raw and emotional and real and if you can't handle it, I suggest you get out now. The contents of this post have only been relayed to one other person in my life. He subsequently dumped me. That was four months ago. I expect to lose people because of this. But I think that's why I'm writing this. The stigma behind mental illness needs to disappear, and that can only happen when people struggling with mental illness are truthful about their illness. Be it depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or whatever else, be honest. Don't sacrifice parts of yourself, don't hide yourself away because you want people to like you. Be real.

I want to start this off by saying that I love my life. I have a beautiful apartment that I am able to afford all by myself, thanks to my wonderful job that I love so much. I've never held a job that I could truly say I loved until this one. I've never woken up excited to go to work, or thought about work on my days off. Until now. I love what I do and I love the school I work for, and the children and parents I work with. To top it all off, I have a crazy, beautiful, wonderful son that I have the privilege of raising. I love my life. 

But it wasn't always like that. I would like to point out that (most of) the events I'm coming clean about happened over a year ago. But that doesn't make them any less a part of who I am. So I'll start at the beginning.

When I was fourteen, I fell in love for the very first time. He was almost sixteen, and he was everything my parents hated. We thought for sure that we would get married and grow old together. Right before our two year anniversary, he cheated on me. We split up. His act produced a daughter, a beautiful little girl with eyes exactly like his. We got back together. We moved in together. We put plans for a wedding on the fast track. Then, I couldn't do it any more. His depression had so overtaken him that he could hardly get out of bed. He never went to work, he didn't like to play with his daughter when we had her, he didn't want to do anything. There was a time when all his friends came over to see him but he was so depressed that he wouldn't even leave our room. So I hung out with his friends all night. I was supporting us, and I couldn't do it any more. A week later, along came a smooth-talking ex and somehow I found myself married to him by the next weekend. But that's a story for another time.

A year and a half later, he committed suicide. It wasn't my fault. We had hardly spoken in that year and a half, but he had seemed to be on the right track. He was expecting his second child, a son.

I got a text from a friend. It was late. She said she'd been seeing Facebook posts with RIP (insert name). Seeing as there were multiple people with his exact name, I didn't think anything of it. I told her to let me know if she knew anything for sure. An hour later, I got a text. I remember the exact composition of the text. It was 10 at night, and the text said "he shot himself, dude."

Then the messages started pouring in. "How are you holding up?" "Are you okay?" "Do you need anything?"

People I hadn't spoken to since high school. I was pissed. Why do they suddenly want to talk to me? And why SHOULDN'T I be okay? We weren't together. We weren't even speaking. I realized, after the fact, that I was in shock. I realized that, because it hit me the next morning. I woke up and immediately started sobbing uncontrollably. I went to work anyway. I think I stayed twenty minutes. I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't function. The week passed in a blur. I don't remember anything. Until the funeral. 

It was made very clear that while no one was going to make a scene, I wasn't welcome. I didn't care. I walked up to his casket. I wanted to slap him and scream at him to wake up. I wanted to crawl in his casket with him and refuse to move. I did none of these things. I hugged his parents, much to their displeasure. I sat down. I cried more. I went to his grave site. I stood in the back of the crowd and left before his casket was lowered into the ground. 

When I was alone, I went back. I went back to where he was buried and I screamed at him. How dare he be so selfish? How dare he leave his daughter and not yet born son? His sister? His brother? His parents and grandfather? And finally, me. How dare he leave when I couldn't follow him?

I always swore that should he ever leave this Earth, so would I. Not because of some weird eternal love thing or anything, but because he symbolized everything that was good in this world. No matter his own inner demons, he would drop whatever he was doing to help someone else out, no matter the cost. He would cheer you up, all while inside he was haunted by the desire to leave this world. Ask anyone who knew him. They will tell you how wonderful he was, and not just because he's dead. Don't get me wrong, he could also be a huge jerk. After all, he cheated on me with my (former) best friend and had two children with her. But that's really the only thing I could ever be mad at him for. I wanted to leave when he left, because him leaving would signal to me that there was no more good in the world.

But I was nine weeks pregnant when he committed suicide. I couldn't take my child's life just to take my own. And once he was born, I couldn't leave him without a mother. Instead, I screamed at my ex at his grave whenever I got the chance. I still do, only now it's because I'm a parent and I don't understand how he could leave his children.

After bubba was born, I had horrible post-partum depression. I recognized that I needed help when bubba was about three months old and I couldn't cope anymore. I had contemplated placing him for adoption and promptly committing suicide. So I went to my doctor and got a handy prescription for sertraline (zoloft) and it did wonders for my depression. It also cost me my boyfriend. I got to the point where I didn't need it for depression any more, so I stopped taking it. And I got my boyfriend back. My anxiety got to the point that I knew I needed help, help in the form of medication. I approached my boyfriend about it because I didn't want to break up again, and he informed me that if I took the pills, I could kiss our relationship goodbye. So I stayed off them. And had at least an anxiety attack a week. And then depression came back and, while I would never ever act on them, so did the suicidal thoughts. 

I would just like to express, again, that I WILL NOT commit suicide. Absolutely, 100%, WILL NOT. When you have depression, your brain tricks you into thinking you're worthless. Couple that with anxiety making you feel like every tiny thing is the end of the world and you've got yourself a destructive brain. When the tiniest insignificant thing happens and feels like the end of the world, your brain whispers "you wouldn't have to deal with this if you were dead." That's part of the reason I will never own a firearm. It's too easy, and most suicides are impulsive. 90% of people who survive suicide attempts never attempt it again. 

Now we're at the end of the story. My ex got a headstone over the summer. I wanted to show it to my boyfriend, so we went to the cemetery. It was the weekend of the 24th of July, and there were fireworks going off everywhere. A little over a month before, we had bought an engagement ring. I thought this was the real deal, so I wanted him to know every last bit about me. So standing in the cemetery road, I confessed to him. He actually agreed to let me get back on the meds because he didn't want me to be so sad. 

The next day, we got into a fight because he was being disrespectful towards his mother and started to take it out on me. He left me at his parents' house, refusing to apologize, then cut off contact with me for three days. He only spoke with me to dump me. I believe that he couldn't handle knowing how deep my depression ran, so he took the fastest road out.

Him dumping me was the best thing that ever happened to me. Within three months, I moved out on my own. In a place close to the job I love, which he kept pressuring me to leave because he wanted me to make more money. I pay my own bills, I put food on my table, and I'm the only person that I have to report to if my house is a mess. I am so proud of myself that it makes me want to cry. 

That doesn't mean that my depression has gone away. 

At this point, I have exactly one person other than my mother or my son that I consider myself truly close to, and she's basically my sister so there is no severing that tie. She's been there through all of this. She knows all of this, not because I've told her, but because she can read it in my tone of voice. She knows where my head is at, and she's still my best friend in spite of it. In spite of me pushing her away, in spite of the differences in our lives (and the states we live in), she is here. 

I'm rambling here. I should stop rambling. I'm really nervous about this post. If my level of crazy is too much for you, I understand. 

The Festival of Trees and Curry Powder.

As I may have mentioned a time or two, I have pretty horrible anxiety. Especially if it's coupled with depression. I have a confession. I hate people. They're everywhere and they all suck. Okay, maybe not. I hate people in large gatherings, particularly if they act like they've never left the house before. Those happen to be the only kind of people at the Festival of Trees. They're everywhere and they have no sense of common courtesy. In large crowds, my anxiety becomes overwhelming. Last year, we had to leave the Festival of Trees because I almost had an anxiety attack. Back then, we didn't really know I had horrible anxiety and my mom thought I was just being a brat. This year, I was trying to hold myself together for the small one, but he didn't really understand why he couldn't have any of the stuff we were looking at and just kept getting frustrated. We decided to take him to the kid's corner, but it was really for older kids. We were getting ready to leave and my mom wanted to get him a treat, so I agreed, Until I saw the graham crackers. That sent me in to a bit of a panic, remembering that he could react to any thing at any time because I still don't know what he reacted to in graham crackers. I also left his epi-pen and benadryl at the house, so I was kicking myself for that. He got an apple instead.

I tried so hard, guys. I tried so hard to keep him from having a reaction. And I failed.

I found a recipe on Pinterest that I wanted to try. Coconut curry shrimp. As expected it was amazing. Bubba got food everywhere, I ate until I was ridiculously full, everyone had a grand ol' time. Until I took his messy shirt off. Hives. Hooray. I didn't give him benadryl at first because I didn't want to if the hives weren't raised and he didn't seem to be having trouble breathing. By the time I came back with his pjs, they were raising. I put him in bed and set to Google. I thought maybe a coconut allergy, since he doesn't normally have coconut and I'm allergic to pineapple. I thought tropical fruits must be the key. Until I Googled curry powder. See, I thought curry was just a plant, and that's what's in curry powder. I was wrong. Curry is usually coriander, tumeric, cumin, fenugreek and chili peppers. Guess what else it *can* have in it. Did you guess nutmeg?

DING DING DING.

THERE'S NUTMEG IN CURRY POWDER.

After bubba fell asleep I double checked the ingredients. Yep, there it was, clear as day.

I'm so mad at myself. I check the labels of everything before it even gets to the cart in the grocery store. To be fair, I bought curry powder before we discovered his allergy. But I should have double checked.

So now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy plane tickets to every single place that you can find the tree that grows nutmeg and mace, and I'm going to burn them all down and laugh over the flames, knowing that I never have to worry about nutmeg again.

(in my dreams)

Parenting is hard.

Buuba had a bad day today. He had Swedish fish for breakfast. He was with grandpa, grandpa does what he wants, I get it. However, it makes it harder on me. See, bubba is a great eater. He would pick vegetables over anything sweet nine times out of ten, With his food allergies (so far nutmeg, something in graham crackers and something in Asian food) his diet doesn't include things that have excess amounts of sugar, artificial colors or flavors or anything like that, so he has a very low tolerance. And Swedish fish are not an organically occurring, organically colored food. And they have tons of sugar, So yeah, today he had a bad day. He was bouncing off the walls, being defiant and just generally being a tiny terror. Things are a little crazy at work lately too, so my anxiety level has been pretty high. I'll admit that I wasn't as sweet and soft to him as I should have been. The terrible thing about parenting is that no one understands your child like you do. When your child is misbehaving, you know that there is something wrong but on the outside it just looks like you have no control and you let your child walk all over you. That's not the case with bubba. We have very strict limits and very strict expectations. It helps that, generally speaking, bubba is a very good boy. He always says please and thank you if he wants something. He helps clean up, and generally uses soft hands and soft words with people.

Today wasn't one of those days. Today was a day when he ran around like a crazy man, He acted like I've never told him no in his life. Instead of saying please and thank you, he threw himself on the floor. Instead of using soft hands, he was hitting and biting. Instead of helping clean up, he was making a bigger mess.

I get so stressed out when he acts like this because if I think he's being a terror, what do other people think? As I mentioned, other people don't know that he was on a crazy sugar high and reacting to things not normally in his diet.

The problem with today, though, was that I was so worried about what other people were thinking that I forgot to worry about what bubba thought. When I yelled at him, was he scared? When I pulled him down from the top of a high stack of chairs he had climbed, did he think I was being too rough or that I was trying to hurt him? I don't want my son to ever have to worry about those things. My goal is to parent him in a way that makes him feel safe, but also lets him know that he has boundaries that he can't cross.

I'm scared that today he didn't feel safe. That today mommy was too busy worrying about what other people thought and trying to make sure he didn't hurt himself or others, and in the process forgot about his feelings.

So tonight, we cuddled on the couch. I indulged his every whim to sit on my lap, or to hold my hand. We snuggled and played to our hearts content until it was time for bed.

That's the beauty of co-sleeping. No matter what our day is like, my baby boy can go to bed knowing that mommy has her arms wrapped around his beautiful sleepy self, and he is safe.

So today was a bad day. Not just for bubba, but for me. Not in levels of stress, but in levels of parenting. I will make today the exception to the rule. Moving forward, I'm going to yell less. I won't say I'll stop because sometimes he scares the crap out of me and it's a knee-jerk reaction. I'm going to take extra care to be gentle with him when I pull him out of somewhere he's not supposed to be. He's old enough to express pain so I know that I didn't hurt him by accident or anything, but I don't want him to think that one day I will.

He's my baby boy. Parenting is hard, but it's so worth the crazy days and the terrifying moments when you get to look over at your baby's sleeping face and know that he feels safe and loved.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

When you have anxiety and depression, the smallest things can send you flying into a rage and thinking the world is going to end. For example, I went grocery shopping tonight. It's bubba's night with his dad, so it's just more convenient to go shopping when I don't have him. I wanted to get a sauce to cook some chicken in, and bubba's almost out of cereal. He can only have certain types of cereal due to his allergies, so it's sometimes difficult to find something that he can have. So, I went to the aisle with the salad dressings and couldn't find the one I needed. Not the biggest deal, I can get it somewhere else later. Then I went to the cereal aisle. Nope, nothing he could have. I wandered aimlessly, and ended up frustrated. I had a simple list of five things, and this store did not have three of those five things. Instead of remaining calm like a normal human being, I got so angry that I left without buying anything and was just pissed off. Then when I got home, it had been way too long since I laid out the chicken for my dinner (like, twelve hours, yikes.) and I couldn't use it anymore. Instead of making something else, I got even angrier and decided to just go to bed. I was giving up on the day.

In came my mom. She convinced me to go get free pie, because it's free pie Wednesday and I like pie. I also got french fries because my paycheck was a little bigger than usual and I got a little child support, so I actually have enough money to pay my bills, put gas in my car, buy groceries and still have a little left. And I deserve french fries. Then she convinced me to go back to the store. She helped me look for things, still couldn't find them, concluded the store was dumb, and convinced me to go to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart. I don't want to stand in line for an hour to buy five things. But the one by me isn't actually crowded at all and we didn't wait in line longer than five minutes. And I spent less than $100, got everything on my list plus a few other things we needed, and some rare treats for us.

My mom understands my anxiety and depression more than anyone else. Probably because she's also struggled with it and knows how it is. Even then, she sometimes tells me to "just calm down" even though I literally can't. She copes how she can, but she can almost always calm me down and bring me back to Earth.

She also bought me a tiny crockpot because I was complaining about how big mine is. (I DON'T NEED A TEN QUART CROCKPOT. WE ARE A TWO PERSON FAMILY. THE ONLY WAY WE CAN PUT AWAY FOOD IS IN THE FRIDGE BECAUSE MOMMY MADE TOO MUCH AGAIN). To be fair, I was not single when I got my crockpot for Christmas last year, and J demanded the biggest one we could get because he loved to eat.

Also, slice two chicken breasts into strips and throw them in your crockpot with a can of sliced carrots (don't drain the water), one bottle of sun dried tomato salad dressing and some frozen peas, cook on low for 4-6 hours. Trust me and thank me later.