Relax Mom, Let Your Kid Be a Kid!

While driving home from a counseling session and lunch with some girl friends, I was enjoying the fall scenery and listening to the radio all alone, at the volume I wanted! When you have two daughters with sensory disorders, especially auditory processing, most of the time, the van needs to be a quiet place, free from audio stimulation, much to my own chagrin.

Feeling free and alive, my thoughts took me back to a scene from Finding Nemo.

Remember Marlin, the scared yet determined Daddy to Nemo when he is talking to the Daddy Sea Turtle, Crush? In a panic, wide-eyed and frazzled, as he is in almost every scene, he is worried for Crush's son, Squirt who just fell out of the current into an ocean abyss. Here is how the conversation goes:

MARLIN: [gasps] Oh my goodness!

CRUSH: Whoa. Kill the motor, dude. Let us see what Squirt does flying solo.

SQUIRT: Whoa! Whoa! That was so cool! Hey dad, did you see that? Did you see me? Did you see what I did?

CRUSH: You so totally rock, Squirt! So give me some fin..noggin..

CRUSH/SQUIRT: ..dude!

This picture paints the perfect model of my current parenting world. I am Marlin, neurotic, not able to fit in and meeting only friends that aren't quite my type like Dory or the sharks. My daughter, is little Nemo, cute and spunky, with a "Lucky Fin," (a/k/a Autism and ADHD and Mood Disorders) who despite her circumstances is making friends and growing up.

It was like God was speaking to me today on my drive home. He was saying, "Kill the motor."

Remember Nemo's first day of school for Marlin? I still want my little Nemo to go and play in the toddler bouncy area - not travel with the sting ray teacher to the drop off!!! What if she can't swim like the other kids? What if she needs a sensory break?

God is telling me, "Let's see what she does on her own..."

And, so, I will. At least I will try. Good idea God. Thanks for meeting me today and speaking in my language! You rock!

Are these Jugs Real? The Legacy of the Step Child Part IV

I am not sure if I will ever really know if I have the real Crazy Jugs or not.

There are a couple of pieces, trinkets that I recognize from the three bottles, but I think the three jugs that I have in my possession are not the original Crazy Jugs that my mom and her mother created. Ironic.

I do remember specifically asking for the Crazy Jugs during one of our phone calls. It was the time when my step dad asked me if I was interested in my mother's clothes. I said that I was not, but felt guilty about it. Like I was supposed to want my mom's size 3X older lady clothes that she probably bought on the clearance rack at KMart! Does that make me a bad, selfish daughter? She was always trying to get me to share her clothes with me. She would even buy two of the same outfits so she could keep an outfit for herself and give me the same outfit for my birthday. "No, I don't think I want any of her clothes, Tom," I answered. "I would like to have my Miami diploma and her Crazy Jugs though. They are probably in some of the boxes from the garage. I am going to try to come for a visit some time this summer for a few days and help you go through those boxes. I have to find someone to watch the girls though."

Not only did I have to find someone to watch my two children, ages one and four. But I also had recently learned during this time that my four year old daughter was diagnosed with Sensory Integration, ADHD and Autism. Finding someone to care for them would be challenging. I also had my own failed business I was trying to dissolve and we were in the midst of a move, buying and selling our house! Tom never seemed too concerned for all of my issues though. He did however keep some pseudo jugs for me. I found them in special boxes in the garage later that year that he so carefully set aside for me.

It was in one of those boxes I found the three Crazy Jugs that I have now. However, just as my step father hid my mother's real gold and diamond jewelry from me and tried to trick me with all of her costume jewelry, he didn't want me to have the original Crazy Jugs. My step father probably kept them or sold them for a quarter at his garage sale.

I am still so angry towards him. I know that he is elderly and that he loved my mom very much for 15 years. He was very special to my mother. He swept my mother's heels off the floor of single-hood and was a world traveling partner to my mother. I also recognize that he added value to my life in other ways along my journey. He made the opportunity for me to travel to Europe one summer in college. I made memories that summer that will last my entire life!

He was a good guy. He once was very accomplished engineer for the city of Cincinnati. But, with the stress of losing my mom and his years of life pushing upward to 80, the dementia has started to shrivel his character and his heart I once adored. I once admired him for his advice and would seek his guidance in the areas of my career and matters of the heart. He was the warm fatherly figure that my own dad could not be for me. He was supportive and stable for both my mom and me. He's pictured in my photos with me from my first college dorm room, graduation from Miami University, my first job overlooking Michigan Avenue in Chicago, my broken hearts from all the chaps before I met Fred, my courtship and wedding with Fred and the births of my two children. He has shared an important role in some of the most significant chapters of my life.

Yet, the role that he has played since my mom passed away has been far from fatherly towards me. More like a villain and a shrewd thief.

I haven't talked to my step father since we left last Christmas time. That was the time when I first learned about my mother's will. The will only allowed me to have her jewelry and day to day belongings. The day to day belongings that he had boxed up for a garage sale to sell shortly after she passed away.

There were a few boxes that were set aside in the garage and were labeled "For Andrea." When I saw the tattered boxes, I was hopeful and dare I say, even excited. Alone in the cold smelly garage, I smiled like a child who just caught her mommy's attention after months of absence and neglect. I had hoped that my mom had branded certain items that she wanted me to have someday. I was hoping to find special items from my childhood. And when I started to unravel the items in the boxes, I admit that there were a few items that indeed took me down memory lane.

The large green Mother Goose book that my mom and I read every night before bed was in one of the boxes. That was the same book that I had resting on my knee one wintery night as I hopped into the bed and the top corner of the spine poked my upper lip. I still have the small scar underneath my nose. I can still recall my mom holding me like a rag doll as she ran frantically up and down the hallway not knowing if she should take me to the hospital.

Setting in the same box, I recognized some old oafy stuffed monkeys from my grandmother. She would bring me big stuffed monkeys she'd buy from the corner drug store just before arriving for her visits with me while my mother took weekend trips with her boy friends.

There also were photo albums. I was looking forward to spending time on those only to find out of the 20 albums, several of them were full of photos of my mother with male friends whom I didn't even know. The other albums are priceless to me - at least I think that is the way I am supposed to feel about photo albums from my childhood, right?

And, then there were a lot of other things in the boxes that I couldn't decipher. What were they? Were they garbage? And, why were these items marked just for me? Broken picture frames, papers from my mother's college days, reams of paper and notebooks from my step father's surveying business. And, at the bottom of each of these shredded, mildew-infested boxes, were droppings, maybe from rats, most likely from the demons who lurked around me while I tried to grieve and cry out to God to heal my broken tattered and wounded heart.

Why the Disdain?

Why do you disdain me? I have accepted that you have excluded me, excommunicated me but I still wonder why. Although I am your first born, I am not worthy of your presence. Is it because I am a woman? Is it because I am my mother's daughter?

Why does the sound of my voice make you shrill? I can see it in your eyes, although our eyes never connect. We have the same eyes for one another now, hazel and disconnected. I used to want your approval, your love and acceptance. I tried. I called, reached out. I forgave you. Still do.

Yet, I can feel your rejection in my bones. I can sense your recoil when I enter a room. It is painful.

Where did the man go who taught me to tie my shoes and ride my bike? Have I gotten too fat for you to love me anymore? Have I not been successful enough, or too successful. Do I not deserve you and your love any longer?

Perhaps you do not feel worthy of me so you shrill away. Perhaps you see the pain you have caused me and you can't face it. I doubt that you can see that deep.

It was easier to accept you and your flaws when you were stronger, younger. It was easier to set boundaries with you then, easier to shut you out. Now that you are weak and dying, I feel I should be more for you, better to you. But what more can I do? I have tried as much as I can.

Perhaps you feel the same way.

I have already started to grieve you. Years ago I started to grieve you. I had to grieve my own mother before she passed away too. You know her, the woman you once loved then spent my whole life hating and telling me about it even on the day I was on my way to bury her. When you both divorced when I was two years old, I must have still had hope for happiness. Today, I grieve that hope and grieve that happiness.

With my own beloved husband and beautiful children, I find my heart still broken, unable to love them in the way I want. I try. I have spent countless of resources on self help books, counseling, support groups, rehab and Bible studies. Yet, in my mid-to-late-thirties, here I sit writing about the emptiness and sorrow. I chose love and a bright future, but only find loneliness and heartache.

Was this depression and mental instability in our blood, passed through the family tree? Or did your actions spur the insecurities in my heart, breaking it forever more? Now, my own children, ripe with life and the light of their future ahead of them, both struggle with mood disorders, depression and anxiety. Did I cause their brokenness from my actions or was it an illness handed to them from the core of their being found in the womb?

I am not trying to pass blame. I am just trying to solve this puzzle. Also, wondering why the disdain for me, your first-born, your only daughter?

Crazy Jugs of Broken Childhoods, Broken Motherhoods

I can't organize my thoughts to get a post prepared. I have attempted a few times and just come up with scattered, random sentences that end up in the draft file.

It seems like I have not gotten my life back together since my mother passed away over 18 months ago. I wonder if I will ever be happy again. Will I ever be able to manage my life the way I want? It isn't like my life was easy or happy when my mother was alive. My mother and I didn't even have a good relationship.

Sometimes when I get flustered and frustrated at Sienna, I am reminded of my own mother and how similar their behaviors are. And no matter how I want to ignore this truth, I am just like Sienna and my own mother too. When I feel so disconnected towards Sienna, I can also understand how my own mother felt. She used to try to hug me and I would cringe. I despised her kisses too. She used to say that loving me was like loving a porcupine with needles. Now, when I try to cuddle Sienna, she pulls away. When I try to kiss her on the cheek, she wipes it off harshly as if she's angry with me. There is a significant difference between my mother and me though. I seek to understand my daughter's troubles. I keep trying to be knowledgeable, strong seeking support when needed. At least, that is where I am now. Who knows how much longer I can keep my character strong.

I confess that I am saddened by my daughter's inequities to love me, just as I am saddened by my own mother's inability to love me the way a child needed loved years ago. We all go through our own lives just to cope and survive and both my mother was and my daughter is just trying to get through it as best possible. I somehow feel like I am above the standard of just reacting innately to my circumstances. I strive for more than just survival. I strive for strength. Sometimes however, I fail. I weep. I wail. I am as sad as a small child.

I also forgive. I can understand how Sienna is troubled with her sensory disorder and moods just as I was as a young little girl. How I still am. And, as a mother, I can see how empty my love tank is and I am tempted to walk away, withdraw, regress just as my own mother did throughout her prime years of her own motherhood.

My husband interrupts my daze towards the long empty hall way where my daughter just walked through, down troddened and angered, disappointed once again. He asks me. "What are you thinking about?"

I respond, "I am wondering if I was unlovable. Was I so difficult that my mom and dad just couldn't love me when I was a child? Did they divorce when I was two because the stress I put on both of them? Am I still unlovable?"

Weeping on, striving for survival. Trying to stay above the standard of failure. Taking life one day at a time, one tantrum at a time. God, please help me to keep the standard high and love me just where I am.

And the Crazy Jugs reflect the disappointment. They want to be more than they are. They want to be treasures, yet, there they stand, dusty and yellowed with plastic beads broken. How did they survive through all the years of turmoil? How did they not get lost, broken fully? They survived. They continue to reflect the memories and tell the story.

Confessions of a Second Grade Closet Eater

I used to be a closet eater. I would not eat lunch at school or during slumber parties. From age eight until age 32, I would only eat when no one was watching me. To this day, I worry about what I eat in public.

All through elementary school, I would rush home from school at 3:00 sharp and eat all the food I could. Only so much so that no one would notice my bingeing. My mom and step dad used to have a large glass milk jug that they would dump their spare change into daily. I would quietly pour out the change and get just enough money to take to the Village Pantry or 7-Eleven down the street. That is when candy bars only cost 30 cents. I started getting my candy bar fix with the stolen spare change. Then, I worked my way up to stealing enough change to purchase an entire box of Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme pies. I would be ever so cautious about this addiction by hiding my wrappers carefully in the garage. This was age nine.

It was at age nine when my mother married her second husband, Graham. He had several children by previous wives. He was domineering and dominated my mother's every moment. My mother and I were best friends up until Graham came along. After all, after my father divorced my mom when I was two years old, it was just my mom and me, living together like roomies in college. During her single years, she dated a lot. And, just like a college room mate would, she'd bring her dates home with her. I think during these years of my childhood, I have more memories being with baby sitters. My mom would travel a lot with her boyfriends. After she passed away, I recovered many photo albums of romantic getaways along with boxes of love letters from these men, some were even married and others were her boss! While she lived foot loose and fancy free, I spent a lot of childhood with babysitters, my drunk grandmother or being sent away to summer camps at the ripe age of seven!

Now my own daughter is six and a half, I couldn't imagine sending her away to a camp or to stay with her drunk grand parents. (Fortunately, my children do not have any alcoholic grandparents so I don't have that as an option!) Another memory I have as a seven year old is riding the Greyhound bus back and forth from my mom's to my dad's! This was a four hour drive with a 'layover' in Cincinnati! I can still recall the mixed smells of cigarette smoke, toilet cleanser and the bus fumes. When I was seven, I thought I was so cool. I was SO independent and since I hadn't eaten all day with either of my parents, I was SO hungry. At the layover, I would buy one of every candy bar and I would stash them in my suitcase for late night snacking as soon as I arrived for my visitation at my dad's.

One night, I got caught eating candy at my dad's. It was far past my bed time, when my step mom opened the bath room door and I quickly hid the candy in my cheeks. She noticed the wrapper behind the toilet and scolded me. I can recall begging her not to tell my dad but she did. It was one of the most shameful experiences of my life. I just wanted to be loved and accepted by my dad and mom. And, unfortunately, I feel like my father has measured out his love for me my entire life based on my weight. He is in a wheel chair now, he comments now on my daughters' weight and what they eat. It saddens me so much! My father and his parents were also plagued with eating disorders.

I was in second grade when my mom started back on Weight Watchers. And, since we were BFF (that is current text lingo for "best friends forever"), she put me on the diet too. I'd go to all the weigh ins with her. We would go to the MCL Cafeteria where we were allowed to eat fish and green beans for most of our meals. This is really what did me in for a life long struggle with an eating disorder. The diet and rejection, not necessarily MCL's fish!

More about my eating disorders in future posts...

What are Crazy Jugs?

I was raised by a single mother. She was raised by an alcoholic mother. We moved around a lot throughout my childhood. When ever someone asks me, "Where you from?" I always stumble. I used to say, "I moved around a lot as a child."

To which people would then consistently respond, "Oh, was your father in the service?"

I would answer, "No, my mother married and divorced a lot."

As I matured, I realized this was not something to share. It was something to keep privately.

I did move around a lot. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, my parents then moved to Cincinnati when I was two years of age. This is when my father fell in love with a red head friend of his from med school and told my mother he wanted a divorce. My father then moved to live and plant roots with his new love in Saltville, a small town in central Ohio. I now tell people that I am from Saltville even though I only lived there from ages 14 to 17. From the day I was born, I didn't live in a town longer than two years.

Every time we would move, ever since I can remember, my mother has placed the crazy jugs prominently in our apartment. I can barely remember making my own crazy jug with my mom. I must have been about five years old. I do remember wanting to make another one and asking my mom over and over to make another crazy jug with me. To this day, I have a stash of small items that I collect hoping to make another crazy jug. Small mementos, like political campaign buttons, little favorite toys or anything that might resemble some sort of a pop icon or special memory. They are then stuck on a sort of caulking substance that is spread all over a wine bottle. To me, they mean a lot. I have examined them even meditating on them for decades.

To an innocent person, they may look like junk. Trash that was smeared on an empty wine bottle. As I continue to mature, I realize that these crazy jugs symbolize three generations of women struggling to find fulfillment and survival. Through the struggles of a variety of mental illnesses and both personal and interpersonal conflict, these crazy jugs prove to withstand time and change even though the actual bodies and minds of the women who created them do not.