Adjustment Disorder

This is what the doctor called what I've been experiencing lately. Well, he said that's what he was putting on the paperwork (apparently, if you have a mental illness, it can follow you for a long time and you could end up paying higher premiums for some insurance, etc) so that's what he put. Really, he said I have a lot of stress, some anxiety and a life that is too full right now, but that probably won't change much anytime soon. Yep, you got it dude! But I coulda told you that.

No, really, he was very nice and easy to talk to. He didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all. I spoke to him about my husband and he said to just keep "gently" encouraging him to seek someone to talk to, even if it's not to get medicine. He said around his age (39) some men start having hormonal fluctuations (didn't even think about guys having hormones) that could be the reason for the depression. He gave me some good ideas about how to talk to him about it.

I went to Florida this past weekend and we really had a good time there together. We were stress and kid-free and I'm really glad I went. Some friends of ours are getting divorced and we talked alot about them and their kids and how we don't want to end up like them or put our kids through dealing with a divorce. Since we got home, we've both been trying really hard to be more attentive and also to back each other up with the kids. At least I feel better for now. We'll see in a week or two.

He actually came by my work today (he's only done that one other time in 6 years) after his doctor's appt. He found out he has to have surgery for a herniated disc in a few weeks. Maybe if he stops living in so much pain, he'll be a little happier. I talked to him about what the doctor told me - that maybe he should consider going just to talk some things out - and he just looked at me like I was crazy - so I will continue to gently encourage and we'll see how it goes.

I'm so freaking hungry!!!!!

I started "dieting" Monday, trying to use the weight watchers plan w/o the meetings and the cost. My friend and I are weighing in in front of each other every week - to keep us honest and I'm starving! I used a big chunk of my points when I went to lunch with my husband before dropping him off at the airport and I'm trying to wait until I leave work to start munching on my celery & carrots! Maybe I'll chew a piece of gum & it'll hold me over.

BTW, Darrell will be gone for 6 days. It really takes a load off for them to leave for awhile every now and then - though I'm sure I'll be ready for him to take over when he gets back. Although, part of me will miss him and I almost decided to buy a pricey ticket and join him this weekend - but, I think I'll use this time to let my heart grow a little fonder.

Weekend Running Around

Had a pretty busy weekend. Went out with some friends on Friday night and had an absolute blast. We had margueritas first, then on to a sports bar where we shot pool & danced some. We laughed our butts off - well me literally - I was doing some smooth dance moves & split the butt right out of my pants - hahahahah! I had to leave directly after that, but we had such a good time. Too bad my husband was a jackass about it - but oh well, that's a story for another day. It was fun and I can't wait until we get together again. We're going to try to plan something spooky for October - maybe go to a haunted house or something - we'll see.

Heather had to take her ACT at 8 on Sat morning, so I was up & at em early. Colby had a football game at 11 & then we went for pizza for one of his friend's birthdays. He had two friends spend the night & I just went in my room & watched movies & ate, & ate & ate! I watched Tyler Perry's Daddy's Girls - it was really sweet - I can't watch those sappy movies when Darrell's home so I took advantage of his hunting trip & watched silly stuff all night.

Colby had a b-day party on Sunday for a GIRL! When I picked him up, he said he was going out with a 6th grader named Colbi - weird, huh? He's so goofy. They "go out" usually for about a week & then "go out" with someone else. He had baseball practice on Sunday evening - so I did homework for this God forsaken Economics class I have to take this semester - it's gonna be the ruin of me.

So, the whole weekend, I pretty much ran Colby around to all of his activities. Sonya woke up Saturday morning deciding that she wanted to learn to crochete (my sis-in-law told her she'd teach her) so it was off to Walmart for yarn & a needle. Beth showed me how to do it (I remembered a little from when I was young) and I taught Sonya - but she got impatient very easily & I ended up doing most of her scarf she was making for her rabbit. I guess she's finished with that idea.

DJ was with his dad all weekend and Heather was enjoying that time that Darrell was away from the house - she actually got to have a life. He is getting ready to leave for Florida tomorrow for softball and won't return until Monday.

I made a video

It's my first one ever. It's kind of dorky, just all of my kids and their friends. I hope if you watch it you don't get too bored, but I really love this song.

Here we go again

My 14 y/o son DJ was diagnosed in the 5th grade with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). His main fear is germs. He takes medication now that seems to keep it at bay, but there are still parts of his personality that I know are controlled by this terrible sickness.

Anywhoo, we are managing that (or so we think). Monday, a boy in Colby's (10 y/o, 5th grader) class had a 4-wheeler accident and was hurt pretty badly. It was iffy whether or not he would make it for awhile. Darrell & Colby heard about it at football practice on Monday and told the rest of the kids about it when they got home. Everyone was pretty upset, but Colby seemed like it didn't really phase him too much. This is not one of his close friends, though they did play basketball together last year.

This morning when I woke Colby up to eat breakfast (he's had waffles for breakfast every day for at least 3 years, if not longer) here's what he told me.

Colby: I don't want waffles.

Me: Too bad, I already fixed them. Why wouldn't you want waffles?

Colby: Mrs. Y (the school counselor) told me to try something different for breakfast because my stomach's been hurting in the morning.

Me: When did you talk to Mrs. Y about your stomach ache, wasn't the nurse there?

Colby: When I went to see her about J (the hurt boy)

Me: Oh, did they talk to all of you about J & the dangers of not wearing a helmet while on the 4-wheeler?

Colby: Yes.

Heather then came in and said: Oh yeah, mom. Colby said he had to go see Mrs. Y yesterday because he was crying about J.

Me: What? How come? They said he's going to be alright.

Colby: I know, I just couldn't stop crying.

Me: Oh. Do you want me to fix you something else for breakfast?

Colby: No, I'll eat the waffles.

Right before the bus came, Colby started saying his stomach hurt again. I told him to go to school and if it didn't stop bothering him to call home & Dad would pick him up. After the bus drove off, I got to feeling guilty about making him go to school (He is not a morning person and I just thought he'd be OK once he got going). So I called the school counselor.

Mrs. Y: I'm glad you called. I was going to call you.

Me: I'm just a little worried about Colby and he had a stomach ache this morning & said he talked to you. I wanted to make sure you guys knew that Darrell works from home and that if Colby is sick you can call him & he'll come to get him.

Mrs. Y: Sure, but I wanted to let you know that I got a red flag yesterday when I talked to him about J. He seemed excessively worried (OH NO! WHAT! THOSE ARE THE SAME WORDS USED TO DESCRIBE DJ IN THE 5TH GRADE WHEN HE STARTED GETTING STOMACH ACHES AT SCHOOL). He's worried about you driving back and forth to work and getting in an accident. He's worried about his dad's health. He's worried about alot of things (OH NO! WHAT ALL DID HE TELL HER?) I don't think it's anything to be overly concerned about right now, but we should all keep our eye on him, you know this is the exact age when DJ started having problems.

Me: Yes, I know. I didn't realize he was so worried. He never talks about it. I know sometimes OCD can be inherited so it can run in families, but I also know that sometimes younger siblings can just learn behaviors from the older ones with OCD.

Mrs. Y: Let's just keep our eye on him for now.

Me: OK, call me if he comes in sick or upset and we'll come and get him.

Well, now what? I guess I'll just talk to him tonight, see what I think. I may have to take him to the doc, but for now I guess we'll just wait & see. It's hard to remember sometimes that our kids get stressed too. He knows, as do all of our kids, that their dad and I haven't been getting along very well lately, he's probably worried about that too. I feel terrible. How could he be so upset by something and not talk to me about it?

A few years ago when he was in 3rd grade I think, I went to parent-teacher conference and the teacher said "We were so sorry to hear about your dog Shadow dying" and I said "What?" She said "Colby was really upset one day when we were talking about pets and he told us that Shadow had died. He was crying about it". I said "I had no idea. That dog died two years ago and he never mentioned it once to me" What else am I missing in my son's life? I wonder if he knows he can tell me things - or since he's a middle child does he think I don't have enough time for him? Golly, it's tough being a parent. There are so many things to worry about. You know, we think they need us so much when they're babies, but I swear they need us so much more as they're making that journey into and through the teenage years.

Look out my blog friends, this is probably the first of many posts about the mental health of me & my family.

Remembering 9/11

I was at a new job at had just started about 6 weeks earlier in Children's Hospital here in St. Louis. Someone called and told us to go to the administrative suite and watch the news or to check CNN. We couldn't get on to any of the news sites, so we ran to the confernce room. I came back to my desk immediately and called my husband and he said yes, I'm watching it - Oh My God another plane just flew into the other building. We originally had thought it was an accident until we heard about the 2nd one. We were all really scared. I remember feeling like we could all be under attack in any or all of the cities througout the country. I remember going to the bathroom and hearing stange noises from the pipes and thinking that if they wanted to get a big number of people, they could certainly hit the largest medical center in the city - I was really, really scared.

I had just made the decision 6 weeks earlier to make a 90 minute commute to and from work and on this particular days, and many after it, I started 2nd guessing that decision - what if there was a crisis at home and I was an hour and a half away? It took awhile for me to work through this and I don't think about it much any more, but I do still think of those families, those children, who went off to work and school that day, like any other day - probably arguing with their spouses about who would take the kids or arguing with their parents about what to wear to school and those are the last conversations many will have ever had with their loved ones. It's so sad to think of it still - how those people are coping with life. I really feel for them and hope God is present in their lives.

Here is a link - if I can do it right of a pretty cool rememberance site.

http://www.legacy.com/stltoday/sept11/home.aspx

Moutain Dew Explosion

I was sitting at my desk at work just now, enjoying a frozen meal dinner before having to go straight from work to a dreaded Economics class and I had placed a Diet Mountain Dew in the freezer a couple of hours ago so it would be nice and cold by the time I had to leave for class.

I saw that there was some ice in it and I thought "yummy, mountain dew slushie" - I began to open the bottle and a little oozed out so I put some Kleenex under the bottle in case it spilled.

Suddenly, the Mountain Dew erupted like a volcano and it actually rained mountain dew all over me and my office. I mean it is on my door that is about 6 feet away, it's on my ceiling, all over my walls = all the papers on my desk - it is everywhere and the lid is laying on the floor about 3 feet from my desk. I'm surprised it didn't hit me in the nose & break it or something.

So here's a word to the wise - never, never open a soda that has ice in it and if you do you better be outside and wearing a raincoat. I can't do anything but laugh, if you would have seen me sitting here with Mountain Dew raining on me - you'd die laughing too - it's just one of those things you know? Now I gotta go to my first class with soda all in my hair and sticky arms - how fun.

Life stuff

My husband and I had a talk the other night. Sometimes I don't feel special to him anymore and fell that it wouldn't matter to him if I walked out and never came back. He told me he feels like no one listens to him (the kids doing stuff he asks) - I said that all of us feel like he expects nothing less than perfection and that if we don't do something completely to his standards - he feels we didn't do it at all. We know he's gonna complain about whatever we do, so we just do things our way and know that he's gonna bitch about it. We've all decided this Saturday to work as a team to try to get our house in order the way he really wants it and we'll try our best to keep it that way. Our house is not filthy - it's lived in, really, I'm being serious - other people that come to our house don't feel uncomfortable there - it's just a sickness of his and it's driving the rest of us crazy.

I reminded him how blessed we are with four beautiful, healthy children that are smart and talented. We both have decent jobs that we don't have to worry about how the electric bill will be paid (like we used to), we drive good cars, we own a nice home, our children are involved in lots of activities and so is he. We can take trips or go out to eat just about whenever we want - I don't think anyone could ask for more.

Our 17 year old continues to be a hotspot in our relationship - I feel she is a good kid and deserves to spend time away from us and with her friends - he doesn't trust her at all (she's never done anything wrong that we know about) He just "has a feeling" and doesn't want to let her go for fear that she may get mixed up with the wrong crowd - go drinking or partying - get in a wreck - he has all sorts of scenarios that really have very little chance of happening except in his own mind and says that I never think anything can happen.

Anyway, my old girlfriends and I are trying to plan a GNO (girls night out). We all feel we really need it and one friend asked me what was new. I said nothing much then proceeded to tell her about running the kids around - going to stinkin' pee wee football games I care nothing about (except if my kid gets hurt) - Figuring out all the things that come from having a daughter that's a high school senior (OMG) that wants to go far away for college but doesn't even care to get her driver's license and whose little brother is a freshman and doesn't think she should be hanging around any skanks, hoes, goths or anyone that he doesn't deem fit.

Anyway, that's sort of the jist of it. Colby's (5th grade) playing football and has a girlfriend who he "luvs to death forever and ever" Sonya (3rd grade) has a crush on a boy in her class and now refuses to wear her waist length har in a pony tail because she has "wings" right by her ears and it makes her look like a "moron"! She actually got up early this morning and straightened her hair with Heather's straightener - what am I gonna do?

So for nothing new - I sure had a lot to say. You see why I need a drink?????? Better go for now - hope all is well with my fellow bloggers:) Have a great weekend!