Psychopath

I read somewhere that all two year old are psychopaths. They don’t know how to love, they are entirely “me” based, they lie, they don’t feel guilt or remorse, and they commit crimes for no apparent reason. This idea was so foreign to me. My first born child was sweet, empathetic, and completely enthralled with the world around him and the people in it. Never once did I worry that I might find him killing puppies in his teenage years. Oh but my daughter – the middle child – she makes me wonder…

Recently I found Eden sitting atop our sofa, nonchalantly watching a television show, with a crying lump underneath her. Her baby brother had slipped himself under a couch cushion and she had decided this opportunity was too good to pass up. So she sat her 35 lb. frame upon his squirming, hidden body and despite his cries of pain, claustrophobic panic, and probable impending suffocation, she didn’t relent. I freed my youngest son from his makeshift, cushion coffin and promptly put her into a timeout (vowing to myself never to leave her alone with another child again – I’m now pooping with the door wide open). She took her punishment without tears or anger and sat quietly staring off into space with a queer, creepy smile upon her face…

Her acts of random violence and attempts at innocent murder are enough to put my teeth on edge. I just don’t know what to expect out of her.  I obviously can’t trust her, and I could never count on her conscience to steer her in the right moral direction (you know, seeing how she doesn’t have one); so how should one raise a psychopath properly? Is there a formula I’m missing that will turn her from an amoral asshole into a conscientious sweetheart?

Truth be told I’m afraid, nay paranoid, that she may never outgrow her insanity.  Already my youngest child is showing more concern about people and life in general than she is. Why are my boys able to love and appreciate others (me) and she fails so miserably at it? Don’t get me wrong, I love all my kids, I just had this illogical belief they would love me back…

 I had high hopes for my life with a daughter - girly stupid things that just the two of us could do together.  Instead I have a little girl who brutalizes her Barbie’s, uses her dolls as Weapons of Mass Destruction, and would prefer to shop for Transformers… I truly don’t mind that she’s a tomboy…I just wish she could be more like Justin Bieber than Charles Manson.

Endless Chatter

I hear her speaking to me, a voice that’s melodious  and soothing, if only because I’ve listened to her since the day I was born; technically she’s my left hemisphere, my logic. She politely lays out my daily tasks, patiently handles my time, she tells me that happiness is directly correlated to my life’s circumstances and that my past teaches my future, she speaks endlessly; the audio track of my life. Most days I barely notice her incessant chatter, other days her voice penetrates and pierces my placid surface and it’s all I can do not to shout at her to shut up, be quiet, fall silent at least for a moment or two.

She’s the inner critic, my common sense; she’s the voice that insists I never be complacent in life. She recognizes the importance of knowledge and many a night she has kept me up thinking about all sorts of questions she has yet to gain the answer to. I read an endless amount of books; browse Google as though it were the Holy Grail. I watch documentaries and read wide variety of blogs – she insists that perspective and experience means everything. All of it fascinates me. But sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes her voice, her demands, harms my fragile right hemisphere. The pictures she paints isn’t always rosy, sometimes the rushed and fevered colors are too stark and depressing, sometimes it brings tears to my eyes and I am left wondering why…just why.

She has haunted me these past few months. Put me on a mission, urged me to seek knowledge about the possibility of cancer. Through my studying I have learned the terminology, grasped the medical jargon, and understood the treatments. I deny my knowledge to doctors and radiologists, my surgeon and technologists – they like it better this way. Too much knowledge from their patients is often seen as confrontational and irritating. So I pretend not to know what to expect, not to understand their medical rhetoric. I feign ignorance so as not to put others on edge. That’s not to say I’m afraid to speak out. I’m not. I will advocate for myself when I feel that their actions are wrong, until that point I will remain hidden beneath my fake and shaky smile, far more informed than they could ever imagine.

But sometimes that information weighs heavily upon my shoulders. Possibility and probability sound - to the untrained ear - to be the same thing but they are not. My left brain speaks in probabilities, and understands that the likelihood of cancer at my age (nearly 30!) is almost non-existent; small, miniscule, and highly unlikely. But the right hemisphere, the creature that speaks only in pictures, that understands emotions and spirit, the esoteric soul that sees nothing but possibility and understands the world on a very instinctual level – well she is afraid of some of the things the most logical part of me knows. She’s afraid of the numbers muttered to me by my radiologist, mentioned in passing to put me at ease, designed specifically to relax me before my breast biopsy. The left hemisphere nods at the doctors, understands all that is meant by that small, tiny, miniscule number, while the right side recoils, twisting violently against a possibility that no one sees… I’ve been a witness to small numbers before in reference to my son. He was born with a congenital heart defect, born to beat the odds – or perhaps to be beaten by them; probabilities that were so small, tiny, and miniscule to seem entirely improbable – and yet were so very possible.

And what would that mean I often wonder. If the number means nothing, if probability is only a vaporous cloud used to create efficient and reliable self-delusion. It would mean that cancer can be real for me; cancer could be lurking within a breast that nourished three children, within a body that refuses, even now, to accept the possibility of illness. I’m still young enough to feel ageless – I should still believe I’m immortal, but my past teaches my future – and like a monk within a quiet reflective monastery – that past insists life cannot be lived without suffering. We cannot walk a path clear and unaffected by the possibilities in life – by the probability that within a lifetime tragedy will touch us as surely as happiness will. Life is a gift but its lessons are rarely free. And so my left hemisphere, my logic, still chatters away about all the probabilities in life while my right hemisphere (my emotions) retreats from all those possibilities – an endless and violent cycle. But today both sides were silenced as I received biopsy results upon my left breast (my right  breast still cloaked in mystery); and I feel my life once more within my control  which of course is illusory and entirely false but comforting all the same...

Benign.

Teacher's strike.

I read a piece in my local paper today from legislative reporter Tom Fletcher speaking about the horrendous injustice the greedy teachers are doing to the fabric of our society. His first inflammatory statement is about teachers and their “Korea-style political indoctrination” of students.  In summation he accuses teachers of brain washing their students into believing their teachers are being abused. Fletcher then goes on to implore people to get educated, and to begin this education with a Google search on “Study: Class size doesn’t matter”. Despite this clearly reliable and unbiased key word search (insert sarcastic snort here) I agree. It’s time people became educated and this requires funding.

I received my high school diploma eleven years ago from a graduating class size that was over 500 bodies large. Most of my time as a student in Vanier was not spent inside the school but instead in the “portables”. Reliable heating during the winter was a crap shoot and proper seating was a joke. Our textbooks were old and overused without enough to go around. Now keep in mind this was ELEVEN years ago. With all the school closures and cuts in funding I can only imagine the deplorable conditions of education now-a-days, which is a huge contributing factor in my choice to homeschool my children. Homeschooling aside I think the biggest issue in this teacher vs. government fight has nothing to do with education or wages, benefits or government expenditure. I think the biggest issue that people are ignoring is the government’s erosion of workers’ rights.

Whether you agree with the teachers or not I have a huge problem with the government legislating anyone back to work. First it was Air Canada, then it was the Postal service, now it’s the teachers – oh and Air Canada again. Where does the government get off thinking that they have any right to take away the voice of workers? Do we not live in a free and democratic society? Can Canadians be silenced so easily?

The government claims they have to legislate people back to work because these services are essential! Essential? My husband is RCMP and without him law and order is disrupted and there is a risk of injury or death for the everyday average Joe. That is essential. But here’s the thing. We have a government who’s more than willing to strip your rights and force you to work in whatever condition they see fit; and everyone seems to be ignoring this! I can’t for the life of me figure out WHY that is. We elected them to run our government not to micromanage our lives and careers.  So if you can’t support the teachers then stand up instead for your basic human rights. Back-to-work legislation is really just a form of slavery. If they can legislate you back to work under threat of fine or jail today, then they can legislate you to work harder or under dangerous conditions tomorrow. It’s a slippery slope and I for one refuse to sit around and say nothing. Canadian apathy has reached an all-time high and it’s disgusting.

Birthdays and Biopsies

I cut his hair myself, shave it short – cop hair - because its thick and unruly and he has issues with trust and electric razors.  His green eyes are one of his best features and his full lips will be some pretty girl’s dream one day. He’s going to be handsome, everyone tells me so, but his most striking feature is his gorgeous smile. He’s a serious sort of kid, always absorbed in some sort of thought, so when he smiles and cracks his intense façade it’s adorable.

He’s only three – soon to be four (March 14^th) – and his strong and unwavering belief in what’s right and wrong never ceases to amaze me. He is the family’s moral compass and I have caught his father looking at him often with admiration and pride. Scott likes to boast that if there’s a child of his that will follow in his footsteps and become a police officer, it will be Gabe.

Truth be told, this statement terrifies me. Not my baby, I want to say, but I know Scott’s right. Gabe is too literal, too rigid in his understanding of what’s fair to avoid the draw of what his father does. Gabe likes to be a hero and want his closest family to see him as such. He referees fights between kids, he hands out warnings to his siblings about what is expected of them, and does his best to keep people safe.

He’s super sweet too. He can be heard saying “I love you” on a near constant basis, and will kill himself in numerous fake falls just so he can hear Preston’s melodious laugh. He picks up his toys when I begin to clean (before I ask him), he changes his own bedding when he has a nighttime accident, he thanks me profusely if I clean his room, or make him an extra special dinner; and If I pretend to be upset by something one of the children has done (Preston and Edie aren’t nearly as sympathetic as Gabe) he’s the first one by my side, stroking my arm and telling me that it’s okay. He loves to inform me that  I’m his “favourite” and that he wants to “keep me”. He melts my heart.              

He’s turning four (going on twenty) and I just wish he understood that being a kid is fun too, he needs to take a little more time playing, and a little less time correcting all the injustices in his small little world.  But if he really wants to he can continue telling me how much he loves and appreciates me… :) I won't complain.

Speaking of myself and not complaining (weak lead in…I know) I received one of my two biopsies. This was a core needle biopsy and the wait was the worst part of the entire process. The request for my biopsy was put in Dec 23^rd and by March 6^th I finally had the biopsy done. For those of you who have never experienced it I have to say that it wasn’t so bad for me. She cleaned the area, numbed me, sliced me with a scalpel so that she wouldn’t have to pierce the skin with the needle itself, and inserted the tip of the “gun” as the radiologist dubbed it into the hole she’d just cut. With ultrasound as her guide she found the lump, positioned the gun appropriately and fired a length of needle through the tumour gathering the needed tissue. She did this twice as the tumour was small (1.5 cm), and the needle was a 16 gauge. She then informed me that the look of the tumour on ultrasound and the smell…yes “smell” of the gathered tissue, reassured her that the tumour was benign. Now I’m not sure if she was being figurative or literal about the smell but I’m going to assume she knows what she’s doing!

Next week I should have the results and a date for my last biopsy; this one is an excisional (they take the tumour out). They are taking it out because it hurts and because it’s irregular shaped. I’m a little more stressed out over this biopsy because the ultrasound results weren’t completely reassuring... though my surgeon tells me that it’s most likely a “Complex Fibroadenoma"; however she also told me that the tumour “requires” biopsy and anything that “requires” further testing freaks me out. I haven’t had the best run with luck, odds or percentages in the past five years, so I just want this all over with already. I hate “waiting”. Waiting is LAME. I just want answers.  

So anyway that’s why March has been a slow month for blogging, I’ve been busy with biopsies and birthdays! Hopefully April will allow more time for my writing!

I Suck at Parenting...

It's true. I suck at parenting sick kids. Normal mothers fawn over their sweet, ruddy faced child, whereas I'm more worried about containing the infection. I admit to slapping "contaminated" cups out of my healthy children's hands, and diving across furniture to cover a coughing mouth, and yes I have even been heard screaming "Do YOU want to get SICK?!" Ultimately, I come off looking like a rabid Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible - karate chopping cups, diving over furniture, screaming in slow mode ...

Truth be told, I have never confessed my dread of virus's to anyone. It's much easier letting people think I have it all figured out and that I am a parenting Guru; just call me Master Sensei! ;) But the sad reality is...illness is my Achilles heal. Yup, June Cleaver I am NOT.

Their snotty noses, raspy voices, and disgusting diarrhea poops make my first instinct one I'm not proud of. If I could - if it weren't obviously inhumane - I would treat their illness like something that had the potential to kill a million people if it ever breached the walls of my home!

Oh how I wish this were possible because the hard and fast rule of parenting a sick kid is - if one gets sick they all get sick! I have three toddlers and this translates to three times the amount of bodily fluids to clean up, not to mention three times the tears, oh and three times the paranoia...hello heart defect child lives here!.

But what if I could contain the infection..what if somehow I could prevent transmission...

Quarantine!!!

To do so effectively a person would have to follow a few steps. First and foremost isolate the carrier. Put patient Zero into a room that is easily sealed off *don't forget to wear a face mask and surgical gloves* and  remember that copious amount of ingested Vitamin C can never be wrong (probably). While the child is in lockdown resting comfortably, tape up some shower curtains and leave the room immediately. Once outside the area of contamination wipe down any and all surface that may have been touched, coughed, sneezed or barfed on!

Now don't forget about the tiny prisoner patient. They will need to be fed, bathed, and generally taken care of, so make sure to have a Hazmat suit on hand; one can always ask the CDC if they have an extra one laying around, and although this may insinuate intentions of terrorism - it's totally worth it. If obtaining said suit is impossible try surgical masks or holding one's breath when entering the room.  Above all touch NOTHING. If the child needs to be touched (to take a temperature or change a diaper) then throw on another pair of surgical gloves and burn all clothing afterwards.

It may seem as though these measures are extreme but a mother's sanity must be maintained at all costs, and being sick while taking care of sick kids is a torture I would not wish upon my worst enemy - Okay that's a lie.

Once the virus has run it's course then free the child.

Of course I'm not completely insane, I understand that I cannot in Canada in good conscience do this; plus the CDC refuses to return my calls. So I guess instead I will fall back on the old standby...

I will give them warm milk (ensuring no cross contamination occurs between the sick and the healthy), I will cuddle and rock the virus laden, tiny human (while breathing shallowly and heroically attempting not to pass out from lack of oxygen), and when they've spiked a fever I will put them in lukewarm baths smelling of lavender (while secretly plotting their next saline nose injection).

Yes I know how this all sounds - but I am not a germ-a-phobe! I'm just a parent who dreads the common cold as much as a single person dreads Valentines Day.

Inevitably it will all boil down to tears, snot, and liquid medication...

Love and Life

To My Loves for Valentines Day,

     Before you swept me off my feet, I was a leaf upon a trembling branch caught between seasons. I held stubbornly to the life I had always known, too afraid to look down, and oh so terrified of letting go. Soon, a sky full of color billowed around my face, as one by one, those I'd  grown up with entered a new season of their lives and left my quaking side. I did not know how to follow their lead, and faked the flight all beside me took so willingly. But in truth, I still held desperately to the tree that was yellowing my silky skin, and crumbling the tough stem of my resolve.

    Then from the west a wind began to whip around my wilted frame, breathing new life into my aching soul. You wrapped yourself around me, gently tugging, until finally I flew with you. I twirled and danced upon your confidence, free at last to explore the world around me. Graceful and lithe, we remain, forever a leaf caught in the wind. You my sweet husband, will always be my fall - a head over heals tumble that freed me from my lifeless state.

   With great anticipation I looked forward to the spring where new life would sprout and grow. The wind and I had worked as one, and the soft kisses of his breath placed me gently upon the ground. I settled in and sank beneath a piece of earth I would claim as "home". I changed completely then, from wind blown leaf to fertile soil, and soon I could feel new life pulse within me. A gorgeous and delicate flower breached the surface of the world, and at once I was anew. I would nourish you, my son, in every way I could. A life built from my own. I will always think of you Dear Gabriel, as the spring that enriched my world and introduced me to the possibility of renewal.

   The breeze gently blew around my son and I, whispering 'I love yous' and bringing relief from the relentless heat. And soon I was aware of another seedling beneath my soil, a gift from my beloved wind. She grew lovely and strong, and I was left breathless and dumbstruck by all that I had. This summer flower grew more quickly than the springs cautious bloom, developing at an alarming pace; and you little Edie, soon intertwined your roots with Gabe's, and we all grew as one. And so, my Dearest daughter, you will forever be the summer that created a garden from our little piece of nourished soil, a true and vibrant Eden.

   The winter came and I was aware of one more precious life within me. But when he began to sprout a defect within his stem stopped him from a full emergence into this bright and wonderful world. Before I could stop the change, my soil began to freeze and all nourishment from my ice encapsulated heart just stopped. Winter was upon me, and he was not at all what I was promised. I felt that I was once more, a leaf wilting on the branch, scared and frightened from all that was unknown.

    But within me a courage I had never met revealed a heart not dead from fear, but only in hibernation - a defence to the cruelty of nature. Beneath that frozen soil I discovered that my heart was not glacial, but instead beat so ferociously that the ice surrounding it, melted faster than it accumulated. And so my precious Preston, you will forever be the winter that taught me nourishment is not enough, a strong and ferocious heart is also needed.

You are all the seasons of my life, and I will nourish you for as long as my beating heart will allow. And when it's time I will float above the earth once more, dancing upon the clouds, no longer afraid to let go, for love was my life, and my life was lived.

This House

I shake my fist at the heritage artifice that is my home; often times cursing its poor construction and my naivety at being a first time home buyer. Against our better judgement, spurred on by excitement and the ultimate sign of independence, we waived the option for inspection. It was a brand new development surely it was built properly. It wasn’t.

Now I find that I fantasize about leaving this place and purchasing some land with a farm house nestled in its center. I live there most days, on this fantasy farm, picking fresh fruit and calling to my giggling children...

but something unexpected happened...

I choked up.

I fought back tears when my husband suggested we might have to go sooner than I was prepared for. Leave? But we only just got here. It seemed like we just moved in.

He apologized.

I chastised myself because its not his choice. When it's time to go – there is no debate. RCMP members are moved as often as every three years to reduce the chances of corruption and ensure impartiality. It doesn’t make leaving any easier, though. I tried to shake it off. Home is where the heart is. My heart is with them; with my sweet, beautiful, loving kids and him the husband.

But a part of me revolted against the reality. Leave my home? What about the measurements on the wall and the hardwood floor thats seen so many firsts, and we can't leave the bath I laboured in, or the yard they play in...

This house - It's only three years old, and I have lived here its entire life. A lifetime that has been spent standing tall during some of our family's most awe inspiring moments, and sheltering us during some of the worst trials we've ever endured.

It's a stubborn little house, a house with personality. And somewhere along the line this heritage artifice etched a place into my stone heart, cracked my hard facade and safely encased a million memories.

These walls, they whisper to me, they tell our story and if we leave it...will I somehow forget it all? So many events, so many beautiful, gut wrenching moments, so much life. How can I step away from that so easily?

It would seem I can't...

And so I have come to the only conclusion I can draw. I love this place. I love it despite its problems. I love it because it's more than a poorly constructed house, somewhere along the line it became a part of the family. And I find...somehow...my heart is here too, between these walls, drumming a percussive beat that flashes through memories and moments in a blink of an eye. A beat that simply says...

love them, love them, love them

I'm linking up with YeahWrite this week (June 11, 2012) with one of my favourite posts from this year.