Full House, The Lost Episode

Last Monday morning as we were freshly home from our mountain trip, I carried ten thousand things on my mind for what I would need to accomplish.  Kevin was back to work, there was no fresh food in the house, laundry piles hip-high and half filled suitcases and souvenir bags lay everywhere, and also Vacation Journals called for me, as we hadn't gotten around to them while on the road. 

I felt overwhelmed in the first days of being home, not as if we'd been gone for months, but more overwhelmed than I saw fitting, just the same.  

We were all worn out from traveling and I gave us time to slowly fall back into a routine.  I continued to feel off, and awful, and by mid-week with the ever-repeating cloudy weather and chill in the air I realized that it was possible I was coming into seasonal depression.  It happens some years, and others not.  And it's the most peculiar thing, since fall is one of my very favorite things in life, that the chemicals in my brain should pronounce themselves Terribly Out of Whack while I attempt to devour the best of the colors, smells and crisp autumn temperatures from behind my camera lens and within my favorite jeans and hooded sweatshirts.

Just the same I trudged forward with my List of Musts and previously signed-up-for engagements and Kevin and I had an important pow-wow, now sure that my person was taking an unplanned trip through utter Sadness and Despair.  It was, in fact, bringing luggage filled with all motivation and ability to process day-to-day normalcies with it, and I, not a crier, was crying about everything.   

This past Monday was KJ's seventh birthday.  And if there is one thing that is high on my list of Important Things, it is making sure that there are fantastic birthday memories for my children.  We have family gatherings for cake and presents, and fun activities.  This year we'd met friends at Lego Land the day before, and planned cake again the next night, which I think would be the eighth time this birthday season.  Birthdays are those days I get to think about my child all day, and over all the years how wonderful he is and how my life is infinitely richer for having him in it.  You never know how special childhood birthdays really are until you are on the parent end of them, and you get to fall in love with your child all over again.

And then I opened my eyes on Monday morning feeling like a goner, as if I'd been hit in the gut with an old wooden baseball bat, and couldn't muster the strength to get myself up and pull myself together.  I lay in my bed beside my birthday boy, there after a bad dream the night before, quietly singing happy birthday to him as he opened his eyes, and I told him that I loved him, and I was so proud of him and that I wanted him to have a wonderful day.

Then by mid-morning he was screaming from the tops of his lungs, and the Earth spun far from its natural orbit as my son got the idea somewhere that there existed a possibility that he should not have to homeschool on his birthday, but possibly he could watch television all day instead, he thought.  And this is the part where parenting is so difficult, and so tricky, because with your first child it is always the first time for everything and there is no manual for how to get through a very important battle with your child on his birthday. 

As things escalated, as they sometimes do, I stood there sobbing in the middle of my kitchen, lost in the chemical warfare going on inside my brain, trying to explain to a now-seven that spending your birthday painting pictures of mountain sunsets and creating other masterpieces on All Day Art Day, and calling it homeschool, is infinitely better than five hours of SpongeBob.  We live a good life on our birthdays, or at least we should.  We do what we do, not lay around wasting time.  How do you tell that to a kid?  A kid who is now so worked up, yelling and stomping his feet, crying such angry tears because he suddenly believes it possible that his mother is trying to cheat him on his day?  It probably would never have even surfaced in a parallel universe, had I whisked him off to public school earlier that morning, because all kids go to school on their birthdays, right?

He insisted that I was mean, so mean, and that I was ruining his birthday by not giving him the day off.  We yelled at each other and we both cried.  I had a fit of my own, in the middle of all of the anger and sadness that might be remembered as the seventh birthday morning.  These are the things we mothers don't talk about very often, how we majorly screw it up with our kids because we, too, are human, and we have all-too-short tempers and simply don't know what to do, most especially with an oldest child, because we've never been there before.  We don't have the right words, we didn't expect the problem, we don't have all the answers.  I mostly try to handle things from a calm place.  I have worked very hard over many years to keep my shit in check.  But I blew it, here.

By lunchtime I told the boys we needed to start over.  No day ever has to be a wash-out unless we decide it so, and we apologized and settled down and painted.  We rented a movie, ordered his favorite dinner and had one of his friends over to play with his new Lego set.  Kevin came home from work on time, we had cake, and a mostly good day.

A volcano, even, in his mountain sunset. 

So I went to the doctor yesterday, with symptoms ranging from chills and fever and wheezing all the way down to sure death, and I feel almost silly admitting that I managed to catch the Swine Flu, of all things.  But I certainly believe it, having been sick as a dog since Monday afternoon.  My to-do list seems to be growing by the second, but at least this evening I can sit up straight again and speak English.  We did indeed skip homeschool yesterday instead of the day before, and my children did watch television a good portion of it while I lay shivering and dying on the couch.  This early part of fall has been quite the learning experience, if nothing else.  I hope that I can again gain momentum and drag myself out of the seeming pit of misery as my tamiflu kicks in, or hope at least that maybe all of the despair was only my body gradually losing the battle against a bunch of pig germs.

Thankfully, we have almost all of the autumn season left to go.

Comments

[Bethany]

I hope you feel better soon and no one else in the house catches it.

Thanks for posting about your bad day, it reminded me that I am not the only one.

[Annette]

You are the first one I actually know who has gotten that darned thing. I truly hope you will not have to deal with four others having it at the same time. Stay well.

And, if you could get through such a day as KJ's birthday in the shape you were in, girl, you are most positively doing it right!

[Frema]

"These are the things we mothers don't talk about very often, how we majorly screw it up with our kids because we, too, are human, and we have all-too-short tempers and simply don't know what to do, most especially with an oldest child, because we've never been there before. We don't have the right words, we didn't expect the problem, we don't have all the answers."

Oh, yes. I feel this, too, with Kara, who is just starting to test our limits. My kids are younger than yours, but this firstborn business, I am right there with you.

Feel better soon, friend.

[Erica]

Feel better soon! I liked the picture w/ a little hidden symbolism in there for the type of day you had. He was feeling volcanoeish? Eruptive! I will keep my fingers crossed that your kids don't get this and that once you are feeling better the other yuck feelings go away too.

[Jenny Bolz]

Don't beat yourself up, my friend. We have all been there. You are a wonderful mom and teacher. It's ok for our kids to see us be human (especially when they drive us to the point of insanity). You don't have to be perfect all the time. Even Michael Jordan missed a free-throw now and then.

Feel better :)

[Stacey]

Oh, thank GOD...you ARE human! I love your writing always, but I needed to hear this one today (from the mom of one newly 7 year old boy to another, Lord help us both). Sincerely hoping you feel better soon!

[Jenny]

How do you get over the swine flu? Oinkment. How do you get over the bird flu? Tweetment.

Hey, maybe I'M seven!

Glad to hear you are on the mend. Hopefully no one else gets it. I absolutely know about the seasonal depression. I don't love fall nearly as much as you do, but it is my favorite season and I hate that this happens along with it.

[debi]

How are you coming along? I am worried about you Molly. You are amazing.

[Jen L.]

I hope you feel better soon. Thanks for writing about your funky day. Keeping it real for all of us, you are. (And apparently, I'm Yoda now...)