The "F" word and other hysteria

I used to blame dropping the F bomb on my Austrialian co-workers. They used to say f.u.c.k. like others say "hello, you look pretty." It was smooth. sweet. and oh, so complimentary. I don't work there anymore. I still say, well, you know that very bad word.

The truth is, I have the mouth of a sailor, probably something I inherited from my father, who was actually a sailor and as logic would dictate, quite literally had the mouth of a sailor.

Anyway.

I have two young children. I am a yoga teacher. I am a Girl Scout troop leader. I am a volunteer everywhere.  I am a Christian. I go to church. I go to bible study. And I write about faith. And I pray. I pray all the time.

I still cannot stop it with that word and many other related words that would get my mouth washed out with soap if my Nana was still alive and kicking.

I am quite sure I am offensive.

And shouldn't I, the mother who accidently taught her child  the word "untenable", have a better word to describe the most fucked-up shit that can happen?

Opps. There it goes.

The fact is, sometimes there are no other words. Sometimes, there simply is not anything else that can be said. Sometimes things are just that vulgar and I am just that irate. Sometimes, I have no discipline.

And that my friends is the fudgesicle truth.

See, I am already rehabilitating myself. One F word at a time.

Pieces

Confession: when someone reads my blog and comments, I love it. When someone wants to talk about my blog in person, I sometimes want to hide in the bathroom.

 It is crazy.

I am both desperate to be heard and at the same time terrified to be seen. I am both that girl on the stage confidently telling her story and her secrets and that girl in the back of room in the tan sweater hiding her hands in her sleeves.

Every time I put words together in Yoke--I am putting little pieces of my very truth on display. These entries are more honest than my Facebook status. Entries are typically unedited. And each one, no matter how jovial, shows off a piece of my soul.

This is my art.

And some nights, when I am plugging away on a piece of my book or toying with a raw, honest entry about something in my life, I get myself into such a state that I cry. And then I pray. And then sometimes, I chug wine. Or eat candy. Or engage my husband or the dog in an intense debate. And then cry some more.

There is so much unpublished. There may be too much I shared. I don't know. But I do know, that something inside me drives me to share. Something will not allow me to the girl in the back of the room--I was her, once. And I hated her.

Despite it all, every time I share a link, I am filled with terror.

Because telling your truth is a difficult fucking thing. It is a cry in the night to liked minded souls--it is a prayer that you won't be alone in your life path. It is a hopeful reach into thin air for a familiar hand.

This experiment in truth telling has taught me many things: to appreciate those willing to share their bits and pieces whether through words or song or music or paint.  To know that my truth is not the only truth. To recognize that no matter how confident I appear--to share true pieces of myself is scarier than speaking in front of hundreds of people. To hope, always, that someone will grab my hand.

And when they grab it, to keep quiet about it at a party. I am not quite ready for all that public chatting yet.

Ten Words I have taught my children.

Us, be sassy? Never. Ever.

I am not sure why we wanted them to speak in the first place. Here's what my two lovely ladies are chatting about this week:

1. Apparently

Apparently, I fell in the toilet. 
Apparently, I  pooped on the floor.

2. Egregious

It is absolutely egregious, mommy. The gym teacher tells us to run, but cannot even walk fast.


3. Absolutely

See above, and
I am absolutely not doing my homework. I simply do not have time for it.

4. Remiss


Mommy, you have been remiss again. I wanted a present after school. Where is it?

5. Untenable

Chloe, stop being untenable. You make absolutely no sense. Minnie Mouse is not married to Donald Duck.

6. Pit

Clean my room. It is a pit. What did you do all day, exactly?

7.Furious

You are making me furious, mother.


8. Sinner

I am sweatin' like a sinner in church
or, a new variation, just this morning:
you are a sinner, mommy.

9. Gourmet

This is not the gourmet meal I asked for. I wanted chicken in the shape of dinosaurs.


10.Fancy

This is not fancy. I want to be fancy. Make me fancy. Fancy! Fancy! Fancy!

It ain't no Cabbage Patch: Part 1

My two healthy children have wiped my memory nearly clean of the absolute train wreck that was their two separate births.

Both little darlings were born entirely too soon--by all standards. Lily was born at 29 weeks, 5 days. Chloe, at 31 weeks. Both were cheated out of ten weeks in the womb--ten cozy, cuddling weeks to grow big, develop strong lungs and you know, finish the whole gestational process like God intended.

Whenever I mention that I had two premmature births, inevidently, someone comments:

"They were just in a really big hurry to be born."

or


"Wow, so you just went into early labor. Lucky you! The last few weeks of pregnancy sucked."


or, my all-time favorite:


"How adorable! I loved preemie Cabbage Patch Kids!"


Let me tell you. Preemie-hood ain't no Cabbage Patch. And I would have sold a kidney to experience the last 10 weeks of pregnancy. And my babies, my babies were in no hurry to be born. I never went into labor, never even had a Braxton Hicks nor did I make it to a birthing class. There were no embarrassing scenes during which my water broke at the grocery store: my doctor broke my water during my emergency c-section, while I was hooked up an IV of magnesium sulfate and a blood pressure cuff squeezed my arm every bleeping minute to make sure I was not about to stroke-out or something.


I had preeclampsia, twice.

2 lbs 14 ounces. Lily was prepped for the ventilator seconds after birth.

And it nearly killed me. It nearly killed my daughters before they even had a chance to see my face. Preeclampsia has killed all future hopes at a large family--if we do decide to expand our family, we will adopt.

I like to consider myself a unique individual--but preeclampsia is not even remotely uncommon (about 5-8% of pregnancies are afflicted and if you ask a room full of mothers--my bet is one of them had PE). Preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal and infant death globally (deaths are in the realm of hundreds of thousands). It can be mild or severe or anything in between. No one knows what causes it. And there is only one cure.

End the pregnancy. Deliver the baby.

Twice, I started my pregnancies in fantastic health. With Lily, I had just finished a year of running and had completed a half-marathon. With Chloe, I was an active yogini--teaching, training and practicing daily. When I began my first pregnancy, I did not have any of the traditional risk factors: no family history, no high blood pressure or diabetes and not one auto-immune disorder in sight.

But, somewhere between 28 weeks and 29 weeks, something went awry. I was swelling--what I thought was normal pregnancy swelling was not--I gained 50-60 pounds of water weight. I woke up the morning that Lily was born, March 13, 2006 and was nearly blind in one eye. It was fluid build up. At my OBGYN, my blood pressure was slightly elevated. Then a simple urine test revealed my kidneys were spilling protein.

A swollen face. Not my best.

Dr. Levine, who I do credit with saving my life and my child's, told me: Pack your bag. Get to the hospital. You will have a baby by the end of week.

There was no hesitation in his voice. Mike and I drove home. And for the first time in my life, I thought I was going to die.

My check-in blood pressure at the hospital was something like 190/100 and then a few minutes later skyrocketed to 210/100. Dr. Levine called and told me my c-section was scheduled for 10 p.m. It was 8 p.m.  I woke up that morning and suffered through a two-hour long conference call. I ate lunch at Baja Fresh. I had a long phone call with my best friend in Maryland.  I wrote text for a brochure about the prevention of blindness, while my own eyesight was in jeopardy.

I ignored all the alarms bells my body gave me.  I was young. I was healthy. I was invincible.

"It ain't no Cabbage Patch" is the first of a series of articles on preeclampsia, a life-threatening disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Preeclampsia and related disorders such as HELLP syndrome and eclampsia are most often characterized by a rapid rise in blood pressure that can lead to seizure, stroke, multiple organ failure and death of the mother and/or baby. 
Join me and my team LilCoCo at the May  12  Promise Walk to the benefit the Preeclampsia Foundation in Challenge Grove Park in Cherry Hill, NJ. 

There is laundry on my dining room floor.

Future Bag Lady in Mary Poppins the Musical.

There is laundry all over my dining room floor.

And I have decided to call it quits for the day--to take off to the proverbial golf course and hit a few balls.

There is also a Tupperware container with fruit in the middle of the living room, which I will let rot.

The sink in the Hello Kitty bathroom is filled with wet clothes and what appears to be a pile of Squinkies (oh well!) And Lily keeps asking me for various cleaning supplies--Windex, paper towels and most disturbing, bleach (maybe she can deal with the fruit situation).

I have no idea what has gone on. And I have no idea what I am going to serve for dinner. And I think I forgot to put deodorant on. And I might, I just might smell like urine. Although, that smell could be coming from anywhere.

But, I am now off the clock. The house might burn. The neighbors might wonder why we are all getting dressed in the dining room. But I am quitting, for today. 


I have no clear idea how I arrived in this very spot--the spot where I fear allowing anyone to even peek in the windows. The spot where I consider drinking at 4:30 in the afternoon while hiding in the bathroom closet. The spot where picketing my own house and going on strike seems appropriate. I have no idea what I am protesting, exactly. I am just completely, totally bewildered, befuddled and babbling.

My day began at some point in the middle of the night when Lily woke up crying about something.

I have no idea what this "something" was exactly, but I do know that every time I attempted to leave her room, she would wail, as if being spirited away in the middle of the night by Mother Gothel and I resigned myself to sleeping on the very edge of the bed with an Easter Bunny pillow pet as a pillow.

While I enjoyed my plush accommodations, Lily slept with one eye open (on look out to make sure I did not escape before sunrise) and  Chloe pushed around her Minnie Mouse Bowtique shopping cart. Apparently, her puppy had to go to the hospital, over and over again in order to get shots.This went on for hours. And hours.  In fact, Chloe is still taking her puppy to the "hospital," while intermittently stopping to scream at me wildly about tutus.

She will play a fantastic homeless person in Mary Poppins someday.

So, back to the laundry. I sort of remember the children being tasked with "finding all the socks" last night. Then I remember leaving. Followed by returning. Followed by falling asleep full of hope in my own bed, before waking up in Lily's room feeling hungover.

I have no idea, however, why the clothes are still there. Or when the Squinkies migrated upstairs and jumped into the sink and why, oh, why is Lily spraying ME with Windex.

So, I quit.

For today.

Marathon.

About two hours before Lily was born, the NICU doc sat at the foot of my hospital bed and told me that Lily, about to be born a 29-week preemie, would never, ever run a marathon, so I needed to lower my expectations.

My blood pressure monitor alarmed and I remember thinking, "Lily will run a marathon. And she will run it, while you watch from your lawn chair eating Cheetos."

Then, of course (you know the story), Lily was diagnosed with a brain tumor. One of the first questions I asked the neurosurgeon: "Will there be side effects? Will Lily be in a wheel chair?"

After all the million things that could and almost definitely would happen, he said: "Her frontal lobe will take over. It will take time. It won't be easy. But she will be fine."  One day later and Lily came out of brain surgery, a 14-month old who could no longer hold her head up, let alone sit on her own. She cried very time we lifted her out of bed. She wouldn't smile.

And, I thought, well, that stupid NICU doc was right, no marathons for Lily. Then a day later, Lily laughed. Mike made me bring in a yoga mat and the cloud lifted day by day, week by week and year by year.

Now Lily is pretty good at sitting. She is also pretty good at running. And she is a damn good equestrian. Lily aspires to paint beautiful pictures to put in galleries, while playing on a college lacrosse team. In the short term: she just wants to get strong enough to do a cart wheel and ice skate.

Lily also hates going to school on Gym class days. She hates it. She cries. She tells me "it's not fair." She says it is too hard.

It has baffled me--this hysteria from a girl who took a ballet and tap dance class when she could barely walk; the child who shows fear, but still pushes ahead, roller skating before she could run; the school girl who runs with the boys right after school everyday; the little girl who wants to learn everything and anything--who loves her body for its perfection (flaws and all). Lily, who is braver and stronger than everyone I've ever met.

At first, I ignored her--thinking maybe this is an excuse for not going to school. Then, I thought, well, her Gym teacher is sort of gruff--more of a yeller and than hugger--but truly loves the kids, after all she chose to be a teacher. And Lily should learn how to deal with difficult people.  Then, I thought, maybe Lily just does not want to wear her sneakers--maybe it is a fashion dilemma.

Then, finally, I asked Lily, in a calm moment--what's the deal?

She said, "Mrs. X yells at me to run. She yells at everyone. She just yells the entire time. She yells at me to run like the other kids and I just can't do it. Not yet.  It makes me sad and frustrated. " 



And there it is: The NICU doctor is back--the outer voice that screams at you all the things you cannot do--that voice that reminds me of your shortcomings and demands that you fix them or feel like crap. This voice is now yelling at my 5-year-old.

I could get on a soapbox about my opinion on the role of physical education in schools (but that is for another day). For today, I am worried about my daughter--the little girl who some said could do nothing and others said would do it--the little girl with a tender heart who, because we had no other option, was raised to be a warrior. My beautiful child with more scars on her 5-year-old body, than I have on my 34-year old one.

Once a week, Lily walks into a gym class and is told what she can't do. Berated for not doing everything the same as others. She is reminded of her body's imperfections and told that makes her something less. She is graded on her inability to jump--as if this inability today--is something she will never be able to do. Lily has been introduced to the cold, mean world of naysayers--a place where you are defined by everything you can't do right now. She has encountered her very first grown-up bully.

I am so scared this woman will ruin it all for Lily--that her negative voice will take root in Lily's beautiful head--and someday Lily will be less than Lily wants to be--because she will believe that she is less. And that somehow, Lily will miss her marathon.