Crazy yes, Sexy no...

So my fatigue has taken a turn for the worst.  I am exhausted most all the time and I can't seem to get enough rest or sleep to make it even just a tired day.  Yes, chemo is cumulative and yes, 12 months of injected poison will take its toll but am I doing all I can to help?  err...no.  I teach four year olds four days a week in preschool...I adore them, they keep me laughing and in many ways they keep me going but the situation can also be life sucking and I struggle with whether I am cheating them in my fatigue but that's a work in progress and giving them everything is my goal.  My own children have me from sun up to long past sun down and they can also be energy vampires - they deserve more than they are getting.  My husband is my safe place, my sanctuary and yet even he, in a simple conversation, can break me down because sometimes just finding enough syllables to form a word is challenging.  So I review...am I eating what I need to be?  No.  Am I doing all the exercising I said I would be doing?  No.  Am I sleeping enough?  Enough?  Well...okay, am I sleeping?  Yes.

So here we go...Crazy, Sexy Cancer Diet.  This granola guru has the answers she says.  I need a whole foods plant based diet and a lot of yoga. She came back from stage 4 cancer with living this way...whatever, I don't do that kind of tree hugging thing but I AM willing to give this a shot.  Just buying the book meant I was open to it.  Giving up Diet Coke is a definite but giving up coffee?  um...I'm pissy already just thinking about it.  And no...green tea is NOT equally satisfying.  A spinach smoothie does not taste like a milkshake and fresh broccoli steamed lightly enough to preserve enzymes is not a fulfilling side dish so let's just be honest before we begin.  If I need to do this, I will but I won't do it under the notion that I will enjoy all the raw food has to offer.  I will be open to feeling joyous later about it but right now I reserve the right to bitch.

I bought my super powered Vitamix blender wondering if a day spa with all the trimmings...about the same price, wouldn't be more fun but I digress...yes, once it arrives, I will be smoothing my way to health.  I am totally committed to doing whatever I have to do...and I will begin right after Thanksgiving.

I mean c'mon...let's be real here.  No stuffing?

Suck it up babes...

Okay so parent teacher conferences were yesterday...well I am a recovering "my kid is perfect" mom.  After 16 years, I get it...my kids make mistakes...big ones and it's my job to help them be less entitled and more humble.  I take it seriously.  I have friends - lots of them - who make it a point to praise their kids for waking up, showing up and wearing a shirt and pants in the right order.  I spot it because I was it...I made sure my kids knew every day that the world was happy just because they were born.  A disservice?  Um...yes.  A better lesson?  Suck it up, you will be fine.  I told my daughter every minute of her life that she can be anything she wants...well y'know what?  She won't be a rocket scientist- math is her deficit.  Is it kinder to let her think math is the problem and NOT her or is it better to help redirect her to where her talents will flourish?

I know someone whose daughter cried after an interview at a fast food restaurant because the manager cancelled and rescheduled and then was late causing her undue stress at her first job application process.  It caused me to wonder...am I that mom?  I have taken pride in providing my kids soft landings and I will be that mother until the last breath of life has left me but I am also here to remind them that people suck, animals die and life is a bitch...a real bitch and letting them out into the world with the notion that they will be embraced and praised for walking upright and breathing involuntarily isn't kind at all.
Just because I have the four most amazing children ever doesn't mean everyone else thinks so...in fact, everyone else doesn't think so and that's probably the best lesson they can learn.

A history teacher that is part Nazi, part Amin, part sadist has my daughter for an hour a day.  He's an eye rolling ass with a disdain for kids...no question and in my conference with them yesterday, it became very clear to me Maddie isn't his favorite. (what??? gasp!).  But y'know what?  I wanted very much to petition to remove her from his class.  She can't do anything just right enough for him and she hates it.  Every part of us wanted to fix this.  We chose to take the harder role...he is not just Maddie's teacher, he's a window to difficult people with which she can peer through and learn from.  Welcome to the rest of your life Maddie.  He's your father in law, he's your boss, he's your neighbor.  We are your advocates, We are your best allies and I am your bodyguard...if he is abusive, I will go totally LA on his ass and never stop until he's fired but if he's difficult, challenging and harsh...well, put up and shut up.  He can ask you to jump in a lake and you can come home to tell us about it, but you better be wet (Joseph's favorite parenting lecture).  I don't like it...not one bit and I hated telling her we decided she would stay in this class.  I was actually physically uncomfortable saying it...I could feel my heart pounding.  She was upset, begged for us to reconsider and then at the end of our call agreed it won't be easy but she will do it.

I found more satisfaction as a parent in her resolve to face it down than run away from it.  I find myself on better footing and Joseph and I both agreed this was the right thing despite our desire to hold her to our bosom as we face the storm in advance of her.  I'm proud of her.  I always am.  Even when she screws up.  Almost especially then.

In the interest of full disclosure, I put the Nazi on notice...you fuck with my kid, I will be your worst nightmare.

I never said I was good at this letting go shit.  I just said I did it.

Cleansing during insomnia

Okay so why is it I am my most insane in the middle of the night?  I am like one of those creepy weirdos who stay up at night with secret habits...I am my MOST vulnerable at night.  I notice my stretch marks, my thighs, my wrinkles, my bad habits, my obscene addition to caffeine and I start researching all kinds of things - on the menu today was a 21 day cleanse...yes, cleanse.  Two shakes a day, a million supplements and a brown rice powder soup...um, rice powder...not even rice itself. For the girl who bitched the ENTIRE day of Yom Kippur because I could not have coffee, I think THIS is a good idea?  Well yes, in theory.  Don't we all want to feel younger, stronger and thinner?  Don't we all want amazing skin (I mean c'mon, Gyneth Paltrow endorses it...how bad could it be?), don't we want unlimited energy, nine hours of sleep and a clean colon?  And for only $500 you too can have this...along with 21 days of hunger, headaches, fatigue and bad skin while you "detox".  Only I can think that's an interesting proposition.  I tried for ONE day to forgo cream for non fat milk in my coffee and made a face to anyone who watched me and yet 21 days of rice powder soup and colonics I find attractive?  I was even encouraged to take the healthy eating and clean lifestyle quiz to see if I have any unhealthy eating habits or addictions...for this I need a quiz?

So I think maybe I can try a pre cleanse cleanse...veggies, fruit, weaning off coffee...but no, not this girl - boring.  I like it all or nothing baby.  And then I consider my schedule.  Can I start AFTER Halloween?  Seriously...Joseph and I have had a yearly ritual since having kids.  We trick or treat, we put everyone to bed, we rifle through buckets.  I call it Mommy Tax.  They pay it and I don't care if they like it.  I would sell everyone of them for a frozen snickers.   So then I consider post Halloween - I could be "clean" in time for the Thanksgiving carb parade.  Hmmm...So how serious can I be?  Placing my cleansing diet around holidays whose sole purpose is gorging...??

I think for a busy mom of four it makes sense although admittedly I am attempting it figure out how I can cleanse and still have coffee.  I can't find that part of the diet yet but I'm looking.

I might even blog about it.  After a few days on a cleanse I should be a sobbing, shaking, miserable mess in need of love, sugar and caffeine.  Perfect.

If I Were a Rich Man...

Settling into the Jewish holidays for me means shopping, eating, entertaining and lots of whining from the kids about how many hours we are in synagogue and how much we can't eat on Yom Kippur.  I get it.  It's not easy being Jewish...let's face it, we do a lot of stuff - especially over the high holidays.  I can do most of the fasting without complaining but I would give $500 to the first person who can get me a diet coke.  Caffeine is the great nemesis.  So as I am shuffling about from one sermon to the next in very uncomfortable shoes and a dress I would rather turn into a set of cotton pajamas, I realize I can't place my head where it should be.  Am I grateful? Sure...I just faced a lot from a personal place...am I pissed?  Well hell yes...I don't deserve Cancer.  Am I overwhelmed?  Uh...yeah...see above but overall, I am supposed to be feeling something and I can't get there.  I'm trying - I tried all week but it's just not that magical place I see in my dreams.  In service today - yes, I am on the computer during Yom Kippur...I'll cover this next year...we move in like cattle, book in hand, caffeine headache, blisters from my new shoes we stop to wait for the Rabbi to finish so we can enter the sanctuary.  I see Maddie reach for a tallit and pause...closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, whispering the prayer as she places it lovingly over her shoulders and prepares to enter.  Then it hits me.  It's why I am here.  It's why I have always been here.  Tradition.  It's the gift we give to our children...the gift of a legacy, an identity, a place, a belonging...it's home.  It's nearly 6000 years of tradition - watered down a bit, not so factory new but as she placed the prayer shawl over her shoulders, she became one with millions of people, at that moment, who do the very same thing.  My relationship with Gd is fussy - we fight, we don't talk and it will be what it is but what the holidays mean to me is tradition.  It's the challah on Shabbat - it's never changing.  It's the family and the food and prayers and the candles...it's blessing my children over candle light on Friday night, it's bringing them to the Torah for the first time at their b'nai mitzvah, it's handing them over to their betrothed under the huppa, it's eating bagels on Sunday morning, it's making caramel apples over Rosh Hashana...it's what they expect, it's who they are, it's how we do it and it's our gift to them...tradition.  It's what Tevye sang about in Fiddler on the Roof and it's what I feel today.

I went to synagogue this morning hungry and irritated about the parking but left with the gift of why we are here and why we have always been here.  It's for our children...L'dor v'ador.  From generation to generation.

Watching my girls read the prayers, smile, yawn and occasionally giggle out of boredom I am good.  I am good because they are home and when they are home, I am at peace.

43

43.  Fourty Three.  It's really something.  I can review my life in so many ways...I can place value on it based on money, status, kids but in the end, I really am just happy.  I've blogged before about arrival and it really is a place I enjoy.  Arrival means I no longer care about things that don't matter.  Vanity?  You mean for a girl with only one breast and no hair for most of last year?  You mean hips and stretch marks  - permanent trophies of childbirth?  A bit of failing vision?  Slightly deaf?  A creak here and there when I get up too fast?  But with all of that, I see clearer than I ever have, hear joy and block out toxic sound and getting up fast means I am chasing someone...likely my little boy, and I am fine with the creaks.

So while my body may not be that of a 20 year old, my mind and soul are that of a sage.  The girlfriends I have in my life are truer and more dear to me than I have ever had.  My home, when full of people is full of warmth and when I crawl into bed at night and insomnia gets me, I crawl into bed with my children because I know watching them sleep will be something I won't be able to do much longer...

Olivia said to me I am the best mommy in all the trees and Jack said I was his best girl...Maddie reminds me every day while I should be proud and Ava bases all of her decisions from a moral angle...at 23 my life was just starting and now, 20 years later, it's cooking at full heat.  While my body isn't factory new any longer, I wouldn't have it any other way.  Well to be honest, I would have it exactly the way it is but with folded laundry.

Happy birthday to me.

it's finally here...

Well it's finally here.  Five years ago when we were sitting on the floor with Olivia, barely a few months old, screaming with colic and wondering how it will EVER feel when we are away from her for a few hours and here it is.  Kindergarten.  We brought her in today for open house; new dress, new smile, new friends...to meet her teacher.  Saw her name on the wall, in a purple circle, sealing the deal.  It means from here forward, she belongs to someone else for the day.  Mr. Depalma.  I hope he's kind.  I hope he's loving.  I hope he adores her with the same passion we do.  I hope he sees the fire in her eyes and the light in her mind as he opens her world.  I hope when she comes home to us, she is full of ideas and dreams and opinions about her day.  I hope she finds within herself everything she can be.  Along with good manners and picking up her toys, I hope she sees her full potential...I hope she looks in the mirror and sees the wide eyed, freckle faced little girl I see with her hand on her brother's shoulder but her mind on dinner.  I hope she always likes rainbow sprinkles and Hello Kitty and her big sisters.  I hope her tinkerbell lunchbox makes her smile and her new shoes remind her of all the laughing we did at Stride Rite.  I hope she walks along side me to school with a sense of pride about herself and a dance to her step.  I hope she never stops creating her own music and her own way of looking at the world and I hope, more than ever, she never stops believing.  What we view often as sassy and assertive is our beloved Livvy - who never stops doing anything her way.

And as I put her to bed tonight, counting down the moments toward Kindergarten, I hope she knows how much we adore her...not just love her but like her.  Truly like her.  And as much as we adore her, like her and know her, it is with all the love in our hearts that we bid the best of luck to Mr. Depalma...because he's going to need it.  :)