We’ve been operating in some high stress times recently. A father who is ill, another battling a court issue, an uncle on life support for a time, a husband facing job cutbacks, a wife with too much on her plate.

I have to say, it’s really, really, really hard to maintain a calm and patient demeanor so that I can parent in a calm, patient way.

Consider this - I drove from Indiana to Canada BY MYSELF with two children (8,3) and I only had to scream a couple times over the three day trip. How? I have no idea. I think the secret lies in the fact that I had no other responsibilities… nothing else I had to do.

So I’m trying that here. I’m cutting back on several things and I’m working at focusing on friends and family. I’m getting off Facebook and getting face to face. Today I went to a friend’s house who I hadn’t seen in almost a year. This despite the fact that we live 20 mintues away. Tonight I’m going to a neighbour’s house for a little get together so we can get to know one another.

I still have deadlines, but I’m trying to make them fit around my life rather than my life fitting around them.

FOXNews.com - PR Group Representing Octuplets’ Mom Steps Down - Pregnancy

I get that people do not agree with this woman having so many babies without an apparent means to support herself. I get that.

But death threats? Really? Whose crazy now?

I know I hadn’t mentioned on here before that my son was diagnosed with ADHD-Inattentive Type. I was keeping it under my hat for several reasons.

First, I don’t “get” how you can have the H for Hyperactive when the Inattentive Type usually means lethargic, daydreamy and very UNhyperactive. When I said “oh, isn’t that just ADD then?” The fancy-shmancy psychiatrist shot me down with a “ADD is an outdated term”. Really? Cause people still use it. Doctor people still use the term. Book authors with many letters after their name still use it.

Second, I wasn’t sure I agreed with the psychiatrist. There were some comments in the report (that I paid $1800 for) that were just flat out wrong. Like, I’d been there and they hadn’t happened, wrong. Not just “I disagree with your interpretation” wrong.

Third, the only time my son manifests these sort of daydreamy, lack-of-focus behaviours is at school. The rest of the time I see him as a bright, imaginative, creative individual that requires a little extra support in the praise and reminders department.

But recent events (the suicide of a colleague) had me questioning my ability to be objective. What if the young-psychiatrist-without-children is right and my son is at risk for depression, drug use, poor school performance and suicide? What if this medication they talk about  really is the wonder-drug they say it is?

So we tried it. Last week we got the prescreption and on Sunday morning he managed to swallow the pill.

And pretty much all hell broke loose.

Depressive state. Facial tic. Stomach aches. Crying jags. Zombie-behaviour. Grumpiness.

And the, at the wonderful hour of 8pm . . . totally awake child who talked to me from 9 pm to 11 pm.

Still, I thought maybe we need to keep going. Even though every little cell in my body was saying “no! stop! no more!” I thought, he needs to have some for Monday so that the teacher can see … or maybe it works better when he’s engaged all day at school.

But my son had other plans. He refused to take the pill. He tried. He gagged. He choked. He cried. Then he said “I don’t want to take it mommy, I don’t like how it makes me feel.”

Enough said.

I know that we could play with the dosage. But this matters not when he won’t swallow the pill. Heck, I couldn’t swallow a pill until I was in my teens!

And you know what? I don’t care to put him on this medication. I don’t care to put him on any medication. In the last two months I’ve learned two very painful lessons about listening to my intuition. Two times when I ignored that small, still voice and did something I didn’t want to do. Or didn’t do something I should have.

Right now, every mother bone in my body is saying no to medicating him. (Note: I’m in no way saying that medication is wrong or doesn’t work, I’ve heard some great stories about how much difference certain medications have made.)

In fact, I’m going to get all Jesus Freak on you and tell you that I distinctly felt God saying “this is the child I gave you, you are the perfect parent for this child, I gave him to you with this special gift”. I laughed a bit, thinking “gift? which gift?”

Then today a friend sent me this article.

Did swimmer Michael Phelps succeed at the Olympics in spite of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — or partly because of it?

Olympic champion Michael Phelps. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

That question is at the center of a debate among doctors, parents and educators in the A.D.H.D. community. Mr. Phelps obviously has physical talents that propelled him to become a world-class athlete. But A.D.H.D. success stories like Mr. Phelps are behind a push for a new view of A.D.H.D. that focuses not just on the limits of the disorder, but its potential.

And my entire body resonated with that message.Yes, said my mother bones. This is not a curse, it’s a gift. Our family doctor said it’s entirely possibly that I have this as well, especially after I read my son’s report and said “this? this is me.” And I happen to like how I am. I see my daydreaming “lack of focus” to be the way that my mind organizes itself. It needs downtime. Like a screen saver for my brain. Lalala… just thinking for a minute here, chillin’, breathing. But my mind is reorganizing, replaying, reshaping, reforming.

I mutter to myself a lot. I find just thinking about emotions immediately causes a body reaction and many times I can’t control it. I lose things. I am oblivious to other people even when they stand next to me and talk (hey, it’s how I write with kids at home!) and I am inherently lazy. (Really.)

But I’m also very ambitious and driven and can focus on something that offers a great reward. That’s key to the ADHD-I, they focus when there’s a big personal pay-off.

We’re still going to look at some homeopathy and possibly visit a naturopath. I’m not denying that he needs extra help focusing in school. His teacher has been wonderful by helping him learn organizational skills. She’s awesome. When I told her that the trial was abruptly stopped before it really began, she was more concerned about his well-being than how he might be “managed” in the classroom.

I can handle the whys of the two year olds. Why is that blue, why can’t I have a chocolate bar, why do I have to wear pants. Those are easy questions. As the kids get older, the questions get harder. They start to reason. They start to pick out hipocricy like editors picking out misspellings. They apply it to their own lives. Why does he get to stay out later and I have to go in? Why does she get new Pokemon cards and I don’t?

Yesterday Army Boy (7yrs) asked me one of the hardest questions. No, it wasn’t about the birds and the bees. A weight-loss commercial came on and he said “Mommy, why does everyone want to lose weight? Why do they say “WOW” when they lose weight? What’s so good about it?”

How do you explain societal pressures on thinness to a seven year old?

I stumbled a bit. Telling him that sometimes there are people who need to lose weight to be healthy. Because there are lots of diseases that can happen when you are too heavy. Diabetes, heart disease… but that some people lose too much weight and that’s not healthy either. Plus sometimes people like to be thinner because they think it means they can do more things. But really, you just need to be healthy and as long as you go to the doctor and he says you’re healthy, you are probably at a good weight.

Like you, I said, you’re very healthy and in great shape. You don’t need to worry about how much you weigh right now.

I hope it was a sufficient answer! At least I got to practice on the child that least likely to develop an eating disorder, when the daughter asks that it’s going to be much more difficult.

And, to complicate things, I started Weight Watchers yesterday, too. I have about 40 lbs to lose. But first let’s start with the 10% and then we can discuss the rest of the poundage. I don’t want to drop the weight fast, I just want to eat healthier and learn new recipes that will help me return to a healthy pre-child weight.

I’ve been quiet, I know. I’m sorry to anyone who came here some-what regularly and noticed the chirping crickets.

We take possession of our house in five days. My book edits are also due in five days. I’m PMSing, scratch that, it’s moved to the next stage known as Defcon 10. We are also potty training. Hubster is in full-fledged shift work mode now, he was home at 7 am and is sleeping now as I write/edit/clean up pee/pack a box or two/scrounge for food.

Coffeemaker broke, so every weekend morning I trek over to the local Timmies for my $2.05 double-double with a butter caramel flavour shot.

And I wonder why I’m getting fatter.

I’ll be starting weight watchers on Oct 31 with a friend of mine. We started together before, then I went and got knocked up.

30 lbs later, I’m joining again.

In the grand scheme of things, with all that is going on in the world, there is little need for more drama. As I write this there are stories playing out on TV of horrible things that have happened: floods, deaths, war, loss. But please bear with me for a moment while I tell you a little story about buying a house.

Do you remember the last post? About buying a house?

Well. We KNEW it would inspect well. We KNEW it. And sure enough, the inspector kept saying “wow” and “they wrote the book on pride of ownership” and “this is a GOOD house”. He was happy to be teaching me these little tidbits about a good house with a good example in front of him. Normally he’d be showing someone a problem and saying “now it should look like . . . ”

Now, we’d been pre-approved for about $40K more than the accepted offer, so we figured we were golden, right?

Um, wrong. See, we were doing the “zero down” thing that they are taking away as of October 15th. We were fitting in under the wire. Except that last week was probably the worst week in the last five years to try and get a mortgage.  The US was imploding; stock markets were roller coasters; companies were being bailed out by governments. We could NOT have timed it worse.

The lender decided that they wanted an appraisal done to make sure that what we were paying for the house was what the house was worth. That way if we default on the mortgage the day after we sign, they can turn around and sell it. This makes NO sense to me because it’s the buyer and the buying market that determines the worth and value of a house. The answer to “what’s it worth” is always “what someone will pay”. The bank doesn’t factor in “one block from Army Boy’s school” or “across the street from where soccer is held each spring”. No, they look at theoretically more concrete things. (What they are, I don’t know..)

It wasn’t enough that the city’s tax assessment put the house’s value at almost $100K more than what we paid (I’m going to have a chat with the city tax department about this one, let me tell you) because that has more to do with what it will cost the city to maintain your street/community/alley etc…

There were miscommunications with the appraisers, they had to come back to appraise it (I think they only did a ‘drive by’ the first time) and they promised a 24 hour turnaround on the report when it took much longer than that… I feel bad that the realtors and the mortgage broker had to do so much work - whatever kind of commission they get, they earned every single penny just having to deal with me. I’m not patient. Factor in that I was sick (fever, ear infection, headache…) and you have a very cranky client.

We were told that yes, we’d been approved for the dollars, just not necessarily on THAT HOUSE. Because the appraisal came by under the purchase price, suddenly the bank didn’t want to insure that mortgage. Or, um, the insurer didn’t want to insure it and so the bank wouldn’t lend it. Something like that. We were qualified to buy, just not any house. The bank wanted their say. In other words, pre-approval means sweet tweet.

The mortgage broker (who I’m sure had better things to do on a Friday night) spent hours on the phone with managers from BC to ON trying to find out how much the silly property had appraised at. Were we talking a difference of $500, $5000 or what?

Finally we heard that it appraised at $5K under the purchase price. Ah, for the wont of $5000. We found the extra $5000 and I signed the paper at 7:55 pm. Just an hour and five minutes before the 9 pm deadline. And about three hours after I’d lost my mind. I was literally sitting in a chair, staring at the roof and almost not caring which direction this deal would go as long as it would be over soon. Actually, now that I think about it, that reminds me a lot of childbirth. “I can’t do this any more, make it stop, make it go away, get it out.”

If you are in Calgary and need a home buying team, please let me recommend Kari & Mark Ashlee as well as Debbie Weiss with ProLink Mortgage.  Bar none, the best team you ever want to have.

September tries its best to have us forget summer.

– Bern Williams

I love September. When I was a child, I looked forward to the month when I could return to school, I was one of those kids that loved school. (Not that I loved getting up in the morning or anything)

This September feels especially beautiful. My children are healthy and happy, the sun is blindingly bright and life feels wonderful.

Aaaaand we bought a house! Could life get any better?

Well now, the political blog-o-sphere is all a hopping about Sarah Palin. Some refer to “Palin Derangement Syndrome”, which is the obtuse focus on any rumour that may have anything to do with Sarah Palin. Now some anonymous waitress has said she made a racial slur. Maybe it’s the same anonymous source that said she wanted to ban books at the library.

What I find most interesting is that there’s a segment of women who are poo-poohing her decision to hold this big job because she won’t have time with her kids. Raise your hand if you don’t have enough time with your kids.

Me neither.

As a working mom, I don’t have enough time with my kids.

There are other moms who would judge me because my daughter is in day care (”I didn’t bring her into the world for someone else to raise her!), some who believe I should homeschool, else I abdicate the instruction of my children to people know don’t know and value them; others may feel I’m neglecting their spiritual education.

What is wrong with the father being the primary caregiver? We did it for a while and it was great, it brought Major Man much closer to Army Baby. In my first marriage one of my greatest faults was not valuing the father-baby bond enough. *I* wanted to be the one to do it all. *I* was the Mother. *I* was queen above all.

There is nothing at all wrong with valuing mothers and wonderful, incredible influences on their children. But when we don’t give equal value to our other halves, we fall short. We are 50% of the parenting unit. For so long we’ve insisted on being Queens of the Household, being Supermom, being the mom that works a full time job and is still queen of the castle, the one who has it all. We’ve forgotten to thank, love and adore the husbands who stand up and be real men and take care of their family too.

Who is the only segment of society who you can still make fun of in a crowd? Men. Black, white, brown, whatever the colour, you can still make a joke about a man and it’s shrugged off. When was the last time you uttered “typical man” or “he’s such a guy”?

My point (that I’m taking a long time to get to) is that judging another mother is a useless endeavour and serves only to justify what you, yourself, are doing. “She is neglecting her kids” is followed by an unspoken second stance, “unlike me.” Why are we so sensitive about our own parenting choices? If we were totally confident in the choices we’d made - we would feel no need to comment on anyone else’s situation.

Women need to be in politics. Do moms need to be in politics?

Let me ask it another way: Do you want to live in a country where there are no mothers in political office?

I don’t know how many here follow American politics, but I do. My husband is American and my daughter, by birth, is a dual citizen. I find American politics a tad more interesting than our own. If you haven’t been following, I’ll give you a quick recap.

Obama beat out Hillary Clinton for the head of the Democratic Party. McCain beat out a bunch of other guys for the top spot in the Republican Party (which they will officially give him after the Republican National Convention). They each get to choose a running mate who would become VP. So Americans vote on the dual ticket. Obama picked Joe Biden. McCain picked Sarah Palin, the Governer of Alaska.

Now, I won’t get into politics here, but here’s the amazing thing. The biggest “slam” they can come up with is that Sarah Palin is a “hockey mom”. Sure they can disagree with her politics, but when the pull the punches, they bring up the biggest slur they can . . . she’s a, she’s a, she’s a HOCKEY MOM!

Horror of horrors!

Seriously, is that all you got?

I realize that being a VP would be all hard - you know with all those staffers to manage and get you coffee and brief you on the day’s news and manage your schedule for you.

I wonder if anyone who criticizes her has tried to manage five kids in different sports, working full-time and staying married happily. That’s a lot of work. Perhaps I missed the memo when “hockey mom” became some kind of slur. Then again, I’m a Hockey/Beavers/Piano/Gymnastics Mom, what would I know?

Because I’m trying to bless my husband by NOT COMPLAINING (it’s tough, I admit) and by stoically taking care of the kids after work without throwing any temper tantrums (mine . . . theirs are assumed), I decided to take Monkey Girl over to the bookstore so I could check out a potential purchase of crack books.

There was a homeless man having a coffee at the Starbucks and he asked me for change but God-strike-me-down I said no. Homeless and drinking Starbucks coffee don’t mix. Ouch, that was really judgmental of me.

Back to safe territory where I’m NOT a jerk. Monkey Girl was well-behaved, but it was tenuous. She didn’t want to share the Thomas toys that were set up for communal use, she wanted to open every book that had Dora on it. I decided not to buy the book I’d come for, but I did pick up a book on tape for my work outs. As we were leaving, I picked her up and put her on my hip, latte  in hand. As we excited, she launched herself forward and I ended up carrying her several steps to my car while holding her by the waist, upside down.

As I got to the car and put down my drink. I flipped her back up.

Two young women passed me, pausing just long enough to say “OH! She’s LAUGHING… we thought it was borderline child abuse.” Yes, right, I’m dragging my daughter out of the bookstore, upside down, as punishment. Sheesh.