Child Not Typical, Results May Vary

Ryan. Aka "Captain Awesome."

Meredith is in Holland.

The young mother actually lives in an apartment in Westchester, NY with her husband and her son Ryan.  But her metaphysical arrival in Holland occurred when Ryan was just two.

“I was struck by the fact that all of his friends were really advanced talkers,” Meredith says.  “Ryan had individual words at the same time as his friends, but they were all forming sentences.  I thought they were just really advanced.”  Meredith asked her son’s teachers whether he should be tested.   “I was expecting them to say, ‘Oh no no no.’  It was the way they looked at each other (when I asked), I thought, oh crap I shouldn’t have asked.  But of course I am really glad I asked.”

Ryan’s testing revealed speech and social delays.  The specialists advised that he be moved to an exclusion school.

“I asked if they could just send speech therapists into his (regular) school.  I didn’t know that that wouldn’t be enough for him.”  Because he was her first child, and because she did not know that he didn’t talk when she wasn’t around, Meredith did not understand initially how different Ryan was from his peers.

“(Schools) don’t use words like ‘autism’ unless you use them first,” she says.  “I think they don’t like to freak people out unnecessarily.  I didn’t realize how classic a case of PDD he really is.  They clearly did.”

Eventually, Meredith understood. 

“I went into mourning for a period of time,” she says.  “Mostly because it was something so completely alien to me.  You are struck by the need to change not only how you think of your child, but how you think of yourself and your child’s future and learning what is a reasonable expectation and what is not. “

This is when Meredith arrived in Holland.

Welcome to Holland” is an essay written in 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley, a mother trying to describe the experience of learning that her child was disabled.  She likened it to planning a trip to Italy, reading books for Italy, learning Italian – only to open the door of the plane and find she is in Holland. 

It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills … and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

 

Meredith says that a lot of the adjustment to Holland has to do with grieving the loss of what she thought her life was going to be like.

“I get jealous of neurotypical kids because that’s the kind of kid I was ‘supposed to’ bring home and that kid doesn’t live here,” Meredith says.  Ryan’s uniqueness is most obvious in public with other children, and it makes her worry about his place in the world.

 “Seeing all the other kids in line and realizing how difficult it is for Ryan to know what to do standing in line makes us see that we’re different.   You want your kid to stand out because he is exceptional at XYZ but you don’t want them looking at him like why can’t he stay there patiently and wait like other kids?  It gets very anxious-making looking at growth charts, milestone charts – this is what your kid is supposed to be doing right now.  That is not meaningful to me, it doesn’t apply to Ryan.”

Meredith has been forced to take an inventory of her expectations.  “I can still reasonably expect that Ryan is going to do academically well in school.  Is it reasonable to expect he is going to be popular and have lots of friends?  -I think just because of who I am and who my husband is he’s going to get bullied a lot, just because we were.”

And this is what I like so much about Meredith – through her writing and in our conversation runs a thread of simplicity and honesty.    There are no sugary moments in her blog, no vapid smiles and absolutely no platitudes.

 “Now when I have my freak out moments, they’re more wistful than abject despair,” she says.  “There haven’t been that many presidents in the United States and most people go their whole lives without being famous or more than just an extra.   Ryan is a very happy kid, he brings a good time with him.  The things that he finds a good time I don’t necessarily understand, but I can’t knock that he’s laughing like a maniac.  Who who am I to say that reciting Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is not a good time?”

“Ryan is being the best Ryan he can be, I need to figure out how to be the best parent for his particular kind of kid to be. “

Meredith is acquiring a particular way of looking at the bright side, one that she inherited and has adapted to life as the mother of a special needs child.

 “I have a girlfriend whose kids have horrible food allergies.  One of her sons is allergic to 12 to 15 common foods, her other son has different allergies, so she has to balance this.  And I think, wow, all I have to do is cut out wheat.  I’m really lucky.  But at the same time I have to cut out wheat.  What a pain in the ass.”

 “It’s not a competition of suffering,” Meredith says.  “Both situations are challenging and it’s okay to accept ‘I’m having trouble’ even if other people are having more trouble.

“There’s a teenager in my neighborhood that has tubular sclerosis and he’s going to be in diapers the rest of his life, and he may live a life that’s meaningful to him but not one that I recognize as desirable.  Ryan will be able to live a life that I consider desirable.  I have no doubt that Ryan is going to eventually mainstream and be a functional member of society.”

Much of Meredith’s coping skills were inspired by her great Aunt Yetta.

“She was an adorable, tiny little woman,” Meredith says.  Before a planned trip to Las Vegas, Yetta broke her arm.  She decided to go anyway.

“She thought, ‘ I could have a broken arm at home or a broken arm in Vegas.’ Her friend hit the jackpot, they were being driven around having a great time.  It’s a great way to look at things. You could be miserable looking at things or miserable having a good time.”

One of the unexpected challenges of life with a special needs child is the way Meredith struggles in the culture of neurotypical children.   The societal judgment all parents face for Meredith and Ryan takes on special significance.

Often, Ryan’s behavior is unfairly judged by people who don’t understand how hard he’s working.

“I would like parents to really understand that this situation that they’re seeing is a moment, they’re not seeing how we got there,” Meredith says.  “If my kid pushes another kid, it may be because that kid got into my kid’s space and my kid didn’t know to deal with it.  I feel bad that a kid gets pushed, but I have to deal with what’s going on in his head that’s making him push somebody.   I will ask if you’re kid’s okay, but you should also not lecture me that my kid is a bully and that am not taking care of him.  I want people to be empathetic and I don’t see why it’s so damned hard for people to see that we’re all trying to do what’s best for our kids.”

“I wish every school had an inclusion committee.  I wish that special ed didn’t have to come with a stigma.  That was certainly how I thought of the special ed kids when I was in school. It’s the ‘R’ word.  I think when kids throw that word around it’s hurtful and it’s a sign that they don’t have empathy for special ed kids.

“Ryan is not stupid, Ryan is really smart.  He may not have the conversation skills that other four years olds have.  There are great benefits to having a mind that works differently.” 

One of Meredith’s favorite illustrations of how her son is different is Mom-NOS’s essay ”A hair-dryer kid in a toaster-brained world.”  This essay quickly became a favorite for me, too.  It speaks to the core of what we parents should be trying to create in our children’s communities — a world that recognizes and has no fear of difference and appreciates each child as a unique gift.

So I ask Meredith – “What’s the best thing parents of neurotypical children can do to help include Ryan and his way of being?”

“Have frank conversations with your children,” she answers.   Meredith’s wish for her son is a world in which parents work to teach their children that neurotypical is not the only right kind of kid to be.  “The parents are the biggest influence on how their kids are going to treat my kid.  I wish all parents of typical kids would teach their children the many different ways there are of being.”

Check out Meredith’s blog at The Ryan Files.

Meredith is also a talented quilter

 This is a crib-sized quilt, hand-made by Meredith, with gorgeous fall colors.  We’re auctioning it here at damomma.com.  If you are interested, drop me an e-mail with a bid and I’ll pass along the highest bid to Meredith.  Winner gets the quilt, and an autographed book from me, along with our thanks.  The proceeds will go toward Westchester Arc, and our dreams of a world that celebrates the joy of many different ways of being.

Vinaigrettes — Roodled Doodled and Totally Not Ready for School

On the way back from the trapeze lesson, Ren is asleep, Mare is pensive.

“Momma,” she says.  “Ren did the trick before I did.”

“Yeah, ” I grin.  “She did it before anyone did.”

“But she’s not better at it than me, is she?” she asks.

I pause.  It’s one of those moments that come along that seem so innocent, but really, you have a split second to decide something that will become policy.

It will dictate the relationship between the people you love most. 

“Oh, no, she’s totally better at it than you!” I say excitedly.

“Really?”

“Of course.  You know that, don’t you?”

“I — well, I guess I just didn’t want you to say it,” she says.

“Why wouldn’t I say it?”

“Because … Momma.  Because.  You’re never supposed to pick between us!”

“Mare, goof-ball, I’m not picking between you.  She’s going to be better at some things than you are.”

It is a hurt silence — the kind distinctive to almost-eight year-old girls.  I know she is fighting tears.

###

The family room is so completely disgusting I am ashamed to even speak of it.  I promised myself that before the start of school, it would be useable again.  After days of postponing I finally admitted to myself what it needed:

A power sander.

I bought a little hand doohicky, plugged it in and aimed it at the polyurethaned surface of the art table.

Do you have any idea what a hazard flying dried milk can be when shot at you from the sides of a sand paper belt? Yes, this is me, this is my life.  My children’s play table is so disgusting that the only solution is power tools.  I — who swore I would NEVER be that mother — am discovering that dried milk layers require two rounds of 150 paper to remove.

###

A market run.  This is what is sounds like in my car:

“Momma do you think Athena is the goddess of philosphy and war because people think and fight in the same way?”

“Momma you said we could have ice cream, I want ice cream.”

“NAAAAAAH!  NAAAAAAH!”

“Can I get ice cream?”

“Momma, are philosphy and war that much alike?  Most of the gods are gods of things that are alike and that makes me wonder –”

“Can we go right now?  Before the market?  I will behave better in the market if I have ice cream —”

“NAAAAAAAAH!”

“EDENY NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!  — Momma, ice cream?”

###

“How do you know she’s better at it than me, Momma?” Mare asks.

“Because she’s four and she did the trick first.  Did you hear what she said when she landed and the guy was helping her take the harness off? — He said, ‘You did it!’ Like he was totally shocked.  And she said, ‘Yeah, dat was what we practiced, right?’ — Like, um, hello?  Wasn’t I supposed to do it?”

Mare laughs.

“Do you remember the week before she was born when we were in the toy store and you wanted to buy both the Polly Pockets and the princess nail kit?  And I told you how this week you can’t have both because there is only one of you.  But next week there will be two, so we can buy two and you both get to have both?  This is like that.  You can’t be best at everything, but all the things the people in our family are good at, we get to share.  Renny going off that trapeze was a great moment, her great moment, and an awesome moment for our family.  Why are you so quiet, love?  Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I’m really annoyed.”

“At me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s okay.  What are you annoyed about?”

“I’m annoyed because I hate it when you’re right.  And now I’m embarassed.”

“Oh, see, well, that’s my gift.  I don’t do trapezes, but I’m totally right all the time.”

She laughs.  It is my first real glimmer of the adult to come, the woman that will grow to be my friend, that will call me to ask me the complex questions about work and family and will come to know I don’t really have all the answers.  I should be thinking how awesome that will be, but on the drive home I am thinking that soon she will be a teenager and I think she is supposed to hate me then and I’m not sure I can stand it.

##

At the local fair.  I have been telling the children all day that the game people specialize in tricking kids and taking their money.  We walk buy one of the balloon-dart ones and the man says,

“Hey, mind if I give your kid a free throw?”

Ren’s little face lights up.

“Okay,” I tell her, “but remember that your chances of hitting one are slim, and I am not going to pay for a shot, okay?”

She picks up the dart, tosses it, and pops a balloon.

“OH YAY!!” she says.  “I WANT THAT ONE!” — Pointing to a fluffy unicorn.  (“It’s so fluffy I could DIE!”)

“No,” he says, “I said ‘free throw.’  I did not say ‘free prize.’”

Motherhood has made me bolder.

“Seriously?”  I ask.  “You’re going to do that to her?”

“I can’t give away a free prize,” he says, confidentially, like a car-salesman hiding a deal from his manager.

“You’re seriously going to stand here and pull that on this kid?”  I say — but then I get cut off.

“You are a tricker!” Ren says excitedly.  “JUST LIKE MY MOMMA SAID.  You trick kids!  You are so mean!  Let’s go, Momma!”

So we go, and then I spend my money putting her in a little hamster ball, which, frankly, I think I should have done years ago.

Yes, she's totally wearing flannel pajamas.

 

 ###

In the car, on the way home from the fair:

“So den he said, “I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THE PRESENT EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS AN AMAZING SHOT, LITTLE GIRL!’  And den I said, ”YOU ARE LYING AND TRICKING LITTLE KIDS AND YOU ARE A BAD PERSON AND IF I EVER COME TO ANOVER FAIR WIF YOU IN IT I WILL TELL ALL DA KIDS YOU ARE A LIAR AND A TRICKER.”

“Momma, did Ren really say all that?”

“Basically,” I say.

### 

The Tilty Floored Farmhouse, a few questions:

What’s with all the cups in the freezer?

Oh, experiments.

What’s in the cups?

Fruity medicine mix. – No!  Don’t move it!  She’ll know! 

Why is there a huge stuffed lion in your bed?

Because we can’t find the pillows.

I can’t help but notice the panty collection by the tree outside.

Is THAT where they’re all going?

So, really, I want to know, what does dried milk sawdust smell like?

Remember waking up in the middle of the night your first weeks nursing and you have a milky shirt and then the baby barfs on it and you’re sweating and full of nasty hormones?  Okay, squeeze a rotten tomato and some rotten chicken over that and you’ve got an idea.

Happy Blogiversary to You! — Winners of the Blogitty Blogiversary Giveaway

The winners were selected by drawing numbers out of a bowl and counting the commenters to match the number.  In the case where the commenter’s name was hard to specify, I included the time of the comment.  If you think you’ve won, please drop me a note using the contact form and tell me in the body of the note what you’ve won, and the mailing address you’d like it sent to.  (Very important to tell me what you won because I’ll never remember and might be tempted just to send you a pack of gummy bears and be done with it).

Thanks again so much for celebrating with me.  I’ve really enjoyed reading your comments and was touched by all of them. 

Via Instant Coffee Packs

Decaffeinated: allisonsara

Iced: Katie F.

Caffeinated:  Kim (stressedmama)

 Gift Certificate to b good

   Jennifer Krieger

 Tickets to Expressing Motherhood

1  Liz C

2  Becky @ 11:45

 Tilty Floored Farmhouse Care Package 

Jess @ 1:37

 Package Aden and Anais Blankets

   Mommie V

 Frog Hollow Farm Peaches

 Heather @ 11:14

Year Six — Fourth Star to the Right, Straight On ’til Morning

This is Year Six of The Bloggity Blogiversary Celebration, which begins with the explanation here. 

Throughout August and into September, 2009, we waited for Eden to gain enough weight to be tested for the metabolic disorder.  She seemed better, was gaining steadily, but at a very slow rate.  Finally she weighed enough, and they stuck her, for something like the twentieth time.  She screamed her heart out and I cried in the tiny little phlebotomy room with the black and white photograph of Grand Central Station and the sign that said, “Did you ask the patient’s DOB?”

“Elizabeth-she’s-okay,” Dr. Button said when I answered his call the following day.

“Really?”  I said.  I couldn’t quite believe it.  Just like that, it was over.

Sometime shortly after that call, it started to be obvious Eden was really okay.

Life at La Casa Loony Tunes settled and I finally had some time to think about other things.  I finally wrote to the women who found my site by Googling “not cut out for motherhood.”  Ren demonstrated her astonishing vocabulary and the hazards of letting her fall asleep mid-afternoon.

Oh, and there was the whole flying squirrel incident.

 I was so proud of fighting for Eden, giving her life twice, but so disappointed in myself for yet again failing an infant’s sleep schedule

In April, the thrill of my life, my great adbenchure, made possible by the astonishing number of you who contributed to the expense of sending me to the STS-132 launch.  Have I told you lately how very very much that meant to me?

In July, we took the girls to visit my folks in Colorado, and That Grand Man sang all the old songs to Eden, and Gran performed her first ever diaper change.

It was a lovely year.  It is a lovely time.  Cute Husband and I are the proud, battered, tired, elated, hard-working parents of three beautiful little women.  Our girls thrive and stumble and giggle and fly through the air and test our patience and eat well except when they eat crap and they watch too much television and they’re ours.  And life here in the Tilty Floored Farmhouse exceeds my sweetest dreams.

My sixth blogiversary is here, and the cool air of autumn is settling in.  The semester starts, and I am finding my place at the dining room table where I will write and grade papers and feed babies and get up on occassion to seriously contemplate doing laundry. 

To celebrate my sixth year of blogging, the extremely talented Miss Kimi, the designer of my fabulous cartoon banners, sent along six gorgeous ripe peaches from the farm at which she works in Brentwood, California.  While I read Kimi’s note the girls — fresh from painting the club house — stuck their fat fists in the box and helped themselves.  Six peaches were gone inside of thirty minutes with no evidence of them remaining except sticky faces and fingers and a pile of peach pits they plan to plant in all hopes for next season.  (I did get one bite — sweet and golden.  And they’re organic, folks.  Wow!)

Kimi and Frog Hollow Farm celebrate year six with an identical box of six peaches for one lucky reader, chosen from the comments.

Because it’s the last one, there’s a second little surprise from Gemvara.com.

Seriously, look at this website, you will lose your mind.  They make personalized jewelry in a variety of metals and stones and each piece is made to order.  You can lose hours playing around with their design options.

I fell in love with their initial necklace and have a silver “e” for Eden.  It is accented with an amythest.  (Her birthstone is a diamond, but I like purple better).

To celebrate Year Six, Gemvara is offering a ten percent discount on non-diamond center stone pieces for damomma.com readers. (Link is good for one month, and the only way to access the discount is through the link.)

Thank you so much for celebrating with me, for reading along, for being the smartest readers and commenters on the Internet, for being friends.  I am grateful to you all.

With that, we begin year seven, Cute Husband and I, and our babies – fourth star to the right, and straight on ’til morning.

Expressing Motherhood — Details, Ticket Info, etc

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Sept. 30-October 1, I will  be peforming in Boston’s producton of Expressing Motherhood — an ongoing nationwide production of women sharing their stories of motherhood.  No acting necessary.  (That’s in their literature, I share it here so that we’re all clear:  I WILL NOT BE DOING ANY ACTING.  I will find it challenging without trying to, you know, professionally emote.)

The performance is at the Durrel Theatre, Cambridge, in Central Square.  I am giving away two pairs of tickets to readers who put their name in by commenting here.  (I’ll draw names tomorrow night)  You can purchase tickets here.

I’ve had some interest in doing a DaMomma.com get together after the performance one night. I love that idea, but only if it doesn’t involve my being expected to, you know, be organized.

See, I’m expected to wear nice shoes in this show.  Heels, even.  And honestly, figuring out how to walk in shoes and do my reading without a) accidentally swearing;  b) falling off the damn shoes;  c) throwing up  … it’s taking up all my time and energy.  I’m sure you understand.

I’m told that we can’t hang out in the theater after the performance, so if we’re doing it a get together it has to be elsewhere.  At the request of a reader interested in a group get together, I set up a discussion spot on Facebook.  If something does materialize and there is enough interest I’d be really honored and pleased to be there.   If not, well, I’ll high tail it to the Tilty Floored Farmhouse to take those damned shoes off.

xoxoxo

DaMomma

Year Five, We Five

This is Year Five of The Bloggity Blogiversary Celebration, which begins with the explanation here. 

We found out we were having a girl – and kept the secret for a long time.

When we finally told, I fell in love all over again with the man I chose to have daughters with.   Roodle did her usual spectacular job celebrating the New Year and I made a little public service anouncement that breast is not best.   I rediscovered the joys of pregnancy, this time with two kids running around.

 In March, Mary came with me to register for baby items and in April, I became a mother again. 

We named her “Eden” for the eternal human faith that all things end well.  The first thing everyone noticed about her was that she was an unusually beautiful baby with rosebud lips, and gigantic chocolatey eyes that were very very alert. 

Right off the bat,  there were challenges.  First, the Percocet tapped into my mother guilt like some bad form of Inception, it made me spill all my secrets, like that we brought home the wrong baby.

Then the children started behaving like wild rabid wombats until I treated them like seals, which totally fixed it.

Eden kept losing weight, started being tested, and that was when they found her abnormal liver function.  We were so freaked out, Cute Husband and I, that we escaped with our baby to Cape Cod.

My fifth blogiversary was spent waiting it out to see whether Eden had a metabolic disorder, or just a severe infection that could resolve on its own.

Year Five is sponsored by my absolute favorite baby product of all time, Aden and Anais blankets.  I picked up a package at Baby’s R Us while Mare was registering, thought, “Oh man, was I suckered, ten bucks each for these?” opened the package and … WOW. 

Holy puffy white cloud, Gargamel.

Finally – a baby blanket obviously made by a person who has actually cared for a young infant.  These blankets are huge, but very light and soft.  They swaddle beautifully.  You know that magic trick the nurses in the hospital perform?  The one where they take your baby and the mess of blanket, whip their hands around a few times and hand you a perfect baby burrito, with absolutely no parts sticking out?  That thing’s so tight you could play dodge-ball with it and it would absolutely not come undone.*

You can do that with these blankets.  It’s like they know how to do it all by themselves. 

The blankets are perfect for dropping over the bucket — they’re breathable so they’re great for shade or bug screening or a defense against morons who don’t know not to touch someone else’s freaking baby. 

I still use Eden’s for sheets or a light blanket in summer, and was bringing it along to events for a sitting spot for her until quite recently.

Aden and Anais blankets come in a rainbow of colors.  I prefer plain white because they can be bleached, and because I love the look of a baby in a plain white swaddling cloth okay-maybe-it’s-a-madonna-and-child-complex-let-a-post-partum-mother-be.

I’m absolutely thrilled to be offering one lucky reader a four-pack of Aden and Anais blankets.

*Do not play dodge ball with your wrapped baby.  DO NOT PLAY DODGEBALL WITH YOUR WRAPPED BABY.

This I Learned From Briar Haven: Chucking Them Off High Platforms Shuts Them Up. For a While.

“I’ve had enough of you people!” I said, throwing them in the car.  Mare’s mooning for Briar Haven has given us all the twitches. 

I found the activity I thought might shut her up for a while. 

She was the youngest one there, all pink and blonde and giggles. When she climbed to the platform, a crowd gathered. "No way she's going to jump on the first try," I heard someone behind me say.

But I knew my baby, I knew she'd jump. She did one better, though. She was the last to jump but the first to perform the assigned trick -- put her feet over her head, invert, and swing, head down, from her knees. The crowd went insane.

Mare totally forgave her.

The professional shot, courtesy Beantown TSNY Trapeze School, Jordan's Furniture, Reading, Massachusetts.

Of course, Mare went, too.  And on the second pass, she performed the trick. 

 

We did this on a whim — literally, I am not kidding you, to shut them up — and it was an awesome choice.  The school is located inside Jordan’s Furniture, Reading, Mass..  It’s a really neat indoor environment with liquid fireworks and a candy store and ice cream shop.  So people mingle and watch the trapeze work. 

 I loved the instructors.  I was surprised at how much coaching they gave, how invested they were in two little kids they were seeing for a single drop-in session.  Mare was frustrated when she kept missing the hand-off on the final trick and a coach took her aside and talked to her.  She told her what specifically Mare needed to do physically to make it work, but then talked to her about her mental game, too.  Mare didn’t end up making the trick, and I was almost happier about that because she got such great feedback about trying, not getting what you’d hoped for, but still feeling satisfied in having gone for it.

And Ren?  Well.  Everybody freaking knows about Roo.

Year Four — The Strongest Positive Ever

This is Year Four of The Bloggity Blogiversary Celebration, which begins with the explanation here. 

While I was packing The House, the water system fouled.  That was when the new owner came for a walk through and found a surprise that startled me more than maybe it should have.

The appraiser came and so did the sadistic landscaper.

Some dark November pre-dawn I loaded the last of our possessions into a U-Haul and drove away from the place I had loved best my whole life.  I intended to go back to say a proper goodbye, but  I never did.

I found my way Home – to the first plot of earth whose deed carried my name – and settled into the business of falling in love with the Tilty Floored Farmhouse and the wonderful wildness it nestled into.   Life became, at last, a routine of school and work, and I managed to be relatively together about it all sometimesSometimes not.

That summer, Mary entered the world of Mean Girls.  I had feared it so long that it was one of the great happy shocks of my life how beautifully she managed it. Later, she tortured her sisterTwice.

Sometime around the fifth bloggiversary I went to the hospital with headache and confusion and a high fever. Lyme disease.  My face was paralyzed on the left side, I started suffering from dyslexia and memory problems, and the hearing in my left ear faded out.   Dr. Button put me on tons of drugs and I continued to work because we needed the money.

I was so impressed at the great job Phenergan was doing of fighting the nausea from the steroids.  I said so  during a phone check-in with Dr. Button who said, “That doesn’t sound right,” followed by, “do you happen to have a pregnancy test lying around?”

WOAH NELLIE.  That was the fastest, strongest positive I’d ever seen.

When I showed Cute Husband the test he said, “Whose is that?” and I said, “DER, MORON” and then we held hands and agreed to keep our exhilarating secret quiet between us, rooting for the little baby no bigger than a tick herself, who would prove to be infinitely stronger than one.

That year I signed up for Twitter and started experimenting with “micro blogging” – which actually forced me to consider what “macro blogging” must be.  What the hell is this genre I’m in, anyway, and how on earth have I been doing it this long without knowing?

That Fall I started taking ads on BlogHer.  The blog was now self-supporting.  Some days it was hard not to feel like it should be earning me a living or something.  But in the vast galaxy of blogging, breaking even was doing pretty well, and despite myself and all my reservations, I loved my website and the people who visited me there.

In celebration of Year Four, DaMomma.com is offering one special Tilty-Floored Farmhouse care package.  It includes a bottle of lime fizzy water, gummy bears, an autographed copy of my book personalized for you, a pressed blossom from the spidery tree and a copy of View From the Top – the movie I was watching the night the fever finally broke.

Year Three — Even The Cat Died

 This is Year Three of the Six-Year Blogiversary Celebration which begins here.  All the giveaway drawings will be open through the end, so feel free to drop a comment.  I’ll draw the appropriate number of winners at random and post the names.  Also — thanks so much for all the comments and sweet words.  It really is so much fun to read and I’m all verklempt. 

INFANT WITH BURNS.” – 2007 started badly and got steadily worse.

A month later Ducky had an ambulance ride, too.

A month after that I was in the hospital with Ducky for a week, and then checking on her in the apartment every day, and then I was holding her hand at two in the morning when she took her last breath.

The House was to be sold, so we were going to need a mortgage, so I had to go back to work.  A month after Ducky’s death, I hired Moonbeam and took myself back to a forty-hour work week for the summer.  Ren cried and had night terrors.  Our life as we had known it was abruptly over.

I’m not exactly sure when that summer my cat Pedro died.   He had been gentle company in my every day for fifteen years.  When I heard he was dead, I found this odd gratitude that it happened now because I was all tapped out for sad so it didn’t hurt too much.   And then it just seemed like this horrible little punch line – yes, even the cat died.  

Year Three was saved late one August afternoon when the broker said, “There is this one property I want to show you, no one wants it …”

I walked into the kitchen of the Tilty-Floored Farmhouse and over to the window behind the sink.  “Non-developable” –the sheet said.  “Wetlands.”  (“SWAMP!!” – says Gran)  Thick meadow grass,  birds and critters (flying squirrels!) and nests and  huge trees and groupings of blossoming things in no particular order.  The house was tiny – about 900 square feet – with ancient cabinetry and battered wood floors, and it smelled like apple spice and pine.  A tall spidery tree was throwing lovely purple blooms into the grass.  While I examined the furnace,  the foundation, the sump pump, my girls gathered the flowers in their skirts, carried them in their laps on the drive back to The House. 

I put the flowers in a silver cup on the long table where my family had shared meals since long before I was born.  From that room we made the back-and-forth calls that settled on a price for the Tilty Floored Farmhouse. The blooms faded and died, and I started to pack.

I spent my fourth bloggiversary sad.  And I had cash.  And I did a bad, bad thing.

Renny’s accident, Ducky’s death, the loss of The House (and although I didn’t write about it, the discovery of Ellie’s alcoholism, and our fear that she might never be well) had left me afraid and lost.  (Although there were a few distractions, and I did try to sign Mare up for piano lessons.)

While it all felt tragic to me it wasn’t, it was just life, and I wanted not to teach my children to fear it. Year Three for me was characterized as my first experience learning to separate my story from the children’s — not to make my grief theirs.  After all, they will have enough of their own.

This separation mothers must make from their children is the theme of my Expressing Motherhood piece, which I’m performing in Cambridge at the Durrel Theater this September 30 and October 1s & 2nd.

Expressing Motherhood celebrates DaMomma.com’s Year Three with four complimentary tickets – a pair, each, to two winners– to any night of those performances.  And just for fun, included in that is a chance to meet up for coffee after the show.  Lattes and lemon loaf, people, and I may even bring Cute Husband.

Again, it’s a local item, and it’s okay to put your name in for someone you know who lives in the area.

Year Two — Everybody Knows About Roo

This is Year Two of The Bloggity Blogiversary Celebration, which begins with the explanation here. 

Ten days before Karenna’s scheduled c-section, the Commonwealth declared The House habitable, and we moved home.

The workmen continued to finish projects on the exterior and they watched with great excitement for me to start howling with contractions.  

During this time, I lost the “b” key on my computer.   I am missing only a few posts from my six years of blogging, but the one I wrote about the “b” key is a terrible loss. 

 I was trying so hard to get my shit back together, just days from giving birth, sitting in my office listening to the Beatles “Let it ‘Be’” and the workman on my roof WERE FREAKING SINGING ALONG WHILE THEY THREW PIECES OF THE CHIMNEY OVER THE SIDE.  

“Hey, someone better tell Elizabeth there’s a hole in the roof.” 

“LET IT E!! LET IT FREAKING E!” 

The posts I do have start from the next day, when I took the car to get it cleaned and fell putting the car seats back in.  A week later, Ren was born.   Winter settled, I was back in the House, mothering two small children in the windy little rooms while the storms raged outside.  I wrote a lot about Ren, about figuring out the life of sisters, and about Mare’s new discipline challenges.  

Cute Husband took a clerkship overseas and I managed by myself, but not without a lot of barf.  In May, he came home, and then he graduated. 

That was the year I started writing for Parenting Magazine’s new blog, The Parenting Post.  I felt like it was more legitimate to say I wrote for Parenting than to say I was a … blogger?  I mean, really?  What a silly word. 

At this time Dooce had just had Leta, the Pioneer Woman was a virtual unknown — blogging was an odd thing to do and very few people understood it when I tried to explain.  

And then one day the teacher putting Mare into her car seat after school looked at me and said, “So a woman sent me this link yesterday and said you have to read this blog and I clicked on it and …” 

Hahahaha.  I said. 

I write about myself.  On the Internet.  People read it.    This is my life now. 

Today’s Year Two giveaway is a celebration of my first post-hyperemisis meal, and of my missing “b.”  I was not hungry from January until late September of 2005.  I lost fifteen pounds in the pregnancy and gained back only twenty.  The nausea was so horrible I actually remember meals by how sick they made me. 

Except for one.  Just after we moved back to Boston, I happened on a local restaurant that promised “real food, fast.” 

(Oh! Look! THE B!)

  I opened the door and was instantly really and truly hungry — not for a nibble, for a big freaking burger.  I waddled up to the counter and ordered myself a burger, fries, and shake. 

Yowza.   It was savory and flavorful and filling, it wasn’t greasy or processed, it was hot and the cheese, OH YUM the cheese and the sweet potato fries!  A whole grain bun and MAN that burger was juicy! I may have licked the plate, but that’s socially acceptable when one is 12 months pregnant. 

b. good is a family favorite now –  the food is local, fresh, non-processed, cooked-to-order.  I’m super-fussy about what my kids eat (we don’t even do pizza) so this place is awesome for us. 

Jon and Anthony, the owners of b. good celebrate the missing b and the awesome meal by offering one lucky reader a $25 gift certificate good at any b. good location.  That should be enough to feed yourself and your kids burgers and fries and maybe one of those mango shakes Eden is so addicted to. 

b. good is a local chain, so only Boston area folks should apply, but leave a comment and I’ll draw the winner at random.  (It’s perfectly fine to put your name in if you have a friend in Boston you’d like to give it to or if you think you’ll visit sometime in the next year or two and want to keep the certificate for yourself).