London Fog

I’ve barely had time to process our trip to London. When you’re an introvert, you just soak things up. Tuck your experiences and memories away in your cave, then when everyone else is gone bring them out so you can look at them and think about them all by yourself. Some of the things are shiny and wonderful. And others not so much.

Dan did an awesome job documenting our adventure in a mini travelogue that he posted daily on Facebook page.

But it’s the in-between moments that are still messing with me the more the jet lag wears off.

• Traveling with a highly deregulated child is challenging. And that’s me choosing a gentle word for it.
• The architecture took my breath away. I was busy looking at buildings and flowers and “missed” all the Porsches, Maseratis, Bentleys and Yeezys my kids were on the lookout for.
• People used to look at our family and think or say , “Awwwww”. It was very different this time around. I have a lot of feelings to unpack on this one…
• The countryside was stunning. I would have thrived in a little town in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but read and write all day long.
• People don’t know how to walk in a crowd. They are probably also the terrible drivers. And there are a lot of them.
• There was a definite “feeling” about London–the consumerism and narcissism was nearly suffocating.
• The weather was, shockingly, incredible. London loved having us.
• An American blowdryer turns into a blowtorch in Britain. We made some memories…

One small step forward

A friend shared good news today. It reminded me that I’m more prone to vent the negative than celebrate any size victories.

A few nights ago, I was washing dishes. Mr. T came out of his room and asked me to come lay on his bed with him while he fell asleep.

This has never happened before. 

Like ever.

I dropped the dish I was washing and it shattered into smithereens and my foot was bleeding but I just left it all and limped with a shredded foot to go lay in that bed.

Well, not the dish breaking or bloody foot part, but if there had been a glass dish in my hands or I was starring in a sitcom, that would have conveyed the shock I was experiencing in that moment.

I laid on the bed listening to 39 Clues. We giggled every time the voice actor talked in a weird voice or shouted one of the character’s names, “DAN!”

All of a sudden the little guy rolled on his side and wrapped his arm around my shoulder and heaved a huge sigh. He said, “I wish I could fall asleep every night like this.”

This has never happened before. 

Like ever.

After a few minutes I had to return to the three other kids who needed homework help and those pesky unwashed dishes.

The following morning, he woke up in a fantastic mood. He said, “Last night was awesome. Can you come in every night like that?”

And that is the closest I have come to getting an “I love you, mom.”

Because that has never been said before. Like ever. And sometimes the opposite is shouted at me (shoot…see, it’s so much easier to default to the negative!)

Who knows if we’ll ever get there, but I’d like to think that maybe someday that part will come. And this invitation into his room…well it’s a step in the right direction and definitely worth celebrating.

“DAN!”

giggle, giggle

 

Scream louder

I love being screamed at.

Especially while driving.

Thankfully, it was just me and him. This time, his siblings were spared the peripheral damage.

For no real reason. That’s often how it is. There’s no inciting incident, just some bottled up rage that had to come out full force and full volume on the way home from karate.

• Maybe because he came in 3rd place out of 4 losing to lower belts during sparring practice?
• Or because he was up past his bedtime last night?
• Or because he refused to eat the string cheese–I knew he was hungry and so did he!
• Or because I just could NOT understand or correctly answer the absolutely off the wall question he was repeatedly asking me over and over…and louder and louder…
• Or, most devastatingly, for no reason at all.

Because something inside him said, “you’re angry, let ‘er rip”. No matter that it’s your wonderful, sweet, loving, patient, takes so much crap from you and keeps coming back in for a hug mom.

I’m learning how important self-care and hope is in this season. I end up the brunt of misplaced and unprovoked anger, frustration and unkindness. And later when I’m still trying to just breathe and he doesn’t even remember doing it…or just won’t admit it. Dear Jesus, please take the wheel! I’ll be curled up in the trunk hiding from the monster…

Looking forward to some more specific answers beyond four letters in the near future. ADHD. It’s so much bigger than its little acronym lets on…

We’ve recruited an entire team to help us from every angle. All the people! All the things!

Yet, this alone space…it’s so loud and complex here.

So until we figure out how to connect and support each other, carry on beleaguered warriors. I have to believe the fight for this one is worth the bruises.

Survival mode

I’m stuck.

And I don’t really know how to talk about it.

We’ve been working for years to try to get to the bottom of it–to find a cause. Which would indicate that somewhere out there is a solution.

But the reality is that when it comes to the brain, there is still so much unknown and a whole lot of nasty stigma that is forcing us to wander a land between called “survival mode”. We know too much to go back, and have come to far to want to. But there isn’t yet a way forward. So it’s one day at a time, one step at a time.

We need a term like special needs. But I don’t think most of humanity thinks ADHD and all of it’s complexities is special.

I wish others could understand that we’re dealing as best we can with an unseen, under-understood and as of yet, un-treated ghost that daily haunts our child. Or not, because somedays it doesn’t. And on those days, we’re cautiously optimistic, but stumped when it returns again full force or more. For no reason at all. How do you study something that seems to have a mind of its own?

I wish we had a term that doesn’t shame or mis-identify, but lets others know when someone is deregulated in the moment. Where we wouldn’t have to explain that if we knew how to fix it we would, but we don’t, and this is his “normal” and we’re all gonna be ok someday.

At least that’s what we keep telling ourselves as we continue to jump through all the hoops, appointments and tests. And dream of that elusive “someday” that gives us just enough hope to press the button for survival mode one. more. day.

40

It flew by like a whisper.

No candles, no singing, nothing to unwrap. Just a huge sigh of relief that there were no surprises and no fuss. Because that’s all I really want–normal.

Just the “Happy Birthday” banner hung up in the dining room, a manageable amount of texts, cards and phone calls from special people, and lunch out sans kids with my guy.

I don’t know why I’ve never loved birthdays. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super glad I’m alive.

Maybe because I’m an introvert, I’d rather it just be another day. And hopefully nice and sunny. Because I’m pretty sure I’m solar powered.

The one day I smile a little easier and get to joke and say things like, “you have to be nice to me today because it’s my birthday” to my kids. And gift myself with a milkshake and skip my morning workout.

It was a normal day–helping a co-worker, getting ready to host a church event in our home for 26 tweens, and knowing from my toes to my nose that God had a reason to put me here on earth. Ephemeral. Nothing you could capture and post on Instagram.

Feeling an abundance of thanks for the glance in the rearview mirror that showed a mountain of daily blessings piled higher than I can see, and knowing it’s more than I deserve.

A fresh wave of dreaming and wondering what’s next because although my life has been pretty amazing thus far, I know the best is yet to come.

Pots n Pinwheels

updated 3.24.16

I know they’re just pots, but they do more than hold dirt. They retain memories and are a symbol of intentionality for our family.

6 Easters ago, we set up a scavenger hunt. The final clue led to our neighbor’s trampoline, which we had piled with four giant plastic pots, bags of soil, flats of flowers, gardening gloves, shovels, trowels, and a four unique pinwheels.

Each child thoroughly enjoyed filling their pot with a lower level of rocks, then some dirt and some carefully, some exuberantly, arranging and planting the flowers they had chosen.

We wanted these planters to be a visual reminder of the fact that Jesus died for us, that his body was placed in the ground, but that he rose again and something beautiful came out of that wondrous event.

Two years later as we packed up our belongings to move from Michigan to Georgia, I could not leave those pots. And it was a dilemma because if we wanted the pots, we had to get rid of the flowers.

I came up with a solution that seemed the best thing we could do with both. We unplanted the flowers from the pots and took half to my sister-in-law’s house and planted them in various spots around her garden and planters–hopefully they would be a sweet memory of her nieces and nephews. We watered those plants in tears that day–such a beautiful bittersweet goodbye.

The other half we took to dear friends who had just moved into their new home and added them to what we called a “friendship garden”. It colored up their back yard beautifully and we enjoyed taking a picture of the 6 “friends” in front of their newly planted friendship garden as a sweet memory before saying our goodbyes to them as well.

I emptied the big pots of their dirt and debris, washed and dried them in the sun, then made sure they–along with the pinwheels, gloves, shovels & trowels–made it into the pod for moving.

Once we unpacked, I thought the pots ought to be used for a bit more than giant baskets in a ball-toss game on the lawn. Our new house needed to look like us.

After cruising all the ads online to find the best prices, we drove to a few places and gathered a handful of plants and a few bags of dirt. We got out the pots, the gardening gloves, shovels, trowels and watering cans and we planted. Once planted, each child proudly placed their pinwheel in their garden then skipped away in glee.

It’s been 6 years since we started planting flowers for Easter. Two moves later, our kids are still looking forward to the tradition of planting something new and beautiful in their pots.

I know they’re just pots, but I hope they will last forever. That for the Great Scotts–who have more than graduated from being the Scotts Tots–these will be a constant reminder that no matter where we go, we too, are just a vessel for something beautiful that is alive in us because of Him.

 

It’s always at camp

Every year at camp, something happens to me.

One year it was overhearing a camper’s heartbreaking wish.

This year, it happened in a bathroom.

At first, I thought maybe my “moment” was hearing my daughter singing her heart out in the bathroom stall. Which, was indeed quite adorable. I want her to be uninhibited in her worship–even if that means belting it out in a bathroom.

But that wasn’t my moment.

As we were scuttling back to the auditorium, a leader rushed up to me and fumbled, “excuse me, could you please come help a little girl in the bathroom?”

“Where is she?”, I asked.

We walked as fast as we could…he threw out, “it’s not one of my campers…my campers said there was another little girl in there just…really upset.”

My mind went to the worst place.

As I rounded the corner and reached the bathroom door, a girl emerged. She was almost as tall as me and…well…stocky. It looked like she had tried to part or style her hair, but it just came off like a bad cut exacerbated by a bad perm–like her mom knew she was struggling with her weight or size or confidence and had tried to give her the gift of a salon hair-do, but even that wasn’t working out for her.  She had red “I’ve just been crying but have pulled myself together now” eyes, so I knew it was her.

“Are you ok?”, the other leader asked.

Instantly, she melted into tears again…

“It’s ok”, I told cooed. “What’s going on?”, I asked as she tried to hustle away.

She had a panicked look on her face, but I needed to know she was alright, so I pursued her down the hallway a few steps.

I don’t exactly remember what happened next, but amid tears and a down-turned face, the story tumbled out in bits and pieces…

She had been trying to hold it…there was only 1 stall in there…everyone would laugh at her…she had peed all over the floor…she just wanted to leave…everyone was going to make fun of her…she just wanted to get back before anyone found out…

I was relieved. This was fixable. It was not the “worst thing” as I had imagined like we all do when you hear of a little girl sobbing in the bathroom…

Without thinking twice, mom-mode kicked in and I just did what I would have done for either of my own little girls, and what I would wish for anyone who was in the vicinity of one of my little girls should they ever be in a crisis of this sort.

I asked her if she was OK–she said yes.

I asked her if she was wet and needed to get changed or if she could just go back to the auditorium–she replied, ‘only a little on my shirt, I don’t think anyone will notice it’ before the crumpled-face crying and embarrassment and shame of it all hit her again.

I told her I would take care of the bathroom, then I pulled her pee-soaked, bad permed, camp-smelly self into a hug and whispered, “you’re ok, it’s all ok, you just get back to camp and all you need to worry about is having a really good time.”

Then, I went into the bathroom to take care of the mess. And it was an ocean. And there were only those thin, scratchy brown paper towels that don’t soak up a sneeze and don’t change shape or color even when immersed in a sink full of warm water.

I began covering the puddle with the brown rectangles and watched them do nothing but float on the top. I gingerly stepped on a few to see if that would help the absorbency process along any…

My new sneakers…

The smell of the urine…

My gag reflex…

The camper that had been in the stall during “the incident” and now at the sink asking, “what is that on the floor? what happened?” knowing full well what it was…

Oh God, help me!

“Oh, something just spilled…and I don’t want anyone to slip and get hurt”, I willed the words out of my mouth around the threatening gag reflex. She stood there and watched, waiting to see if I grimaced as I bent down to scoop up the sopping, dripping cloths with my bare hands.

Dear God, give me strength to do this.

Nosey Nancy finally left when she saw that I wasn’t losing my cool and wasn’t offering up any more details.

Four rounds of stubbornly impermeable brown towelettes later, I managed to dry the floor enough for it not to be a slip hazard. And my dinner was still intact.

The leader who had asked me for help was lingering in the hallway to thank me for assisting the distressed camper–apologizing for dragging me into the situation.

“Life is already hard enough for some of these kids…it’s a tough age…camp isn’t always easy…I just didn’t want her to worry about this on top of it all”.

Always. There is something that happens at camp. And it’s usually to my heart.

Batgirl: I am no longer

This is a true story that happened to me in June 2011…every year I re-post how I became…BATGIRL!

Backstory:  Beginnings
                  Dillemma
                  Pierced
Performing amazing feats of logistics

The day 7 shot was a God-send. I called my regular physician and left a long and rambling message to see if they could help me find a place, other than the mega expensive trip the downtown ER again, to receive my rabies injection: I was having a hard time finding a place in Michigan that had any rabies serum other than emergency rooms, which are $$$ and did not want to administer them to a walk-in since they had them in stock for “emergencies only”.

In a shocking turn of events, my doctor’s office called me back to let me know that another patient at the practice had been undergoing a rabies series and never came in to get their 5th injection. The serum was not yet expired and I could come in to their office and have it administered by a nurse there. Praise God, an easy one! This shot was in my left arm, and I had to sit for 30 min at the doctors office to be observed to ensure I did not have a reaction to the injection. Hmmm…none of the other places made me sit and observed me for a reaction…

Day 14 took place while we were in Chicago. Friends had gifted us a hotel room so we could have some fun family time together after finishing our job at the church but before moving to our new location. I typed the address of the hospital (I had already called to verify had rabies serum in stock) into my GPS and put on my brave face. I found the hosptial, parked, went in and took a deep breath as I told my story. “I got bit by a bat and need to get the next shot in my rabies series…”

Because I was from out of state and because my doctor was as well, a doctor certified in the state of Illinois had to re-write my prescription so that I could get the shot. Apparently bat bites in Chicago are common–the nurses told me they had tons of vaccine here and regularly gave this series of shots–especially to entire families that wake up to find a bat in their house and don’t know whether anyone got bit or not, so they all have to go through the entire series. Yikes! This time my shot was in my right arm.

My fifth and final shot took place in Oklahoma, where the kids and I stayed with my parents for the month of July while Dan traveled the country hosting summer camps. Because we were not yet in the state of Georgia, where our new insurance would cover us, and because we were no longer covered by our “old” insurance we had to do everything out-of-pocket as if we had no insurance.

I had to be seen by a doctor licensed in the state of OK and have him re-write my prescription yet again in order to have my shot administered. My parents’ physician agreed to see me and re-wrote my script. I was the first person he had ever met that had actually been bit by a bat. Yay me!

I took my final prescription to the Urgent Care center and breezed right through, having already pre-paid for the shot at the discounted no-insurance rate (somewhere in the $200 range instead of the usual $1500)

For some reason, that shot was very painful and I was cranky and my left arm hurt quite a bit, but I was thankful to finally be done with this whole crazy process, and told my dad that he was no longer allowed to call me “Batgirl”.THE END.

(Or at least I thought it was until the bills started coming. My first ER visit was nearly $4,000. More bills to come…)

Batgirl: Performing amazing feats of logistics

This is a true story that happened to me in June 2011…every year I re-post how I became…BATGIRL!

Backstory:  Beginnings
                  Dillemma
                  Pierced

To complete my rabies series, I would need to get injections 4 days after my original shot, 7 days after, 14 days after and 28 days after.

Kind of a pain, but REALLY a pain if:

• No medical entities in Michigan had the serum in stock and could administer the rabies shot except for the ER downtown (and it took nearly 20 phone calls to find this out)
• The family and I were headed to church camp the next day and would be in the boonies hours away from home and without cell coverage (unless you were standing in the middle of the soccer field) when the day 4 injection needed to take place
• I would be in Chicago when the day 14 injection needed to take place
• My husband’s job would be changing hence our medical insurance would be changing right in the middle of my series of injections
• I would be in Oklahoma when the day 28 injection needed to happen and the new insurance would only cover me if I were physically in the state of Georgia

It was excruciatingly frustrating to have to try to figure out how, when, and where to get these shots on the exact dates they needed to happen and in the locations that I would be on those dates. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent making phone calls to hospitals, ER’s, med centers, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and the insurance company to get each and every poke procured.

Not to mention the cost. Google how much a single rabies shot costs. Now multiply by 5. Add in ER visits and all the miscellaneous hospital expenses they LOVE to tack on. No wonder Bill Finger made Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, a millionaire; no one less endowed could afford to survive a bat bite!

Day 4 injection

My dearest friend, who was also volunteering at church camp, drove me 45 min to the hospital nearest to the camp that assured me they had a rabies shot to give me. We drove over what appeared to be a 27 foot long black snake on the dirt roads as we drove to get there. I walked into the ER and sat and waited, along with a man who had sliced his hand and was gushing blood, as all the old people who had fasted to take blood tests were taken BEFORE the walk-in emergencies. Again, I state, gushing blood man had to sit and wait with his arm elevated and trying to contain the blood flow with a paper towel while Alma, Cletus, Edna Mae, Walter, and Edith all got their cholesterol checked.

After finally being taken to the ICU of this very tiny hospital, I was told to sit on a bed and wait. My room adjoined another patient’s room, and he had just been helped to the restroom that adjoined our rooms. Let’s just say the sounds I heard rumbling from the bowels of that bathroom were making me ill as I waited for the nurse to decipher my chart because, “she ain’t got no stickers on here!” Lord help me! I don’t have stickers on my chart and they aren’t going to give me my shot!

Finally a nurse with a syringe entered my room and asked me where my most recent shot had been, then proceeded to inject my alternate hind-quarter before I was released. I did not get a band-aid on my injection site and my release entailed no paperwork. “Have a great day, honey–walk right down that hallway, go out the door on the right and you’ll be outside in the parking lot”.  I highly suspect that syringe was filled with nothing more than plain tap water.

2 down…3 to go…

On the drive from the hospital back to the camp, we came upon some local construction. The worker holding the “slow/stop” sign apparently didn’t think we were slowing down/stopping fast enough and started yelling at us before he literally tore his vest and shirt off to make his point. Not in a good way. If he had shaved in the past month or had his hair cut in the last year, had any teeth, or did not look like nicotine was his only food group maybe the experience would have been more pleasantly memorable. We laughed our way back from our very “rural” hospital experience.

…tomorrow it ends…

Batgirl: Pierced

This is a true story that happened to me in June 2011…every year I re-post how I became…BATGIRL!

Backstory:  Beginnings
                  Dillemma

I drove myself to the emergency room. Feeling a bit like a fool and also feeling like I was saving my own life.

I felt my cheeks blazing a bright red as I stood a pertinent distance behind the man in the wheelchair at the ER check-in desk agonizing about the sharp pains he was having when he …well…I was probably standing a little too close and he was probably talking a little too loud. After his groaning self had been wheeled off to a room, I took a deep breath that filled me with resolve and I walked up to the check-in desk where I made sure I lowered my voice as I leaned in and said, “please don’t send me to the psych ward, but I got bit by a bat and need to get a rabies shot.”

They didn’t laugh, but I could tell that they were entertained. After their previous customer, I think I would have been too.

I was taken to a room where I sat and explained my story to quite a number of different medical professionals. I have a feeling the ER was slow that day and not only was I the sanest person there, but also had the most interesting “case”. I cannot tell you how many times I heard the phrase, “I’ve never met anyone who has actually been bit by a bat before!”

Yes, thanks very much people, I’ll be here all day, apparently, unless someone wants to get around to treating me? Anyone else on duty wanna hear my freaky bat story?

A few people asked me why I didn’t catch the bat and keep it to have it tested for rabies. To which I had to restrain myself from retorting, “Gee, I just didn’t happen to have my gardening gloves, hockey mask, butterfly net, and bird cage on me while walking to the ice cream shop with my family.” Instead I reeled in my emotions and calmly told them I didn’t realize I had been bitten until well after leaving the area.

I had to fill out paperwork for the county so they could put on record that there had been a bat bite in the area. One of the questions asked if I knew the “pet name” of the animal that had bitten me. Umm…that would be a no.

An intern was assigned to administer my shots. Poor guy. He explained that the first shot was a half syringe full of serum which needed to be injected fully around the bite site.

Since the bite occurred on my ankle, where there is mainly bone rather than muscle or fat, he had to do 8 subcutaneous injections encircling the bite on my ankle. He was absolutely shaking and terrified as he warned me that this serum was one of the most painful shots when injected. I assured him that I had a very high pain tolerance and could handle it, but his arms were shaking for each shot nonetheless. Partly because the tiny needle was having a hard time penetrating my leathery ankle skin (each time, he would push and push until I heard a little “pop”…like the sound you hear when you are piercing a Capri Sun and the straw finally breaks through the little silver lining). Then he had to hold the needle in place and push with all his might to try to get the serum to come out of the needle into the bony void around my ankle bone. Honestly, I barely felt a thing besides empathy for this poor big bear of a guy who was battling a teeny tiny needle.

After the shots encompassing my ankle were complete, I got to enjoy a shot in each thigh and my right buttock. Poor intern. No one should have to look at my stretch-marky buh-boomba.

Before I could be released, I was made aware of the SCHEDULE of ensuing shots I would need to get to finish the series.

Despite all the injections I had endured that day, I wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

…to be continued…