If The Eyes are a Window to the Soul...

...then apparently mine is a bit fogged up right now.

You see I would say I'm pretty good at stress, I've learnt to recognise it, feel it, acknowledge it...all of that stuff. I try to think about the effect it will have on my body, my relationships, my functioning generally as a nice and normal human being, mum, wife, sister, friend. In fact most people tell me I rarely seem stressed to them. You know the ..."I don't know how you cope" kind of comments.

Recently I've had a bit of stress from a parallel street in the map of my life, and for some reason my body seems to be taking the brunt. I have developed a strange skin thing around my eyes that on a bad day means I look like the Singing Detective, and on a good simply that I've aged 15 years in under a month.

My take on it all is that "I'm fine but my eyes are clearly very stressed", but it does make me quietly think that I might not be in tune with what lies beneath.

So when my eyelids swelled up after daring to wear a bit of mascara, I finally went to the doctor to get it seen to. She and her student went "OH!?!?!" when I took off my glasses which I later laughed about, continuing to joke my way through.

I used the cream she prescribed, which staved off having to don a pirate patch that evening at the posh and very fun Asian Awards that I was going to in support of my sister in law.

The cream seemed to work after just one day's application and as I stood in the mirror the following morning to assess the damage, I looked down to see an enormous hive on my forearm.

I've since found another patch or two of strange rashes dotted around and have duly informed my doctor (just as the scary side effects bit of the instructions on the cream told me to.....EXTREMELY RARE, IF YOU GET HIVES CALL YOUR DOCTOR OR GO TO A&E, DO NOT PASS GO, and don't worry if you call your doctor but they don't bother to ring you back...)

So the cream goes into the fridge and the eyes are deciding what to do now. In the meantime I've developed an ulcer at the side of my mouth which feels like my lip is protruding (although actually it's not) and this morning my neck and shoulder seems to have gone into a spasm, not to be missing out on the fun.

I'm thinking therefore, that perhaps I'm not so good at stress after all.

Ok body, I'm listening, now just tell me what to do about it.

in place of posting anew

...I'm putting in a link to a post I did on a dear friend and fellow 18p- mommy's AMAZING new website - although right now the link doesn't entirely seem to be working.

The website is called Different Iz Good and it's part of Camilla Downs' efforts to make the world a better place. So please go and look at what she's doing and think about how you can join in, sign up and spread the word.


http://differentizgood.org

In case the link is broken again once I log off, go to http://differentizgood.org - there's some great stuff on there - and my little old post is entitled Musings from 4th October.

I'll be back here soon with updates following my busy few weeks of family, fun, smiles, laughs, tears, stress and more.

Happy Monday to you all
x

Having Said That - The Light Version

To balance the commuter-fury post, here is where I force myself to flip the Having Said That rule:

I do wonder how this fragmented life affects my children...having said that when I watch them playing in their room, squeezing me on our hello and goodbye's each day, and knowing that they sleep soundly in their beds at night...I know that if I'm fine, then they are too.

I wonder what kind of effect this continual fire fighting or latent stress is having on me and my health...having said that, I trust that I will tune in and listen to my body in time to catch anything brewing.

I wonder if the various balances that feel lop-sided are ever going to level out...having said that I have to trust the day to day. I have to know that I can only try to do everything to the best that I can. And I'm pretty sure that I do.

I wonder if I am missing all the good stuff while I float and flap my way through this life...Having said that I know what's good, I can taste and feel all that is beautiful around me and I do live in the moment. So recall of those moments is not as important as feeling them as they happen.

Deep breath
Balance attempted and partly achieved
Have a great day

Having Said That - The Dark Version

Last week, running running through my head as I sat on the tube, swearing inwardly in a non-zen state at the shambles that was my journey home, was the phrase Having Said That.
Here's what I wrote to distract me from my journey:

Said to fellow passenger "I'm not going to complain"...having said that how the ** can they make me wait 15 minutes for a High Barnet train then change the destination at the last moment forcing me to squash and push just to get on a train that won't get me home to my kids.

Said to various people in response to how do you do it, "well you know, I tend to cope pretty well"... Having said that I have found myself increasingly less zen and relaxed recently, leg jiggling at a furious rate at all times of the day and night.

Said on former blog post " I'm clearing head space one drawer at a time"...having said that no sooner do I clear them than I seem to overfill them again and the trees go back to obscuring and obliterating the wood.

Said to myself "that I have perspective and don't sweat the small stuff"...having said that, today I seem to be filled with what feels like murderous rage at the inflexible money grabbing of Virgin Trains and the inefficient shitness of the Victoria and Northern lines at rush hour. I have become that frowning muttering commuter.

And said quietly in my head when it all feels too much, "I can cope, I CAN cope"...having said that sometimes, like now during these moaning tube-written, travel-fury propelled thoughts and words...I don't always feel that I can.

Having said that...this hastily typed blog, in the corner of a packed tube carriage, finally safely on the way to pick up my big boy in the nick of time, finally with a seat, a bit of air and a tube that's bound for home, gave me some much needed perspective...and I guess things are not as bad as they felt 15 minutes ago.

Fancy a Game of Au Pair Roulette?

I'm a thoughtful type, but most of the thinking gets stored on post-it pads that get turned into to do lists and disappear under scratched out lines, or they melt into my eyelids as I drift off into sleep each night, never to reach conscious fruition.
Three weeks on from my last post and I realise that I've been away from the computer not due to "can't cope, can't write" but "can cope and am too busy to write".
Busy controlling the barely concealed chaos I've been living in for the last few years.

As a full time working mum I've written before about living my life by remote control. In emotional terms that means putting a huge amount of faith in the girls that come to join my family and help me out by looking after my kids pre and post school each day. It's a lottery because you can trust your wonderful agency who provides the girls, and you can give them all they need, but you can't legislate for who they are, what they want and whether the chemistry is there.
I've been very lucky over the years and have put in a lot of time trying to integrate anyone who looks after my precious boys into our family. Just like Martine and other au pairs from my childhood, who held a very special place in my heart and still do.

This year for many reasons the game roulette seemed to symbolise this area of my life. My kids were happy, well fed and looked after, but I didn't realise (or wouldn't let myself see) until a change came, that that's where it ended.

Then a month ago a bright energy entered my house, and family, and through her enthusiasm, conscientious nature and essentially who she is, I'm drawer by drawer, cupboard by cupboard, room by room, sorting out the chaos I thought was just part of life.
Sorting the things that people don't see. The things that would help those friends who say "I don't know how you do it" that I make a hash of it just like we all do sometimes.

So as I head towards a ridiculously busy 6 weeks with visits from my darling sister and family, batmitzvahs, weddings, home alone time while D travels with work, appointments, work and life itself, I feel like I can do it without too many knots in my tummy.

Each morning I am getting great pleasure in getting things out of my very neat, very ordered, bathroom cupboard.
Each evening I am grinning as I open my computer in my new office/spare room, and look at the empty cupboards thinking what I can put where in this slow, calm, happy organisation of my life.

page by page
drawer by drawer
room by room
minute by minute

I'm trying to live and smile
I'm trying to enjoy small triumphs
I'm trying to grin and eat those little doughnuts along the path towards the big creamy cake of hope and ambition that I sometimes allow myself to dream of.

The C18 European Conference

I've been thinking about writing this post since before going to the Conference which took place in Glasgow over the weekend of July 30th.

Having got myself Mum and L there, experienced it, come away, gone immediately on our family holiday, come back, immediately settled in my new childcare, immediately returned to work, immediately waved goodbye to hubby on his business trip.....I'm still thinking about it.

So here I am deciding to write it instead.

With reference to the title of my blog and those of you who read some of the posts here, it won't come as a surprise to know that I was quite scared of getting overwhelmed by the whole thing.

Overwhelmed at being in a room with all these people who know what my life is like having never met me. Who know what my son is like having never met him. Who exist, in glorious technicolour and with moving parts, not as virtual email, facebook or blog friends. Who have children older than my little man, perhaps sicker than my little man who therefore open doors in my head that I am so very good at keeping gently closed.

I often talk about living a lonely life being the only person I know in my surroundings who has the elements I have in my day to day. But there is secretly and psychologically a comfort in that, because if it's in my head, it won't be judged and maybe it won't hurt as much or sound needy or ungrateful or dramatic.

So to finally come face to face with actual people who know where I'm coming from, have as I now know way way more challenges than us so far with my lucky miraculous little boy...was and is kind of HUGE for me. Even as I type, force myself to think and write, I feel a bit wobbly.

And Yet.

The experience was amazing. The people were amazing. All the things I feared happened and even they were amazing. The organisers were tireless and smilingly amazing (Bonnie, Chris, Alistair and all). The superstar Drs Hale and Cody and all the contents of their brain that they so generously shared were amazing. The wonderful Rick Guidiotti and his energy and light, the mums, the dads, the kids, the grandparents, the siblings...all amazing.

I was and am still struck by the lack of judgement of any child's behaviour or appearance that weekend. The kindness and warmth and emotional intelligence that filled the rooms we inhabited. The worry and the honesty and the advice that people shared. The smiles and hugs and welcomes. The guest speakers. The sneaky look at the name badges and the not so sneaky "I'm a p, what are you?" people like me.

I know I'll be absorbing the experience slowly from now on and that I have got to find time to let out the emotional response that I'm gently pushing down. And those are the emotions of entering a home that you kind of wish you hadn't bought, are still slightly in denial about all the cracks in the walls, and yet feel terribly terribly lucky to have found.

I described my weekend to some friends and my sister as overwhelming, wonderful, sad and happy and very hard all at the same time. I found it very humbling to see how challenging some people's parenting is with the medical issues that their kids combat daily. I can't find the verb to describe my own feelings as mother of my boy. My boy who walks, talks, runs, plays, breathes, eats...and does so on the whole looking and acting as a typical nearly 4 year old.

My challenges however were crystallised. I have to garner the strength to keep knocking on doors and keep checking that the challenges he has are still moderate and tolerable. That the problems we know are out there for our kids are not finding their way into him. Dr Hale said a sentence that I want to carry in my wallet, medical file and heart. If you don't check, you won't know if something is normal or not.

So on I must go. Back into fighting the system to insist they find me a paediatrician or the kind of GP we need. To insist they keep me on their books even when the annual check is unchanged. To insist on even getting the annual check in the areas we need in absence of any big signposts telling them they should do one. To keep finding ways for them to take seriously my maternal instincts, C18's research and my opinion of the kind of care my child needs.

And to keep looking beneath the curls and smiles and magic of my boy and join us in our proactive, stubborn, positive and super informed approach to him, all he is and all he can be.

Thank you Bonnie, thank you Drs Hale and Cody, thank you Denise, Kristen, Katharine, Rick, thank you mummy for being my calming rock, thank you L for being my super boy.

I will fundraise for this for as long as it needs me.
I am proud to be adding our records and DNA to the scientific study and of all the good it can do.
I am shallow enough to want to be a proxy member of the Italian contingent who looked so stylish and beautiful that they rendered me quite mute. But I am able to balance that with a deeper admiration that they attended with their therapists and carers to learn alongside the affected families.

So onwards to 2012 and may all the days in between be happy.

lots and lots of time gone by

I'm breaking a blogging silence that seems to have crept up on me.

I think it all got a bit too much and I went into coping turtle mode with work home work home chores work home....you get the picture.

I'm just back from a very much needed 9 day day holiday and am at the end of a very promising day 1 of a smiley happy new au pair living in my house. Today I got L's first neuro test out of the way and with friends and old nannies around to help the new childcare, I am ready to go back to work tomorrow without a feeling of dread.

I have also been to my first C18 conference and survived without getting too overwhelmed and indeed genuinely enjoying myself. It was a all a bit of a kick bollock scramble getting to conference and then going away on holiday less than 12 hours after returning, but I am slowly absorbing all I saw and heard there.

Lots has happened since I last posted, not that I can really remember when that was without looking(possibly even before the kidney appointment in June which rattled on a little...more about that another time) but I will endeavour to look back, dig in and come back here with anything worth saying.

What I do know...before I pop off, is that I've now read two Diana Athill books and I'm even more excited about her than I was in my post

So as I tentatively type this and retread this neural confessional pathway, it's nice to be back.