Sticky wickets. 

 

I really like that word.  I think it evolved from the British.  There is another term I really like from the Brits.  It is used to describe the complete and total lack of finding something.   As in “No, not a dickey bird.”

 

What a great phrase.  Words are so powerful.  When my kids were little, I was taught that words can make or break just about any situation.  I remember when the oldest, then, age 4, had to have emergency surgery.  She…(she not he….and this is important) had a Right Inguinal Hernia.  Girls do not normally have those.  Boys, who have testicles, have them enough that it is fairly common in younger boys. Girls, almost unheard of.

 

Anyway, I digressed. Sorry. I do that a good bit, don’t I.  It’s the way my mind works, or doesn’t work.

 

So, I told her… The nurse will give you a shot that will make you sleepy.  While you are asleep the surgeon which is a special name for a kind of doctor will open your skin and fix the boo boo inside your belly.  Then you will wake up in a strange room where there are lots of weird looking machines and you will have a green plastic mask over your face to help you breathe while you were sleeping.  The nurses will be there, and you will be very scared and confused, but it’s okay. Mommy will be there right after you wake up and even though it is going to hurt for a bit, you will be fine and then I will rock you and sing to you.

 

The stupid Anesthesiologist comes in and tells her he is going to give her magic dust to make her go on a fairy ride.

 

What an ass.  I actually hit him.  Well, I sort of warned him first.  I told him “Don’t tell her that crap!  He looked at me in a patronizing way and told me that HE knew what he was doing and had done lots of surgeries on 4 year olds and his way was best.  He wouldn’t stop and in a short time we were face to face shouting.  Not the best situation.  I don’t like stupid people to start with and I really don’t like stupid people who think they are better than me, or you.

 

He wouldn’t back down so I clocked him to shut him the heck up.

 

Yeah, they called security and all that.  Course that was 26 years ago, so I didn’t have to go to jail for assault.  Actually, the head surgeon told the Anesthesiologist what an ass he was, and we got another gas passer.

 

Words are very powerful.  I have to be careful almost hourly what words I use, how I use them and to whom I am sending them.

 

Yesterday, Pint was depressed.  Not unusual in an 8 year old.  But she is going through a rough bit.

 

She tells me in the car (sigh….I wish she would do this whilst I can gather her on my lap and hold her and rock her and explain things, but no, she picks the car.  Emotionally safer I expect.)

 

That she wants to be normal and live with her Mommy and Daddy like all the other kids.  I explain that a lot of the kids she goes to school with are being raised by their grandparents, for various reasons.

 

She replies with “But I have a really rough life in some ways, cause I don’t live with my Mommy and I never get to see my Daddy.”

 

I come back with, I don’t know how to get a hold of your Dad, but he knows my cell phone number and it hasn’t changed in 7 years. 

 

I said it’s not unusual for children to be raised by their grandparents.  I was raised by my grandparents for a great deal of the time as my dad was very abusive.

 

She is crying at this point, about how much she misses her dad.  I hate him. He didn’t even call on their birthdays this year.

 

I tell her that the child support office is looking for him, and if they find him I will get an address of where he works and we will call him.  I tell her that even though she doesn’t live with her parents, they both love her very much.  I tell her that they will always love her.  That they just made some bad choices that made it unsafe for her and her sister to live with them.

 

I tell her I will always be there for her to have a safe place to live. 

 

Later, that night, she is emotionally wrought from having all this inside her.  She already goes to a counselor, so I don’t know what else to do.  Find a group of kids that are being raised by their grandparents and start a support group for the kids I guess.

 

She does not go to bed easily on any day. She is very much ADHD.  And, I hate that diagnosis. But trust me, she has it.  Her father did as well.  She wears the ADHD patch, which means no one at school knows she has it.  The low dose patch works very well on her.   She is an honor student and in the gifted program. 

 

But at night, she doesn’t want to sleep.  Her little mind will not shut down.  I have been working with her since she was 6 months old to teach her how to allow her body to fall asleep.

 

As an infant, she took TWO ten minute naps a day, and I am so not kidding.  That was it.  Even at 6 months of age she was hyper.  She is a constant motion factory.  I have to keep her involved in something totally all the time.  The computer helps, but hurts at the same time.

 

We have a routine every night.  That helps as well. The baby, well, she is not ADHD.  I go in, we read her Bible (one for young children, each chapter is a short page with illustrations), about 15 pages or so.  Then we count how many pages we read.  Then she turns over and I sing her song I made up for her.  Then I tell her Goodnight Huckleberry, I love you. And she smiles and says I love you too Meemaw, and I leave the room.  She has her night light and her Wubby and Binky.  She is asleep approximately 5 minutes later.

 

But not Pint.  First we fight about having the TV on.  Then we fight about whether or not she is genuinely hungry.  Even if she eats dinner and has a snack right before she gets into bed, she will say she is starving.

 

Then, we can escalate rapidly into hysterics, with her saying things like “I can’t believe you are starving your own grandchild!”

 

Or, you have ruined my life, or this is the worst day in my entire life, or words to that affect.  She is quite the little drama queen.

 

I usually stay fairly calm throughout these episodes, using a quiet voice, telling her that I do, in fact, love her and that she will not die if she doesn’t get a snack.

 

Last night, she had a choice.  Finish watching a TV program and no cuddle time, or turn the TV off and cuddle time.  She chose the TV.

 

Then, when it was time to turn the TV off, she conveniently forgot the other parts.  Said that she didn’t hear me say that part of the conversation, and that if she had heard it, of course, she would have picked cuddle time.

 

Yeah. Well. That’s not the way that goes in the textbooks.  So, I stood on the ladder to the upper bunk while she threw her fit at the top of her lungs.  Told her I would explain it after she was quiet enough to listen.

 

It only took about 20 minutes, but trust me, those are really long minutes when you have an 8 yr old in full voice.

 

So finally, I told her that from now on, I would make the decisions, and I would decide the TV goes off at promptly 8 p.m. regardless of what is on.  That I will insure that she has her cuddle time, but that she would be mad every single night at being thwarted in her desire to watch just one more Zack and Cody or Hannah Montana.  That if we had any more problems, I would simply remove the TV from her room (which I have done, so she knows this is not an empty threat).

 

Finally, about 10ish she fell asleep.

 

Parenting any child is a challenge.  Parenting one with ADHD, doubly so.  Parenting one with ADHD and emotional trouble from screwed up parents….Grrrrrr. Challenging does not really describe it.

 

I wish I could make it all better for her.  But instead, I have to teach her to look inside and find her comfort with herself and God, as I have learned to do.  And, she is only 8. 

 

Pension day, off to shop for groceries.  Have a nice weekend all.