Sandra Tayler

Howard does not convalesce well. As soon as it is possible for him to move around he wants to be doing something. With this particular injury “doing something” is exactly what isn’t allowed. Howard is valiantly and druggedly trying to follow instructions even though the inactivity is nearly driving him crazy. He keeps wandering out the front door to go visit neighbors because he can’t stand to sit in the house convalescing. Visiting with neighbors is an approved activity because it doesn’t require shoulder or arm movement. And I’d much rather have him visiting than sitting and staring at the walls like a nursing home inmate. I tried to give him first dibs on the new Harry Potter book, but he wasn’t able to focus enough to enjoy reading.

This morning Howard has yet to take any narcotics. He wants to be lucid for his doctor’s appointment in 3 hours. This means he is back to his usual articulate humor. It makes me glad. I miss him when he’s not here. Unfortunately it also means he is in pain. Hopefully we’ll get some more definite information out of the doctor today.

This entry should get filed in the category of Things I’ve Discovered At Least A Dozen Times Before, But Somehow Always Forget. A full night’s sleep makes a world of difference in my effectiveness as a parent the next day. Last night I was up until 1 am. Lately that isn’t too uncommon because I haven’t been getting the kids into bed until 9:30 or 10 and I crave time when all the kids are asleep. I still have to get up by about 8 am though to fix breakfast for kids. This means I’m getting 7 hours or less of sleep per night when I really need 9. This morning Patches awoke at 6:30 which left me with only 5 hours of sleep. I made him some noodles and then plunked him in front of A Bug’s Life while I curled up on the couch next to him and slept. (Harry Potteresque dreams are really wierd when they have dialogue from A Bug’s Life in them.)

I woke groggily around 8 to discover that all the rest of the kids had joined the video party. This meant that the cries of “I’m Hungry!” weren’t too far behind. I began to haul myself out of slumber, but Howard heard me and managed to make clear to my groggy brain that he was already cooking breakfast and I could go on sleeping. I did. I next regained consciousness around 9:30 feeling rested and ready to face the day. I think those extra three hours of sleep were the nicest gift Howard could have given me. I’ve actually had energy today to pull out my sewing stuff and tackle projects that have been on hold for months. I made three pairs of shorts for Gleek, Hemmed a fourth pair, and I began sewing on a dress for myself. It was fun.

As secondary evidence for the importance of sleep, Gleek took a three hour nap today. She fell asleep in my lap around 2:30 and I put her to bed. The peace and quiet was so wonderful that I had no inclination to wake her until she woke by herself. This probably sets back her bedtime somewhat, but I’m okay with that because she has been so much pleasanter this evening. She and Patches have been playing happily together ever since she woke up. I haven’t had to break up a single fight. This is causing me to think about Gleek’s schedule and realize that she has probably been an hour or more short on sleep every day all summer long. She needs 11 hours and she’s typically getting 9. This could explain alot of why she’s seemed out of control. Unfortunately I don’t know that I can enforce a naptime effectively. Gleek goes to sleep best in a room that is dark. That way she can’t see things to distract herself and keep herself awake. Unfortunately it doesn’t get dark until 9:30 pm and it gets light at 6 am. I’ll have to think more to find a solution. Summer’s long days are not my friend in this instance.

I wonder if all of us aren’t a little short on sleep. More things to consider.

Staying up until 1 am is NOT smart when an earlybird toddler lives in the house. It’s 6:30 am and Patches is chipper and wide awake. I’ve GOT to get to bed earlier no matter how much I’m enjoying time with Howard sans kids.

Today has been really strange. Howard began the day loopy and spent most of it sleeping or wandering around in a zombified state. He needed me a lot. Mostly he just needed me to be with him, which was kind of nice. I like being needed by Howard, he’s grateful and considerate, unlike the mostly gratitudeless kids. Oh, occasionally I get hugs, kisses, and ‘love you’s from kids but they’re generally significantly detached from the demands. Howard not only needed me, he also took care of me by placing a call to our local relief society to arrange for dinner. He did it during one of his lucid moments which is probably fortunate considering the amusing wierd things he said during less lucid moments. I’m lucky to have him and I’m sad he’s hurt.

At one point Howard was so sick of being housebound that he wandered out the front door. About 20 minutes later I got a phone call from a neighbor letting me know that Howard had just left her house and was continueing to wander the neighborhood. I had an amusing mental picture of a string of phone calls from neighbors all telling me where my drugged-up husband was. It didn’t happen that way, Howard wandered home all by himself which was good. I really didn’t want him collapsing somewhere or getting confused and lost. (I was pretty sure he’d be fine, but the thought crossed my mind.)

Gleek got bored and picked fights with Patches. I was really tired, but managed to sneak a nap by making the kids watch too many videos. (I couldn’t send them outside in 100 degree heat.) In all it wasn’t really a day that I care to repeat, but I’m not sorry to have had it.

At 6 am this morning Howard woke me up because he was in pain. I helped him to the kitchen and doled out a muscle relaxant and two loritab tablets. The loritab dosage was a mistake because 30 minutes later Howard about fell over out of his office chair. Since then he has been alternately loopy and asleep. There have been some very funny moments when Howard tried to overcome loopiness with sheer will power. He sat at the kitchen table looking like death-warmed-over and giving me a list of things he needed me to do. Normally he’s very precise and articulate, but during the conversation he fell asleep no less than 3 times and didn’t even know he had done it. At one point he asked confusedly:
“What’s that noise?”
“That would be my pencil writing the list.”
He then looked at me in wide eyed wonder “It’s so fast!”

I’ve put him to bed to sleep off the drugs. Hopefully coherence will return sometime this afternoon. The really good news is that he does seem to have a full range of motion with his arm. Any movement hurts, but all movements are possible which is reassuring. I don’t know when he’ll be fit to draw again. Certainly not today, but I have hopes that a haitus will not be necessary.

Howard hurt his shoulder today. He’ll probably put all the details into the journal entry that he is currently writing. His pain has been my stress. He hurts and I can’t fix it. Unfortunately it is his drawing arm and until it stops hurting he won’t be able to draw. Best case, that’s two days from now. Worst case involves surgery. Since drawing is both our livelihood and his joy, today has been fearful and uneasy. I would love it if there was some big effort that I could make that would resolve the problem. Unfortunately there isn’t. I can’t fix his shoulder. I can’t draw the comic for him. I can’t earn significant amounts of money without abandoning my post as full-time care-giver to my kids. All I can do is help Howard do all those pesky tasks which require two hands, be there for him, take care of the children, and try to be upbeat about it all. That last one has been the hardest today. Howard is suffering and could really use big doses of cheerful optimism which I’ve been unable to supply. I want to make a heroic effort, but what is needed is steady work at my everyday tasks.

Long exhausting day full of work I don’t want to do and stressful thoughts I don’t want to think.

I usually open this journal with a fairly clear idea of what I want to write and how I want to write it. But this past week my head has been so jumbled with thoughts and experiences that I don’t seem to be able to sort properly.

I loved having my parents here. I loved the chance to see my kids through their eyes. I loved watching the relationships continue to flourish. I loved having someone else to tell stories at bedtime. My parents are so kind and thoughtful. They are constantly doing nice things for me, for my kids, for their friends, for total strangers. I’m a little in awe of that and I need to emulate it more.

Now my parents have gone home, but things aren’t quite normal. My sister-in-law came through town and traded one of her boys for Kiki. Now Link has a cousin his own age to play with and Kiki is having an away-from-home adventure with her same-age cousin. I’ve been a little startled at how much I miss Kiki. I expected to miss her, but I’m almost constantly watching situations and thinking “if Kiki were here, then…” The dynamics of family life are quite a bit different this week.

One of the things my mom said while she was here was “It’s not everyone who could handle Gleek the way you do.” She said it to compliment my parenting and to give me a boost on a day that had been a little rough. But now I find myself watching Gleek and wondering Is she really that hard to handle? I don’t want to think of her or anyone else to think of her as a problem child. She is a delight. She is full of life and energy and mischeviousness. Sometimes that directly clashes with how I want things done and she doesn’t yet have the mental capacity to comprehend why it is so important to negotiate verbally. Just yesterday she and I had and Incident. I really had to get in her face and be mad in order to make her understand why it is important for her to come home from the neighbor’s house when I tell her to rather than running away down the street giggling. I hate having to sit on the floor with a small, sad child and be stern for long enough to be sure that the message has sunken in. Unfortunately Gleek’s native spriteliness often means that instructions or scoldings bounce right off unless I do exactly that.

I know that Gleek requires managing. But don’t all kids? Right now all of mine do. And unfortunately I’m not being able to manage them all well because I’m too exhausted. Kiki needs more snuggling and loving, but she’s the oldest and I get so tired of being climbed on by my littler ones that the last thing I really want is to snuggle a great big 10 year old. But I need to be snuggling her because I’ve only got a couple of years left before she’ll stop seeking connection and start seeking independence. Link doesn’t like transitions and needs me to pay attention enough to smooth them out. Instead of walking up and announcing bedtime, he needs me to walk up, sit, talk to him about his game, help him bring it to a close, read him stories and tuck him into bed. Unfortunately by the time I reach bedtime I’m just ready to shove all the kids in their beds so I can have time off. I’m so busy managing other kids that quiet/mellow Link gets ignored until I need him to do something, then I demand and he stubbornly shouts “No!” and I’m in the middle of a fight I didn’t want or have energy for. Gleek is 4 and I’ve already talked about her. Patches is adorable and amazing. Every day he is saying new things and thinking new thoughts. He’s also just entered the “Do it self!” phaze, which means I suddenly have to negotiate for co-operation rather than just picking him up and going. The time necessary to get him dressed, diapered, or into his carseat has doubled or quadrupled depending on the day. It is adorable when Patches imitates Link’s scowl and shouted “No!” but it is also frustrating.

Right now it is 8:30 am. I’ve already been up for and hour and a half. I’ve already put in a load of peed-on laundry. I haven’t yet had to break up a fight. I fed the kids cheerios for breakfast which means they’ll be hungry again in an hour. Oh wait, there’s the screaming. sigh. Got to go.

After complaining of having no time to myself, I’ve suddenly had a deluge of time off. My parents came into town. They’ve showered my children with grandparently attention and thus allowed me all kinds of space to rest and recoup. They’ve also taken over my office, so I don’t get much online time to write about stuff, but I figure I’m better off for the trade. In addition to my parents, Howard has started taking Gleek with him to the gym. Childcare is included in his membership and she loves “the gym playplace.” I love knowing for certain when I’m going to have an extended period of time off. I’ll happily work all morning if I know I’ll get a break in the afternoon.

It’s been a good few days. I get to have a few more before my parents head back home.

My backyard neighbors own a small pink car which a toddler can ride on and push with foot power. This is Patches favorite backyard activity. He’ll sit on that car and push it around their patio for hours vigorously defending it against any incursions from their one-year-old toddler.

This evening bedtime loomed near and I advanced on Patches to begin the exhausting process of removing Small Boy from Beloved Car. As I walked toward Patches I noticed some odd-looking spots on the pavement. Lots of odd-looking spots. I leaned closer to figure out what they were, because on first glance my brain was telling me they were blood. I dismissed this impression as the influence of watching too much CSI and because there were so many of them. If a child had done that much bleeding, there would surely have been screaming as well. A closer look revealed that they weren’t so much spots as smears. I tried to picture kids throwing berries to make smears like these, but there were no available berries. Then I realized that the smears were in a pattern. They followed exactly the same around-the-picnic-table path that Patches uses for driving the pink car.

In my head I flashed back to several days ago when Patches had a mysteriously bloody toe which I only discovered because he’d tracked blood through the kitchen. I turned to look at Patches and sure enough, both of his big toes had been scraped bloody. The quantity of smears sugguested that the toes had been bleeding for the past 20 minutes or more. I picked up Patches and began carrying him home. The moment he noticed the state of his toes he imediately began crying in fear: “I bweeding!” This distress cry quickly drew the interested attention of Gleek who always finds blood fascinating and frightening. The actual scrapes were quite small. Only by continual abrasion was Patches able to spread his blood so far. After bandaging the toes and tucking the boy into bed, I wandered back to my neighbors to advise them what the splotches on their patio were and to help wash them off before the splotches became sun-bakedly permanent.

Watching CSI has definitely changed the way I think about some things. Even though the patio came relatively clean, I can now picture a CSI team with their special lights out there finding all that blood and spinning theories about spatter, and smear, and directions of dropplets. As for me, I feel oddly pleased with myself for sorting out this little evidentiary puzzle. Mommy: Child Scene Investigator.