Neurotic, party of one? Your table is ready!

Before I even start don't ask me how I got here. I have no idea. Well, I have some idea but just run with it. You're in for a long ride with this one. I run the risk here of offending some, looking like a psycho to others and coming across callous but like I always say, I am sharing this in hopes that I connect with a peep who has felt this same way just to say "You're not the only one!"...and then there is this great chance that I AM the only one. I'm going to go ahead and say that with as sleep deprived as I have been in the past few months these thoughts don't so much surprise me as make me aware of the fact that I am running low on fumes.

So I was up the other night with my kids again. The girl child could not, for some reason, fall asleep. At 12:30am (the 3rd time I had been awoken by her) I went into her room and she was hysterical. She was flailing around, flopping her body on the bed like a fish out of water and screaming like something was possessing her. Scariest part is she tells me she hasn't been to sleep yet, her body won't let her sleep and her brain hurts. She's not feverish so she means her BRAIN hurts. She said her body just wouldn't let her stop. I am at a loss as I have never been this kind of tired. When I am tired it's all you can do to keep me awake. This one is the opposite and I don't know how to help. So in the midst of her screaming and brain dysfunction I remind her to take deep breaths and lay down, blah, blah, blah. She looks me dead in the eye and says "I want medicine!"

In the past I have gone up to the same scene but she tells me that her legs hurt. I assume growing pains. So I would give Motrin and she would crash out. Evidently she is remembering the ease of slumber this concoction brings her and she wants it. Now this is where I get wacky. My gal wants a teaspoon of Motrin so she can go to sleep and I automatically fast forward 15 years and have her strung out in some drug house jonesin for her next hit. She is asking me for help sleeping and I am pegging her an addict. WOW! What the hell is wrong with me? Well, I am fairly certain I know what is wrong with me but that is beside the point. The fact that I am denying my child comfort because I don't want to "enable" her makes me just feel gross in my skin. But I honestly couldn't justify this in my mind. So we compromised with some topical magnesium (has been known to naturally work wonders) and then I laid down in bed with her until she went to sleep (literally only 10 minutes.) So it seems that this gamble paid off. I just snuggled in her bed, replaying the events and my train of thought with this whole process. I have to say the word "Eww" ran through my mind more than once in this short time.

So I softly exited her room and tiptoed back downstairs. I was no sooner re-clothing from my late-night visit to the facilities when I heard crying. At 1st I thought, "Shit! She was OUT!?" and then I listened a tad more closely (and with all my clothes on--which always helps with listening, ya know?) and realized it was the boy version. There are times you can just tell by the octave and the verbal content that this is the real deal and they aren't going to go back until you go in there. A few huffs later I threw on my robe...again...and headed up the stairs. So I walked in to his room and the 1st thing out of his mouth was "Change pants." Sweet! That's an easy fix. I LOVE that one! Once he was again, urine-free he bellows "Somepin ta eat." Now, I've been kicking this kid full of food ALL day so there is really no way he can be hungry even if it is 1am. I have a distinct feeling that he is just stalling because he doesn't want to go back to bed. But then the Krazy Katie enters the room and starts telling stories about how this one is going to be jonesing for food for the rest of his life and will be my problem eater. I think I need to stop watching TV because just the other day I had watched a show about a Half a Ton Teen. I seriously was jaw-agape throughout. I had to stop watching the show at the end of the kids gastric by-pass surgery where he literally breaks down bawling because the doctor won't let him go home. I could not believe this 16 year old kid was crying so hard because he had to stay in the hospital for a bit longer. At which point I was enlightened to the words "Addiction is a crazy thing!" I had not considered this as the case but this boy was in fact, addicted to food and he was crying because he wanted to get home to EAT! FREAKED me out. So obviously in my sensitive mental state of exhaustion I fast forwarded 15 years and the kid on TV was going to be my son and I'd be damned if I was going to be party to THAT!....WOW! Things have gone really awry here. I do feel compelled to add that as I was sitting with this kid for a few minutes my shoulder started to go numb, my wrist started to ache and I couldn't conceive that the not yet 2 year old that I was holding weighs as much as his sister who is 2 years his senior. He IS a beefcake so this is not coming out of left field entirely...only partially...

So as I am rocking the boy (clearly ignoring his plea for food after that internal monologue) I was holding my breath to see if he would ask for food again. I rocked and waited. He petted my hair. We rocked some more, all the while waiting. He suddenly bleats, "Mom!?" at which point I half gasp and pretend not to hear him. Then he says it again. I couldn't very well pretend to not be in the room, could I? Well, I tried but to no avail. I finally replied "Ya bud." just KNOWING what would come next only to have him whisper "Like your hair." Seriously, how the hell did I get so neurotic? Again, I know how I got there but the question is how to fix it. 

After successfully putting him to bed without another peep, I walked downstairs feeling quite a bit of guilt, shame and psychosis. Clearly I was not going to sleep anytime soon so I laid there and thought about the back to back disturbing scenes that had just played out in tonight's episode of Midnight Mamba, hoping to come up with some sort of solution on how to get myself out of this mental funk. I began to find resolutions and all I could come up with was unconditional love. Even if these two people I had conjured in my mad mind DO scarcely resemble my children as adults I will love them nonetheless. But in coming up with this term of "unconditional love" it really presented more questions than it answered.

All my life I have had the understanding of this term: affection with no limits or conditions; complete love. This was the love that I thought parents gave to their kids. I have always known this as the case. So I entered into this whole parenthood thing thinking this is what you were given in the delivery room...a baby complete with unconditional love. Sounds easy, right? Well here's my problem. No one ever told me that unconditional love was not easy. I thought since it was without conditions that it was signed, sealed and delivered--a no brainer and one of those "gimme's" in life. It's like the consolation prize of carrying and birthing a child. You go through the whole schtick and at the end you are graced with this unconditional love stuff for all of the pain that you just went through. HA! It's just not that easy. What a trip to realize this only now (I am a severely slow learner.)

So my next question is what to do with it. I know I HAVE unconditional love for my kids but from this vantage point its looking like kryptonite to Superman. I suppose some heavy doses of psychotherapy could be advantageous but I think there has to be a solution in here somewhere. I guess part of me felt a little lied to. Kinda like the deceptive feeling that panged me when I realized that the whole "Morning Sickness" thing was a crock of shit and I was actually free to feel like barfing ALL day and not just between the hours of 8 and noon. Boy did I want to call in to a complaint line for that one. But the problem with these life-realizations is that there is really no one to bitch to. I just felt like I was right back on that river of deceit  waiting for the next bomb to drop. Next thing I know I'll find out that I CAN'T be anything I want if I just set my mind to it, the world is actually flat and that we really do only use 10% of our brains.

Then I get to this place of "Separation of Church and State." I realize that I am starting to enmesh myself, once again, with my kids and their decisions. I feel a recurrent theme here and something that will probably rear its ugly head throughout my life. It brings me to that deep place of what I am doing as a parent and checking myself on an ever-recurrent level to see if I am being honest, guiding well, informing appropriately and allowing their own growth...not mine. And I think this is my answer. As long as I am doing the best I can with what I have I am being an honest parent. I think I will always question what I am doing and if it is good enough but that is just in my nature. I have to learn to release the need to identify every situation as a possible catastrophe and know that my kids are going to do their thing...with or without my input. Probably better to let them make their own mistakes instead of trying to guard them from them. 

A friend of mine posted this a few days ago and it has really resonated with me in this situation-

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” ~Oscar Wilde. According to this I'll be asking for forgiveness anyway :) until then I will sit as the not-so-silent but trying to be silent mom, praying that the "right" answers come to my kids a little easier than they did to me!