The spectacular now

Ever since my daytime nest has become oh-so-noticeably empty, I have been inhabiting a strange place of permanent wistfulness. I've become fixated on the past, longing for a time when my children were small.

I'm living every parent's dream of being able to go to Target or the grocery store nearly anytime I want sans kids. Yet when I go, I don't waltz through the aisles celebrating my freedom. I see the moms and dads with their toddlers in tow, and part of me wishes I were back in that time.

I know I must be delusional because shopping with kids, especially toddlers, beyond sucks. I don't miss the begging for stuff or the tantrums, of course. I miss the presence of my kids, of talking them quietly through our errand (oddly I rarely recount the many threats and ultimatums I made in those years), and the relief of coming home and being finished with it.

I miss my games of Sorry with Gus, putting together a puzzle with him, snuggling on the couch and reading a look-and-find book.

When I drop off the boys at school, my eyes flash toward the 4K entrance to the school and I wish I could have Gus back with me, at least for part of the day like I did last year. This reverie is no good for me. I know this. And yet it's hard to stop it.

On the last day of our recent trip to Boston, we had to check out of our hotel room early. Mark was still in his conference, and I had an hour to kill sitting in the hotel lobby before we would leave for the airport. I'd already finished the one novel I had brought. I figured I'd just play around on my phone, but for some reason I couldn't connect to the internet.

I began to feel a mild panic. God, what am I going to do for a whole hour? See how quickly I've become addicted to the black hole of my smart phone? I knew I was wise to resist for so long. Reluctantly, I picked up the non-fiction book I'd packed, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I didn't exactly feel like being enlightened at that moment.

It's a fat tome about mindfulness-based stress reduction. The subject interests me, and I certainly need this in my life, but I know my track record. Most non-fiction books I buy, I dive in with gusto only to abandon them well before finishing. For all I know, that will be the case with this one, too, but as luck would have it I ended up taking away lots of wisdom in that hour.

What I read helped me put into perspective what I've been feeling and really the way I tend to live my life. The author correctly points out that we humans spend most of our time either thinking about the past or the future. Most of us are rarely fully present in the moments of our lives.

I can attest to this. These past few months, I've been doing a lot of living in the past and fretting about the future. I wish my boys were 2 years old again. What will I be doing two years from now?

Mindfulness and meditation require practice and deliberation. I can't say I've fully embraced this, but I wish to incorporate these practices into my life more consistently.

I have been trying to stay more mindful when spending time with my boys. I realize that some of the pain I feel about the passing of the years is directly correlated with the times that I failed to be more present in my children's growing up.

It's not always easy, but it's worth it. I've tried to let the joy of moments wash over me. 

Ben scoring the winning goal at the last game of his soccer tournament. Paul's excitement at planning every detail of his upcoming Minecraft birthday party. Gus hamming it up at the bird show a few weeks ago. My boys are no longer babies or toddlers, but right now is pretty wonderful.

I've had a lot of stress and worry lately with Gus starting medication, and Paul had another seizure over the weekend. I feel the pressure to get everything done for the holidays. I fret about beginning classes and whether I can balance it all and succeed.

Moving forward, I'll keep this passage of the book with me.

"There is an art to facing difficulties in ways that lead to effective solutions and to inner peace and harmony. When we are able to mobilize our inner resources to face our problems artfully, we find we are usually able to orient ourselves in such a way that we can use the pressure of the problem itself to propel us through it, just as a sailor can position a sail to make the best use of the pressure of the wind to propel the boat. You can't sail straight into the wind, and if you only know how to sail with the wind at your back, you will only go where the wind blows you. But if you know how to use the wind's energy and are patient, you can sometimes get where you want to go. You can still be in control."

As we enter this busy season, I hope you and I will take time to be mindful, to live fully in the spectacular (or even not-so-spectacular) now.

The great medicate debate

It was a fun day, a really special day, actually, but as I watched the video my husband had created with footage from our morning at Raptor Day, tears – sad not happy – spilled down my cheeks. It's all too familiar lately, my emotions run so high, I cry without a thought. Something overtakes me and my face just screws up and tears begin to fall.

As is so often the case of late, it all comes back to Gus. After months, actually more like years, of debate and much research, Mark and I have decided to try medication to treat Gus's ADHD.

Every step of the way, I've not so secretly hoped to be talked out of it. When I began to receive reports this year about Gus's difficulties in school, our first stop was our family doctor. Our doctor is pretty conservative when it comes to prescribing. I was sure I could count on him to sway us in

another direction.

Instead, to my surprise, Dr. K. told us about his own daughter's struggles with ADHD and what a help medication was when she finally tried it. The drugs, he told us, are really pretty safe and effective. He gave us some other tools we could try, including a meditation book for kids, but I was left with the message that drugs might not be such a bad option.

I felt better about the idea of giving meds a try, but as is often case with me, my relief didn't last for long. I took to the internet for some ill-advised research, and the waters were muddied again in no time.

The catch-22 of ADHD is that, as a parent, you will be judged no matter what you do. Choose to medicate, and you may be labeled lazy or worse. Maybe choose not to medicate. Nope, you'll still be judged: Why can't you control your kid? I read one particularly scathing screed written by a teacher complaining about parents sending their ADHD kids to school unmedicated. You cannot win.

When we received Gus's diagnosis last year, the clinician told us that medication can really help but gave us little else in the way of resources. For questions, he directed us to a website.

Feeling desperate for help and guidance, I found a local counselor who specializes in ADHD. Her website looked pretty earthy, and she describes her practice as holistic. Surely she would steer us away from medication.

The counselor, who was by far the most helpful resource we found, told us about her son who grew up with ADHD. She asked how we felt about medication. I told the truth: I tell myself I'm open to whatever might help Gus, but every time I think about actually medicating him, I find the idea repugnant.

She told us that she's loathe to take even an aspirin, but when it comes to ADHD, medication is something we really needed to consider, and sooner rather than later. She asserted that we needed to get Gus functioning on a level field with his peers. ADHD that is properly treated can reduce self-esteem problems and other serious issues like depression. She went on to say that since they're used on children, ADHD meds are among the most studied and tested.

After that appointment, Mark and I had decided to try medication and chose a mid-November start date. In the weeks leading up to the day, I was not at peace with our choice. I wavered constantly. I was fine with the idea of starting, but when it came time to imagine actually giving Gus the meds, I felt ill.

We chose Sunday as the first day to trial the medication. Saturday Mark and my parents and I took Paul and Gus to Xtreme Raptor Day in Milwaukee. Paul is a bird lover, and Gus has caught the fever, too.

It was a happy and memorable day, culminating in Gus being chosen to go on stage for this bird trivia contest led by super heroes Capt. Talon and Eagle Eye. Each child was assigned a bird, and the audience had to guess which bird was the correct answer for a series of questions. Gus chose to represent the Harris's hawk.

Gus was in his glory, hamming it up. I watched with my usual mix of joy and trepidation of what he might do. I don't know where he gets it, but Gus is a natural showman. He danced about, gleefully shouted out answers and generally stole the show. A question about which kind of bird was in class by itself perfectly matched Gus himself as well as his bird. That's Gus: in a class by himself. When Gus was one space away from winning, Capt. Talon cracked, "I can't imagine what he'll do if he wins."

Gus did win, and his joy was pure. It was a sweet moment, and it's poignancy hit me hard. The current that runs beneath all that's happening is my fear that if we medicate Gus, we might lose the real him, and I can't bear that thought.

Sunday came, and difficult though it was, we gave Gus his first dose. The day didn't go so well. G seemed subdued at first but then was emotional, just not himself. He seemed agitated, sensitive.

I know it's a process, getting the right dosage and hitting on the right medication. On Monday we sent Gus to school with meds on board, fearing the worst, hoping for the best. By midday I got an email from Gus's teacher: his demeanor was laid-back, and he needed no reminders or redirection. Today, I received another email: "Hi Mom and Dad, I'm a rock star at school today. Love you, Gus."

As we were lying down for bed last night, I asked Gus how the medication made him feel. "I didn't even think about doing a cartwheel," he said. "I only thought about school."

My eyes clouded with tears once again from the relief and stress of it all. We made it through a day. Gus seemed more himself, and the real him certainly wasn't lost.

There's no easy endpoint to this story, no "and everything turned out fine in the end." The road we're traveling isn't straight; its long and winding.

I wish I could say to hell with what other people think, but my skin is thin. Every time I come across information advising against our decision, every time a friend or acquaintance proffers unsolicited advice, it hurts. 

We made a choice that we hope is best. There's no road map to follow with this condition. How I wish there were. I don't know when or even if I'll ever feel at peace with it. Perhaps only in retrospect. 

All we have is the hope that we're moving in the right direction and the knowledge and security that we love and adore our boy and will never stop working for his best interest. 

The Gus-Mom connection

Guilt. Among moms it’s pretty much a universal. Over the years, as the creeping recognition of Gus’s ADHD symptoms began to set in, it took me no time at all to begin asking myself what I might have done to cause them.

I’ve researched enough to know that parenting styles and choices can’t actually cause something like ADHD, so I quickly let that particular worry go. But just as I’d indicted myself with my two miscarriages, I began to question myself. What if it was something I’d eaten or done wrong in my pregnancy that caused this?

Rationally, I know it’s unlikely that anything I did caused Gus’s ADHD, but as I’ve gone about my borderline-obsessive research into the condition, I’ve begun to see links between me and Gus. These connections are the stuff of genes, way beyond my control, but Gus and I, we may not be as different as I’d thought.

It’s early in Gus’s school career of course, but here’s what I see so far. He’s an exceedingly bright boy who has a difficult time controlling his impulses and activity level. He’s joyful, mischievous, the class clown. His teachers and classmates find him magnetic and adorable yet exasperating.

Here’s what I remember of myself. I was shy and quiet, well behaved. All along the way, school was a real struggle for me. I did well in classes that I liked and held my interest: English, history. Classes in which I didn’t have a natural aptitude – math, science – were another story. Math, especially, I didn’t understand, so I simply wrote it off and tuned out.

It wasn’t until fairly recently that I even contemplated that something more might have been up with my school difficulties. I was reading an ADHD book, and the author was describing dreamy girls who can’t seem to focus, and the realization hit: that was me.

Girls like me often go undiagnosed with attention difficulties. I caused no disturbances in class. By all accounts I was “cooperative and courteous.” But certainly I also failed to “work up to my potential.” My achievement unquestionably was borderline but perhaps not alarmingly so.

After cleaning out their files, my parents handed me a stack of old report cards a year or two ago. One from third grade stood out. I felt humiliated and then frustrated as I read through my teacher’s comments. My teacher said I was a really sweet girl but often seemed “confused.” My fifth grade teacher made similar comments. My junior high and high school report cards were more of the same. Feeling the sting of embarrassment, I quickly stuffed the papers into the recycling bin.

All these years later, I sat and wondered, why the hell didn’t anyone notice a pattern and investigate it further? I suppose the answer is that it was a different time. Schools and education today are radically changed from what I remember. Lots of difficulties like mine probably went unaddressed.

Sometimes I wish in vain that things could have been different for me, that my problems could have been recognized and remedied. Looking back, I internalized that I was a lazy student and worse, stupid. Stupid stays with you, and it affects my confidence and the way I feel about myself to this day.  

Of course, things turned out OK for me in the end. It took me until the middle of college to find my stride with school. I suppose you could say I adapted. Initially, finding success took me being able to pursue almost exclusively classes that interested me. That, of course, couldn’t happen until about my junior year in college, when my general ed classes were out of the way.

My first semester at UW-Oshkosh, after transferring from UW-Fox Valley, I began taking mostly journalism and history classes. I achieved a 3.9 grade point average that semester and could have cried from the pride and joy I felt. I had made the dean’s list. It was unthinkable.

That taste of success was potent and sustaining and marked the beginning of a sea change for me. Doing well felt amazing, and I wanted to keep up the momentum. I surprised myself in succeeding in classes like micro and macroeconomics. Though numbers to this day make my brain turn to mush, I put in the work and study time, and the grades naturally followed. I graduated college with a cumulative GPA of 3.2, and that may not sound all that astounding. To me it felt like an unimaginably high achievement.

Anxiety about math dogs me to this day. Next semester I will begin my pursuit of a communications degree at the technical college. I had a mini breakdown last week when I learned that the D-plus I’d earned in my college math class was not sufficiently high to transfer over and earn me credit for the math class required for my degree program.

Honestly, I almost decided to scrap the whole idea based on my hate and fear of math. That D-plus – I worked long and hard to achieve it, sad though that may be. Mark spent hours tutoring me. I could do well enough when he and I worked together, but I’d go to take a test, and everything got all mixed up in my head.

Luckily, my tech school adviser was able to make a switch for me and I’ll be able to take a math with business applications class instead of another dreaded college algebra class. I think I can handle it. And maybe it’s for the best. Perhaps I owe it to myself to overcome math – in some way, at least.

I look at my boys, and I feel profound relief that they seemingly don’t share my arithmetic struggles. From what I can tell so far, all three are natural mathematicians. Ben, with his math scores in the 99^th percentile, is a wonder to me. I don’t understand how this can be so, but I feel staggering gratitude.

All my mistakes and stumbles brought me to where I am today, which is a pretty great place. I wish fervently that Gus didn’t have to face the struggles he does, but I know well the stakes, and that makes me all the more determined to fight for his success.

If Gus ever feels down about his challenges, I can say, boy can I relate. But you can do this. Believe me my dear boy when I say that success that is hard-fought is all the sweeter.