I am an expert protein/phenylalanine counter.  My children are phenylketuronics (i.e. they have PKU).  Ryan's diet is easy to manage because he is only mildly phenylketuronic but poor Amanda has to really watch her diet.  She can only have about 4 grams of protein a day, or 375 -400 mg of phe (phenylalanine) (the enzyme in protein that her body/liver does not process).  Until you are faced with this problem you have absolutely no idea that almost every food on earth contains phe.  Meat, fish,dairy, & eggs are all very high protein & phe.  Even flour is a no-no and the better the food is for you (i.e. high in grain) the worse it is for Amanda.  Even fruit and vegetables contain phe and that is where the counting comes in.  I have to make sure that she stays within that 375-400 mg intake of phe daily.  I just finished ordering her food online and it's insanely expensive.  The last time she went to clinic they gave her samples and she really loved the muffin mix.  I went to find it and it was $30.00 (before shipping) for a little can that makes 12 muffins.  Guess she won't be getting that.  I do have other ways to make her treats, though, with special types of baking mix & something called "mix quick".  It just takes a little trial and error to learn to cook with that stuff. 

. . .

When old patterns get old.  When you know they are old.  When you continue on with them anyway.   I keep wanting to blog - to whine - to complain - and haven't until now, reluctant to be a complainer, a whiner, a less-than-enlightened nice person,, even though blogging this crap somehow releases the tension.  If anyone responds they might tell me more peaceful ways to handle this situation.  I will know that they are right.  And then next time?  Will I ever, ever, ever stop this ridiculous pattern of reacting?

Yeah.  Robin (Brad's ex) again.  Simple little thing.  Amanda broke her arm, the hospital billing department called to say that a coordination of benefits form needed to be filled out from Robin's insurance company.  I know that Robin doesn't answer the phone for me so I text her -"hospital called, need coordination of benefits form filled, did you get it and do you need help with the dates?"  We informed her when Amanda broke her arm but I doubted that she would remember the dates or even how it happened.  No response.  With the whole Hippa thing, I knew that no one @ her insurance company would talk to me, so the next day I thought, why not have the hospital give her a jingle if she doesn't want to talk to me (Brad was at work, very important Big-Wig Quarterly Assessment going).  So, the lady from the hospital calls me back and informed me that Robin said she did receive the form, that she wasn't going to fill it out, to send us the bill and we could pay it or take her to court or whatever it is we decided we wanted to do. 

I blew a gasket.  Exact response she wanted. 

ERRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


It got ugly.  Now we just hate one another even more.  I'm blogging this to go back and read next time she pushes my buttons.  To remind myself that reacting never, ever works with her.  Trying to be reasonable, never, ever works with her.  Just shut-up and put-up Michelle.  Shrug it off, woman! 

My son, Jesse.  He's always been the sanest person in our family.  He's not always the kindest person I know, but he is the sanest.  If he's annoyed with you, he'll let you know right away.  If he's feeling thankful or loving, he'll say thank you or cuddle up.  If he needs advice, he asks for it.  If he doesn't want advice, he's sure to let you know that too.  If he feels anxious or depressed, he says it, expresses it, then goes out and gets physical to let it go.  He just turned 21,owns a new truck, a 4 bdr house etc. and yet he already knows that he doesn't want to stay working on the pipeline in Alaska for the rest of his life and is trying to figure out exactly what it is that he does want  to do, even if that means going to college and being poor for awhile.  He amazes me.

I think that little text msg I sent (see last blog if you're lost) was like a nuclear bomb.  The fallout has been tremendous, unexpected, and somewhat devastating.  Such a shitstorm from a simple question ( did you get form? do you need help with dates?)

Amanda caught wind of what was going on.  Called her Mom and played a not-so-nice song to her (You Make Me Puke, by Eminem).  Her Mom went nutso.  Started calling Brad, me, whoever would listen, screaming and going berserk, saying that I made Amanda do that, that I'm mentally ill, that I am abusing the children & then the worse stuff.   What I made Amanda do was call her Mom to apologize.  Her Mom just kept hanging up on her, wouldn't even let her leave a voice message.  So I made her text an apology and then Brad revoked her cell phone privileges. 

Except for Amanda playing a mean song to her biological mother, the above is just normal everyday stuff.  No real huge deal. 

But then that woman started calling Brad - a lot - and while on speaker phone I heard her being sugary sweet to him.  I mean the Karo-syrup kind of sweet.  HUH?  I knew something new was up.  As the messages continued it started becoming very clear that she was trying to make Brad see something about me - that I was mentally ill and hurting their children.  Brad just kept laughing it off but it started messing with my head, the fear, you know?, what if she starts making some kind of sense to him?  She's good at that.  She's done it to me.  So then we get in a fight.  We rarely, rarely, fight.  We just don't.  So suddenly I'm thinking, you know, I've been putting up with this for six years.  Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman in it?  I don't like who I am when I react to her.  I don't like the feelings I have towards her.  I'm not a hateful person, so how can I feel such rage, such hatred? 

So I left for a couple of days.  Thought and slept and then slept some more.  I just went kind of mindless for two days.  I finally woke up and felt much clearer, decision made, yes, Brad and these two kids are worth putting up with her and continuing to work on myself when it comes to dealing with her.  As much as I might want to push it all away, whatever it is that I still need to learn from her, I'm going to embrace it, and my family is going to stay intact while I do so.

Well, she was working her magic while I was gone.  She had apparently called numerous times and she wanted Amanda to call her to see if it was "worth it or not to get counseling" to repair their relationship.  The call went badly.  Very badly.  My poor, poor babies.  This part I can barely stand to tell, even though I'm sure that there are other parts that would be more shocking and outrageous to most people.  Brad has always told me that she didn't love Ryan.  I can't fathom a mother not loving her child so I believed him but didn't believe him.  She said horrible things to Amanda but the worst thing (to me) was when she said "Amanda you're my favorite.  You've always been my favorite.  Your Dad, Dave (sic. step-Dad), my whole fucking family, has always told me that I needed to give Ryan some attention and love but you are my favorite.  Why Ryan told that shrink that he was my favorite is beyond me.  How could he say that?"  (the shrink was an evaluator, Ryan was trying to say that Amanda fought with her Mom more than he did really because he was the youngest and the favorite because of being the baby of the family) (I think).  These words aren't conveying the venom in her voice.  She was very clearly telling Amanda that she didn't care about Ryan, only Amanda.  Trying to win her over?  I just don't know. All I can do is thank God Ryan didn't hear it.  I started bawling and so did Amanda.  The only time she cried during the whole call even though she got screamed at and dumped on terribly.

Beyond that, she has also been to the Prosecuting Attorney in her town several times and accused me of leaving her lewd text messages and driving by her house (honest to goodness I don't even know where she lives other than the town) repeatedly and shouting obscenities.  Of course she had no proof because there was no truth to these tales but the P. Attorney got worried about "how nutty" she was acting and called our lawyer to ask him to talk to us and warn us to be careful.  The Prosecuting Attorney is worried about our safety! 

The house is locked up tight.  I'm eternally grateful that my husband is home right now and not in Alaska.  And beyond that, you know what?  I really, really love these two children that I am raising on a much deeper level than I ever thought possible.  I've loved them since the day I met them and they clung to me like little monkeys, but now, Mommy Bear is alive and roaring.  Honestly, I could care less about what she says or does from here on out, unless it involves further hurt to them.  I don't care if she pays child support, I don't care if she fills out necessary insurance forms, I don't care what she has to say about me. Maybe that was my lesson, to learn to dig a little deeper and to love a lot more.

The beauty of it all.  And then we have yesterday's question about what confuses me about it.  That would be the ugliness and cruelty.  And maybe that's the beauty of it all, the whole mixed up mess of what can be, what is, and what you decide to do with it.

Introducing  ~ ahem ~ my son, Jesse The Rapper?

(20 minute writing assignment from Diving Deeper)

A recent move from Florida back “home” had left my husband and I feeling a bit like fish out of water.  So many years in the city had left us a little at odds with how to cope with a more urban lifestyle.  To make matters worse, we couldn’t find a house to rent and were forced to live with friends for over a month.  We finally found a house in a tiny town that had exactly one business, an old fashioned general store that held dusty shelves of long expired foods.  The house wasn’t anyone’s idea of a dream home but at least it would be ours until we could find something else. 

As we settled in, we tried to make it feel like home with some redecorating  and a major rodent extermination.  Still, this house just somehow never felt like home.  As winter came on, we found ourselves trying to adjust to the weather, although our three young sons loved it.  They were especially delighted when it began to snow.  They looked adorable all bundled up, their cheeks rosy red from the cold.  They were making friends at their new school and enjoying having an extended family to visit on weekends and holidays.  One night, on our return from dinner at  Grandma’s we were startled to see every single light was on in the house, even the lights in the cellar.  Jim, my husband, entered the house first to make sure that there wasn’t an intruder.  Everything was in place, nothing stolen, no sign of forced entry.  We were very puzzled but with no reasonable explanation handy we were forced to just try and shrug it off.

Sometime in December I woke up freezing!  I got up to see if the furnace had stopped working and instead found that all of the doors to the house were wide open.  Teeth chattering, I closed the doors and locked the, something we didn't usually bother with.  The next morning we looked for footprints in the snow leading up to the house but found the newly fallen snow pristine and undisturbed.  We started locking the doors every night after that incident, and yet still woke up several times to a freezing house with the doors flung wide open.

One night I woke up to the sound little feet running upstairs.  Then I heard dresser drawers being banged open and shut in rapid succession.  My husband rolled over and muttered, “It’s two in the morning. What are those boys doing up there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.  I‘ll go see.” 

I tiptoed up the stairs, hoping to surprise the little rascals red handed.  As I climbed, the noises stopped.  I found all three boys sweetly asleep in their beds, three little angels.  I listened to their breathing and found that it was the soft even breathing of a children who are truly asleep.  I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  I didn’t believe in ghosts so I told myself to quit being silly and  went back downstairs.

“What in God’s name was going on?” asked my husband.

“I have no idea.  They’re all asleep.”

“What -”

Just then the racket from above started up again.  “You’re going up this time.  This is freaking me out.”

Jim went, fully expecting to find the boys playing but came back down with a puzzled look on his face.  “You’re right, they are sleeping.  What the hell is going on?”

“Do you think it’s a ghost?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t either but do you think it’s a ghost?” 

We both ran for the stairs at the same time. Jim picked up two sleepy boys, I picked up one, and we carried them downstairs, tucking them into bed between us.

Andrea (a.k.a.drechanteuse) has had a set back.  Read more here.

Fun question!  A pair of really cute jammie pants, tank top or sweatshirt, depending on the weather or one of their husbands oversized T-shirts,  long goldish/brunette hair, blue contacts (if your eyes aren't blue of course),  possibly a nose extension because I don't have a petite nose (darn it), a stuffed bra if you don't own a pair of bodacious
ta's ta's yourself, then wrap the costume up with a big huge red heart sewn on your sleeve!