Choices

Sometimes in life, you just have to say "screw it." Whether that means ordering the egg McMuffin and double hash browns, ignoring the dust bunnies in favour of a favourite show, ordering the $10 dessert or giving up and going to bed, knowing you will be up at the crack of stupid the next day. And sometimes, it means giving up a fight, taking your marbles and going home. 

I don't talk much about my faith. I believe that faith is deeply personal, and it is possible to be a deeply spiritual person without being a member of an organized religion. I also believe the God of my understanding doesn't care what building you are sitting in, what clothes you are wearing, what words you use or what book you reference, as long as you live a life that is loving to each other, peaceful in nature and which leaves your little corner of the world more loving. As it happens, however, I have been a member of the Catholic church all of my life. Recent events have shaken my membership in that institution, and in some ways, also shaken the bedrock of my faith.

I grew up in an alcoholic home, and especially when I was a teen, the only constant I had every week was the ritual of mass. I knew that I could walk into any Catholic church anywhere in the world, and it would be the same, consistent, reassuring and constant. It was the faith that I grew up in, and for more years than I can remember, it was the faith that I have practiced through my singing, by being a choir member, a cantor, a funeral cantor, a wedding cantor...Singing is how I have always prayed because music breaks through barriers that everything else resists. 

When my daughter arrived, she started attending church with us. I would sit in the side pew of the choir loft and I often fed her a bottle while simultaneously singing the offertory hymn with the aid of a music stand. When she got older, she sat in the back pew with my husband while I did my choir cantor thing at the front. Until she was in school full-time, if I had to sing at a funeral, she would go and spend time with my mom. When that option was no longer available, she would come to church with me and sit in the side pew. She was used to funerals and behaved reasonably well for the most part.

My daughter has recently been diagnosed with ARND-Alcohol Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder. It is a form of Fetal Alcohol, and is a legacy of her birth mom, along with the crack. What it means, is that while she does not have the facial cues, alcohol caused permanent brain damage. Her left and right sides didn't develop equally, developed partially and parts didn't develop at all. She has trouble with transitions, she has trouble with too much noise, light and sound, and has a myriad of other challenges that we are dealing with and determining. And it is all internal, so the meltdown and movement looks like misbehaving rather than overload, and it is often judged as lenient parenting rather than understanding what my daughter needs to deal with an impending overload.

My daughter misbehaved at church. There's a lot more to it, but that encapsulates it. I made some poor decisions trying to give her responsibility...and  I was informed that unless someone was with her 100% of the time from now on, she couldn't attend mass. Choir members had complained. If I brought her alone, my only job was to "sit in the corner and make her behave." The message was delivered by someone that I would have called a friend, and more insult to injury, the mother of two special needs adults. And the message had been sent from the priest.

To say that I was shocked, hurt and stunned is an understatement. The message was delivered in front of some of the choir members. The institution that preaches acceptance and tolerance had just turned its back on one of its young members, and one with special needs. Nowhere in any of my bibles does it say "let the little children come to me, but only if they sit down and behave..." Pope Francis speaks of acceptance, didn't seem at all worried that a little fellow wandered up, sat in his chair and gave him a hug. Pope Francis patted his head and kept going. The message was clear-I was welcome. My daughter was banned. 

This has rocked me on a fundamental level. I know that my daughter is going to have a rough go, but of all places, church should have been the safe, welcome place. After a week of agonizing, praying, crying, trying to take the emotion out of it and figuring out what my daughter would learn if I stayed, and what she would learn if I left, I chose to leave. I kept coming back to "screw it." While I don't know for certain, I have a strong idea of who complained, and since it worked once, they will do it again, because let's face it, some of the least Christian people in the church are usually part of the organization and some of the least tolerant may be standing at the pulpit.

At the end of the day, if my daughter isn't welcome, then neither am I because she needs to know with 100% certainty that I have her back, even when she screws up. There will be enough people knocking her down and judging her. I need to be her safe place to fall, even when it's a crash landing. 

So the first time in I have no idea how many years-25-30? I am just a parishioner. I am no longer tied to a certain mass on a certain day and time. We church surfed for a couple of months, and I think we have settled on a new place. The priest is on a personal mission to get my daughter to smile, and upon hearing some of the reason why we changed churches (because he had been trying to encourage me to join that church for awhile) promptly turned and invited her to become an altar server. He wasn't at all concerned with her challenges, he was willing to work around them. 

It was very disconcerting to sit in the congregation during Palm Sunday. Easter is the liturgical time of year that spoke to me the most. I suspect that Good Friday and Easter Sunday will be equally disconcerting. Having my child rejected by the place that was my anchor has likewise pulled my sense of belonging out of its foundation. I attend church now, but my sense of connectedness is gone. I no longer feel a part of the institution that was my safe place all of my life. 

In much of my life, I have felt like an outlier, a square peg in a world of round holes, a misfit...but I never expected to feel that way in church. And the fact that my daughter was rejected takes things to a whole new level, since her challenges were well known. I don't feel a part of the Catholic Church any more. I'm just going through the motions and hoping that equilibrium will return. Solace and spiritual comfort are gone for me. I guess I'll have to find a way to make my own.  

The Little Things

What I am discovering with my mom's death, is it's not so much the big things that are getting me, it's the little things. The little things stab me in the heart.

My mom's favorite Christmas carol was "Silent Night." I made it as far as "holy night" and then bolted for the coatroom at mass Christmas Eve.

For as long as I can remember, on Christmas Day everything stopped for the Queen's Christmas message. We all sat around the television until the Queen had finished speaking, and then Christmas Day continued as before. This year, I spoke with mom's best friend mid-morning Christmas morning, and she mentioned she had just listened to the Queen's message. When I listened to it later, I broke down. For the first time in my life, I watched it alone.

My mom was a staunch monarchist, and was particularly fond and protective of Prince William. She would have been thrilled to hear there was a baby coming. It was hard not to pick up the phone and talk to her about it.

Hilary Clinton stepped down and John Kerry took over as Secretary of State. That would have merited several long discussions about it. I am a third generation political junkie and one of the last things mom and I did together was watch the US election returns in her room at the nursing home.

The Pope resigned. That would have merited several more long discussions.

I found a perfect dress for my daughter's first Communion at an upscale second hand store. It was new with tags, simple, appropriate and $15. Mom would have been thrilled, all the more so since my daughter loved it on sight.

And the Blue Jays are starting spring training. With the team they have put together and my mom cheering them from heaven, if they don't win the World Series this year, something is seriously wrong.

And when the Dairy Queen opens again next month, there will not be a rite of spring ice cream with mom for the first time in my life.

I miss mom a million ways a day, whether it's finding her handwriting on a note in a box, looking at old pictures or hearing her voice in my daughter's teddy bear message that she recorded. I can handle the big things. The little things hurt.

Finding my Brave at the CNE

I love the CNE. I love the sights, the sounds, the Belgian strawberry waffle with ice cream and strawberries-I love to people watch, to snoop in the buildings, watch silly people scare themselves witless on rides while I sit and watch. I love the CNE.

When I lived in Toronto, I would take myself down to the fair in town every year. I hopped the King streetcar and got off at the Dufferin Gate. I'd spend the day wandering the fairgrounds and I would visit the Arts and Crafts building and the international pavilion, indulge in my strawberry waffle, visit the Hershey booth, the Billy Bee Honey booth and the Tetley tea booth, get my tarot cards read by a grizzled old gypsy in the horse building, pet a couple of velvety horse noses and head for home happy and broke. When I started dating my husband, I introduced him to my CNE ritual, and we've extended it to our daughter.

The first year we took the Kid to the CNE, she was around 18 months old. We stayed until the lights came on on the midway and she was hooked. Her head swivelled so fast from left to right I was afraid of whiplash. "Oh, pretty. oh pretty..." was all she kept saying. When she was little, rides were easy. Now that she's older, fearless and taller, going to the CNE or any midway requires the negotiation skills of a UN envoy. She loves rides. I don't.

I was the person who held the bags and purses at Canada's Wonderland while everyone else hit the roller coasters. I was the person who stayed in the lobby of the Empire State Building when everyone else rode to to the top. I used to be able to do any ride that spins, as long as it stays relatively on the ground. I don't do roller coasters, I don't do heights, and I don't do 3-D or IMAX.  After a couple of sessions of whiplash, I can no longer do spinny rides too well. My husband doesn't do spin, but doesn't mind heights or roller coasters. We have a kid who loves rides. Trade offs and negotiating are now a huge part of our day and I have been known to exercise the Mom Veto on rides that will take 20 years off my life if my kid goes on them. Drop Zone at Marineland received the "over my dead, bleeding body" Mom Veto.

Imagine my Kid's surprise and delight, then, when I agreed to take her on the Polar Express. I used to LOVE the Polar Express, or Music Express or any other variation of the ride where you sit and go backwards in a hilly circle while they play music that muffles the screams. "Do you want to go faster?" "YES" "Do you want to go FASTER?" "YES"... I agreed to take my kid on the ride. "Really, mommy? REALLY We can go on the ride? REALLY? Let's GO!"

A car accident in 2002 resulted in a misdiagnosed cracked hip and lower leg. I walked on it for months before a bone scan revealed the then-healed cracks. It's left me with osteo-arthritis in my hip that causes some mobility challenges. I'm also significantly heavier than previous years. But my kid was already running up the ramp to find a seat in a ride I wasn't sure how I was going to get into. Onward.

The ride started and I tried my best not to squish my kid as centrifuge tried to send me to the other side of the cart. We both laughed our heads off on the ride and it was just as I remembered. I felt a bit queasy, but it was manageable. The music really hadn't changed much in 30 years. It was pulsing and loud and mercifully, over quickly.

When the ride stopped, I was leaning backwards low to the ground and my knees were higher than my head. And I was stuck. I couldn't slide forward enough to use my good leg to stand up. I couldn't swivel around to use both legs to stand, and I couldn't stand from the angle I was sitting in because of my gimpy hip and my weight. I was stuck. I tried various combinations to disembark before flagging down one of the buff young carnies, swallowing my pride and asking for help. He grabbed my outstretched hand, heaved me out and I waddled off the ride, my dignity cowering behind me, tail between her legs.

I vetoed a second trip on the ride, but the Kid was still happy. Mommy had kept her promise and took her on the Polar Express. I soothed my dignity with a deluxe strawberry waffle with chocolate, ice cream AND whipped cream. And we all went home happy and broke.

A day in the life of OCD/Anxiety

In honour of National Children's Mental Health Week, I bring you a snapshot of my life with my amazing 7 year old child, who happens to have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Anxiety Disorder. She may also have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; we're still in the investigative process with that. (FASD) Although she rates 6 out of 8 characteristics for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, (ADHD) she isn't "bad" enough to be considered ADHD. FASD and ADHD manifest in similar ways anyway. Potato-Potahto.

My little girl's birth mom admitted to crack cocaine use and drinking alcohol while pregnant. We knew before we adopted the Kid that we could have some challenges, researched it and decided to adopt the Kid anyway. She is the child God wanted us to have. I know that in my heart and my soul, and she is the reason that the first adoption fell through. God wanted us to have the Kid instead.

The Kid's OCD and Anxiety are twins that operate in tandem. When her anxiety gets worse, so does her OCD. Things need to be calm and consistent at home, and mom has to be calm and unstressed or things go off the rails fast. The Kid is an empath, and she feeds off stress and tension in the house. The last few months in our lives have been uncertain and chaotic, and I have learned the hard way that I need to keep my stress under control for the Kid's well-being as well as my own.

So what does OCD look like? A million little routines that HAVE to take place in a set order in a set way, or the Kid can't cope. For example, food cannot touch, it cannot be broken, and she can't use the same utensil for two different things. If I send pudding and soup in her lunch, she needs two spoons. Washing the spoon out isn't good enough-she needs two separate spoons. If there is even one corner broken on a cracker, she won't eat it. If the granola bar breaks in half in transit, she won't eat it. She fixates on certain things, so for the last 3 months, it was pasta with butter and cheese every single day in her lunch, except the day that she has a hot lunch. Monday-Thursday for most of this school year, she ate pasta with butter and cheese. Some days, I'd sneak in a sandwich or alphaghetti, but for the most part, it was pasta with butter and cheese. Sometime last week, we were done with pasta and cheese. It can happen that fast. The obsession starts, has to run its course and then it's done.

The special ed teacher last year told me I was enabling her obsession by packing her lunch that way. If enabling that piece of OCD means my child eats lunch every day, I can own that. She has never been able to cope or function if she was hungry. She WILL NOT EAT if her lunch is messed with-found that out in Kindergarten when the school was punishing her every day for talking instead of eating. Turns out a kid was trashing her lunch every day, so she couldn't eat, so she talked instead. Move the kid, problem fixed, she started eating. It was my first clue that we had a challenge to deal with.

Hair must be brushed before teeth. I found that out the hard way when I tried to hurry things along one morning and tried brushing her hair while she brushed her teeth. She freaked and locked herself in the bathroom for 20 minutes. In the winter, the order is coat, boots, hat, mitts, scarf and all must be on before we open the door. She will never be able to put her hat and mitts on in the car. Stuffies need to be in a certain place on her bed, things need to be in a certain place in her room. There are a myriad of rules that help the Kid cope with life, and some of them drive me batty, but I've learned to accept them.

The more worrisome aspect of her OCD, though, is her fixation on people. She will zero in on one person to the exclusion of everyone else. In Senior Kindergarten, one of her friends moved on to Grade 1. The Kid fixated on her to the exclusion of everyone else. It made for a tough school year start until it ran its course. She has also fixated on an older boy who used to be a lunch helper. He encouraged a game of chase with her which eventually had most of the school helping her find him, trying to stop him etc. It was innocent fun, except for a kid with OCD it became her lunch routine. the older boy got tired of being chased every day and put a halt to it, except for the OCD kid, it was still a fixation. Christmas break intervened and she didn't see him for a couple of weeks. The teacher thought I was overreacting about the OCD at first, and downplayed my concern about the chase game-but came to understand that in the Kid's mind, it wasn't a game.

Anxiety makes her check on her possessions. Anxiety makes her so upset that she's awake at 0230 hrs the night before a presentation. Anxiety had her in full-blown hysteria because she was afraid she'd left a favorite stuffy in the car, and was terrified that someone would steal it. I had to take her out to the car to reassure her. Anxiety brought that same stuffy in a zippered carry-all to ride on rides at the fall fair because it couldn't be left at home or in the car. Bunny came on the rides. Anxiety almost got her killed last summer when she left Bunny on a table at summer camp, and nearly bolted straight into 4 lanes of rush hour traffic to go back and get him. Anxiety can increase the OCD reactions. She's only 7-what happens when puberty hits?

OCD and Anxiety are not something she can snap out of. They are as much a part of her as her blue eyes and long legs. They do not define who she is, but they do explain how she reacts. I educate people about her characteristics, and I will help the Kid understand. As a family, we will learn and understand how her mind works. They are part of who she is, granted, but it doesn't change anything. My kid is still amazing and I love her. People will need to understand that, or they will have to answer to me, and you don't mess with mama bear.

Not another day

I'm writing this down. You may hold me to it.

• I will do Wii Fit at least 6 days a week. I'm 3 days in. So far, so good.
• I will eat more carefully. Au revoir, poutine, my stress-day comfort food of choice.
• I will support my husband as he follows Weight Watchers, whether or not he ever gets around to giving me the freaking books so that I can cook appropriate meals for him.
• To the best of my ability, I will try to love my body, no matter what shape it is.
  
• This is a long shot, since I've never actually done this in my life, but I will try to develop enough self confidence to wear a bikini (bikini, not tankini) at the water park next summer.
  

So it has been written, so it shall be done. (with apologies to Yul Brenner and the writers of "The Ten Commandments.")

I've hit rock bottom (or top limit depending on perspective). A couple of days ago (3 if you're perceptive...) I hit a new number on the scale, and ventured into a realm that I never thought was possible. Who knew the numbers went that high. I also hit the "not another day."

I've always had poor body image. I can remember my mother telling me when I was a young girl (maybe 10-11) that I had big legs. I'm sure she won't remember the conversation, but I sure do. Now in all fairness to my mother, I DO have big legs. They are short and squat, and probably would have been highly prized if I was a settler in Western Canada building a soddy. Legs like a ruddy ox, she has. (they are strong, too) My oldest friend (oldest as in known the longest-since we were 3, not as in chronological years) is 6ft, and most of that is legl me, 5ft 5 in if I'm standing straight, and my legs barely reach my waist.


I have what is apparently the ideal feminine shape-an hourglass figure. Okay, so it's not so much hour as century right now but I'm working on it. (my waist is still smaller than the boobs and hips-it's just everything changes proportionally) It's the "ideal" shape...until you try to buy clothes, because apparently, fashion designers were never told this is supposed to be the ideal-at least not in this era. I remember reading a quote by British actress Dawn French that went something along the lines that in another era, she would have been worshipped as a model, and Kate Moss would have been a paint brush. I laughed out loud, and nodded in agreement. Big boobs and "good child bearing hips-you can turn a bus in them" (as my friend Clare's mom remarked to me in high school) are not fashion friendly. I also have the curse of "curvy" women everywhere-cellulite. If Kim Kardashian can own it; so can I. (Kim Kardashian)

I am what I am. I've accepted the fact that I can't draw and math gives me hives. I've accepted my singing, my writing and my crafting as part of who I am. It's time to accept the package the talents came in.

I have an extra challenge, though. I was molested when I was 12-13, and the molester blamed me. After I'd slapped his hand away from my breast, he said "do you blame me-you in that tight top. What did you think?" I remember what I was wearing: it was a multi-coloured, turtleneck and jeans, and oh yeah, I was a freaking CHILD. From that day forward, the Girls have stayed under wraps. It took me a long time to be able to place the blame where it needed to be, but it also set up a life time of hiding "the Girls". I've never worn a bikini, at least not since the Girls arrived. The only time the Girls peek (and I mean peek) out for air is when I'm wearing the dreaded bathing suit, because I have always reasoned that people would be so busy staring at the Girls that they will never notice the legs. (It works.) The Girls had many courses in high school and university taught to them, have had many conversations addressed to them and were surgically reduced when I got tired of the back ache, the neck strain, the stares, the oggling, the subway groping...(and for those of you who know me now and not then, yeah they used to be BIGGER...)

I am always amazed at women who can wear "boob tops" that show more than half of the Girls. I am not one of those women. I remember a woman dressed in such a top who once criticized a breast-feeding mother for exposing herself. The mother was discreet; the woman making the observation, not so much and definitely was exposing more than the mom feeding her child ever did.

I know that I can take steps to reduce my body size. I can't change genetics or reality. Big or small, I will be curvy. It is what it is. It's what my (birth) momma gave me.

One of the best books I've read lately was Valerie Bertinelli's autobiography, not so much for the dish on Eddie Van Halen, but for her candour about self image and acceptance.

I know I have as much work to do mentally as physically. It's time. I have major surgery in January to fix on-going problems, and the fatter I am the more anaesthetic they will pump into me. Since I am violently ill after anaesthetic, the less gas, the better. I have 6 months. Check in. I'll keep you posted. Send me good thoughts, but hold the poutine.