Nothing But My Version of Ordinary

I said I wouldn't go into brother-in-law's nonsense in the last blog, but I think I will. I need to vent.

BIL was invited to come here from New Mexico for Christmas. He's bringing his friend/roommate that has become an adopted family member. He owns two spoiled rotten Lhasa Apsos that he apparently thinks are just like people.

BIL sent an e-mail out to the whole family this week announcing that he'd be bringing his dogs to my house and leave them kenneled in my garage for the three days he'd be here. He didn't ask us if that would be okay, he just announced it. I told him that I wasn't comfortable with that idea, and gave him the name and number for a reputable boarding business here in town that I've used before with my own pets.

This sets off a series of hissy fits via e-mail, with BIL doing everything in his power to try to manipulate me into giving in and saying the dogs can come. Since I don't take kindly to that sort of thing, and I have my own very good reasons for not wanting two spoiled dogs coming to my house, I once again told him no. My father-in-law even offered to pay for a pet-friendly hotel room for him, and that wasn't good enough ("I'd be too worried that the maids might let them out or steal them"). He sent me another e-mail trying to get me to cave in. I haven't responded yet.

For posterity, here are the reasons I don't want two yappy dogs that haven't been trained in my home:

*I have a large dog that doesn't like small dogs and who has never been introduced to the yappers. I don't want a dog fight on my hands.

*I have a 13 month old who likes to climb on dogs, pull their ears, etc. My dog is very patient with all of this and usually will just sit there and let him do it. Lhasa Apsos are not known as being a patient breed.

*The dogs aren't trained. They get into everything. They get on the furniture. I don't allow that sort of thing from my own dog, so why would I want it from someone else's?

*Let's say he actually does leave them kenneled in the garage the whole time like he swears (I doubt this. If I cave to letting him bring them, the next campaign would be for me to let them come out of their crates.). My cats get their food and water in the garage. Their litterbox is also out there. It's where they go to hide when they're overwhelmed by company, small children, etc. If I have two constantly yapping little dogs out there, the cats won't go in. This will mean cats that pee outside of their litterbox, most likely inside my house. Ever tried to get cat pee smell out of something?

*Finally, BIL didn't ASK if they could come, he TOLD us they were coming. I don't appreciate being told what to do in my own home.

I'm super pissed. Jacob says if BIL keeps this up, he'll find himself uninvited for Christmas. At this point, BIL can stay home for all I care, but he's his roommate's ride down here and I really was looking forward to seeing her. I'm not going to allow a manipulator to win, though. If I cave in, then he'll just push the boundaries on another issue. GRRR.

My husband's family is about to try the last ounce of patience that I have. I won't go into the latest reason why, but I do want some feed back on my father-in-law (he's not the most recent offender). FIL likes to ignore what I say about Grant, or argue with me. He apparently doesn't remember what it was like to raise babies, because he will do things that are not safe (try to feed Grant a tortilla chip when he has no molars) or not in the best interest of the baby (try to wake Grant up from a nap early because he thinks he's slept long enough).

I've been patient. I've explained my reasons, and I've told him more than once. I'm at my limit now. It's been building up for a while. Things like waiting until he thinks I'm not looking to give Grant coffee creamer when he was 3 months old after I'd specifically told him not to. Things like feeding him bite after bite after bite of his dessert at a restaurant when I got up to use the bathroom, after me telling him Grant could have ONE bite. Things like him arguing with me about giving Grant juice (Me: It's got too much sugar and he doesn't need it. Him: Well, you let him have fruit, he should have juice!). Things like getting him up from his naps when Grant's still asleep. The final straw was this last visit. It was 6 am, and we don't get Grant out of bed that early. If he wakes up, we leave him in his crib unless he starts to cry. Most mornings he'll just play with his stuffed dog and talk and then fall back asleep for a while longer. My FIL decided to get him out of bed while I was getting ready for work, even though I've told him several times on other visits that we don't get him out of bed that early. He then argued with my husband about it when he (for once, finally) told him that it wasn't okay to do that.

It makes me feel incredibly disrespected in my own home. I'm Grant's mom, and the decisions I make for him go. I don't care if FIL thinks I'm being dumb. He doesn't have to agree, he doesn't have to like it, he just has to follow our wishes when it comes to OUR SON and stop going behind our backs to do what he wants to do. I told Jacob that he needed to talk to his dad and be very clear with him that it was not going to be pretty if he ignored our rules for Grant on this next visit. I will have words with him if he pulls that crap even one more time.

It's hard because he's not a bad guy and he loves Grant to pieces. He's just used to being in charge of the family, and I don't think it's fully sunk in with him that Jacob is edging up to 30, is a married father of two, has an established career and is a second-time homeowner.... in other words, an ADULT. I think that some small part of my FIL's brain still sees Jacob as a kid, and therefore what FIL wants to happen should happen. Jacob has a hard time standing up to him because he respects and loves his dad. I think Jacob is finally starting to realize that he's got to stand up for me with his parents, because otherwise it's going to create some serious friction in our marriage.

Am I totally off base here, or is FIL out of line?

Is it crazy that I get jealous of heart moms that still have their kids here? I see them post updates on how their kids are doing and it just makes my heart ache. Kenneth would most likely have been up for his Fontan right about now if he had made it. I'm thankful that he's out of pain and will never have to endure another surgery, but the selfish side of me wishes he were still here regardless.

I haven't had one day go by that I haven't relived some part of Kenneth's hospital stay. I know that I've got some PTSD from it, but in a way I don't want to let go of those memories even if they are traumatic. Those memories are all that I have left of him. I'm jealous of the moms that have been able to make memories with their kids outside of the hospital. Is that terrible?

I had a blog topic come to me just now that I think is actually a pretty good one. It'd be good if people reading wanted to answer it for themselves, or add their own observations. My topic: How has being a wife and mother changed me?

Being a wife has helped me to mellow my strong will a little bit. I have a very "take charge" kind of personality, and I tend to latch on to an opinion or a way of doing something and run with it. That's a strength when you're a teacher, but it can be a weakness in your personal relationships since grown adults tend to resent feeling like they're being told what to do. Jacob helps me to recognize that fault in my personality and attempt to rein it in a little-- not that I'm always successful. Being a wife means that I no longer think in terms of "I" when I make decisions, but in terms of our family. It means I have to put another person's well-being above my own, which isn't always easy to do.

Being a mother has changed me the most, I think. Being a mother to a sick child is hard, and being the mother of a sick child that died is excruciating. Being a mother taught me what unconditional love really is. It's taught me that I am willing to endure anything at all if it means that my children are taken care of. It's taught me that being someone's mommy is the most important role I could ever fill. It's taught me to cherish every second of life, because life is uncertain and fleeting. It's taught me that I'd much rather get open-mouthed slobbery baby kisses and snuggles on the couch from my son than go out. Being a mother means that I willingly sacrifice things for my children that I would resent losing for anyone else.

My first child changed me in ways that I probably don't even notice fully. I know that I smile less than I did before. I know that I have a constant ache because he's not here. At the same time, I value life more because he showed me just how precious it really is.

My second child showed me that even after extreme hardship, joy is possible. He has changed me back into a closer semblance of the person I was before Kenneth died, and I don't think anyone else could have accomplished that.

Your turn now. Either comment on ways that you've seen me change since becoming a wife and a mom (if you've known me long enough to compare), or comment on how marriage/parenthood has changed or would change you. Should be interesting.

I dreamed about Kenneth last night. I'm not sure what to make of it.

In my dream, I was in a room with two cribs. One was the crib belonging to Grant, and the other one was full of stuffed animals, toys, and the like. I was panicking as I looked into the crib that was full of toys, looking for Kenneth. As I was looking, he stood up in this crib from underneath all of the toys, laughed, and put his arms up to be picked up. In my dream, he was the same age Grant is now, even though he died when he was a month old. I laughed and picked him up, and started looking for ways to take his ventilator and his ECMO pump with him so that I could take him out of the room with me. I told someone else in the dream that I could take the ventilator with me, but not the pump, and then I woke up.

Any wannabe dream interpreters out there want to take a crack at that one?

I sure miss that boy. Holidays seem to make his absence sharper.

Grief doesn't have a time limit. This is a lesson I've learned the hard way as time has gone on. I've been fortunate in life to have not lost anyone close to me before Kenneth died, so his death and my subsequent grief journey is the only experience I have with loss. I've heard that the loss of a child is different, somehow, to other kinds of loss. I wouldn't know. I suppose one day, I'll face the loss of others that are dear to me, and then I'll have a means of knowing. Until then, I have this.

There are a thousand little ways that losing a child still hurts, even several years later. It's the small stab of pain when a stranger, smiling, asks you "How many children do you have?". It's the guilt you feel when you consider saying "One" when the answer is really "Two", just so that you don't have to see the pity in the stranger's eyes or explain that your other child is dead. It's the feeling of incompleteness in your home that will never really go away, because one is and will always be missing. It's feeling joy at watching your living child meet his milestones, while simultaneously feeling grief that you never got to see that same milestone with your lost child. It's going on with life with a measure of happiness, all the while feeling a little guilty because when your child died, you were sure your capacity for happiness died too, and to experience it again feels like a betrayal. It's feeling guilt for thinking of your dead child while playing with your living one.

Since we lost Kenneth, blogging has become my means of coping with his death. I can wrestle with the thoughts that plague me, get them out in writing so that I can organize them and make sense of them. I'd thought that I should change the direction of my blogs, but the reality is that Kenneth's life and death are such a huge part of me now. I cannot make him the focus of my "real life", because I have a living child who needs me and who should not have to live in his brother's shadow. Blogging about Kenneth and my grief allows me to keep it in it's proper place, out of my head and away from Grant for the time being.

This blog will continue to talk about Kenneth, and grief, and death, and life. They're all one big tangle in my head, maybe because they're all interconnected. Kenneth changed me permanently, and it would be wrong for me to pretend that my life is the same as it was before. Time has healed me of the anguish that went with his loss, but not the chronic pain that comes with knowing that he will always be gone. Time can't take away the well-meaning strangers, the little stabs of pain, the unreasonable feelings of guilt. They're a part of the new life that I have, a part of my new normal.

I'm a blog slacker now. I used to write all the time, and now it feels like I have nothing to say. My days go something like this...

Wake up.
Eat and get ready.
Go to work.
Pick up Grant.
Spend an hour or two with Grant before he goes to bed.
Play around on the computer/watch tv
Go to bed.
Repeat.

I do have my share of angst and all of that good stuff, but I feel like I've already said all I can say about the bad stuf. I'm wanting to post about good things, but the good things seem to be hard to write about without coming across as trite. We have drama with the house, but I think at this point it's out of our hands. We'll hire the lawyer, bleed money to pay for the experts, and it will eventually get settled... or at least that's what we hope.

Life seems to vacillate between the mundane and major drama. I don't know if everyone's life is like mine, with all of the bizarre bad things that seem to happen, but it really doesn't matter in the long run. You take the hand you're dealt and do the best with it that you can. Whining isn't going to solve anything, even if it does make me feel better for a few minutes.

So. Good things. Grant has taken his first step. He'll be a year old in a week. I have a great husband, an adorable little boy, and a house that has a perfect floorplan, even if the foundation is crap. LOL. I do miss hanging out with friends, but if that's the price to pay for having kids, I'd pay it over and over again. Life is what it is, and it's time I stopped bitching about it and start making the best of it.