Posts in month: July, 2009

Sunday was mom’s birthday.   I’m not gonna tell you how old she is; she’d kill me if I tried.   It started out a great day but we were afraid that it was going to rain later on.   We were hoping to get the party well on its way before that happened; it was held at my sister’s house.  My wife and Max left to make the 45 minute trip up into New Hampshire so that he could spend time with his cousins before everyone else showed up.

On weekends my mother goes to my other sister’s house to take care of her.  My sister and I both have multiple sclerosis.   Mine is the “funny you don’t look sick” kind.  My sister is bad and continues to get worse.   She is in a wheelchair and must have Personal Care Attendants or PCAs available to help her on a daily basis.  She cannot get out of bed, dress herself, bathe, or use the bathroom without help.  One of the things she loves the most is to be placed on her scooter so she can tool around town in good weather and see her friends.

She has several pcas that work with her during the week.  As I mentioned Mom takes care of her on weekends.   I am generally the “pca on call”.  This means that if she has doctor’s or chiropractor appointments I’m generally the one that helps her get there.   If she’s got a party to go to who’s she gonna call?

Today my job was to travel an hour south to pick up both my mom and my sister and then drive them in the reverse direction an hour and a half to the party.  I’m glad to do it; Sis was my best friend when we were kids.   I can still remember when she was in kindergarten coming home to spend time with her 3 year old brother who would be lonely waiting for her all day. Now we are in our 50s and I can now be there for her.

When I got to her place she and mom were in the bathroom getting ready to go.  Uh oh, she has a new wide screen HDTV; man I’d love to have that!  I sat down to play with it while I was waiting for them.  I didn’t get enough time with it; I was called to help get her onto her chair.

Getting her out of the bathroom is nice now that the state rebuilt the door so it is wide enough to get the wheelchair through.  There are other things they did too such as putting in a new tub, handrails all over the house, and for me something else.  When we were ready to go I pushed her out over the new small ramp onto the back deck and then down the new long ramp on the side of the house to the driveway.  It is so much nicer now than when I would have to position a chair in the house and one in the drive and then carry her up and down the stairs.

I’m also always learning the best ways to help her.  Every time I see her she has a new way to lift her out of the chair and put her into the car.  Today she directed me how to do it.  Like always I position the chair close to the car and then remove the foot rests.  The next step is to move in front of her and stand with my legs on each side of hers.  I then squat a little and reach around behind her to grab the belt she wears underneath her clothes.  On a count of 3 I stand straight up bringing her with me and hold her close.  I spin and lower her onto the car seat.

Now comes the tricky part.  When I set her down she always ends up lying down with her feet still on the driveway.  I have to slide my arm under her armpit and lift her to a seated position.  Today was a little easier because mom climbed into the driver’s side and helped lift her.  Once she was seated I swung her legs into the car and we positioned her so she was comfortable.  Then I put the seat belt on her and threw the wheelchair into the trunk.

Once we were on the road mom took a nap in the back seat and we chatted on about different things.   She and I are both website developers so we talked about things we were working on.  She has not yet seen my blog so we talked about that as well.  The point is that while we are driving we are family and friends having a good conversation.  She does not have to worry about all of her problems, which is a good thing!

When we got to our sister’s house there was a mad rush of kids because grandma and sis were here!   And after that it was time to reverse the procedure by putting her back on the chair and then getting her into the house.  This time my brother-in-law and I had to lift the chair over the steps and inside.  The final stop was out on the back deck.  She spent the afternoon watching the kids swimming in the pool or playing games like hide-n-seek and tag with me.  She loves relaxing and seeing all of this.

My duties were over for the day.   If she needed bathroom breaks our sister took care of it.  Everyone helps her; even the kids brought her hot dogs and burgers.  And I can’t forget mom; this is her day after all.   We sang and brought out the cake. My 8 year old boy gave her a birthday card and grandma laughed when she found a dollar in it, “to spend any way that she’d like.”

The party was still going strong when my wife, Max, and I left.  That seems to be always the case.  When he starts getting tired he can act out like all kids do but his disorders tend to make him worse.  We find it best when it reaches 7:30 at night to make a nice relaxed retreat before anything happens.

I didn’t forget my mother and sister.  My brother and his family had arrived after we did and he stepped up to take them home.  So mom was ecstatic, it was the best time she had had with her family in a long time especially since she hadn’t had to worry about my sister.  She does that enough anyway.  And my sister had a wonderful time.   She doesn’t get to see her nieces and nephews very often and she misses them and it is gratifying to her to find they miss her too.

Sometimes I wonder who my kid is.  Max is a major hoarder, like his parents.  I swear he has the first gift he ever got.  You know what?  He does!   The day he was born I gave him a baby sized soccer ball.  It is still in the garage after 8 years.  A short time ago I wrote about how he wanted a new bike and one of the conditions was to clean the garage.  He did it with gusto!

Soon after that he took it into his head to clean up the sold waste dump otherwise known as his bedroom.   Like the garage some of the stuff he threw away, others he donated.  We can now breathe when we walk into it though it is not completely cleaned out.

There is another room all his; it is his toy room.  It was piled from floor to ceiling with toys, junk, books, junk, videos, junk, games, and just plain junk!  We had talked for months about cleaning it up and making it a room he could enjoy but nothing was happening.  Finally we sat him down and made a suggestion.  Get rid of only 10 items a day.   They can be large or small and he can throw them away or donate them.  For each item he got rid of we would give him a sticker.  Once he collected 70 stickers he would get a prize.  No, not something that would take up more space; perhaps a trip to Chucky Cheese’s or something similar.

He jumped at the idea.  So much so he was getting rid of more than 10 items a day.  He understood anything over that number would get him a bonus sticker but he would still have to get rid of 10 a day (no rollover points).  He completed his 70 items in a week and chose to go to Chucky’s.  I think his goal was just to get rid of everything and get the stickers because he spent only 30 minutes at the place.

Is the room spotless?  No, it looks like nothing has been done.   If, however, you saw everything he had thrown away you would have thought the room must be clean.

Since he got his 70 stickers is he done?  No way!  He came up with a novel way to clean it.  He is having shopping sprees.  Twice his buddy Bobby has been over and each time Max allows him to load up his backpack with as many toys as he can grab within a certain time limit.  Max keeps having to make the limit longer and longer because Bobby is s-o s-l-o-w!  It doesn’t seem a lot is happening this way but my wife and I are wondering how his Mom is going to react to all the stuff being transported to his house.

I really don’t know my kid.  What happened to all the hoarding?  I do know his goal is to convert the toy room into an amazing room he saw in a furniture catalog.  It is all spotless and clean.  There are places to play and to read. And there isn’t any clutter.

Even though he has been into cleaning lately he “falls off the wagon” sometimes. Both the garage and his bedroom are starting to get cluttered again.  To keep his cleanliness habit we are going to have to keep after him to throw out his trash.  His ocd seems to swing like a pendulum from hoarding to cleaning.

Right now he is getting really hyper.  Bobby’s 60 seconds has stretched into a half an hour and he is still s-l-o-w-l-y finding things.   But Max is bouncing off the walls waiting for him. Anything he picks up gets thrown down immediately.   He tried to change a battery in one of his toys and it turned out he didn’t have a replacement…meltdown.  I don’t know how much more cleaning will happen today.

Once he is finally completed he will have to convert his parents so that they become recovering hoarders too.

I received a question today on a post I wrote called Alternatives.

“I’m studying alternative medicine for sociology at school and was wondering why people chose to use alternative medicine when modern medicine is available.  Even people with cancer, chose to use alternative therapy instead of rely in doctors. I am just very unsure why.”

There are a lot of reasons why people use alternatives.

Some don’t trust drug companies. They believe that these outfits are only in it for the money.  They point to examples where the companies have suggested long term use of medicines ostensibly to prevent possible problems.  For example, taking one aspirin a day can prevent heart attacks.  Even some doctors are calling this a myth.  If it is, then some companies are making a profit on this.

Still others worry about drug testing. Up until the 1970s it took about 20 years of testing before a drug was approved for use.   Today tests are completed within a year and then if there are no immediate problems it is released to the public.  Have you ever noticed how your doctor’s office hands out free samples?  This is a way of testing it in the field.  Have you noticed how a lot of drug ads list side affects that, in some cases, outweigh the benefits?  Some drugs have been taken out of circulation when it was discovered that they can cause death.

Some people don’t trust doctors. Are these doctors getting kickbacks from the drug companies to push certain drugs?  It seems like everyone is on at least one drug nowadays.   They see other doctors as being close minded.  There has been a lot of study on omega 3 fatty acids and how they can help the body. Some doctors actually consider the results of eating fish or taking omega 3 supplements to be more of a placebo rather than a benefit.

People look at their country’s healthcare ranking. According to the World Health Organization the United States ranks 37.  To give you an idea where we are on the list, Cuba is 39, Morocco is 29.

They listen to prominent doctors. When a particular harmful drug was removed from the market a few years ago the then surgeon general was asked if drugs actually cure illness.  His answer was that they only address symptoms.  When asked if these drugs are safe he responded that drugs will kill you.

Why do these same people trust alternatives? The same surgeon general was asked if alternative medicines are safe.  He said that the worst they could do would be to give you diarrhea.

Do alternatives work? Modern medicine is fairly young, perhaps 50 years old.  A lot of the “natural medicines” have been around for thousands of years. Some work, some don’t.   Evidence is strictly anecdotal; there haven’t been many formal studies done.  If someone is going to go in this direction they should do a lot of their own research.  Some of this stuff is just “snake oil”.  You can end up spending thousands of dollars for something that doesn’t work well or at all.

I believe in using both alternative and mainstream medicine. One prominent MD, Medical School Teacher, and author, Andrew Weil believes in Integrative Medicine which combines mainstream medical treatments with alternative treatments for which there is some scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness.

Both mainstream and alternative medicines have some very beneficial parts to them.  Just as people should research alternative practices before utilizing them they should also study mainstream methods before discounting them.

It has been a mixed bag of a day today. It has had its ups and downs and we have a long way to go before it is over. It started out like any other Thursday. We got Max off to school and then I went over to my mother’s house. Every Thursday I do the work that she needs to have done. I washed the shingles on the roof; there has been a lot of mold this year. I also trimmed back her bushes. Then after that it was time for a road trip.

Several weeks ago I put up a guest post from my friend Rich Mountain regarding an organization called suitcases4kids. Its goal is to replace the garbage bags that kids in foster care use to move their belongings with suitcases. Ever since I told her about it Mom has been searching out and giving me 3 or 4 suitcases a week to give to the charity. Today when I arrived she handed me 2 but then she wanted to stop at a couple of places where she has had good luck finding them.

We found 1 suitcase at our first stop but then saw a beautiful one at the second. As we entered the place a gold Mercedes Benz pulled in behind our car. A fiftyish man got out dressed in expensive clothes. He was wearing a tight v-neck jersey with black chest hair pouring out and gold chains around his neck. He followed us inside.

This is an interesting place. Residents of this town drop of items that are in good condition that they don’t need anymore. If they or someone else sees something they like they can just take it. There is no rhyme or reason to the place. People drop their things anywhere they find a space so as a result rather than having a clear path to move through quite often we have to step over things to get to another spot.

Mom has had good luck finding suitcases here. She has a system; move through the place once to see if she finds anything she wants. Once she completes her first circuit anything she has picked up she hands off to a companion, me in this case. She then makes a second run because she finds that she always misses things the first time. Depending on her mood she may make several more trips after this.

It was during the second pass that I saw the beautiful suitcase; some child would love this. As I moved towards it suddenly out of nowhere appeared that gentleman who had also discovered it. He scooped it up before I got there and examined it to see if it was in good condition. I was amused that he was even interested in it; even more so when I found out that he was going to sell it in a yard sale. When I approached him and suggested he donate it to the kids he shrugged me off; apparently the money was more important. No matter, Mom had found 3 so far this week for me.

When we were done I dropped my mother off at her house and headed home. My wife was waiting for me at the door; she was unhappy. She had been sick for some time and had finally been able to see her doctor. After he tested her he gave her some not so good news. He said that she had parasites, a yeast infection, and a tape worm; he prescribed some medicines for her. He also suggested she stop eating wheat because of all the gluten and chocolate because of the sugar. He said that she was feeding the parasites, the yeast, and the worm.

She won’t have much of an issue cutting out wheat; she has been slowly working on doing that for some time now. It is the chocolate she will have a problem with. As she puts it, she’s been eating it since she was a baby. She calls it her addiction. I believe it; I have seen her kneeling on the floor in store candy aisles pulling bags of candy off the bottom shelf just so she can find the ones that she loves. We will be working on this one for awhile.

And guess what? Max got home from school on time but then had a meltdown. Why? He didn’t know; he just knew that he was upset. I convinced him to sit quietly on the couch until he could get it together. When he recovered we told him he could have his best friend over. This was a big deal; they haven’t been together for 3 weeks. Separating them started out as loss of privilege, or punishment, or whatever you want to call it. Max had taken issue with something his friend had said and started hitting him. We took Bobby home and told my son that he couldn’t play with him for a few days.

But when we gave Max back the privilege of seeing his friend, Bobby had disappeared. Turns out he and his mom went on vacation and when they got back she was very sick so we weren’t able to communicate with them. 3 weeks later the boys are back together and as I write they are having a ball. They are dividing their time between playing indoors and outside. It’s about to rain so I expect they’ll be camping out soon in front of my office door.

Even though the day is far from over it has certainly been a mixed day of successes and upsets. I’m hoping for a quiet relaxing evening tonight. Oh wait, probably not. The “So You Think You Can Dance” result show is on tonight and I know my wife will be terribly upset at whoever is cut. It has been whittled down to 4 girls and 4 boys and unfortunately my wife loves all of them.

Did I say I was hoping for a relaxing evening?

My son Max is 8 years old. He loves to go to school because there are always things for him to do. It is a very structured environment, which he needs. His anxiety levels skyrocket if nothing is scheduled for him. When that happens his disorders activate; he has odd, bipolar disorder, pdd/nos, and adhd.

Weekends can be tough because we don’t always have something for him to do. Max has a lot of energy so it can take him minutes or even seconds to get through the things he thinks of doing. Then he spends a lot of time moping around the house getting very bored and very miserable. Being at home is not a very happy time for him.

This passed Sunday turned out to be a very exciting day. I have rarely seen him so happy. It started out as a pretty standard weekend day. He woke up at 5 in the morning and went through his morning wildness before his medications started working. But it seemed that he got bored very quickly this morning.

“What are we going to do today?”

“Where are we going to go?”

“Who can I play with?”

And he was starting to whine and hound us; a typical weekend day.

At 7 o’clock I called him over. “Max, I’m going raspberry picking, are you coming with me?” “I dunno.” “Well, I’ll be in the car. If you want to come then join me.” Guess what, he went with me. He wasn’t sure he wanted to; he dragged his feet getting out there; but he went.

It was only 7:15 when we arrived at the farm. As I pulled into the parking lot his anxiety kicked in. “It’s too early. It is still closed.” I reassured him that it had been open for 15 minutes already. After all, I told him, it is a farm; they’ve probably been working since 5 o’clock. And it was. We went into the store and were directed to the raspberries a quarter of a mile walk in back of the fields.

When we got there we bought a little bucket from a girl in a hut. She then pointed out the best pickings for us. Max was a little tentative at first pulling the juicy red raspberries off of the bushes but he soon got into the swing of things and started filling the bucket. Of course, he had to try a couple as we went along. We also found some black raspberries which topped off the pail nicely.

When we were done we spent some time in the farm playground and visited their petting zoo. After that we each had one of their apple cider donuts while watching the geese splash in the pond.

You would think that after all of this it would be lunch time. Hardly, it’s only 8:30. From here we did some hiking. There is a hill close to our house in the middle of a forest. It is very steep and it’s a lot of exercise getting to the top. Max ran most of the way; I was crawling by the end. It took a half hour to get to the top and then back to the car.

From here we decided to get some breakfast at a restaurant on the grounds of a small airport near us. Max had sausage and some apple juice. It was a beautiful day so we got to see a lot of planes flying.

We got home at 10 o’clock. This worked out for us because, what we hadn’t told Max, we were leaving to go to a barbeque at 10:30. While we were away my wife had spent the morning putting together the food we were bringing and packing other essentials. We arrived at the party at 11:30. Our hosts own a house on a lake in New Hampshire. Max’s eyes lit up when he saw it and he immediately went from the car to the water.

I won’t spend a lot of time writing about everything Max did today but he swam for a long time. He then went out on both a pedal boat and a kayak several times during the afternoon. He also paddled around this side of the lake on a rubber tire. There were three girls his age at the party and they joined in everything he was doing. The one thing they didn’t want any part of were the large spiders he found underneath a floating dock. And he ate hotdogs, corn chips, brownies, and cookies; anyone that knows him will be surprised to hear this. He doesn’t usually eat very much and rarely touches sweets.

We had planned on leaving the party at 3 but Max was having so much fun that we ended up staying until 8 o’clock. And after this long day he slept the hour home and I carried him to bed.

As I said earlier, this was a very exciting day for him. He didn’t have any time to even think about being miserable. It was wonderful to see. Most parents don’t like to see their kids unhappy; our kid may be unhappier than most of them. He doesn’t have too many friends; the ones he has don’t want to see him often because of the way he acts. His dad is in his 50s and has multiple sclerosis so he doesn’t have a lot of energy to do things with him. He is very anxious and it bothers him that he has to take medications for each of his problems.

Today was an amazing day for him; he fell asleep excited. This is the kind of day my wife and I treasure. Hmmm, I wonder if we can have a couple more of these before the end of the summer.

Have you been keeping up with everything happening with President Obama’s Healthcare Initiative?  I have found it confusing especially since I started watching the cable channel devoted to the goings on in the Senate.  Of course, the Democrats want one thing and keep going on and on about how the Republicans are trying to stop any reform that will benefit the country.  Meanwhile the Republicans are complaining that the package that the Democrats in both the Congress and Senate will bankrupt the country while limiting all the choices that Mr Obama promised.

Who is right?  I don’t think any of the politicians are.  And they won’t be right until they start listening to their constituents.  I recently came across a series of videos that attempts to put our current healthcare situation into some perspective.  There are 14 and are only 50 seconds to 8 minutes long (note, some videos have several parts to them).  None are slickly packaged; each is about someone like you and me who has had issues (good and bad) with our current healthcare system and what changes, if any, they would like to see.

All are worth watching but since they are all homegrown some are better than others. This is the first one:

“When I first brought up this video I was afraid it was going to try to sell me a position (pro or con) on government healthcare.  But like the rest of us Ms Keenan has only voiced her concerns about what the final outcome may be.”

Each video covers a different aspect, some talk about their insurance coverage, others tell stories of their harrowing experiences with the current health care system, and still others don’t even have insurance.  All would like to know what the future of healthcare is and what they would like to see included.

Most of them like the idea of a single payer system but they regret that it is not even part of the government discussion right now.  And of course there are those that argue along party lines, that is, why the Republicans are wrong and why the Democrats are on the right track.  But aside from that we can learn something from what each person has to say.  And for me it was a great start in understanding all the issues without having to listen to the politicians’ versions.

After seeing this video you can watch the rest of them and then think about your situation.  What experiences have you had with healthcare and what would you like to see happen.  If you are from Massachusetts what do you think of their healthcare plan.

For those of you who don’t know, besides the standard insurance company plans, Massachusetts has two of their own.  The first one is called MassHealth.  It is for people who are under 19, over 65, or are disabled.  The second program, Commonwealth Care, is for those people between the ages of 19 and 65 and are in good health.  Costs for these are based on your income level.  In this state everyone must have insurance so these were made available for people that can’t afford regular health insurance.

What is a grudge?   The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury.”   To me it is either not knowing how to or an unwillingness to communicate.

“But,” someone will respond “what they did was unforgivable. It is up to them to apologize first and then we can discuss it.” Of course the other person believes this one should apologize. And there it continues.

It is bad enough if neighbors or friends have a disagreement that splits them up but it can be worse for families.

My mother has 3 brothers. In 1956 the younger 2 went on a trip together. They were far away from civilization when something happened. I have no idea what it was. I don’t know who did what to whom. What I know is that they came back from the trip separately and didn’t speak for 20 years! This was probably difficult since their mother lived with the younger brother so at all the holidays the other brother would go to the house to spend time with her. It was decidedly chilly in there at those times.

In 1976 they patched up their difficulties and became friends but things weren’t all right with the world; 5 years later something else separated them again and this time the older brother got into the act and cut off the younger one as well. In both situations the rest of the family just shook our heads and continued on with each other. I still played with all my cousins from both sides of the rift. I just thought the whole problem was silly.

However, things like this can escalate so that the whole family is affected. As my grandmother got older my mother would help her younger brother take care of her; these were the only 2 out of 5 siblings that did. This didn’t cause a problem with anyone but the result would.

In 1959 my grandmother bought a piece of land for her younger son. He built a house on it and moved her into it. Later he added more buildings and started a company. By 1990 it was worth millions of dollars because of the sweat and hard work he put into it. The problem was that the land was still in his mother’s name and as a result the 2 older brothers were salivating, imagining all the money they would inherit when she died.

But sometime in the early 1990s my mother asked her what she was going to do with the property. My grandmother was surprised at the question; as far as she was concerned it belonged to her younger son. He was the one who built the house; he was the one that started the company; he was the one that did all the work. My mother suggested that she transfer the deed to him otherwise it would all get sold and the proceeds would be split among all 5 kids.

That was not what she wanted; as far as she was concerned she had already given her boys their inheritances back in 1959 when her husband died. The older boy got a house; the middle boy got money, and the land was her youngest boy’s.

When the older sons found out that she had signed over the property they were livid. Not only did they disown their brother but they also did it to my mother. They believed that in return for a big chunk of money that she had gotten their mother to “steal” their inheritance. Mom didn’t get a dime; she wasn’t looking for money; she wanted to do what was right. For that she lost 2 of her brothers.

Not only that the men poisoned the kids against us too. It took awhile but we are friends again with the eldest brother’s kids but we haven’t seen the middle brother’s in years. It’s sad.

And there are a lot of other examples too. Like when I was growing up my neighbors disowned their oldest son for marrying a girl they didn’t like. He went off, made millions, and has a great family. Their youngest boy didn’t do so well, is divorced, screams at his mother constantly, and loafs around their home…and he is in his late fifties.

It seems like most grudges are over stupid things. This post was prompted by a television program where two of the characters hadn’t spoken for years. And neither one of them remembered why they were angry with each other.

Is there such a thing as a “legitimate” grudge? I can’t think of one. It seems to me if people sit down immediately to discuss the issue that even though there might be some short term pain it is cleared up. On the other hand, a grudge causes long term pain and misery with no benefits.

What do you think?

I have been working on my mother’s house.  Today’s job was “the boys” room; “the boys” are my brother and me, when we were growing up.  There is a lot of work to be done.  My mother has decided that she is getting older.  She is in her 80s and wants to make sure the house is ready to sell once she is gone.

But really, she has a good 10-15 years left; her mom died when she was 98.  The real reason is that she would like to move in with my sister who she has been taking care of on weekends for a number of years now.  She drives an hour each way and then moves my sister to and from her wheelchair, into the bathroom, in and out of bed, and feeds and dresses her.   Mom has a lot of energy but she worries about my sister during the week.  Even though sis has personal care attendants, mom would still like to know everything is okay.

I’m not in a rush to get her out; she has been here a long time.  The woman I bought my house from had lived there for 50 years.  Her husband had died the year before and the children decided that she couldn’t manage it alone.  I found out later that she was very unhappy after she moved; she misses the house badly.

Similarly the woman in the house next door lived there 54 years.  I got to know her a bit before she left; or really, her children moved her too for the same reason.  Her husband died at Christmas, they had her out by the end of the following summer.  And she has been unhappy ever since too.

Because I’ve been doing the work at my mother’s house it has given me a chance to think about it.  Do they miss their homes?  Or is it all the memories they have of being there?  They have a lot of memories built up over 50 years.

I know because each time I work on part of the house it brings them up for me.  Today I was working on my bedroom.  The rug is all frayed and may have to come out.  I’m not surprised, it was installed 40 years ago and even though it still looks good it is falling apart.  The pad underneath is mostly dust.  But I have a lot of memories in here, reading and playing with friends.  During the 1960s I had black light posters, black lights, and grave stone rubbings all around the room when I was in my dark period.  Would this be called “Goth” now?

Each time I do some work in the den I remember how my dad and I converted the garage into it.  It happened when I was about 13 and the big memory I have is knocking a hole in the back wall when my dad was at work.  I knew that was about the spot he wanted to put in a sliding glass door.  I had never measured and planned; I just got moving.  When he got home he was a little shocked but he set about fixing my shoddy workmanship.  He cleared the hole, sized it to the door, and patched the rest.

We also…  I could keep going and talk about everything we did in the basement and the porch we added on the other side of the house, etc, etc but this is about my mother.  She has a lot of memories, 50 years of them, just like the other women.  She watched her kids grow up here, one daughter got married here, her husband died here.  The way I look at it, her mother lived in her last home for almost 40 years.  The difference is that she lived with her son and his family; my mom is alone and the house is big.

I don’t want to be like the kids who moved their mothers out.  I want her to stay as long as she wants.  Would she miss the house?  Absolutely.  Does she have a lot of memories?  Positively.  As far as I’m concerned she will leave when she is ready and I’ll support her decision whatever it is.

So I continue to work on her home…

I went to see my therapist this morning.  First thing he said was, “what do you mean you have a problem with communication?”  Not communication in general; conversation with my wife.  I do much better with my son who is 8.

For example, Tuesday this week was horrendous.  I went swimming with Max and his buddy; after that we went to dinner.  I’ve mentioned in previous posts how both of these boys are opposites.  In this case, Max and I were finished dinner in a half an hour. His buddy, on the other hand, took over an hour to eat the same amount; but was then ready for dessert.  Max doesn’t do well in situations that take so much time like this.  He started to escalate.

When the other boy went to get his dessert I leaned over to him and said, “I find it much nicer when it is just the two of us coming to dinner.”

“Me too!!” he responded.

It still took another 20 minutes to get out of there and get his friend home.  Unfortunately Max had escalated too far by then.  When we got home his mom was out at a class.  It should have been a relaxing evening before bed, watching a little television but he was bouncing off the walls, ignoring direction, and getting into things.  He had also shut off his listening skills.

I was built up too and I finally exploded.  I yelled at him, sending him into the living room onto the couch.  I followed him and spoke to him about the situation.  He said he understood but he continued.  I screamed again.  This time he ran to his bedroom and jumped into bed.  He was going to sleep; he didn’t want to be read to tonight. He just wanted to be alone.

I went downstairs to cool off.  As I thought about what happened I realized that everything that had gone on that day had escalated me, not just Max.  I went upstairs to apologize.  I told him I wasn’t angry with him; just frustrated about everything that day.  He said it was okay but he still wanted to go to sleep.  I then left him alone and went downstairs again.

My therapist smiled.  He told me I had resolved the situation very well with Max.  But that isn’t the problem.  There were a lot of other issues that came up for me about this but right now I wanted to talk about communication.  As I said to him, if Max and I have an issue we are able to sit down almost immediately afterwards and sort it out.

The problem comes in if I have an argument with my wife.  I am not able to break away, calm down, and think about the situation.  As a result I cannot go back to her later, like I do with Max, and make amends.  If we try to discuss what happened we both escalate again.  Our standard practice is to ignore the situation and let it go away.  I would love to do it the way Max and I do: get it resolved as quickly as possible.

Why can’t I do the same thing with my wife?  If you had asked me this question several years ago my answer would be, “I don’t know how, it’s her fault!”  But really, I do know that I am at least 50 percent at fault here.  I just don’t want to deal with all the stuff she is going to throw at me before it is over.

I have finally realized that because it hasn’t gotten resolved my wife has been storing it in the back of her mind.  And considering how quick to anger I am I must do the same thing.

The simplistic answer is just to sit down, talk about it, and get over it.  This has never worked for us.  One doctor told us to “just stop it”.  How?

I have no answers to this question.  I am going to continue working on this until I do.  If you have some answers I would love to hear them.

A close friend of mine has a theory: people look for their opposites to get involved with.  I’m not talking just in ideology, democrats marrying conservative for example; but physical appearance too.  He is a tall blond republican atheist that married a short brunette Christian liberal.

I never bought into this theory considering I am a tall slim brunet Christian borderline conservative that married a short slim brunette Christian borderline conservative.

But as the years have passed I do believe my wife and I have a lot of differences.  Not only that, I think that each of us has internal opposites.

Let’s take weather.  My wife cannot stand the cold; winter is her least favorite season and she always sleeps with a pile of blankets on the bed.  You would think that she’d love the summer heat but she needs the synthetic cold of air conditioning.  She actually lowers the temperature as much as she can get away with…and then she still sleeps with that pile of blankets!!

On the other hand I love winter.  I love how cold it gets.  I am not a fan of air conditioning; I only use it in the car if there are people with me. I don’t sleep very well in the summer with all that cold and blankets.

I don’t like the outside heat but I enjoy saunas and hot baths.  I only take showers now because I discovered that I could just fall asleep in the tub and stay there for hours.  A lot of people who, like me, have multiple sclerosis are like this.

Another difference between my wife and me is all the talking.  She starts from the minute she wakes up until she goes to sleep at night.  I believe in short answers to questions.  If I spend a day without saying anything at all, it works for me.  Generally I don’t have a problem with all the talking.  Recently we completed a 13 week course together and she talked quite a bit during the classes.  I didn’t say much but people remember all the information “we” contributed so I benefited from the fallout.

And then there is time management.  My dad taught me when I was a child to always be at least 15 minutes early for appointments; and allow more time if I am unsure how to get there.  Long before airport guidelines suggested that people arrive 2 hours before their flights my dad insisted on it.  This was to insure that we are able to get through potential traffic and long ticket lines.

On the other hand my wife’s goal is to be on time for appointments; that means walking in the door at the scheduled time.  You know that no matter what time you go to a doctor’s office, for example, you will still have to wait awhile.  She doesn’t want to wait too long before seeing him.  So many times I will be ready to go early but I then have to sit and wait for her.

I can see where she gets it, her mom schedules her time so she actually leaves the house at the moment she has her appointment.  What I mean is, if she has a 9 o’clock scheduled, she leaves the house at 9.  My father in law, like me, is always ready early but he will sit in the car and read the newspaper while waiting for her.  He has been doing this for 60 years so he is used to it.

My son Max appears to have inherited all of these traits.  Like me, he loves winter and will spend hours in the snow.  He loves air conditioning cold but, like his mother, will sleep with a lot of blankets.  He is not fond of heat but will stay in the shower for hours and I know he will love saunas when he gets older.

As for talking, he never stops.  Well hardly ever, if he is angry or in project mode he won’t say a word for hours.

He is very good at being early for things he wants to do of course; like going to the movies or amusement parks.  He is also always 10 minutes early or more waiting for the school van in the morning.  But as you can imagine, for things he isn’t interested in he is always late.

He is a brunet, and slim, but at the moment unlike his parents he is a liberal (at 8 years old).

How about my friend?  He and his wife had two kids and both are blonds and both appear to be liberal democrats.

I’m not trying to point out good things versus bad things here.  I just want to show differences and how not only opposites can attract but that there can be opposites inside of us too.

What about you?  Are you with someone that is opposite?  Or do you have opposing forces inside of you?  What are your thoughts?