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I can’t believe that a whole school year has gone by and I still haven’t figured out how to get out of the house in the morning without losing it. I don’t want to be Psycho-Mommy. I want the kids to look back at their childhood and remember how patient and loving I was, always ready to (gently) brush the rat’s nest out of someone’s hair, whip up homemade waffles with fresh fruit topping, or find a packing crate for a papier-mâché solar system project. Maybe I’m just being unrealistic. How can I possibly have time and patience for any of those things when I spend the entire before-school hour telling people to get dressed, brush their teeth, and eat their breakfast? You’d think they’d get so sick of hearing the orders repeated that they would just do it to shut me up. No such luck.

I’ve tried everything to get the train moving more smoothly. I get up before everyone else and take my 3-minute shower, and then simultaneously brush my teeth, slap on some face goo, and scrunch some anti-frizz stuff into my hair, completing my beauty routine in roughly 6 minutes. On most nights I get out the snacks, lunchboxes, backpacks, outerwear, forms, lunch money, and anything I need for work, and I lay out Adlani and Norah’s clothes. I wake the kids up an hour before we have to leave the house. How is it possible that with this level of preplanning we can’t get out of the house without at least one of us having a hissy-fit in the driveway?? I’ve tried bribery, praise, encouragement, punishment…the only thing that really seems to affect them is when I break down and cry. I just don’t think it’s healthy for me to be crying every morning.

A couple of days ago I was having a particularly bad morning since I hadn’t gotten out the snacks the night before and I couldn’t find anything Adlani would eat (since he only eats 5 things, that’s not so hard to imagine). We were running VERY late, I had to be at Aliya’s school by 8:45 so there was no leeway, and the morning was just not going well. While I was doing a half-dozen different things at once, Aliya sneezed and started hysterically screaming that she needed a tissue. I gave her my most incredulous look and yelled, “Get your own tissue! I am so tired of being the one-stop shop for this entire family’s needs!” There was a pause and then Adlani said to himself in that cute little voice, “Hm…I don’t really know what that means.” It was so funny.

Adlani’s usually good for lightening up the morning mood. A while back he was eating breakfast when he started yelling, “Hey Mom! Look at those bastards running up the tree!” Apparently he heard Ben call squirrels “bastards” and decided it was an interchangeable synonym. I’m not completely blameless when it comes to the foul language. A few weeks ago on another particularly bad day I lost mind in a heated moment and yelled, “Just get the f*ing cheese stick!” I’m not proud of it, but sometimes stuff slips out. A few seconds later Adlani started repeating “F*ing cheese stick. F*ing cheese stick.” Great. Now my bad-mommy status will be revealed at snack time when Adlani tells his classmate, “Hey Andrew! Your mom gave you a f*ing cheese stick too! We match!”
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Today will be our 4th 90+ degree day in a row. Is that a heat wave?
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Karen left a comment on my post about living in an iron lung and I don’t want anyone to miss the video she included as a testament to what people can endure and overcome:

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In addition to uncontacted tribes, here’s another thing I haven’t spent much time thinking about – life in an iron lung. I know what an iron lung is for, but I had no idea that some people still live out their entire lives inside of one. I was shocked when I saw an article about Dianne Odell, a woman who had lived in an iron lung for 58 years, who died during a power failure when her family’s generator wouldn’t start (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,359304,00.html).

In a nutshell, an iron lung (aka negative pressure ventilator) mimics the physiologic action of breathing, causing air to flow into and out of the lungs. The first iron lung was used at Children’s Hospital in Boston on October 12, 1928, when a child unconscious from respiratory failure recovered immediately upon being placed in the chamber. It was originally invented for treatment of coal gas poisoning, but was most widely used during the polio outbreaks in the 1940’s and 50’s to allow people with paralysis of the diaphragm to breathe. In the 1930’s, the cost of an iron lung was $1,500, about the same as the average house. Although use of the iron lung has declined due to the eradication of polio and the advent of other respiratory devices, there are approximately 30-40 people still using an iron lung in the USA.

Imagine that. Being confined to a mechanical chamber for most or all of your life. Unable to walk, drive, dance, hug, or run down to Dairy Queen on a whim. You could argue that these people couldn’t do those things anyway due to paralysis, but the idea of being completely confined and dependent on others for everything is a sobering thought. Sometimes I feel like I can’t overcome the obstacles that threaten to prevent me from getting out the door each morning with 3 fully-dressed children. The next time I feel myself sinking into that pit of despair, I’m going to think of the people still living in an iron lung. I feel better already.

Here’s another article about Dianne Odell: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/022002/hea_0220020028.shtml

And an interesting website about John Prestwich, who was dependent 24 hours per day on artificial respiration from the age of 17 until he passed away at the age of 68:
http://www.johnprestwich.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm

And finally an article with links about Mark O’Brien, who didn’t allow the fact that he had the use of only 3 muscles (in his foot, neck, and jaw) to slow him down: http://www.salon.com/people/obit/1999/07/12/obrien/

Amazing.
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