Week In Review - Ten Things Of Thankful (77)

I feel as if things are slowly going back to normal again. I managed to get out of bed this week, I managed to keep track of the various appointments, I managed to do some holiday shopping and ran some necessary errands, and all despite the various illnesses having their firm grasp on our family. I've been at the pediatrician on 3 out of 5 days this week, once for Calvin's shots that he couldn't get at his 3-4 month appointment due to - right - being sick, once with Lily for a stomach bug, and finally with Violet for her lasting cough, which may be related to an allergy. Yes, this poor girl seems to not be getting a break. Still, this week has been a great one, for many things. My top ten this week:

1. Violet's occupational therapist. She is such a wonderful person, with a heart of gold. the way she works with the children, how she knows how to deal with every individual personality, calm the over-stimulated kids and encourages the shy ones. She always takes a lot of time to talk to the parents after the sessions and gave me a bunch of material to better understand Violet's world and show me ways to work with her.

2. Candles.  Instead of a traditional advent wreath with four candles that mark the four Sundays before Christmas, I made an arrangement with five candles, symbolizing the five of us. As Atheists, we're not celebrating Christmas but rather, as the winter solstice and with it the longest night of the years draws closer, focus on all of good things our family got to experience, the people in our lives, and our thankfulness of getting to celebrate this time of the year without worries, in safety, and with everyone of us more or less healthy.

3. The smell of sugar cookies charring baking in the oven.

4. Our wonderful neighbors. Our dryer somewhat died on us today (definite burning smell when I came home; I unscrewed the back and cleaned quite some stuff out of there, but we're still not trusting it), and our new dryer won't be delivered for another couple of weeks, so they offered to use theirs until we have our new one. With a family of 5 with a new house that doesn't do well with the added humidity of clothes drying on a rack, being dryer-less could develop into quite a problem.

5. The first flurries of snow!!!! Yes, we've had some snow!! Lily was so excited seeing the little bit of white on the roofs, and Violet couldn't help herself and ate some snow she scratched off a stone wall (yes, I know, it's gross, but it's her way of experiencing). This morning walk definitely made me happy.

6. Hubby being absolutely sweet and buying me a poppy-seed danish for breakfast. Yum!

7. Paper tissues, butt paste, and nose spray. Yes, the sickness caught up to me, too, but I get to live in a world where all the things mentioned above are readily available to get rid off the gross stuff, keep my nose from getting red and raw, and helping me to be able to breath enough to sleep at night.

8. Sharing cinnamon hot chocolate with the girls in the afternoon.

9. Getting to dress up (somewhat) and attend our friends' holiday party with all the kids. It was a lot of fun for all of us, meeting new people and people we didn't know our friends knew as well  :-)  We did lose the bottle of hard cider towards the end of the white elephant game (yes, I know, who would be heartless enough to steal the booze from a mother of three??), but enjoyed ourselves so much, ate good food, drank some great mulled wine and fruit punch. Perfect evening!

10. My cousin getting to celebrate another birthday. Yes, his birthday is St. Nicholas Day, which always meant a certain visit during his birthday when we were children. Oh dear memories!


I wish you all a wonderful weekend and some time for yourself to reflect on the many thankfuls in your lives!

Experiencing The World - In Two Dimensions

Most frequent readers may know that Violet has a serious vision impairment. Her vision was so bad that her brain shut off one eye to be able to form a picture at all, which left her without 3-D vision.

But how does a little girl experience the world, which for her only has two dimensions? Talking to her occupational therapist a lot, I was able to get an idea, even though I could never ever even imagine it. Since she cannot experience the space around her with her eyes, the other senses, especially feeling, has taken over. For now, both in her sessions with her occupational therapist as well as in her daily routine, her therapy is divided in two blocks: experiencing her surroundings and herself in her environment.

Violet's world has no depth, she cannot perceive speed with her eyes, or distance, or a difference in height. Therefore, creating tangible boundaries for her help her to experience space. Building a pillow fort or a blanket tent for her, or wrapping her in a blanket are ways to create a small, safe world to experience this.

Since she cannot perceive speed as we do, letting her alternate between running, walking, and skipping lets her experience how the wind and the air feel at different speed. Letting her push Calvin's stroller, pull a sled or a little cart, jumping on a trampoline or play tug o' war also helps her to perceive the space around her.

Walking on stilts, balancing, walking on slopes or stairs or playing on uneven ground also supports her grounding and confidence in the world around her.

Experiencing herself in this world, massages and other sensoric stimuli are an essential tool. She touches most things she gets in contact with or even puts them in her mouth to experience 3-dimensional bodies. Playing in the sandbox in summer or in the snow in winter, kneating playdough or actual cookie or pizza dough, or recognizing objects while blindfolded helps her with this.

At the moment, her little world is still so full of dangers. Most of the times she cannot tell how fast a car is driving on the street, so she never crosses the street if she sees any cars that are not parked; she cannot see how high a sidewalk is; she touches hot plates or gets splinters when walking with her hand along wooden fences. But step by step, her confidence grows. We are so thankful that despite her challenges, she is still such a happy, little girl who doesn't let her situation keep her from having fun. Her kindergarten teachers love her; the other day, they told me how they love her being the perfect princess inside but as soon as she puts on her mud pants and rubber boots, she starts rolling in the dirt.

Even though her world is not like yours and mine - and maybe never will - she enjoys her life, and enjoys experience it every day. Her joy spreads to everyone around her, and I consider myself so very lucky to be her mommy and to be able to walk this way beside and with her, even though we're separated by one dimension.
 

Walking The Line

I know it's been a long time since I've written a proper post. As I have already said, it's been a time of soul searching and trying to figure out where I am heading with all this. I had to take a step back to focus more on myself and the family, but I feel that it's time for me to start up again. I have long contemplated about this step but have decided, to start out again, that I would like to share a story with you about a girl, who has always known that she doesn't quite fit in. As long as she can remember, she has felt just a little different from the other kids, misunderstood. From an early age on she was an outsider, fleeing from her life in the world of books. Growing up she always striven to fit in, but never quite managed. She fled into different kinds of spiritualism, but eventually realized that it just was not in her to be a believer. She cut herself with everything that she could lie her hands on to dull the pain inside her with the pain on her outside. She starved herself to try and gain control of herself, her life, and her emotions, but failed. She saw therapist after therapist, who always focused on the issue on hand without looking at the big picture. The years passed and she existed on, went to school, fulfilled her duties, and kept looking for the tiniest bit of forgetting at the wrong places. She graduated and moved to the city to go to college, but nothing changed. She had friends but was still the odd one out. She was sad, she cut and starved herself. She destroyed her body with exercise and alcohol until she finally ended up with a therapist who confronted her with the big picture: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She was put on medication to ease her depression and for a while, she kind of felt like normal. She had a relationship, got engaged and was ready to settle down, until everything came crashing down around her. At this point she decided to quit the medications and start to fight. She decided that if she was sad then so be it. She would accept it and live with it. She would accept who she is and not try to fit in any more. She fought against the urges to destroy her body and use her will power that helped her to discipline her body into ruin to become healthy. She wrote down her pain and sadness. She fought to not lose her grip on life. Eventually, one night she met someone on the internet, someone she didn't need to explain herself to, someone who just knew. They met in person, fell madly in love and were married soon afterwards.

I now would like to tell you that the girl and the guy lived happily ever after, but it would have been a lie. Six years and two beautiful children later they are still madly in love, but the struggle isn't over. Even though the girl has experienced happiness beyond her wildest dreams, the black holes of sadness are following her wherever she goes. There are still days and even weeks when she is sucked in and fights through the darkness to regain the light. She has learned to live with it and persevere, even though sometimes when making a cup of tea she feels the urge to pour the hot water over her legs to dull the pain. But for her family she keeps fighting and is the more grateful for the truly happy times.

I am telling you this story to show that BPD is a real danger. Look around and there might be a person battling those demons without you ever knowing, with the smile in their face and the darkness within, walking the line between happiness and despair, between the night of their demons and the light of their love ones; walking the line between life and death.

When There's No Right

Yes, I am depressed. Majorly. I've been battling with depressions since my teenage years, was in therapy as a teenager and on anti-depressants after I started college. About a year later I decided, that I was done with all of it, quit therapy and drugs. Therapy has never worked for me, and when I finally found a wonderful therapist, she was booked and did not accept any clients for the foreseeable future. At this point, all I wanted is being all me again, embracing the sadness as a part of my being rather than battling it. In Richard I found the perfect partner, who understands this part without having to ask questions, to whom I don't have to explain myself.

I'm glad to say, that I've barely had any depressive episodes, at least no major ones, since I found out about being pregnant with Lily. Until now. This move is taking it all out of me. At this point, I don't know any more what's right or wrong, if we're doing the right thing, even though all I wanted is to go back to Germany. I had a little depressive phase when my friend Kathrin, whose husband was stationed with Richard in Fort Riley, returned to Germany, and also after we returned from our first trip back home when Lily was 13 months old. It was then that we decided we wanted to go back. When we found out that we expected Violet, we decided not to waste any more time and move back as soon as she is born and we have all the papers in order. This time is now; we have only a good week left here, and I'm in the midst of quite a deep depression. I wonder, if the decision to go back was wrong. Actually, I know that it wasn't; it was a good decision for the well-being and advantage of our daughters. We don't want to be concerned about their education and health care, and we want them to be able to grow up with family.

On the other hand, I am very concerned about the impact this move will have on our family, especially on Lily. We're part of a very tight group of friends, who in these almost 2 years here have become our family. Cat is more the girls' grandma than anyone else. She's known Lily since she was 6 months old, has celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and her birthdays with her; she's seen her almost every week, and Lily just loves her and Charlie to death. She spends Friday afternoon waiting for the door ringing, because that means her grandma and Uncle Charlie are arriving. We'll also miss our friends Yi, David, and Danielle, who have been her real aunts and uncle. Danielle's daughters Emma and Ahnna are Lily's best friends, and it warms my heart seeing her take off with the girls as soon as they see each other. Leaving all those wonderful people behind breaks my heart more than I would have ever thought. I am concerned about the impact the change will have on Lily; I know, little kids adapt quickly, but this will be the second time for her, and this move will soon be followed by a second, small move to our own place once we have found jobs. Being 2 is a difficult time for little kids, and I hope that Lily will overcome these huge changes easily, but I am also very concerned, because she's a very sensitive little girl.

We are giving up this amazing network of family-like friends for the security we'll have in Germany. I know that our friends aren't lost to us. We are already planning a visit back to Washington before Violet turns 2, and Cat and Charlie are eying a visit to Germany sometime next year. Technology is also on our side, with Skype, e-mail, and telephone being available, but still. I'll miss the Friday evenings with our D&D group, the holidays with Cat and Charlie, and the almost weekly visits with David. I'll miss seeing Lily getting excited as soon as we pull up Davids house, or when Yi enters our apartment. On the upside, we'll change this for holidays with my families, and visits with my best friend from high school, Sonja. We won't have to worry how to pay for the medical bills when the girls get sick, and whether we can afford for one of us staying at home to school the kids because the school system here lacks in every regard. The girls will still grow up with grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins around. But knowing that does not make it any easier for me.

It seems as if no matter which way we go, it's not right. Staying here would not be good for our family in the long run, while moving is extremely painful at the moment and might cause issues for Lily. We know from economics class, that the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term losses, but once emotions come into the equation, it is not that easy. At the moment I wished I could just stop time, still being here with our friends while looking forward to the move, but this is not possible. I'm sure it will become easier once we're in Germany and are too busy getting established to feel sad or depressed; and once we're established, we'll be busy building our lives, and planning our first trip back to Washington. I know, time will fly and sooner than we know it we'll be back. It's just those few weeks I need to overcome, before there will be light at the end of the tunnel again for me. Just go forward.

PS: Listening to HIM really fuels the mood!!