Challenges of griefing

It always surprises me when your birthday catches me off guard.  Today you would be 67.  You have been gone for 4 years.  But you have really been gone for closer to 20 in my opinion.  Today I feel some sadness and some anger and some hurt.  I probably always will but I’m tired of being hurt by someone gone.  Some of the last coherent words you said to me were that you had stopped being a part of my life to give me room to live it.  I’m still confused by these words.  You purposely stopped talking to your daughter.  Did you know the pain you had caused over the years and wanted me to heal? Did you just get tired of me? Was I not good enough to be a part of your life anymore? Did I do something wrong?  I know in my mind that I was not the problem but my heart still feels the pain.  All I wanted was to be your special little girl.  I wanted to be important to you.  I remember very clearly when you stopped calling every week.  I remember very clearly you coming and taking my sister away without talking to me. I remember very clearly when I stopped mattering to you.  But I don’t know why.  And so I kept trying.  I called you.  I visited you.  I found ways without a vehicle to get to your house when you worked in the city I lived in.  It was always me.  I put in all the effort in the last 15 years of our relationship.  And then you decided to “let me live my life” and left me.  I remember being denied access to your dying days, your local friends seeing you more than me, after I drove 10 hours after working all night to see you.  I remember the pastor at your funeral telling me he was sorry I didn’t know the man everyone else knew. I didn’t know what he meant. Was I not important enough to come up in your dying days?  And then I listened to my cousins talk about how you were always there for them and how important you were in their lives.  How come they were better than me? Why wasn’t I enough? Why couldn’t you love me?

So I have all these emotions and do you know what? They make me angry.  You walked out of me 23 years ago.  I was between 10 and 13 when you stopped calling.  I was 9 or 10 when you moved my sister to your house.  And that was the end.  You had one child you didn’t need two? I know how much you and my sister fought. Did that make you decide you didn’t need any? You met my step-mother and forgot about your previous family.  Why is it so hard to forget about you? Why does it still hurt 23 years later and 4 years after I said a final goodbye.

Most days, I live my life as I always have.  With you a part of who I am, but a distant memory.  Some days the memories hurt.  I try so hard to only remember the good times but that hurt will always be there.  You chose everyone else over me.

I also hate that you can hear the 13 girl in me today.

I pray my husband will always be a better dad than you were.  I pray that even if we end up separated, she will always be his number 1.  A girl deserves a daddy.

Covid19

I have never felt like a good stay at home mom.  I want to be out, doing things.  I like playdates, play groups, going to the parks.  I like my job and I like that I have “alone" time during it.  I believe me going to work makes me a better mom.  I am the Mom in the memes that were out when the restrictions first came in that made fun of Moms who didn’t want their children at home, didn’t want to “parent".  I love my child fiercely and am her biggest fan and strongest advocate, but I feel like a better Mom when we have some time apart.  I also know that she learns more at school than I can teach her. So along comes Covid19 and it changes everything.  We are all at home.  There is no play dates, no groups, no parks, no friends.  Just Mama, Daddy and Illyana at home.  All day.  Every day.  We are starting our 4th week.  I have to tell my 2 year old daily that we can’t go to the park at the end of our road because the park is closed.  It doesn’t look closed but we are not allowed in.  She is a rock star and accepts it pretty well.  She is happy to have Mom and Dad home with her.  She also doesn’t like that we go to the store without her.  She loves shopping.

But we all know this.  Covid19 has been hard.  We are all going through the same things.  There is no end in sight.  Its Easter weekend and people are travelling and prolonging this for the rest of us.  So we do what we can with what we have.  We FaceTime BG every couple days.  We call Poppee and our Grannies sometimes.  And we paint.  I have never considered myself crafty and it has never been my favourite activity.  But my sweet girl enjoys it.  So Mama went to the dollar store and bought art supplies.  And we paint daily.  We have painted with our hands, yarn, sponges, paint brushes, and bingo dabbers.  We picked up pine cones one day in a walk and are going to paint with those as well.  I bought shaving cream and glue so we will paint with fluffy paint too.  And Illyana enjoys the daily activity.  If any readers have any ideas on what else she might enjoy I am all ears!  Lots of the crafts I have found out there in internet land are things she might enjoy having but will not enjoy doing herself at this time.

We are fortunate that we have a yard and a dead end street to play in.  Illyana loves to play outside.  The snow is finally melting and we might be able to play in the grass soon.  She has been enjoying her strider bike in the basement, I want to try on the grass where she has more room!

The point of this rambling? I have a generally happy two year old at home with her favourite people (or at least some of them lol).  We are doing pretty good.  I still don’t feel like a very good stay at home mom, but we are settling into our laid back, self-isolating routine.  Don’t get me wrong, we all want to go back to work and school.  We miss our friends and our daily outings.  But we are creating memories and enjoying time together.  Yes, this is challenging but we will get through it.  I am finding ways to be a stay at home mom.  We are crafting and doing things we can all enjoy.  We are giving lots of bugs and kisses and tickles and games.  She may not understand why, but I know she feels the love and attention of her parents.  May that be her only memory of Covid19.  Weeks of quality time spent with mom and dad.

Just a tired mama

I am struggling.  This month has seemed like it has tested me a lot.  We did a stomach bug and a cold.  I missed something like 9 days of work in January.   I think it was more than I worked.  And I got the cold too.  I’m on week 2 of it.  Feel mostly fine but still sick, you know? At any rate, I’m tired and struggling.

I went to the feeding workshop for the second time.  As usual, Illyana doesn’t really fit into a category or box.  She is between a problem feeder and a picky eater. They gave all these great ideas for picky eaters.  Except we have spent a year implementing these ideas. When the feeding team asked at the end how it was taking it for a second time I said that it was interesting because we have different challenges now than we did last year but we still have the challenges.  I then burst into tears.  Illyana basically didn’t eat for 2 months and no one really has suggestions on how to help her through that.  How to help me through that.  We have this massive team, which is amazing, but at the end of the day, it’s just us on the ground.  And I feel like we are failing. Please don’t tell me I’m not.  I know I am not but it doesn’t change the feeling.  I know it is a daily thing and we rock it a lot of the days.  And I know she knows she is loved.  Love is not lacking around here!
Someone told me that as a helping professional looking at an autism assessment, my world is going to shrink.  They were absolutely correct.  There are support groups in town for parents with children with autism.  The majority of these families have a file in my office.  How do I go to those groups? Neither those families or me will be comfortable. Also how do I stay just a mom when they know where I work? I am there for my own struggles not to work through other people’s based on my job.  I know of several professionals who have children with autism who I hope I can lean on.

I submitted an application(?) for a private clinic.  They have a pediatrician and the psychologist.  It sounds like we might see the pediatrician in a couple months and the psychologist in the fall.  I need to get a referral from our doctor and I can’t see him for 2 weeks.  But I also talked to NHAN and they said they can’t  test until at least 30 months. They are trying to pilot a program to streamline toddlers but I didn’t understand it was a thing yet.  We also won’t get into NHAN until the Fall of 2022 with the current waitlist.  I don’t really know what to do about it all.  I guess we see the pediatrician and see what he says.  30 months isnt that far out.  September 2020.

Our Occupational Therapist, who we are on a waitlist for a sensory profile, is going on maternity leave next month.  This is something that I think might actually help us.  I need to look into private OTs and see what we can do for her that way.  Maybe if I knew what her sensory challenges are we could work with food better? It’s very possible that there are no answers for Illyana but I feel like I need to do something.  If I wait and she gets an autism diagnoses, private professionals will be included in her funding and we wont have to pay out of pocket, but if it actually helps is it worth waiting for? Do we pay for everything? Do we wait and see?

Everything feels so overwhelming and I am so tired.  And I am just having a hard day.

Shot down

We saw the pediatrician today. He actually let me talk today, and I sidetracked him enough that he didnt give me hell about the minimal weight gain (a year ago we had no weight gain, so some is still better!), he didnt give me hell about not seeing the pg hospital dietitian (we are seeing one in Quesnel). But he also didn't support a single thing I said. The fact that Illyana is on an all milk diet at 21 months meant nothing to him. It didnt scream sensory issues or anything. It certainly could not mean Autism in any way shape or form. When he heard she doesn't sleep he blamed it on the co-sleeping. I don't think he appreciated me saying the co-sleeping is a product of our 3 week hospital stay that traumatized her, but it is. He told me to sleep train, cry it out method. Apparently it means nothing that Illyana wakes up screaming 2 or 3 times a night whether I am sleeping beside her or not. That it can take an hour to calm her down. Instead he heard that she wants to play and talk to me because I am there. She hasn't played in the night in over a year. He somehow heard that I dont sleep well sleeping beside her so everything will be fixed if she screams for 8 hours. Part of our cosleeping is that I am already exhausted and we sleep a little better beside each other. I was sleep training before I went back to work for reason. And the fact that we have never slept through the night is certainly not a sign of Autism either. I said that she is no longer doing things she was doing 2 months ago. He shrugged it off. He asked if I was working with the CDC because they do great work. I said yes and that the CDC agreed it could be Autism. I said my daycare scored her in the high risk category for Autism. Nope, Autism is not a possibility. I said I was hoping to do a private assessment. He said you can't test this young. I said the research says you can test by 2 years which we are coming up on. He disagreed. I said I have talked to the clinics and they said I can but I need a pediatrician and speech language to agree with me. He said you cant.

He can disagree all he wants, we already have a referral into the assessment clinic. I dont need him for that. We will just have to wait in line and not pay for an assessment. She will only be 3 when our time is up, so we are still ahead of the game, I just want to give her everything we can now. I hate waiting 18 months to be able to put the services I believe she needs in place. We could probably pay out of pocket for the services instead of paying out of pocket for an assessment though. It's just so frustrating to me. He knew I knew more about toddler autism than he did so he had to stay in charge. Also, he has never done any of the assessments she would need for him to say it could be. He has never looked at anything but her weight. He didnt care that she snored or was always sick or doesnt sleep well or anything else I might bring up. He has always just looked at her weight. Today was the first time we had a real discussion so that is a win ...

He acknowledges that she is a challenge. He said she is "just spirited". He also said that she will likely remain a small eater and a small child and that's just who she is. I have to agree with that, I feel like I have been saying that for a year.

Back in 6 weeks for another round with him.