Finding Our Footing

I’m feeling under the weather. I have been fighting a head/sinus cold that kicked into full force yesterday. All day long at work I thought of how good it would feel to sink into a hot bubble bath and let Calgone take me away. I was impatient for my bath, sluffing through the nighttime routine, which now includes dealing with very trying behaviors from Chica Marie (more on this later). Primero was not home, leaving just after Chica Marie and I returned from the lab for her EKG (more on Primero later). After I washed the dishes and got Chica Marie to bed, Love Bug was engrossed in watching Peppa Pig. “Now’s my chance,” my inner hubris whispered, spurring me on to draw the bath water and light tea candles for ambiance. I put a show on my phone, arranged the soaps so I could reach them and settled down into the steaming, welcoming water. Sighing, I inched lower into the water, closing my eyes for full enjoyment. I heard the door creak open a crack. Love Bug called out, “Mommy?” He marched into the bathroom and declared he had to pee. I moved my phone and one of the candles while he blew out a candle behind me. After he was done, I settled back into my tub, thinking ignoring the toddler in the room would make him go away. But, the pull of the bubbles and mommy in a bath was too strong and he came over to investigate. After swirling a few handfuls of bubble bath around, he decided this was perfect for him and stripped naked, plopping himself in my tub. The water was hot, hotter than he liked it, so he sat on my lap, tickled pink to be joining me in this new bath experience. This was such a fun bath! He asked to wash my hair and dumped water on my head then he stood up and peed in the tub, all the while chatting away with me as if he had been invited into my private sanctuary. I finished my unrelaxing bath and dried off Love Bug, putting his pajamas back on him. I convinced him to go to sleep and successfully got him to stay in his bed just before Primero came home. Next time I want to soak in a bubble bath undisturbed, I will be patient and wait until all of the small ones are down for the count. Sigh.

 

Chica Marie – Last week we endured the backlash behaviors from court and her big sister telling her Grandma was adopting her and she was going to live with them. Great times. Over our three-day weekend most of those behaviors subsided, although her sass-mouth has been totally out-of-control. I thought things might improve this week, but they have not. In fact, they were compounded by a visit from her Mobile Therapist Wednesday evening. Generally speaking, Chica Marie does not do well with her mobile therapist. She does not engage in the activities and often times down right refuses to do anything she is asked to do. Defiance to the core. Wednesday night I tried getting more involved than I usually do and the end result was a total melt down that was still evident last night. At one point she was literally just lying on the kitchen floor screaming at me as loudly as she could. What horrific thing was she being asked to do, you wonder? Identify emotions. She was asked to match emoji-type emotion pictures and talk about how you might feel, when you’re mad for example. And this resulted in a melt-down of epic proportions that took two adults and a soon-to-be adult over and hour to reign in. I was so pissed when the mobile therapist left us with a child still in reactionary mode, no de-escalation techniques prescribed. Lovely. Thanks. She didn’t have a good day at school yesterday either and last night was more of the same. Thankfully, family based therapy is supposed to start in another two weeks. Last night I just sent her to bed because I simply could not deal with her mouth anymore. Good god, if I had ever spoken to my mother that way!

 

Primero – Yesterday I saw on Facebook that Primero’s aunt suffered loss in her family. I discerned it was her brother and I assumed it was some form of tragedy because he was young, only a little older than me. I didn’t put two and two together until Primero called me and then I remembered, his aunt’s brother was one of the possible father’s for Primero! (Just a quick note – this is his aunt by marriage, she is married to Primero’s mother’s brother – so nothing incestuous). When I realized the magnitude of it, I was worried about Primero. He asked to go to his uncle’s house because everyone was gathering there and I readily agreed, if he could just keep Love Bug a few minutes so I could take Chica Marie to the lab for an EKG I’ve been needing to do for weeks now. Primero professed to feeling very little grief at the passing of the man who might be his biological father. He has always held a bitter anger towards both of the men who might have claimed him because they were never there for him, never in his life. I noticed, via Facebook, Primero’s cousin set up a Go Fund Me account to help with funeral costs and in it described him as “the best husband and father he could be” showing a picture with him and two young pre-teen boys, presumably his sons. I can understand Primero’s bitterness, although I cautioned him he might feel the loss differently, at different times in his life. Ultimately, I explained, it is over because there is no longer a possibility for reconciliation in this life time.

 

So, things are still tumbling around in our lives. There is reason to be cautiously optimistic, but the end is far from over. And, as always, when things hit us they come in rapid fire, keeping us reeling for some time before we find our footing again.