(kids) preparing myself for his wheelchair

After struggling for years about getting a wheelchair for my son (B-man), I finally did it.

I knew this day would come. Today, I get the call it has arrived and specially made for him.

Here come the emotions. Did I make the right decision? He is so mobile, am I crazy?

Well, after carrying him for many years and getting back problems, it was time.

It took me to the point of getting serious about my own health with back pain and needing physical therapy on my own issues. I decided to do it for me and not only B-man. Selfish, huh? Not really.

There are times when he just poops out. A mom gets tired of pulling her son's hand and repeatedly saying hurry up and in the same respect, a son gets tired of saying "wait for me!"

It has been a struggle with trying to go his pace and not get frustrated. It is a lesson of patience and slowing down. God knew if I ran my life, I would constantly run at top speed. So he gives me a child to remind me to slow down.

Sometimes though, a child wants to be fast and keep up with his brothers and friends. In that case, a wheelchair is the best gift for him.

Oh.... By the way, he is extremely excited he is getting one. I will someday, too.

(life) stretched but not stretched

That is how I feel.

So many activities and things on my to do list, but somehow I get them all done for the most part. It is shocking to some how or why I keep the schedule I do.

My passions are what drive me and what makes me who I am.
Take that away and you take a part of me away.

So here I stay.

And onward I go as I continue on this journey.

Mom: What I want to be when I grow up?

Honestly, I ask this of myself from time to time.

Most people by my age have figured this out. For me, if you ask my husband, it changes quite a bit. He would even wager to say weekly on some occasions.

Living twice the lifespan would be great with all the aspirations that go through my mind. Most of the time, it has to do with working in health care, but today....

I want to be a grocery clerk. That's right, every time I go through with my food items and wait for the next person to be done, I secretly wish I could be checking them out.

Now, my reasoning is not because I enjoy the bar codes and scanning items, it far less of an admirable reason. It is to have the shock value of what people are willing to spend on groceries.

Last night, I was shopping late and some young, newly married woman was in front of me in the check out lane. Obviously, she was going to make lasagna with not wine, must have you, but a case of Bud Light beer. Anyway, she had about 12 items total and guess what her bill was??? I was shocked when the total came up to $65 dollars. When the checker asked her if she had a key card saver, of course she didn't have one.

I don't know why this seems so wrong to me. Maybe it is because I pride myself in the coupon clipping, sale item scanning and trying my hardest to keep the grocery bill down. It just seemed like such a waste. Besides, for that price, she could have ordered take out and still did better.

So once again, I secretly wish I could be scanning other people's food and seeing what people are eating and what they are paying for these days.

Then again, who am I to judge.

Work: Not a single page from the ER

This never happens, not even on a good day. I actually had a quiet day at work and had time to learn and teach a thing or two with my patients.

RT's carry a small workload when covering the ER and when they don't page, they tend to to have ample time to be productive or find some way to pass the time.

For some it is hanging out at a nursing station chatting away, for others it is reading the magazines in the respiratory dept, but for me it is cracking out my big nursing books and studying away.

Historically, most therapists tend to shy away from taking the ER. You just never know what will come in the door. I for some reason have gravitated to this and I think I like the unpredictability of not knowing when or if you will get paged or how great or crappy your night will be.

For the most part, I tend to carry a poor record when it comes to how many of the patients I see in the ER end up getting admitted. At least in the eyes of my coworkers, I tend to add more to the workload after I hand the pager over to the next shift. That's usually my luck.

That being said, it was an easy going day and even better when I got home. I had the rest of the afternoon/evening to spend with my family.

I just love my job. All of them that is.

Mom: A place to rest my hat once in a while

When life seems:

...busy
.......hard
..........too much to take

or

...unbelievable
.......can't stop thinking about it
..............surreal and wonderful

This is where I want to come and let it all out.

Call it cheap therapy or whatever you want, but a mom needs a place to be and call her own.

I have never been good about writing in a journal. I have tried so many a times. It is a joke how many spiral bound books scatter my drawers and bookshelves. To throw them out seems wrong.

So here I am giving this a try, who knows how far I will get on this journey.

Mom: The invisible mom (given to me to read)

The Invisible Mom It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.' I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving atiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become. At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend; to add, 'You're gonna love it there.' As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.