Surgery Change (again)

E's surgery is moved to July 6th. It's the day before M's birthday, but we will just have to make it work.

Harry Potter

Oh man, I'm excited about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this summer! Plus, it is PG. Therefore M and I can have a little date.

M and I have been reading HP and the Sorcerer's Stone (and watching the movie) lately. Things that have happened since HP mania has struck the resident 3-year-old:

• M saying to R "You're Voldemort. Hey, um, Voldemort? You need to come and kill my parents." Sounds bad, huh? But it's how the story goes. Harry's parents get killed.
  
• M flying around on his tiny broom playing Quidditch.
• M answering most questions I have, or demands that I make with "Okay, Hermione."
• M using a marker to cast spells.
• M saying gibberish constantly in order to cast said spells. I have tried teaching him "Alohomora" and "Wingardium Leviosa" and "Petrificus Totalus" but to no avail.
• M saying when he goes to bed "I love living at Hogwarts!"
• M using his wand to "open" automatic doors at the grocery store. I'm sure we look pretty entertaining to all those watching.
• M insisting that he is 11 because he's Harry. Therefore, he can do all kinds of things not normally allowed a 3-year-old. Clever.
• If M sees a cat, calling it Professor McGonagall.
• M telling me he can hit things with his stick because he is fighting the troll.
• When seeing any hat, it's a Sorting Hat!
• M asks at various times during the day: "Where is Voldemort?" and I say that he is hiding and M says "Oh yeah, on the back of Professor Quirell's head."

I am sure there will be more in the weeks to come. You never can tell how long these obsessions will last. I will enjoy it while I can as it is more interesting than the last phase: playing Chutes and Ladders ad nauseum. I welcome the next birthday wherein we can start playing Trouble. Shh, don't tell!

Belated Mother's Day

My mother's day was sweet. I got flowers from R and picture from M. M even sang me "Happy Mother's Day" to the tune of Happy Birthday as per the instructions of his preschool teacher. Immediately following that he informed me that it wasn't the real way to sing it, that it was really the happy birthday song and he was "just being silly". E gave me his usual smiles and laughs. Good times.

However, Mother's Day is not so much fun for many other folks out there. It can be a painful reminder that you have lost a parent or a child, that you are estranged, that you feel like a failure, or that you simply are not a mother. I am aware of this as a person who does not speak to my mother. So even though I am a woman in a traditional motherhood role at this point in my life, I want to say that I sincerely hope that everyone survived Mother's Day in some way, preferably with positive feelings.

Palate Surgery

E is all scheduled for July 10th, just FYI. I feel much calmer about this one. Hopefully that doesn't jinx it.

Things M says (Part Four)

(we are in the car driving to E's physical therapy with a bottle warming in a mug in the cupholder)

me: aw crap!
M: why did you say crap mom?
me: oh, I spilled some water.
M: why did you spill water?
me: because I was turning the car.
M: why were you turning?
me: because cars have to turn when they drive.
M: why?
me: because you have to follow the road or you will crash.
M: why will you crash?
me: because the car just will.
M: why?
me: because!

(sheesh)

Singing

M loves to sing. He also cannot carry a tune so it is pretty awesome to behold. His favorite song right now?: "There's a little wheel a-turnin in my heart" by Laurie Berkner, which he learned at preschool. (Her CD is great by the way. We borrowed it from his teacher, and I think I shall purchase it.) My favorite part of the song: "there's a big truck honking in my heart, HONK HONK..." etc. Good times.

Anger/Forgiveness

(I do not want to out any of my siblings here on my blog. They were victims of my parents in their own ways, and they can tell their stories on their own terms. I will only talk about my experiences.)

When the sexual abuse issue came to light in my family, it was not pretty. I had never told anyone in my family, only my therapists and R and a few of my roommates. In fact, the sexual abuse was a secret until 4 years ago. I remember, because I was prego with M when it all hit the fan. After sitting on the information for a few months, R and I decided that we needed to call the police and have them arrest my dad. My bishop in Michigan at the time agreed, as did the bishop of my family in California. Those are the logistics of the situation. One fine day everything fell into place and I felt ready to call. So I did.

My dad was arrested and the rest of the family that did not already know found out. My dad was sentenced a few months later to a year of house arrest and 5 tears probation. The state also had a restraining order put on him in my behalf, which I did not appreciate at the time but have come to be thankful for. The church disfellowshipped him. (An aside: do I think that a child abuser deserves to be excommunicated? Yes. In every case. If you are truly repentant, then you can get rebaptized later. After you do a bunch of soul searching and apologizing and therapy and making-it-right. I will rant about this some other time.)

I found this process cathartic. After so many years it was finally out. My siblings knew about what I had gone through, and it brought us closer over time. My aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents finally knew, and said they loved me.

However, my mother insisted that we all work on forgiving my dad. She pushed me hard. And I automatically pushed back. I realized something then. You do not have to talk to your abuser to forgive them. You do not have to be around your abuser to forgive them. You do not have to like your abuser to forgive them. I then saw with more clarity how I was, at that very moment, being emotionally abused by my mother as well.

But now I was armed with this knowledge. I did not have to talk to my mom either. Our conversations were nothing but emotional blackmail to get me to be around her and my dad and reassure them that what they had done was understandable. My mom would try and shame me with church-type arguments: don't you think it's time to forgive and not be angry? She would bully me into speaking to my father, before I was ready, even when I said no repeatedly. I started piecing together the depth of her enabling my father and manipulation of, well, everyone. It made me so angry. The anger was an important piece.

I have decided not to speak to my parents anymore. I will save the story of how that happened for another post. Ultimately it came down to this: I was trying to grow, change, move through the pain, go to therapy, make good boundaries, and to be aware of how I was feeling, to acknowledge it and embrace it. But my parents wanted validation for what had happened as if to say "I know I abused you, but you have to understand where I am coming from too". Do I?

Now we are back to the anger. In my opinion, until you get really, consumingly mad you cannot move to forgiveness. Believe me, I tried. I tried forgiving before I admitted I was angry and betrayed and broken. Between my crappy home life and the Mormon culture I grew up in, I got a clear message: anger is bad, anger doesn't help. Wrong! Anger is what it is. Anger is a part of the process. Anger is a part that is just as valid and necessary as the forgiveness part.

I also like to remember that anger is a secondary emotion. You get angry because of something else: hurt, pain, sadness, etc. The anger is your indication of something deeper going on. And then, if you embrace the anger and revel in it, you can fully appreciate when you are no longer angry. You should feel angry if you are abused. Embrace it.

I read a book called Toxic Parents by Susan Forward. It encouraged writing letters to your abusers, whether you sent them or not. The meaningful part was the writing. I have my angry letter. I wrote it over several months time, and I still sometimes reread it. I have some semblance of forgiveness for my parents now. It has taken 4 years. And it isn't finished. And if it took 20 years that would be okay too. Anger first, forgiveness later. Real forgiveness.

Clarification

Hardly anyone will care about this but: in case you are looking to find a better alternative to Mederma for scar treatment, I found one at Whole Foods called Derma E Scar Gel. That is what I am using on E's lip. The reason I did not want to use the Mederma: three of the ingredients are known carcinogens and/or unregulated. Those three are PEG-10, Fragrance, and methylparaben. (According to the EWG website anything with "PEG" in it is bad, parabens in general are bad, and fragrance is bad because it can mean almost anything, you never know.)

Rant: These filler ingredients are dangerous! I get upset when they put them in children products like shampoo, bubble bath, sunscreen, scar gel, toothpaste, hair products, hand wash, etc. We should be able to trust that what we are buying is safe, and we cannot. Lame! I read ALL my labels now.

E's Lip

E went in for a follow up yesterday and all is well. Swelling is down and pain is almost gone. The next step is massaging his little lip with scar gel a couple of times a day for the next few months. This helps the scar itself soften and the muscles to relax down into the proper positions. I am fascinated by this whole process. We are scheduling the palate surgery for the first part of July.

Fear

By the telling of my story, I hope to free anyone reading from some kind of abuse-related fear. You might fear of telling about or facing your own abuse. You might fear victims because you are unsure of what to say or how to act. You might fear of hearing about abuse, because you have children and you worry about them. You might fear for yourself in the future if it ever happens to you. Fear is something to move past. Talking about abuse, facing abuse, sifting through the wreckage of abuse is what forces fear out. The truth will set you free.

If you are one of those people who has not been through abuse, but would like to know how to talk to a survivor, then please visit some of these websites. Of course, if you are a victim, then please visit these sites as well, but please seek professional help if you can.

I was abused sexually a handful of times when I was in elementary school. My father was the perpetrator. My mother never saw it. However, my mother was depressed and unable to take care of me and my siblings. She depended on her children to emotionally to take care of her. The stress of the role reversal (feeling like I had to take care of my mother at the age of 5), left me feeling different. The sexual abuse that happened a few years later (I was 8 or so), only solidified my solitary nature. This was difficult as a child, and I look back now realizing that it was adding insult to injury to be abused on top of being pretty sensitive to begin with. I would have had difficulties with my extreme sensitivity even if I had nurturing, helpful parents who were not caught up in their own problems.

My sexual abuse may not be comparatively bad, but as they say "once is enough". Regardless, it gave me classic abuse victim problems. I did not trust people. I was sexually confused. I was depressed, but also experienced extreme highs. I gained weight to protect myself. I would dissociate in painful situations. The list goes on. Becoming aware of the symptoms was my first step. Then I could see what was causing those symptoms: my unresolved abuse. Admitting that what happened was "abuse" was my next step.

Arguably, that was the biggest step I ever took. It started me down the path of facing my problems instead of running from them. If anything has happened to you that you think might be abuse, try to face it. You are not alone. I will talk to you, and I will accept you.

Things M says (Part Three)

(in response to talking about lying)

M: I will not be honest if I lie about going to preschool, or playing with my trains, or if I was in your belly, or doing lots of jobs.

Abuse

I have become empowered my friends. Most of my family and friends already know that I was sexually abused as a child by my father. They may or may not know that I was also physically abused by both my mother and my father. Though it is hard to put a finger on (because it is not a 'physical' thing), my mother and father were also both emotionally abusive. You may or may not have known that part either. But I have become empowered.

I am going to talk about something difficult, even though you all may not want to think about it, or hear about it, or read about it on my blog. It's not funny, or witty, or entertaining. It is real. I have come to the realization that if I do not talk about abuse, then it is not dealt with by humanity at large. The people I know do not know a HUGE part of who I am: an abuse survivor. It is as if I am apologizing for being abused if I don't talk about it, and it was not my fault that I was. So I will talk about it. I will talk about the reality of abuse (it happens all the time). I will talk about the consequences and how they ripple through my life. I will talk about how I move through the pain. How the truth sets me free. I will not talk about it all right now, but in general from now on on my blog. Fair warning.

Little Boys

First there was the mud in the backyard. Oh how M loves to scoop it in a bucket and stir it with a stick. And then laugh. And then say that he's cooking chocolate. And then add sidewalk chalk to it. And then reach in and smear chalk/mud paste all over his hands, arms, face and legs.

Then there was the catching of the cricket. And the giggling as the cricket crawled up his arm and onto his neck and eventually onto his face. M loved it! He thought the little cricket was his friend and was "tickling him to be funny". It was so cute, but I had to fight back the heebie-jeebies while I watched. Blah!
I was amused by the previous shenanigans. Not so for our final event. I heard the explanation "I need to practice my climbing" as I was talking to my sister on the phone. She can attest to my horror as I realized that he was talking about scaling the wall outside by holding onto the DirecTV cable and pulling it nearly off the roof. Then when that didn't work, he tried the wires connecting our AC unit to the house. There was much fear and trembling when I caught M, put him in time out, and then quizzed him on what we could and could not play with in the backyard. Sheesh. I forget sometimes that he is only 3. Nothing was damaged, so he was easily forgiven. Lucky him. A K without an air conditioner is more grouchy than usual.

10 days!

E got his stitches out yesterday and did not even cry much. Here he is today (one day later):

Interesting

I was surprised to see that there was a bonafide article about Sunstone today. Have I mentioned that I really love reading Sunstone? Subscribe here if you are interested.

Things M says (Part Two)

In the car:

M: Hey? Hey!
me/R: Say "excuse me", buddy.
M: Excuse me, hey Mom!?
me/R: Yes?
M: This will be reawwy hot...um, one hundred degrees!
me/R: Wow, yeah, that is...
M: Hey Dad, this will be reawwy cold...2 degrees!
me/R: Yeah, that's so cold!
M: Yeah, it sure is!

(repeated several times with many interruptions and various numbers of degrees)

Things M says (Part One)

M just said this:

"Do you see this chocolate bunny holding an egg? It's not holding an Easter egg, it's just a reawl egg. It's not an Easter egg, it has a tiny little chocolate bunny in it waiting to hatch out. It's not an Easter egg."

Surgery Pictures

Eli a few days before surgery:

Eli in pre-op in a tiny hospital gown!
One last go at the binky. Sleeping even though he was so hungry, sweet little guy.

In his hospital room later, complete with swaddle blanket, bouncer, and Tylenol :)

At home, this morning:

At home, this afternoon:

Short Update

Eli is home now and doing well. Next Thursday he gets his stitches out. He's eating and sleeping like he usually does, and is not even in much pain. He just takes Tylenol and acts normal throughout the day. He is even talking and laughing through his swollen lips and cheeks. Anyways, we are all tired, but recovering. Thank you for all your messages, thoughts, and prayers of love. :)

Tomorrow

E is going in for surgery tomorrow. It is for the lip. Yikes! I feel somewhat prepared. I have also been freaking out all day. Just think of us around 8:30 am tomorrow and send us good vibes. We also accept fasting and prayers :) I will post before and after photos soon.