Mother Hoodwink

Clear Head or Good Grammar?

I'm on day 3 of ADD meds and I can't believe how much everything has changed. I feel amazing! During the first day I cuddled Maggie before I put her down for her nap. Instead of thinking of fifty different things as I swayed quietly holding her, I found myself staring at the wood grain of her crib and realized that I wasn't thinking of anything! All I could focus on was the design of the grain. I had no other thought in my head. That has never happened to me before. I told Josh about it and he was all, "What? You could never just not think of something?" Uh, no! Hence, the ADD diagnoses.

I have found one tiny drawback. I am all of a sudden making huge grammar mistakes when I type. Like my mind is so focused on what I'm writing that I just type too fast to think about which they're, their, there to use. This is quite worrisome for me. I like good grammar. I admit, I probably make minor grammar mistakes all the time, but there is no excuse to not know which word to use or not know how to use an apostrophe. I get very annoyed with people who make those kinds of mistakes if English in their first language. I mean, it's the only language you know! Might be a good idea to know how to use it. You do have to take twelve years of English classes before you become a legal adult.

Apple's auto spell check is my backbone right now. The above paragraph was riddled with all kinds of mistakes before I fixed them. I wonder if that's why teenagers today write like they just learned English last week. So many kids now are on this medication. Maybe some kids just don't have the wherewithal to correct their grammar mistakes.

I just wanted to warn anyone that knows me though type. If I all of a sudden have a bunch of grammatical errors in my writing, please understand that I do know the rules. I just missed one of the many mistakes that I have to correct now.

I should have written this post ignoring all the dotted red lines under the misspelled words and not re-read everything to make sure I was using proper grammar. I'm sure everyone would have thought a thirteen year old had taken over my blog. Maybe next post?

Even with my new ability to constantly make grammatical mistakes, I like having a clear mind and motivation.

You down with ADD?! I am. :(

I've been convinced for a couple of years now that I have ADD. If I'm not genuinely interested in something, it's very difficult for me to pay attention. My mind wanders constantly. I was a smart kid but never got good grades unless I loved the class. I've always been complimented on my patience. It's not patience I have. It's the ability to daydream at the drop of a hat. Or shift my attention to observe the people around me. I like to people watch so waiting in line rarely bothers me. My years of people watching have made it so I can read a person within the first couple of minutes of meeting them. So it's been good for something.

I finally got around to seeing someone about my ADD. I kept putting it off because I was nervous to see a psychiatrist. I've never been to any kind of therapy before and pride myself on being able to work things out myself. I don't fault people who need therapy, it's just something I personally don't feel comfortable with.

I had a mini meltdown an hour before my appointment. I was scared the doctor would ask me all kinds of personal questions that are no one's business. I know he's trained and has a medical degree but he's still a virtual stranger. I'm not one to confide easily to people I don't know well. What if he asked me about my family? That's their business that I would be putting out there. I'm way too loyal to my loved ones to talk in detail about my issues with my family with a stranger. (When I say family, I don't mean my marriage.) The idea of emotionally opening up to stranger scares me more than a major surgery does. It's not hard for me to talk about my feelings at all but if you aren't the person I have the issue with, I can't get any peace from discussing my problem. So I see no point in talking to a stranger who doesn't really know me.

Josh calmed me and reassured me that my problem was physical, not emotional. To just go in there and act as if I was talking about a hurt foot. I was nervous up until the moment I met my doctor. He put me at ease immediately. He's this tough New Yorker guy. I read a few reviews of him online and a few people said he's easy to talk to because he's heard it all. He used to have mobsters as patients before he moved to innocent ol' Virginia. 

The whole session was so much more relaxed than I thought it would be. There was nothing personal talked about other than my symptoms for ADD and my medical background. At one point he asked if I had ever smoked marijuana. When I told him no he asked, "Not even as a teenager?! Why not? You could have had a lot of fun!" That pretty much solidified the fact that I liked this guy a lot.

Today was my first day on medication. I'm on the smallest dose today and if doesn't do exactly what's it's supposed to do, then I take a little more tomorrow and if that doesn't work then a little more the next day. I took my medication this morning and feel what I guess normal feels like. I have motivation, focus and energy. My mind is clear. It's bizarre. I only have those things if I'm doing something that I want to do and find interesting. It didn't last as long as it should have so most likely I'll need a larger dose.

I don't want to be on any mood altering drug for the rest of my life so I'm hoping it's possible for me to take this drug for a year or so and learn habits and get into a routine. So when I'm off of the drug, I'll still be able to function because I'll just be doing what I'm used to. Until then, I'm excited about my new outlook and how much greater my day to day life will be.

Stupido

My friend's wedding was held at the Officer's club at one of the Naval bases here. It was a nice venue on the beach. At one point during the reception, I went to the bathroom with my sisters to gossip. There was a rustic Italian theme in the bathroom. It was surprisingly designed really pretty. If you know military facilities, then you know that they rarely capture any essence of class in their interior design. I was a bit shocked by it until I noticed that there were signs with Italian sayings above each toilet.

This first one is a bit confusing to me. I know Italian and Spanish are similar languages, but I thought this was strictly a Spanish phrase. According to Google I'm right, but who knows. I speak neither language. 

"My house is your house."

You know, if your house is a toilet.

This next one really grossed me out.

"Eat, eat!"

Ew. I don't wanna eat here or think about eating here.

I guess they did capture the essence of class. Even if it was classy with a 'K.'

Because I'm a good friend.

I made cupcakes for my good friend's bachelorette party. Not just any old cupcakes. I mean it's a bachelorette party. The cupcakes have to be perverted somehow. So I made fondant penises to put on top of them. While I was making them, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the cupcake. I was thinking of just hot pink icing swirled on and a penis plopped on top or maybe making fondant torsos and making the cupcake look like it's a magnified picture of a man's area. The design I ended up with was probably better and easier.

*Depending on what your workplace thinks, the rest of this may be NSFW.

Soap Boxy

Have you ever seen the site, Why the F*** do you Have a Kid? It's severely depressing for many reasons. I am so damn sick of parents who complain about how hard it is to be a parent when they could easily be posted about on that site. My parenting job is hard. My siblings' parenting job is hard. Most of my friends' parenting job is hard. What the bad parents mean to say when they complain about the tough job of parenting is, "Watching my kids is so time consuming."

It's true, being a parent is one of the most challenging things you can do in life. You have to take an infant, raise it to adulthood and hope he/she doesn't turn out to be an asshole. You have to spend all kinds of time with your children reading, playing, singing, dancing, coloring and talking with them. Things you don't always feel like or even enjoy doing, but you have to because they need nourished. You sacrifice your needs and wants for your children. You make sure your children are safe. You want the best for your children. You can say all day that you want the best for you children, and you very well could be telling the truth. But the "best" isn't just going to happen to them. You have to cultivate it. As a parent you have to make sure your children are your priority.

I have someone in my life who has total disregard for her child. He's an annoyance to her. I know she loves her son, but he is most definitely not her priority. Her discipline is spanking him when he's bad instead of just talking to him and sticking with a reasonable disciplinary action. I'm not saying spanking is wrong, but when you use it when you are angry, it makes the situation worse. She blows up at her child then never talks about the thing he did wrong ever again. Until he does it again, that is. Then it's another spanking and a, "I told you not to do that!" Which I guess she technically did the last time she was spanking him. But they never talked about it calmly. She then has the gall to say, "Parenting is so hard." Yeah, it is. But she wouldn't know anything about that. What she's doing is glorified babysitting.

I fear there are too many glorified babysitter type parents out there. When kids are only given attention when their parents are disciplining them, then guess what? They're going to be bad a lot so they can get some attention. It's not rocket science, it's common sense.