Sock Trauma

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

This is the refrain of Oscar as we trudge up the hill on the way to swim lessons at the rec center.

Is it the hill bringing him down?

No.

The trudging?

No.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!

Is it the socks?

Yes! How did you guess?

Apparently Oscar is being tortured by his socks. I made him wear socks since it is only about 35 degrees out, and they are evil, badly fitting socks that refuse to stay up where he wants.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

I can't stand it either. Oscar's whining/complaining is almost more than I can bear. With three kids, sometimes I feel like someone is constantly whining or complaining or crying around me. Especially when we are tired. Like today. I would like to turn around and explode, but I suck it up, and try for the ignore approach.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

What is amazing to me is our capacity as humans to stand - anything. In instances like sock trauma with my kids, an image of the WWII concentration camp survivors comes to my mind. A photo is burned in my mind of a bunch of starving, skeletal men in beards peering out of bunk beds. How did they stand it? How did they keep going day after day with no clothes, little food, rampant disease, working literally to death, living in the midst of insanity?

How did they stand it? What else could they done? What choice did they really have?

Life hands us things that we must stand. Like sock trauma and whining and concentration camps. With each delivery of my children, there was always a point pushing my kids out, when I felt like I could not endure another second. With Tildy I specifically remember bouncing up and down in bed with her head lodged halfway out in the middle of the burn, "Get out! Stop hurting me! You are ripping me in two!" The nurses were there immediately to make sure that stand it I would - before I gave my daughter brain damage.

I stood it.

Luckily for us, most of the time we are not caught in life's choices midway through child delivery. Life usually presents choices. We do not have to stand most of what we do not want to stand.

I mowed lawns for several summers in college. This was the best job even if it did contribute to the weathered appearance of me today. To walk around getting exercise all day, breathing in freshly cut grass, dreaming my thoughts in my head while listening on my Walkman to Sinead O'Connor - and to be paid for this temporary bliss!

But there was one thorn in my side. I believe her name was Lynn. She was a co-worker. A complaining co-worker. After each lawn section was completed we would load up our mowers and ourselves into a trailer and drive to another section to begin anew. This was a chance for us to take a break and socialize. But for Lynn it was a chance to compare notes on everything bad about this job.

Lynn wasn't my child. I didn't have to stand it. So one day I did explode. "Stop your whining! If you don't like this job, go find another one! I love this job, and you are ruining it for me!"

Amazingly enough, she listened. I no longer had to stand Lynn. And she no longer had to stand mowing lawns. I think she got a job in the library. Probably she had to be quiet there.

"I can't stand it! "I can't stand it! "I can't stand it!"

I am still sucking, sucking, sucking it up. I am ignoring, ignoring, ignoring.

And finally I am rewarded for my patience.

Joyful quiet.

The Bad Egg

We are walking home from preschool, and out of the sky a perfect bird egg falls into the grass right next to us.

Marek swears a bird dropped it.

Marek stops instantly and picks it up. It is a small, light blue egg, beautiful and unblemished. He holds it in his hands and says, "I'm going to keep the egg warm so the bird will hatch."

I think he is crazy, of course. But our conversation quickly turns into plans of how to sustain the egg.

"How long will it take for an egg to hatch? Should I keep it in my pocket? I guess I'll build a nest for it out of fake feathers. Yeah, cotton balls, that's a good idea," brainstorms Marek. And he carries it all the way home, asking for assistance along the way to pull up his pants since his hands are otherwise occupied.

How does one sustain an egg?

In my four pregnancies, this was a mystery to me each time. Yes, four pregnancies. Three children.

The first egg was the bad egg. It didn't stick around long. But I think it was a girl. She was conceived in desperation about a week after my father gave me the talk, "So, Christa. You understand I am terminal. Now, are you ever going to have any children?"

I went home, changed my health insurance plans, and conceived in time so I could share with my Dad that, "Yes. I am going to have children."

My father passed away several days later, and I returned home to Colorado to miscarry.

It was YEARS before I shared this information with anyone other than Geoff and the poor male doctor who had to deal with an emotionally wrecked patient who had just lost a fetus and a father.

It turns out that miscarriage is common. It is especially common when one has just lost a loved one. But at the time I did not know this. I wandered around with my dog, and saw babies everywhere. I wondered if something was wrong with me. I felt like I had been kicked out of the parent club before I had even been welcomed. I wondered if I would ever get another chance to join. I waited the recommended three months which seemed SO LONG. And then along came Marek.

In retrospect, the fetus was just a blip. Thank goodness my body dispelled it instead of giving birth to a monster. Can you imagine four kids in our little house and one of them with two heads? Yet, even though it is ridiculous, I still feel like this was my child that had met my father. My only child that had met my father. And that still makes it harder than it should be. To lose a blip. A blip of expectation. A blip of hope. A blip of life.

I have found myself speechless for all things painful. And I wonder if others have done the same?

After my father died I could not write a Christmas letter for the first time in my adult life. Several years later I admired my friend's courage who not only sent a Christmas letter after her Mom's death, but included a beautiful eulogy. I cried for my friend's loss and a woman I had only met a few times.

I have vowed to share my pains so that others may gain from them. Bear with me.

Miscarriage happens all the time.

It happened to me.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes."

Try, try again.

Geoff is wondering if we should eat the bird egg.

Happy New Year

Each year, around the beginning of the year, I make a small, subtle change or two to my life. I don't consciously think of these changes as new year's resolutions. They are just improvements, and I happen to date stamp these improvements since they begin with the new year. The improvements are usually casual, announced to no one in particular, and put in place as I see fit, so I generally am highly successful in implementation. A while ago I put in place our household recycling and compost systems. Last year I vowed to replace the nonstick pan with a cast iron skillet and to hang dry most of our laundry. These were easy.

This year I decided I wanted to explore bread making with our food processor. This one turns out to be easy as well, and the thought of toast made from freshly baked bread is often the motivation to get me out of bed in the morning.

However, the second part to my life improvement this year turns out to not be so easy: I vowed to begin exercising regularly.

This is a funny one for me, because I often walk and bike miles each day in transportation, and this time of year I pass my free time digging dirt. But you know, these activities do nothing for butt jiggle.

Our bodies are truly amazing in their ability to transform and yet reshape. In the past eight years I gained and lost over 150 pounds with my three pregnancies. I can announce this now that I am sure that the baby weight does go away. I am lucky that the old adage about nine months on, nine months off works for me. But I still fantasize about my pre-pregnancy body - strong, lithe, defined, and lifted. And after the first two pregnancies, I still retained hope that I might dance again. And so I tried to stretch and do a few plies every few days. Every now and then I would leap around the backyard. I even went to a few dance classes. And so I deluded myself into believing I had to stay somewhat in shape - just in case I might ever perform again.

After bearing Matilda, three children put me over the cliff. I have certainly lost hope that I will ever perform again and most days I wonder if I will ever even take a dance class again. Hope. Without hope, why would I bother to maintain?

I am always inspired by others.

My Mom has been preparing hard for her sixtieth birthday half marathon challenge this year. It's next week. I remember when I was a kid and she was thirty or so and took up jogging, and I thought, "What a youthful mother I have that she can still run at her age!" Now she is twice that in age, and she is again running circles around me.

And then a couple days ago I read on the blog of a friend of a friend (http://www.onecraftymother.com/2010/04/waiting-to-care.html) about her weight loss goals. And I realized, it is time. It is time to dig up the HOPE and dust it off.

I am probably an exercise addict that has been suffering withdrawal symptoms for the past three years. I sure am a lot happier when my muscles are well-used and stiff, and blood has been pumping throughout my body. Why can I not make the time for this - time for myself?

And so for the past two days I have done it. Just baby steps. A little rope jumping. A few push-ups. A short jog. Some dangling on the monkey bars. Will I manage to keep this up?

Marek asked me today, "Here Mom. Would you like some superpower?" And he dabbed something sticky on my palm.

"Would I ever, Marek! Please slather me in superpower!"

Me and My Friends and Shots

My neighbor called me the other day. She was wondering if I had a pediatrician that I could recommend. My immediate response, not even thinking how prying I might sound, "Oh, are you looking to get shots for kindergarten?"

She was most certainly NOT looking to get shots for kindergarten, though her son most likely will be starting kindergarten in the fall unless she decides to take the path of home schooling. She was just looking for a good pediatrician for her son's check up.

I respect and admire this neighbor's life choices. She is in education, and is raising her children as I would if I had more backbone. Very Waldorf. Home-based fun, natural fibers, hands-on, no electronics, no sugar, art and nature filled. But if there is one point where I differ from the hippie norm, it is on vaccinations.

Now let me say, I know where she is coming from. Vaccinations scare me also. But frankly a lot of things scare me where my children are concerned - microwaves, non-organic vegetables, fluoride, x-rays, computer usage, sunscreen. I could go on. But while I am worried, I don't let the worry change my behavior, because I believe the good outweighs the bad.

Vaccinations have accomplished amazing things. They have reversed the course of multiple crippling and deadly diseases. And so I love vaccinations. I can protect my children like no other generation has been able to before. How great is that!

I have another friend who raves about the miracle of vaccinations. This has been reassuring to me, and maybe also a bit of successful brainwashing. So I am seeking through this post not to judge other parents for their decisions, but to endorse vaccinations. According to Parents Magazine, 76% of the population is doing it! Join the bandwagon!

My friend's ringing praise has helped me feel at peace with taking the plunge each doctor visit to pin my kids down and allow a stranger to poke into them needles of chemicals. I can believe that I am not only helping them, but helping my community by keeping at bay these diseases that might spread to those unable to be vaccinated, like a new baby for example.

Last year, a child in Oscar's preschool who was not vaccinated came down with the chicken pox. Every other child in his class was vaccinated, so no one was particularly worried about contagion. But I was worried. Had Matilda had her full course of chicken pox vaccinations yet? I had to call the doctor and find out. So I did resent this. And just in case you belittle chicken pox, when chicken pox went through my neighborhood when I was a child, one of my friends caught it and it turned into shingles. Her face is scarred for life.

I must be completely honest here. A long time ago when I was pregnant with Marek, I discussed the birth plan and started to consider the pros and cons of vaccination. I did briefly consider not vaccinating my kids. I mean - yuck! I also dreamed of a midwife led, water birth. And suddenly at 32 weeks, I was in labor. I was briefly allowed to hold the results of my painful efforts that were (of course) delivered in a hospital with a male doctor, and then my baby was whisked away to intensive care where he was hooked up to what seemed to be countless wires. He received numerous tests and medications. And I was SO grateful for the knowledge of the medical industry, because all this technology kept my baby alive. Would he have survived 50 years ago? Who knows. But when the doctor recommended vaccinations, I jumped at the chance to protect my child from further harm.

Here is one more pro-point for vaccinating your kids on schedule. Though it seems terrible to vaccinate new babies, they can just be picked up and nursed and comforted. Fast forward a few years. Now those five-year shots for kindergarten, that's anther story. Marek's five-year shots involved several extra sets of hands to help hold him down. Not a nice scene. Not a proud parent moment.

My neighbor, my friend, and I - none of us are in the medical industry, so we don't really know anything beyond what the experts are saying and what we have experienced with our own kids. This month's issue of Parents Magazine had what I thought was a really good article on vaccinations. You can read it online at:

http://www.parents.com/baby/health/vaccinations/vaccines-the-reality-behind-the-debate/

Snapshots of Health Care

Here is Marek the day he was born. Obviously Marek was not the healthiest of children on his birth day. Marek was born at 32 weeks gestation, eight weeks before expected. He was born at one hospital, transferred by ambulance to another hospital, and then lived there for the first six weeks of his life while he learned to breathe and eat outside the womb under medical supervision.

The total cost to us aside from our monthly insurance payment was $300.

This was in 2002, the year after we started our business and our group health care plan. We chose a plan, offered 100% paid coverage to our first employee at our expense, and we paid about $550 a month for our family.


Here is Oscar. Oscar was born in 2005 at 37 weeks gestation. He was playing at the park with us on his third day of life. We had downgraded our health care plan slightly so we were still paying about $550 per month for our family, and had a flat co-pay cost for hospitalization of $1000.


I'll include Matilda in here so she doesn't feel left out. In 2007 we had again downgraded our health care plan so we were still paying about $550 per month for our family. We were gambling that Matilda would not have complications at birth with a plan where we paid 20% of our hospitalization. With financial relief, though not physical relief, she was born at 39 weeks with no complications. According to my records, her birth cost us $1350.

With each child's birth, we are provided a snapshot of health care coverage versus expense at that time. And the difference is totally astounding to me: $300 for a preterm birth versus $1350 for a full term birth within five years. Same insurance company. About the same monthly cost.

As a self-employed person, I've always felt happy to be able to choose my own coverage options. But I have watched the cost of insurance go up ten percent EVERY YEAR. And this is not because of the medical complication of Marek. Interesting enough, once preterm birth is resolved, it's over and we are still placed in the most healthy insurance category. This increase is JUST BECAUSE.

Over the years our employee's appreciation of our health care plan has varied. Most didn't ever use it. There was the guy who went to the emergency room for stitches one night and didn't even understand how the coverage worked - he went to the wrong facility and had to pay for the whole thing out of pocket. There was the older guy who didn't think he could afford the $30 co-pay to get anything checked out (never mind that well visits are free with the plan). There was the guy that worked for us for five years and never used his coverage until he was leaving, so then he went and got a quick physical. It seemed that only those with families cared about the 100% paid health coverage that was given them.

Last year we finally cut our group coverage from the budget of our business.

So I have been intrigued by what our federal government is trying to do for us with the health care initiative. As a small business owner it is SO obvious that something needs to change with our current system. And I will admit that, for a change, I don't believe I have all the answers. But I am VERY worried. Is this going to be like the Credit Card Act which was supposed to help us, but instead caused the interest rates on all our cards to go up?

I watched Michael Moore's Sicko a long time ago. I watch anything by Michael Moore as informative entertainment with incredible bias. But I was struck by the number of health care experts that he managed to dig up. And I am hoping that our government did the same. Surely there is a panel of experts studying all the health care systems in the world? And surely these experts have recommended to our government a path of change based on what has worked in terms of efficiency, cost, coverage, and effectiveness? Aren't they? Can someone reassure me of this?

Just in case, here are the recommendations I would make to the government:

• Separate health care from the employer and give it to the individual. As many have pointed out, we all change employers so often, employer led health care no longer makes sense. This also allows us to see the actual cost versus benefit and make individual choices. Marek's birth cost us $300, but we were provided information of the actual cost which, if my memory is correct was well over $100,000. What a way to build brand loyalty!

• More openness into the drug industry. Why are we prescribed one brand versus a different brand? Maybe there is a better way than a drug to get the same affect like prescribing roller skating for depression?

• More taxation of lifestyle choices that directly affect our health: cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, etc. OR even better, tax incentives for healthy living: running shoes, ski passes, health club membership, sunscreen, etc.

• Government led health education plans. The big providers already do this. For example, information on when well health visits and screening are needed. And information about when something is truly worth a visit to the doctor. I have a book from my health care provider that I consult continuously before I make an appointment.

• Provide options rather than mandates. I don't believe people should be required to have health insurance. But I do believe everyone should have affordable choices. Why not offer catastrophic plans that are very affordable? This is really when health insurance is needed anyway.

• Create a merger of the big and effective health care providers already in place like Kaiser and Mayo. Or let them bid on a government contract for the entire country. They are already doing it. I have to believe they know more about running a health care system than our government.

Dead Things: Ode to my Dad

"The yellow fish is dead."

I announced this important news to the Newton family when I turned the light on the fish tank this morning. Death in my home is a shock to me. No one else seems very interested. Geoff tries to give me a kind glance, but I can tell his coffee has his attention.

I am particularly disheartened by the loss of the yellow one. He had looked quite sickly last week, but had lately roused and had even been seen eating. And now his whispery carcass delicately wound round the filter. There was no question that his soul had moved on.

I should not be surprised by the lack of family interest in the loss of this fish. After all it is I who will be forced to remove its sad little fins from the aquarium. I often wonder if the other fish miss their dear departed, or if he just registers as plant life. I've had plenty of opportunity to wonder about the thoughts of fish on death. You could call our aquarium "death row" by the number of fish that have been executed within its habitat. You will notice that the yellow fish does not have a name. We hoped this might give him sustenance.

The first fish loss was buried in the backyard with words said for his soul. This one will join the last ten in fertilizing the raspberry bushes by the front door. The circle of life.

I hate dead things.

It's been nine years now since I lost my Dad to cancer. I place him in the dead things category; he would understand. I held his hand and his heart as he left the world. And still I missed his departure. Where did he go? One moment he was there, and the next I was left with a shell. His heart quieted, and I realized I was holding onto a dead thing. My father was gone.

Strangely I was filled with a certain exhilaration. The same feeling I had when my children arrived from who knows where out of my body. Like I had sampled something raw and real and special. Death is intimate and individual and indescribable just like childbirth. Is this why we quake as we offer each other our condolences?

I thank hospice and my father's bravery for placing death in life so we could share this last experience together. Death is life. I wish we wouldn't all tip toe around it.

When someone comes into the world, we all move over to make room for this new life. When someone leaves the world, we all shift and try to fill in the hole that is left. It never fills. I miss my Dad.

Robert John Marek
May 31, 1944 - March 13, 2001