Bipolar Tuesday: Inpatient

The Friday morning that LeBella was put into the phosp was as hectic as most had been lately.

LeBella had been exceedingly agitated everyday and the last few weeks before that had been the hardest for her.

We sent the boys off to school and headed to her pdoc appointment. She huffed and puffed the whole way there and I was relieved when we were able to go straight into the office without waiting. (The longer we have to wait the grumpier and less cooperative she becomes.)

Unfortunately it was all down hill from there.

She’d never had one of her rages at the office before and I think the pdoc was surprised at how quickly she could escalate. She was transported from the pdocs office straight to the children’s crisis and stabilization unit at the psychiatric hospital.

Separating from her was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I wasn’t allowed to stay and she had to. She was Baker Acted. I had no say on if she stayed or went home, or how long she would be there.

Even knowing it was in her best interest didn’t alleviate my guilt. Over the years I have reassured many other mom’s they were doing the right thing in this position, they shouldn’t feel guilty and they should take this time to relax and rest.

I’m sorry.

Yes, it is true. Getting your child the medical help they need when they need is the right thing to do.

You should not feel guilty for helping your child.

And you should rest and prepare for the homecoming.

But I didn’t know. I didn’t know just how heavy your heart was.

I didn’t know your house was now too quiet.

I didn’t know your arms felt so empty.

Her stay was relatively short (and ineffective) but it was the longest 4 days of my life.

I was able to talk to her on the phone a couple times, the defeat in her voice made me question everything. Again.

They recommended that we not visit her on Saturday. They were finally able to keep her calm without additional sedatives and felt us visiting and then leaving would cause another psychotic episode.

They let her call me and tell me I was late for visitation. This broke my heart into a million pieces. I had to lie to my baby and tell her I couldn’t come see her because I was having car problems.

“Okay Mommy, I understand.” (I thought I had waited long enough to write this, that knowing she is asleep in her room would make it less painful. I was wrong)

We finally got to see her on Sunday afternoon.

There had been a lice outbreak so her hair was coated with Vaseline, making her appear much more sickly. Her eyes were large and cloudy, and her words were halted and slurred.

I wanted to grab her and run out of there.

Why doesn’t the hospital staff take any measures to make parents feel more comfortable? Are they all so cold and unapproachable?

I hardly slept that night. I kept thinking of every horrible movie I’d ever seen that depicted mental hospitals as virtual hells holding people captive with paperwork and red tape.

What if they wouldn’t let her go?

We were able to bring her home on Monday afternoon. The meds they released her on were a joke and I had to be very patient and creative to keep her calm once the honeymoon period was over.

She slept beside me for 3 nights before things began returning to normal. Or our version of it anyways.

Want to show LeBella some love? Go visit her cuteness on her blog!

Of Stanza and Rhyme and Motherhood

I have made a lovely, witty and amusing on The Twitter and because it seems selfish to without her gems I am sharing them with you today! The following is an actual exchange between @CrayonWrangler and myself. (Clinking her name at any point in this post will take you to more of her awesomeness!

 

See? Isn't she lovely?

@CrayonWrangler:

Now I lay me down 2 dream.

Kids hate me/think I’m mean.

No mom award in my future it seems,

all because I said eat green beans.

@mommylebron:

Now I lay them down to sleep,

I pray my sanity to keep,

Until again another day,

They wake and try to take it away!

@CrayonWrangler:

Here I sit alone 2 eat.

I hear no sound of lil feet.

There are no children around 2 scold.

At least I know the duct tape holds.

@mommylebron:

Now I lay me down to sob,

Motherhood is such a job,

Shleping after lil brats,

Wearing 20 different hats.

@CrayonWrangler:

In the kitchen where the steak is burnt & the pots are stuck.

The husband and kids are crying for the dinner & I don’t give a..

@mommylebron:

Now I sip a glass of wine,

Feeling rosy, calm and fine,

Then lil voices scream MOMMY,

And snap me from my reverie.

@CrayonWrangler:

There’s a mess from here 2 there.

All I do is stop & stare.

I could sit here & shed tears

but I’ll drink these last 3 beers

@mommylebron:

I’m here on Twitter, my homeworks not done,

@CrayonWrangler is too much fun,

At 12 o’clock an Fs my grade,

This lil game was so well played!

@CrayonWrangler:

Get off of Twitter,

Back to your books.

Before teacher gives you dirty looks.

Tomorrow is a new day to play,

It’s fun is all I can say.


 

Psst: Did you catch my post on Blogher yesterday?

Ooh and also? Check out my new digs! That’s where all be posting my writer-y stuff!

A Second Serving Repost from @TheButteredSide

Synonym Toast

“Mom, what does ‘gay’ mean?”

My heart skipped a beat when my eight year old Bubb asked this question while reading a book. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with being gay, but only because answering this question could possibly lead to a bigger discussion that I’m not quite sure how to go about wording appropriately. I take a breath and then remember something…

“Gay? Well, can you read the whole sentence?”

Bubb reads, and turns out that the book was written back in the 1920′s… so all I say is, “oh, that means ‘happy’”

I debated going further and telling him the other, more “modern” meaning, but I have a tendency to over explain things… thus unnecessarily confusing my children for no reason. So I figured just this once I will keep it simple.

Wouldn’t you know later that day we were out and about standing in line at a store and Bubb blurts “Mom, I’m so gay!” Oh god – I forgot how much Bubb likes to use new words. Last week it was the word “rare”, this week…apparently its “gay”.

I couldn’t very well tell him that minute in front of a crowd what the other meaning of the word “gay” is… mostly because I’m worried that I wouldn’t explain it properly and would jump right to the sex part out of nervousness.

In the car I chose my words carefully, trying not to go overboard as I usually do, and tell him “it’s when two men or two women love each other; so instead of something like a husband and wife, it would be a husband and a husband, or wife and a wife”

“Ohh. Does it mean they are married…and happy too?”

Aaaacck! Why, why, WHY are children like this? Now we’ve got same sex marriage thrown in there, and the old meaning of “gay” is still lingering… mixed in with the new meaning… crap. This always happens, and I’m left tripping over my words, digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole… and Bubb, asking more questions.

It’s a miracle I managed to escape and not completely traumatize Bubb with political and scientific explanations on all of this. I believe I crossed my fingers and gave him a one word answer. I responded with the all encompassing word “sometimes”.

Yes, “sometimes, Bubb, they are married and sometimes they are also happy, just like everybody else”.

I was lucky with this one. And it wasn’t so bad after all. We have years ahead of us where the discussions and questions will be tougher to answer. In fact, one of my good friends has a girl who is approaching the tween years, and as a mom she is understandably beginning to get nervous about the topics looming around the corner.

She told me just the other day that her daughter asked “Mom, what does virgin mean?” My friend was floored that this came up, but said she knew the day would come… but just not so soon. She thought this was the “talk”.

She took a deep breath and went on to openly explain intercourse and baby making… a man’s penis… woman’s vagina…yadda yadda yadda… not a virgin. Turns out, her daughter had seen the word on a bottle of olive oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil…

So, in my attempts to keep it simple, turns out Bubb needed more explanation; in my friends attempt to inform her daughter, turns out she needed less. I’m beginning to get the sense that this is “it”. Our parents had no clue either and just bumbled around half the time hoping we managed to put the right pieces together to make sense of it in adulthood.

Do we ever get this part right? If Bubb asks how to get to third base, am I accidentally going to refer him to dad for the ol’ sex talk when all he wants are baseball tips? If he asks me for a pipe, am I going to sit him down for the “just say no” discussion when all he needs is plastic tubing for an art project? Thanks, English, for making our job as parents even more bewildering… its driving me nuts…and you know what kind of nuts I mean.{jcomments on}

Copyright © www.thebutteredside.com 2009

Bipolar Tuesday: Ring Around My Sanity

Ring around the rosie

A pocketful of posies

Ashes, Ashes

We all fall down!

Doesn’t that song just put visions of cherubic little angles with freckles and pig tails in your head.

Whatever.

Here’s our version:

Ring around my mommy

Because I think it’s funny

Dashes, dashes

We all run away!

I’m telling you, since LeBella learned to walk she has been running circles around everyone and everything!

In daycare and at school she would/will run around desks, tables, other students.

At home it’s the car, the love seat and the dining room table.

I know what you’re thinking, “Um, hello, Mommylebron, just don’t chase her.”

Not an option.

When she’s in “Elopement Mode” she has an objective.

Her objective is: Away.

Away=Outside. Roads. Traffics. The ability to blend into the neighbor’s shrubs with or without the aid of camouflage.

If she manages to get Away (and she has) chasing is no longer an option. That just leads to Further Away.

(Did I mention I am not a runner??)

She rarely has a reason. She just gets all impulsive and twitchy, then it’s on. Usually there are tell tale signs. This is a good thing because otherwise we skip the game of Ring Around Mommy and go straight to the objective.

I usually have to dig deep at this point. I can’t show that I’m agitated because she feeds into that. So I go for positive redirection.

“Hey, baby girl, wanna go blow bubbles.”\

Negative.

“Chacha moo moo, wanna draw a picture?”

Negative. Sigh.

“Lala? Want to eat mommy’s Dove ice cream with the super yummy ganache on top?”

Bingo.

And all is right with the LeWorld again.

Except I have no ice cream now.

 

**In the event that your child runs away and you are not confident in your ability to keep them safe you should immediately call 911. Inform the operator that your child suffers from mental illness and is not acting rationally. If this is a habitual event with your child you may want to find out if your local police department has a specially trained Crisis Officer and make them familiar with your families situation.

Related Articles

• Bipolar at Age 2? (everydayhealth.com)
• Keeping Track of Bipolar Medical Records (everydayhealth.com)

Mom Confession: Torture as a Discipline Method

This is Jiovanni aka LeScholar at about 2.5 years old. I know what you’re thinking. Those chubby cheeks, big brown eyes, sweet little smile. Why would you ever need any discipline at all, let alone torturous ones?

Well, my answer is two fold. He is the first born child of a teen mom (uh, that would be me, y’all). So he was the guinea pig. You know, the test kid that you practice all your parenting stuff on before you decide to stock up on more expand your little family. And the second part? Oh yeah, he was quite possibly possessed by a demonic spirit 93.2% of the time. And also he was immune to my discipline tactics.

“You are grounded!” earned me a quick smile.

“No car keys for a week!” was good for a giggle.

“I’m taking away your cell phone!” got me a belly laugh.

People, we were dealing with a two year old. Big guns were required. I refused to be taken down by  a two foot tall terrorist who thought poop made great wall decorations.

“I’m getting the Shoes.”

“No, mommy, no shoes! I beed good! I beed the good boy! I no want it shoes!” This plea was often punctuated by one of those ear piercing wails that only a toddler and my 9 year old daughter are capable of.

Now before you go to call CPS let me tell you two things!

1. Statute of limitations.

2. While often tempted, I did not ever beat my child with a shoe.

Let me explain. Remember that Christmas about 10ish years ago when Mother’s everywhere were eye gauging and ripping out each others hair to get this lil guy into their shopping carts?

Well, being the loser last minute Christmas shopping Mommy that I am, I had to settle for the slightly less popular:

And what made our Cookie Monster so awesome was that he came with a pair of plastic shoes (one piece) with speakers in the top and wheels on the bottom. So you stuck his fuzzy wuzzy feet into those bad boys and he could (drum roll please) walk and talk!!

“My want cookies! Nom nom nom nom!”

And that deep growly voice couple with the slightly jerky movement of the shoes scared the wall art out my demon possessed sweet baby boy. Score!

So, I did what any responsible teen mom still learning how to discipline a toddle would do.

I let him watch me placed them in the little half closet that house the AC unit for the house. And gave him the plain boring Cookie Monster doll to torment cuddle with.

And then?

Refuse to go to bed? “I’m getting the Shoes.”

“Noooo! I beed good! I no want it shoes!”

Learning that hitting is fun?

“Shoes?”

“Nooooo! No, shoes, Mommy!”

Kamakazee jumping off the furniture?

*Look towards closet containing the offensive shoes.*

*Docile toddler climbs off the back of the sofa and sits with hands in lap, watching mindless episodes of The Teletubbies. Occasionally glaces apprehensively at Mommy and said closet.*

Is there, like, some kind of award for mastering child discipline as a teen mom? Just curious…..