Hug a Veteran

In case you weren't aware... today is Veteran's Day.  Maybe you didn't have the day off.  Maybe you view Veteran's Day as just another day the mail isn't delivered or another annoying holiday when you have to find back up child care.  Maybe you simply see it as a great day for a parade.  

Whatever your feelings are about the current state of our military or the war our country is tangled in, take a moment to talk to your kids about what today means.  We should honor those that serve our country.  

That's my mom during Air Force Nurse training circa 1965.  This picture was taken shortly before she met a handsome Air Force private seven years her junior who she would marry and have two gorgeous daughters with.

Happy Veteran's Day mom and dad.  

Blog Regret

I am feeling remorseful about this post.  It sort of feels like I've been talking about my mom behind her back.  I honestly started the post as way to make fun of myself for having a toothbrush collecting problem, but clearly it morphed into something completely different.   I don't want my mother to be defined here by the fact that she is compulsive hoarder.  

She is also an amazing grandmother and a woman who has led a rich life.   It can't have been easy to be an Air Force nurse in the early sixties, but she talks fondly of her time in the military and I know she had some amazing experiences.  She was not a woman who went from her father's house straight to her husband's.  She had a career and a whole life of her own before meeting my father, getting married and starting a family.   She had her own apartment in North Beach in San Francisco.  She hung out with poets and volunteered at Planned Parenthood.

My mother rarely talks about her life before kids or why she packed up and left Minnesota after she graduated from nursing school.  I know there is so much more to her than  I know about.   I want to know more of that woman and I want my daughters and my son to know more about that woman.   Why she is reluctant to talk about it is a mystery to me.

One of reasons I started this blog is to have a written record of my thoughts for my children to read someday.  I don't want there to be any unknowns for them about who I am or how I feel about being their mother.  I also want them to know that there is more to me than motherhood.   I want them to feel comfortable talking to me about anything, even when they are adults.  To have that kind of relationship with anyone, there can't be any secrets or holding back.

Mr. Mint and I lived with my mom toward the end of my pregnancy with Lolly and Frostine and for the first four months after they were born while our house was being remodeled.  They were both colicky and I had a really hard time those first few months.  I was on the edge of totally losing it.  My mom once remarked, "I don't remember you guys crying this much as babies."  That is not what I needed to hear.  The comment made me feel like a failure since I could not get my babies to stop crying.   It was the beginning of a chasm between us that sadly has grown over the years as my screaming babies have grown into little girls.

I will probably be writing a lot about my mother in the coming weeks, months, hopefully years.  She turned 74 this year and while she still looks like she's in her sixties, she is diabetic and had a triple bypass a few years ago.  Her memory and sharp wit has been declining and lately seems to be getting much, much worse.  I fear we are headed to a place my sister and I have dreaded for a long time.   

She drives me bananas sometimes and it helps for me to write about it and work through some of our issues here.  I just need to state that aside from our differences and inability to "get" each other lately, I have great respect for my mom.   She adores her grandchildren and I am so glad my issues with my mom have not filtered down to my kids.  They love her to pieces.  

There is so much more to say and so much more blog material here.  But for now I just needed to let you all know that just as there is more to me than motherhood, there is more to my mom than compulsive hoarding.  

At Least My Kids Will Have Clean Teeth

I haven't written very much here about my mother.  We have complicated relationship, filled with mixed emotions.  I love her and respect her more than you can imagine, but for some reason we have been unable to form a healthy adult relationship.  It's gotten worse since I became a mother.  How painful it is to type that sentence.

My mother has not had an easy life.  Her father was an alcoholic and abusive to her mother.  She was very close to her mom, who passed away shortly after my mom started college.  She rarely speaks about it, but I think she was devastated.  After graduating from nursing school in Minnesota, she packed up all her belongings and moved out to San Francisco with some school friends leaving her family and the only life she'd known behind.   She joined the Air Force as a flight nurse and travelled the world.  That's where she met my father and decided to get married at the age of 32.  I think waiting until after you turned 30 to get married was rare in the early sixties.  

After nearly eleven years of marriage and two children she found out my father had an affair and my parents divorced.  My memory is pretty fuzzy, but I don't think the divorce was even final when my father was diagnosed with cancer.  He died nine months later.  Within that same year, my mother's best friend committed suicide.  So there she was a stay at home mom turned widow, but not technically a widow, with two young girls to raise.  As you can imagine, she was emotionally a wreck.  

But the eight year old me had no idea how hard things were for her.  She did everything she could to put on a brave a face for my sister and I and make our lives as normal as possible.  My family is a family of secrets.  They come from a place of "don't talk about the bad stuff, put a smile on your face and move forward."  So I don't think my mother ever really dealt with the crap she was handed.   She went about the business of earning a living and raising her daughters.  She never dated again after my father's death

I am not a psychologist by any means, but I think that all of those things above have contributed to the fact that she is a compulsive hoarder.  You know, where she can't throw anything away and there are small paths throughout the house to get to the toilet, the bed, the shower, etc.  

this used to be my sister's childhood bedroom

It started with the refrigerator of all things.  I remember being in junior high and embarrassed to open the fridge if I had friends over.  There is barely room in there to fit a can of soda and she lives by herself.  She has more stuff crammed in there than I have in my fridge to feed my family of five.  From the fridge, it moved on to the garage.  There is a large storage area above the garage that is filled with all my toys and furniture from childhood.  Once that was full, the stairs to the storage area started to fill up.  You can't even make it up the stairs any longer.  She hasn't been able to park her car in her two car garage for years.   

mom's master bedroom

She saves magazines, wrapping paper, random purchases from TJ Maxx.  One of the cupboards in her kitchen is full of dog biscuits, leashes and dog dishes.  Our dog died 15 years ago and she has no plans to get another one.  There's no where to sit and eat a meal because her dining table is covered with stacks and stacks of papers.  Her bathroom is filled with bags of random shampoo and conditioner bottles with just a few drops left in them.  

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  My sister and I estimate it will takes us weeks if not months to clean out her house when the time comes.  She only lives about 10 minutes from me, but I rarely let my kids go over there because it's just too dangerous.  She knows she has a problem, but it would be incredibly difficult for her to let go of her piles.  I know she'd be mortified if she knew I put pictures of her house on the internet, but she doesn't read my blog.  She doesn't even own a computer.  More people know about her compulsion than she will admit to herself.  She hasn't had any of her close friends over in years, they must know.  My sister and I have tried to intervene to no avail.  It's like an addiction.

Maybe as a result of the state of my mom's house, I tend to lean in the other direction.  I throw everything away.  It makes me feel good to clean things out and get rid of them.  I don't like clutter and it's easier for me to relax when my house is clean and organized.  

I do have one little problem though.  Toothbrushes.  I have a strange urge to buy my kids new toothbrushes every time I'm at the drug store.  I am powerless to resist the latest toothbrush innovations, characters my kids love, toothbrushes that play music or toothbrushes with little suction cups that stick to the wall.  That is all well and good, but then I can't throw the old ones away.  Then they get new toothbrushes every six months at the dentist's office.   Therefore we have a toothbrush collection that looks like this:

Is there such a thing as compulsive toothbrush hoarding?  PsychMamma?  Anyone?

In all seriousness, I know that compulsive hoarding is no laughing matter.  My sister and I discuss it often and it breaks our hearts to know that we will probably never have a meal at her house again and our kids will have no memories of playing at Grammy's house.  Not to mention the fact that her house is clearly a dangerous fire hazard.   We are at a loss.  Her compulsion/addiction not only hurts her, it hurts her family and friends and it has damaged my relationship with her.

I've merely scratched the surface of my multi-faceted relationship with my mom in this post.  I'm sure I'll revisit the subject.  

There Was Blood

Oh my gosh.   So much to blog about, so little time.  I just got back from the emergency room where I spent 3 hours with my mom and her broken nose.  I'll spare you the pictures, but trust me, they are not pretty.

The evening started out fine.  The kindergarten musical was tonight and Grandma Nutt came over so she could go with us.  We had a nice dinner, combed hair, Lolly practiced her line.  We decided to walk in order to avoid parking problems and because we live so darn close to school.  There are very few sidewalks in our town and no street lamps.  It was just starting to get dark.   Grandma Nutt brought little bouquets of flowers for the girls (so cute) and she was carrying those.  Lolly and Frostine were walking with Grandma and Mr. Mint and I were about five feet behind them.   The path is a little rocky and there are some tree roots to navigate.   

All of a sudden Grandma Nutt tripped.  It was quite a fall.  I thought she was OK, but when she sat up, there was blood (a lot of blood!) gushing from her nose.  The girls immediately started crying.  Mr. Mint ran home and got the car while I tried to keep everyone calm.   I was trying so hard not to freak out too much in front of the girls, but my gosh there was a lot of blood.  Mr. Mint took Grandma to the hospital while I brought the girls to the musical.   My heart was still racing.

After I deposited Lolly and Frostine in their classrooms, washed the little traces of blood off my hands I called Mr. Mint to check up on Grandma.   All seemed OK, they were just waiting for the doctor.  After the show, Mr. Mint and I switched places, he took the girls home to bed and I stayed with my mom at the hospital.  Turns out she broke her fall with her nose and thus broke her nose in "multiple places."   They sent us home with some Motrin and referral to a plastic surgeon.  She's hoping to get a "cute new nose" out of the situation.

The moral of the story?  I will never again make the walk to school in the dark.  Also, if you do trip, it's OK to sacrifice the flowers in order to break your fall.  

More on the kindergarten musical later.  It was so cute I almost couldn't stand it.