In recent months there’s been some trouble in the Cass house.
A horrible little fiend named Insomnia.
Whether stress induced, medication induced, or just popping up to say hello – Insomnia has taken all of us into it’s hold.
For days on end poor Erik suffered from this for several nights in a row. I kept trying to convince him to let me make him a hot angel.
He kept insisting that he couldn’t stand warm milk.
One night I insisted, making him one and handing to him insisting he drink.
Since then it’s become an almost nightly ritual.
So good, and so simple to make – and it knocks you out without using drugs. I love it, and have since I had my first one at Barnes & Noble’s. Of course than I had a steamer and vanilla flavor syrup.
It’s a simple solution, – the next time you have a rough night, you should totally make it.
8 – 12 oz milk (depending on your mug size)
1-2 tsp vanilla (1 or 2 cap-fuls)
2-3 Tbs sugar (or more)
Warm over the stove on med to med-low heat. Don’t let boil, just warm to whatever temperature works for you (I usually go to where I can still stick my finger into it without burning myself – Yeah, real accurate, isn’t it?).
Honestly, do the vanilla and sugar to taste, hubby likes less vanilla, I like more. I never measure accurately. Just put stuff in until it feels right.
Your other option is to buy the flavoring syrup they have for coffee at the grocery store and use that (like we did at Barnes & Noble). I am planning to buy the Caramel syrup next shopping trip and try that for something different!
Two years ago I took a leap of faith. Despite initially cringing at the cost of a membership to the Indianapolis Zoo – I splurged and bought it to cover our family. I knew that one of the leading factors behind us never going was the cost to get in. I thought, if it’s “free” after that onset – maybe we’ll use it.
And use it we have. I re-purchased it last year and go on a moderately regular basis, weather and time permitting. Sometimes just me, but most often with the kids.
One thing about going to a smaller zoo – you learn some of the quirks. Like the brown bear always hides, the wild dogs are always asleep, and the gibbons are always chirping like mad.
This past weekend we went with the girls on a gorgeous sunny day and the zoo had turned on its head. The Gibbons were silent, letting us hear the chirping of the otters they share a cage with. The wild dogs were awake and moving all over their enclosure. Best of all, the brown bear was up close and personal – with a big friendly grin on his face.
I’m so glad that this time I took my camera – because I get to throw some of my favorites at you. Of course I have SO many, I’m struggling to pick just a few so I will beg you to please head on over to my FLICKR account to see the rest. It’s worth it, I promise…everyone was posing for my camera.
I freely admit to being a computer/internet addict.
My husband is addicted to movies (in his defense, he is equally addicted to books).
Denver is now addicted to his iPod & Netflix (i.e. Star Trek).
In the past several months we’ve started to make the conscious decision to unplug at least twice a month and reconnect by using actual words – a long forgotten art in this house it feels like sometimes.
So we unburied some board games, bought some new ones – and some new puzzles. We’re slowly building our choices of games, including ones that the youngers can play (like [amazon_link id=”B004LZ2QZW” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Sorry[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B00000IWHG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Perfection[/amazon_link]). We have probably 5 different versions of [amazon_link id=”B0017S1Y4A” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Trivial Pursuit[/amazon_link] – including two very old ones like the [amazon_link id=”B0009RGXPK” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Classic Genus[/amazon_link] and the (vintage?) Junior edition.
We’re building a list of games we want to add, trying to find classic games we remember playing “way back when” – you know, in ancient times when 3 channels on TV forced to to be creative and play these board games.
I am plotting and trying to get Erik to agree to learn how to play Rummy. The poor guy doesn’t know how to play – and I’ve always loved a good game of Rummy.
For now our go-to game that comes out just about every time we decide to play? [amazon_link id=”B00000IWDB” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]SCRABBLE[/amazon_link]. Between the three of us over the age of 10 – it’s always a toss-up who’s going to win.
The best thing about bringing these out is it gives us a chance to sit around and actually talk. Even though it’s often about the game or nothing – it’s reestablishing some levels of communication. Letting us relax and just have fun together so that not all of our conversations revolve around a child getting in trouble for something or a movie we just saw.
What family couldn’t stand to just have fun together without technology?
I now regularly stare at my wishlist for games, and scope out the board game section at Goodwill. For Christmas I hope to add a few more options for family togetherness to my list.
With Christmas coming up, don’t you want to add some fun under your tree? What’s your favorite board game?
You meet at the playground and an instant friendship forms. You sit next to someone at your desk in class and in no time you’re best buds asking to sleep-over.
When you’re an adult it’s harder.
You have a lifetime of experiences, traumas, joys, and broken hearts to muddle through. Walking up to a random stranger in a grocery store and creating a friendship seems – well weird to our grown up brains.
A few weeks ago my friend Heather was talking about a book she’d read – [amazon_link id=”0345524942″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]MWF seeking BFF[/amazon_link] – about a woman that set out to find a new BFF by going on one ‘friend date’ a week for a year. Something I would never have the courage to do.
After I stopped working to take care of my girls – my ‘friend’ world sort of disappeared. I’m terminally shy when I’m not in a theater situation. Even meeting my own neighbors gave me a case of the nerves. Erik is similar for different reasons and in different ways. For a long time I felt a isolated. I loved being home, but I missed having friends to chat with. While I’d gone to high school in Indiana – I didn’t know anyone in the town we live in now. I also didn’t like going out with two very young children, one of whom gets over-stimulated in crowd situations.
Through the past six years of blogging, and most especially the past three years of becoming more involved in the local blogging community, not to mention it being easier to get out with older children than with two babies – life has managed to help me find those elusive adult friends. Somehow life has even managed to do the same for my husband.
We’ve met intentionally, accidentally, incidentally, and yet somehow all of the friendships were destined-to-be. From neighbors that I finally got out to meet, to bloggers that totally used to intimidate me & now make me laugh harder than I’ve laughed in years, to people life threw into my (or Erik’s) path at just the right time.
When one kid is in the hospital you disappear into a bubble.
The world outside of that room fades away and you are nothing but medicines and doctors and nurses and monitors.
The last time we were in the hospital we didn’t know Denver had CF. We were there for just three days and everyone was always visiting Kennedy.
This time it was Denver in the hospital and Kennedy couldn’t visit (they don’t even like CF kids living together but…well, siblings and all that). We couldn’t all be up there, and we had to switch things around and find someone to watch the girls and – chaos reined until my in-laws were good enough to take them over the weekend.
We were able to focus on the one child. The sick one. The tests and orders and plans for what would happen with him.
In the bubble things are protected – but you don’t feel whole.
Coming home is chaos. Suddenly girls are screaming and running and Denver is teasing them and it’s loud and crazy and gives me such a headache.
The bubble bursts into wild days of life bursting at the seams and homework and chores and stories of all kinds.
The bubble is safe, protected, sheltered.
Life on the outside might be dangerous, but suddenly you have peace you didn’t before.
I’ve spent a couple of days trying to figure out how to write these posts now that I have the all clear to do so. Then I realized I had to start at the beginning.
This is my husband Erik (handsome, isn’t he? Just help me out & tell him to shave).
He was born here in the same small town we live in. Just the next street over is where his parents lived when they brought him home. He was adopted 3 days after he was born, and it became official some months later.
When he was first born he proved to have some issues with his eyes & their musculature and ended up having seven (if I remember correctly) surgeries on them before he turned 2.
Whether it was the surgeries or genetics, we can’t know – but shortly after the turmoil of constant surgeries there came some personality issues.
At 3 years old he was put on his first medication. Since the age of 3 the sort of medication and the diagnosis has changed over time. He’s been on Ritalin, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, and he’s shunned them all at times for the self-medication of alcohol (at both inappropriate and appropriate ages).
To hear him describe it, he always felt separate. Apart.
The outsider.
In school.
At home.
In his own head.
Some of it he blames on the sense of abandonment he still feels for being adopted. Some of it on his own “stupid” biology. He also heaps a lot of blame on himself.
For so many years he floundered.
Made many mistakes.
Lashed out in anger.
Pain.
Confusion.
Chaos.
And then, he broke.
As most people with mental disorders do.
He wound up in the stress center – checked in for a period of time.
Once he came out he had the clear cut diagnosis of severe depression. He was put on several meds before settling on a mix of Effexor (which I have come to despise, but more on that later) and Wellbutrin. Sent back out into the world “better.”
He thought his life would be good after that.
It was supposed to be better.
But mental disorders are never that easy – and never that cut and dry.
*~*~*
*More coming soon. It’s a long story and I shortened this part intentionally. There’s much that happened before we met that I don’t fully know or understand…and things we still can’t talk about…and that don’t need to be said. I mostly wrote this for a little background before we get into meeting me & the life we’ve lived up to this point and where we are now – and where he is now.
In recent months there’s been some trouble in the Cass house.
