Pick Ups

I spend a lot of my life picking up A&Z. It is just the way of life for these two kids, with a working mother. While we live as close to work/school as we possibly can, it is still just a lot of time driving very short distances...

4:29 Pack up my bags, walk to the car.
4:31 Realize I left the cherries in the fridge at work, walk back in to get it.
4:35 In the car, drive the 1.2 mile distance to Zoe's school
4:40 Have Zoe, but she wants to wear the Snow White costume. Put it on her, convince her to keep me company to the bathroom. She twirls down the hall.
4:45 Still twirling, wait for the bathroom, go to the bathroom.
4:53 She is still twirling back to the classroom. Convince her to give up the costume.
4:58 In the car, give her a cracker, call Pizza Hut, order a medium Hawaiian pizza, and another medium of 1/2 cheese, and 1/2 pepperoni. Pizza Hut does not sell water?! Text Hubby to bring water from work. Drive to Aidan's school, which is about 2 miles away.
5:05 Aidan is watching cartoons in Chinese, Zoe wants to watch. I chat with his teachers and practice my Chinese in the process.
5:15 Convince the kids to get in the car, surprisingly, they do. Drive about 2 miles to Pizza Hut. Zoe reports her legs hurt in her knee high boots. Persuade her that she is ok.
5:25 At Pizza Hut, pizzas not ready. Put children on the counter so they can watch gabillions of calories being turned into pizza.
5:45 Have pizza, ask for plates, but apparently, Pizza Hut does not do paper plates. Buckle the children back in the car, drive two blocks to parking lot. Get out of the car, see that I didn't put my reusable groceries bags in the trunk. Aidan holds the picnic blanket and napkins (to use as plates) and water, Zoe holds two jackets. I hold: two pizzas, a container of wet wipes, my purse, bin of cherries, and Zoe's hand.
5:50 See Hubby at the park, find a spot, sit down and realize that I should have brought the children's sunglasses. Oh well.

Sometimes, I simply don't know what to make of my activities.

Back to School Thoughts

I know I have a dissenting voice. Ever since I was little, it annoyed my mother very much that whatever she said, I would disagree. "Eat your meat." "No, Mom, we should eat more vegetables." "Eat your vegetables." "But Mom! I need the protein to grow my muscles." You get the picture, it was painful to raise me.

These days, I have lured Hubby into my Camp of the Dissenting Opinion. I have convinced him to join me, in pointing out the strange ideas that surround us, the inefficiencies of government, of people. And yes, we are the Peanut Gallery.

With Aidan starting 1st grade, I am once again, finding lots of material: the same material as last year, just with the added, "I can't believe I have to do this again."

1. The info packet: At the beginning of the school year, he comes home with about a dozen sheets of paper, things for us to fill out, to sign. Things like emergency contact info and agreeing to the library policy. What I don't understand is why are we signing this again?! I mean, I don't sign the library policy at my city library annually, why are we doing this? Why do I need to fill out my 3 emergency contacts twice? Hello! It ought to be a data base on the web that we can get this done! For crying out loud, there is a poor soul who has to sort all this madness.

2. School supplies: I can't believe the current system is in place. We are given this list of stuff to buy, at 4 pm, the day before school starts. First of all, I imagine the supply is very much the same year to year. Why not send it to us at the end of last year, with the re-enrollment form. Better yet, post it on the website so we can look at it all summer long. Also, I can't believe that all 125 families will need to rush to the local stores to buy the same stuff. The PTA can easily use this as a fund raising opportunity: Here is your bag of supplies, give me your money. I would totally do that! Finally, do we get this supply back, or am I going to buying a new pair of scissors annually for the next 5 years?

3. School funding: I can't believe that our PTA has to fund the music and art and physical education programs. Class size is also going up, to 25. The classrooms were designed for about 18 kids. They are going to run out of space in the classrooms! Politicians should be required to send their children to public schools. Don't make other people do what you don't want to do for your own kids.

On the sunny side, I am very pleased with what Aidan has accomplished over the summer. He only had 5 weeks of summer, since we are in year round school. In 5 weeks, he read over 30 books, on his own. He is now doing subtraction, and even some multiplication, all in his head! I have a chance to get him into an Enrichment Program, where he can learn the Keyboard. He is also back in Chinese school, and I am pleased to say that this mother has finally came to a realistic goal: Aidan's goal in Chinese school is to be able to speak it and understand it. Reading and writing, not our priority. (So freeing to finally be ok with that for myself!) Socially, he is blossoming like those huge dahlias that are blooming right now! He makes friends so easily, and is such a sweetheart. Soccer will be starting soon, and that will be awesome. I am also thinking about doing some swimming lessons with him, so that we can both learn to swim properly!

As for Zoe, I am delighted to find out that I didn't miss the boat on signing up for gymnastics or ballet. (I know, it is ridiculous that one can 'miss the boat' for a 3 year old... but alas, we do live where we live...) I am hesitant about gymnastics because it really can stunt one's growth! On the other hand, I am hesitant about ballet because of its own health risks, like eating disorders... Possibly this mother knows a little too much for her own good. She is growing into a delightful young lady. We love how she will sometimes stop whatever she is doing, run over to us, and whisper, "Mommy, I love you!" She is also making friends easily in her new classroom, learning to obey, and just adores her big brother.

I can't believe how quickly they are growing up. As I picked them up from their schools today, I talked to them about how before I know it, we will be sending them to college! Aidan promised that I can go visit him whenever I want to, and that he will let me take him and his roommate out to dinner, and that it would be ok for me to send him money. =)

Parental Visits and Thoughts

My parents came to help us this past week, and they were indeed very helpful. Aidan participated in a soccer camp last week, and fortunately/unfortunately, for his age group, camp ended at noon. I couldn't play hooky in the afternoons all week long, and neither could Hubby, and thus, parents to the rescue!

Probably already clear to y'all, the simple fact that I chose to be a psychiatrist speaks to the fact that I have an interesting relationship with my parents. When I sat on the couch with my own therapist many moons ago during training, and I went on and on and on about how I wished my parents had done differently in raising me, my therapist looked at me in my eyes, and said, "Exactly what do you want them to do?! They clearly did the best that they could, what do you want?"

That question really stopped me in my track. What did I want them to do? I thought about it for a very long time, and now that I have A&Z, I think I know. I wanted them to spend more time with me. They spent as much time as they had with me, yet I want more! (That is why, I am fully convinced that A&Z will also have something to talk about with their therapists down the road...)

As good of parents as they have always been, they true purpose here is to point me to my Perfect Father, the one in heaven. And that they did. My Heavenly Father always has time for me, His plans are perfect for me, and He will never fail me.

Having said all that, my relationship with my parents have also changed a lot since the arrival of A&Z. I am much more clear about asking them to help me, in the way that I want them to help. Over the last six years, we all have had more practice in this, and dare I say this? I think we are all getting better. I am better at asking my parents to help me in the way that I want them to help, and they are perfecting the art of doing it the way I want them to. For instance, I like my kitchen clean, all the time, even while I am using it to make dinner. My mother, however, does not care about her kitchen. For the week that they were here though, she (or my dad, probably both) diligently kept it clean, which was very lovely.

I am reading Dr. Wes Stafford's Too Small to Ignore. Dr. Stafford is the president and CEO of Compassion International and he is here to comfort the afflicted (the marginalized children, both here and abroad) and afflict the comforted (people like me). As I am thinking about how I can change my life to help children around the world, I am even more mindful of A&Z, and how I am parenting. One of things that I am more convicted to do is to include them in my life more. Yes, they already take up so much my life, but I still exclude them from many things for sure. For instance, my very clean kitchen is evidence that I limit their presence there. Yes, Zoe bakes with me (we made jam filled thumb print cookies yesterday!) but how much did I really let her help? I want to include them in my day to day life more! (Hubby thinks this way, I can also share my chores all around!) And that would be a good thing!

One of the gifts my mother gave me was to teach me how to make a simple dinner when I was 9. She let me chop up vegetables using a huge cleaver, she taught me how to remove fish scales, and how to make soy sauce braised whole fish. At 9. I am sure I made a huge mess! (I have this memory that I was chopping up onions and my eyes burned and burned, and I crawled to the couch and fell asleep...good times.) In exchange, she equipped me for adulthood, and I want the same for A&Z.

In summary, my children are going to be all the more present in my life through participating in my chores!

Schedule Maintenance

I am learning a lot of schedule maintenance on several fronts. How to schedule my free time, how to schedule Aidan and Zoe's activities, and finally, how to manage my practice.

It has been quite a learning curve about all three in the last few years.

For much of my life, I have been on some kind of track. Initially, I was on the track to become a musician for a living. Gradually, it changed to a track for becoming a physician, and this track too a very, very, long time. After Hubby and I got married, we had many conversations about "What does one do with free time?" Hubby has always been very good about finding things to do, things of interest for him, whereas I am very good at doing what I 'need' to do, and not very good at what I 'want' to do.

I am mindful that I want to help Aidan and Zoe to be good at doing things they are interested in doing, to fill their own time, and to be free to try new things for fun. Therefore, I am trying very hard to not put them on a track of my own ideas. It is hard to do! I would love to raise a Julliard caliber cellist, an Olympic swimmer, and a plastic surgeon (all three would actually be the same child.) Because, the other child is busy being a World Cup soccer player, and a Peabody Conservatory pianist, and a cosmetic dentist. You see the importance for me to hold myself back? Because they may not want to play the cello or the piano. They may want to play the viola and the French horn.

As for my schedule maintenance for the practice, it is tricky, to keep it just full enough for me to manage, that leaves me enough time to do errands, make dinners, attend school activities, be a mother and a wife, and do the aforementioned fun activities for myself. On the other side of this coin is to be sure that I line up all the patients back to back, so that when I am away from the children, I am 'billable.' As I look back, it is clear that divine intervention plays a huge role in this. Somehow, I am in network for a good insurance panel, it is all relative, after all. Even when patients cancel, I am often able to fill a time spot, the record stands at about 15 hours. That is rather incredible, that a perfect stranger calls me at the right time, to fill an hour that someone can't make.

Providence is an amazing gift.

My Therapists

As a psychiatrist, I spend all my working hours evaluating how people see their worlds. If they see their worlds through an depressive lens, I try to encourage them to put on a corrective lens, via medications or psychotherapy. Whatever they tell me, I take with a grain of salt, because well, they see the world through the-lens-that-is-at-times-maladaptive.

Not that my lens is always so adaptive at all!

I have my own therapists, they are available to me pretty much all the time! For now, there are two, but I suspect, soon and very soon, I will have three.

There is Aidan, who is actually quite good at cognitive behavioral therapy. The idea of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that your thoughts, mood, and behaviors are all inter-related. By changing one, you can have effects on the other two. For instance, if your mood is anxious, then your thoughts will be of the anxious kind and your behaviors will reflect such. By teasing apart one's thoughts, one can discover various fallacies in one's thinking and once corrected, the mood and behaviors can have drastic improvements. CBT has been all the rage in recent years, partly because it is a form of therapy that can be done in groups, and therefore, much less expensive than one on one therapy. Also, there is good research data that this works.

Aidan is now on summer break, and so he is going to various camps, and our schedules shift as such. I had thought it would be so much fun to enroll him at a science camp with a friend, in a DIFFERENT TOWN. What was I thinking?! On Thursday, it was our turn to drive his little friend to camp. Of course, it was hard to get Aidan and Zoe up (I don't know why, they are sleeping in until 8 these days.) By the time I drove out of our street, it was 8:38, and the boys need to be at camp at 9:05. I was annoyed, peeved, and irritated. I was becoming increasingly hostile because I actually didn't know how to get to our friend's house! In my agitated state, what did I do? I launched into a discussion about our lateness. "Aidan, why are we always late? You know, so and so's dad said that he always sees us running, because we are always late! WHY!?" To that, Aidan responded in his matter of fact way, "But mom, we are not always late." Ah HA! I was using my overgeneralization fallacy! He is absolutely right. We are hardly late to school. In the 180 days of kindergarten, he was late twice. Once because the car battery died and I had gone to work already, and Hubby had to wait for me to come home to jump the car. The other time was also of a similar situation, something completely unrelated to our efforts. While we have been late to our friends' houses and soccer games, to say 'never' is grossly overgeneralized. Once I realized I was, in fact, thinking incorrectly, I found my mood changed drastically, and behavior was much, much calmer. Thanks Aidan! For helping me to see my lens of overgeneralization!

On Tuesday, it was also hard to get Aidan and Zoe going, it was also hard to get Hubby going that morning. As I rushed out, I hissed at Hubby, "You need to get up earlier!" When we got home that evening and talked about it, it was a very interesting conversation. Whereas I see a hectic morning, and I think that every morning from here on out will be equally hectic and if I don't nip it in the bud, my life will be ruined. That, friends, would be catastrophizing, another thought fallacy. Instead, Hubby sees that such a hectic morning is an outlier: we were coming back from a long weekend, we have not perfected our morning routine to accommodate this science camp, and there is no reason to think that our lives are spinning out of control, forever. We were just having hectic morning. (Of course, it helps Hubby's case that we all got to work/school/camp on time.) In his view, if we were to be sure that no mornings are hectic, we would have to get up at least 1/2 hour earlier, and that, just won't be worth the loss of sleep. Hubby is probably right, he usually is.

I am blessed to have such good CBT therapists who live in my house!

To take it a step further, if we apply psychodynamic formulation to the above situations, it would be clear that one of my neuroses is to be on time. (I know, totally obvious.) This neurosis has worked really well for me, it really helps to be on time for medical training. However, with kids, it can cause a significant amount of stress and friction. I can go on and on about how this neurosis developed, another story, for another time. The most important thing, though, is that despite my neuroses, I am loved, by the One who created me, and loved by Hubby, Aidan, and Zoe. He who created me will continue to work in me, so that I can uses my desire to be on time to serve Him well, but not let my promptness become an idol.

As for Zoe, I am sure, in the next year or so, she is going to be quite the dissector of my thought fallacies.

Independence Day

I had the urge to watch Will Smith's Independence Day today. In my limited movie repertoire, this movie is the closest thing I know to celebrate of this country's independence from the king who insisted on taxation without representation. (Of course, I can go on to talk about the current situation of taxation without representation: the few people who pay for entitlement programs don't necessarily want to continue to pay for it, but the masses who receive entitlements will continue to vote for the politicians who want to expand entitlements. But that is another story for another day.)

Here in our household, we are also celebrating our independence from the rabid creatures who had lived with us for at least five weeks. While not as big and freaky looking as the beasts Will fought off, certainly, we never realized that we needed to fight off the raccoons either.

On Friday evening, I had made the command decision to not make dinner after a very looonnng week. (Any week after Indian Springs would be a long week.) While we waited for the delivery lady, (I found one single place in our town that delivers!) there came a knocking. The raccoon whisperer had arrived! I had left him a few messages with increasing desperation that the babies were crying, but not doing anything to change the situation, and thus, not going to the traps. Steve came, and said that he will go under the house to get them. He asked to be sure that the crying had decreased some, an indication that the babies were growing tired and weary. Indeed, the screaming had decreased in its duration, though not intensity... He donned his coverall, and went underneath.

We heard some thumping, lots of yelling from the babies (like screaming sheep...) and Steve came back with two babies.

After posing for photos, the raccoons got loaded into a container and we pronounced this house independent from the raccoons.

I never thought I would learn so much about raccoons. Not just from the internet, from friends (dear C once had mating raccoons on her rooftop!), and of course, our raccoon whisperer. If you live in our area, and you have a coon problem, let me know! I have the perfect guy for you.