Pick Your Poison

Oh, sweet Catherine.

I said I was put on this earth to be the best damn mother I could be for you, and I have not stopped.

I eat, sleep and breathe thinking about what I can do to help you. I am continually trying one thing or another in an effort to move you forward. I think about how to help you when I wake up. It's the last thing I think about when I go to bed. I talk to at least one person about it every day. Either your speech pathologist (either one, as we're seeing two), or the occupational therapist. It's either an email to the area education agency, or a phone call to the doctor.

It seems like I am constantly saying, "I wonder if it's..." and then off I go, on another tangent, trying to figure out what is going on with my little girl.

I google the shit out of just about anything I think of. I am a mother obsessed with putting some sort of label on this.

A chronic runny nose is not normal. Aggressive behavior is not normal. Not speaking at the age of 2.5, save a few words, may be normal, but not the humming noise you make. Not the appearance and subsequent disappearance of certain words, that are actually quite difficult to say.

We have heard so many words, only to not hear them again. James, snack, tickle, popcorn, chair, dog, cat, quack-quack. They are so clear, and they give us so much hope, and then they disappear just as quickly as they came out of your beautiful mouth. I feel like I am in a constant push and pull, two steps forward, sometimes one step back, sometimes three.

Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with a little girl on the brink of toddlerhood. Just the other night, you demanded that you sleep on the floor of your room. No matter what, you crawled out of your crib and WOULD NOT go back in. You continued to crawl out, even when we would put you back in. You screamed about it. You threw yourself against the door. And then, all of a sudden, I am dealing with an inconsolable child who is more like a 1 year old. It's like I cannot win.

I have glimpses of the little girl that you could be. You are constantly making sure that Drew has a blanket and a pacifier. If you find one, you immediately take it to him, or bring it Eric or me. You have such a love for Drew, but in the same second, you will lovingly put it in his mouth and then hit him, hard, in the head. Then we'll put you in time out, only for you to get out of time out and immediately do it again. And that's when my hope is dashed and the light goes out.

What the fuck can we do to help you?!

I wish you could tell us this answer, but instead, you hum and you sign and you throw temper tantrums. You guide us by the hand to what you want, you point to some of your pictures, but it's so inconsistent that I'm not sure it's even helping. We see two speech therapists and we are about to start occupational therapy. We have been to the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities and Development and I talk to your daycare provider nearly every day about "how Catherine's day was." Normally, it's a terrible report, and once again, even if it was a good day, there was something that was not normal about your day. A temper tantrum where you hit yourself in the head with your hands. A toy thrown at a little boy, and when it didn't hit him, you took it and bashed it against his head. I have talked to the Special Education teacher at my school. I put your little hand against my mouth to help you feel my lips move as I say easy words such as "pop" and "dog" and "cat." We are going to the allergist again to get a second opinion. I am constantly on the mom Facebook groups, asking questions, getting ambiguous replies that lead me in yet another direction, looking for another cure to help my daughter.

And yet, here we are. You say "Ma" "Da" "Yah" and "No." But the only consistent words are ma and da. Yah sometimes comes out so blurred that I have to ask you to reiterate it. Only for it to sound even different than the first time. So then I have to take your little hand and ask you to show me. And sometimes you do. And sometimes you throw yourself down on the ground and throw your legs up so hard in your temper tantrum you hit yourself in the face with your feet.

I have poured over the MRI results, looking for more things on Google that will give me some answer. I have poured over your doctor's results, and the notes they have made. I am constantly thinking about what I can do to help you.

Yet nothing seems to help. 

I absolutely WILL NOT give up on you. There is a sweet little girl in there, and I see glimpses of you when you're not shoving Drew's head into the ground so hard he gets carpet burn on his nose and lips. You love pushing the baby in your stroller. You wrap her up and pretend to "feed" her like you have seen me nursing Drew. You love your purse, and your fake phone, and you carry it around while you push your stroller and those moments are the ones that make me love having a little girl. You love going shopping with me. You love riding in the stroller, or the car, or being chased by James remote control truck. You love to laugh and James is the best at making you do so, when you're not running at him, screaming and flailing your arms.

So tonight, in yet what feels like another last-ditch effort, I asked a mom's group about how you seem to be a nightmare when you aren't taking your allergy medicine, but when we put you on it, you are so much better. But not that much better. When you don't take allergy medicine, it's very obvious you don't feel well. And when you don't feel well, you have a different kind of temper tantrum, and you want to be held all the time, and your eyes are glassy and you are more tired. When you are on your allergy medicine, you are unpleasant, aggressive, and honestly, not very pleasant to be around.

I never thought I would say that one of my kids wasn't very pleasant to be around. But here I am. Words straight from my own mouth.

So in posting this, I obviously got a reply, which simply told me to look at the side effects of allergy medicine like Claritin and Zyrtec. And guess what I got in all my Google research? "Side effects consist of: aggression, hyperactivity, generally unfocused and trouble sleeping."

What the fuck?

Why would anyone leave this out when suggesting that you give this medicine to a CHILD, which happens to only be 32 inches tall and 25 pounds? I have been giving her this medicine for almost a year.

I just talked to a doctor at the University of Iowa, for God's sake, that said we need to look at a behavioral specialist and recommended a place we can call to help with her aggression. Why wouldn't someone say, "have you looked at the side effects of the medicine you have been giving her for almost a year?"

I guess maybe as a mom, that was my job, and with hindsight 20/20, I will be doing that in the future. I am shocked that this didn't come up sooner, but like I said, I am always grasping at straws.

So in the morning, I will wake up thinking about how to help Catherine. And I will go to the store and pick up yet another allergy medicine to see if that will help. And again, here is another glimmer of hope.

Maybe this will be it...

I try not to get my hopes up, but it's hard. You want so badly for your child to be successful. I want her to grow up and be smart and funny and for her to find someone and fall in love and plan and wedding and have children of her own. Every parent wishes this, and every child deserves this.

I want so badly for Catherine to experience the joy of childhood. And I try so hard to create it for her, even though I am so tired all the time, and I work full time, and here I am at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night baking donut muffins so when she wakes up in the morning, I can tell her we are having "cupcakes" for breakfast. And I will see the light in her eyes and her smile and hear her laugh and she and James race downstairs, only to see the donut muffins laying on the floor, or strewn in crumbs across the table, or even better, smashed into her mouth only to spit back out all over the front of her.

There is nothing wrong with my child, but there is. I am determined to find out. I have given up making baby food for Drew because two nights a week, I am taking Catherine to therapy. I have given up taking James to his piano lessons because the only night that worked for one of Catherine's therapies was the same night, same time. I have almost given up breastfeeding Drew so that I can focus my energies on Catherine.

But in the end, I also have to focus my energies on my other children, because they need me too. So I am constantly trying to find that quiet moment with Drew while I nurse him in our bedroom upstairs with the door closed so Catherine won't come over and hit him on the head. I try to find that quiet snuggle with James on the couch while Catherine is sleeping, even though James shouldn't be watching that much TV.

It's hard to balance a life when you have a child who needs so much from you. I am exhausted.

But tomorrow is another day that will be filled with little moments that will remind me to keep fighting. And fight, I will. Because I was put on this earth to be the best mother to Catherine that I could possibly be.

And I will be the best damn mother to Catherine that I can possibly be.