Diet Zehlahlum: The World According to Peanut

Welcome back to the 2011 (not new or updated) Diet Zehlahlum! The Saturday feature that from the Zehlahlum Family that you love because it's not your life! Diet Zehlahlum is "lite" on stress, seriousness, and thought. Please note that the title Diet Zehlahlum makes no guarantee that you will lose weight while reading. In fact, we recommend that if you want to lose weight you step away from the computer AFTER reading this post and try some jumping jacks or something.

Today's Diet Zehlahlum is a collection of things that have been said in my home this week that have made me take pause for one reason or another....

Enjoy.

Remember how when you were in high school and you were so irredeemably lame? Everyone knew everything before you did, went to the parties that you didn't even know about and you wouldn't have known what to say if you'd even been invited and you wouldn't have gone anyway because your clothes had never once been in style, and they had these trendy little jokes to laugh at?

Well! Now, you can be on the other side of the equation. A loser no longer!

Join the Zehlahlum Family facebook fan page!

Wait. What? I'm the only one who was that loser?
Wait. What? I'm the only one who is still that loser?
Bite me.
:)

The World According to Peanut

* I informed Peanut of a new house rule and his reply was, "I am not down with that." 

* "Peanut! Quit whining." His reply? "I'm not whining. That was just my squirrel voice. I don't know why you don't like squirrels." 

* At one point we were airing out Pickle's bottom in a pair of undies...that happened to belong to his sister and were pink... Peanut was cracking up laughing at him (he wasn't actually making fun of him for wearing "girl undies", he was just being ridiculous as 4 year olds are prone to be), but he started to get on Pickle's nerves so I told him, "You are not allowed to laugh at other people's undies." He nodded yes and ran off and I internally applauded myself for having gotten through to him and clearly raising such an obedient son. He reappeared a few minutes later...wearing an identical pair of Little Miss' pink undies and literally laughing so hard that he couldn't stand up straight. 

* Later on that same day I caught myself saying, "Wearing someone else's undies is no reason to talk like a baby!" And I thought maybe, just maybe, I was focusing on the wrong issue...

* He saw Pickle wearing this outfit and said nicely and happily, "Pickle! You look just like a zebra wearing pants!" 

* Upon seeing a man pushing a snowblower: "Look at the snow motorer! He's motoring along the sidewalk, and there's an engine, and a steel pipe that shoots the snow onto the grass like this! (demonstrating an arc with his arm) Huge wistful sigh, "What an amazing job." 

* I had our collection of Christmas book sitting in a box by the garage door to be put back into storage. Peanut saw it and asked me about so I explained it to him. "You're putting books in the GARAGE?! Does Jesus know about this?" 

* He asked me where something was and I said that I didn't know and he said it was in Asia. I asked him where he'd learned about Asia. "One day when I was 1 year old and I went to school my teachers told me about it." 

* At one point I said to him and Little Miss, "Keep your bottoms off each other!"

* I was in the kitchen making a pot of coffee and all the kids were in the playroom. Little Miss started screaming bloody murder so I asked Peanut what happened. He runs into the kitchen with a big wooden block in his hand and a very innocent look on his face. "Well...I hit her in the head very hard with this big wooden block. (pause) But, I am very sorry."

* This was a random prayer that he prayed during the day, "Dear Jesus, thank you for Pickle Pickle Pie, for my flashlight, and for loving us. These are my most good things. Amen." 

* He was supposed to be resting for "quiet time" and the child would.not.shut.up. I told him he wasn't allowed to talk anymore. He gave me this quizzical/astounded look and said, "Daddy said I'm allowed to talk forever!" Knowing this didn't sound like something his father would have said I asked him when he told him that. "He read it to me in the Bible. God says I can talk forever. You HAVE to obey God, mommy." I affirmed that I did have to obey God and I knew about where God said that children had to obey their parents, but was pretty confident that it doesn't say anywhere that he can talk forever. He insisted, "Daddy read it to me in the Bible. When he comes home from work he can read it to you too! He said that if we have Jesus in our hearts we can talk forever." Here I tried not to outright laugh at him. "Buddy, the Bible says that if we have Jesus in our hearts we can live forever." He was quiet for a minute. "Oh yeah. Wellll....if we are living forever than I CAN talk forever!" 

* And just so I don't leave Little Miss out here's a conversation we had about what we were watching on the tv: 

"Little Miss, what is that?" 

"Uh...cow fish? No! Fish lion!"

"Baby, that's a shark." 

Death by Migraine

Yesterday, I woke up and knew that all was not well. I stumbled into the bathroom and threw up about six times and then laid on the floor crying and moaning with a migraine. I couldn't have any light in my eyes and it was absolutely necessary that I remain horizontal. My husband brought me medicine and a washcloth and kept the kids away from me for a little while. I cried and begged him to stay home from work. Not possible. It turns out that terrorism doesn't stop because I have a headache. I fumbled my way downstairs, holding onto the wall for support and turning lightswitches off along the way. I winced with every noise my children mad. I tried successlessly to call a friend or two for backup. I threw up again. I took more medicine.

I laid on the couch and turned Playhouse Disney down to a whisper. Then I covered my head with a blanket because it turns out that Playhouse Disney will make a migraine sufferer sick to her stomach again. Slowly the medicine started working. Lights were still a no-go, I couldn't look at the tv, couldn't stand to look at a computer screen, couldn't read anything, I could use my ipod for a minute or two at a time, but couldn't look at anything like a changing screen or a game. I also needed to stay in the same position as much as possible. The more I moved my head the more I inched closer to the grave.

I tossed the kids into bed for naps at 11:00 because I had to take all three to the doctor that day. Well, Pickle slept. The other two? I just left them to rot in their beds while I rotted on the couch. :) It turned out that I could lay still and listen to podcasts very quietly. I did that for awhile. I peeled myself off the couch and I did feel a little better. And then I loaded three kids up and drove to the doctor's office. Between Peanut's refusal to listen, the sunlight, and driving...by the time we got back to the house I was nearly dead again.

I put the kids in the playroom, "locked" them in with a baby gate, wrapped myself in a blanket, and laid on the floor outside the babygate where I was kinda able to supervise when the screams reached levels loud enough to concern me. My husband came home and banished me back to the bedroom. I took a bath in the dark and listened to podcasts. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and laid motionless on the bed and listened to podcasts. I dozed. My husband put the babies to bed and woke me up when he had to leave for worship practice a couple hours later.

I felt less bad at this point. I talked with Peanut for awhile and played cars with him and then put him to bed. My head was still fragile, but I could eat and I was able to clean up a little bit. Of course, after I did that, I started to feel sick again from the whole up-down thing. I crashed on the couch again for awhile. I watched a DVR'd show and tried to catch up on emails. The whole light-tv-computer-screen still wasn't doing it for me. I downloaded an audiobook and joined Peanut (in my bed). Of course, I couldn't sleep now. Who wants a good night sleep anyway? I think it took me two or three hours to finally fall asleep.

The good news? I feel much better today! Anyway, I had big bloggy plans for yesterday and now they've all been thrown out of whack. However, once you read these two posts you won't be missing me AT ALL!

Petals of Zuzu (I know her!) 

Watching the Waters (I don't know her yet, but I will soon and I think that I might just cry the first time I get to hug her. Corey, are you a hugger? Can I hug you? And cry? And drink?)

Book Review: My People

"My People" by Langston Hughes, photographs by Charles R. Smith Jr.

Backstory: I was in the children's section of the bookstore and I was specifically looking for a book not featuring 'white people'. I was actually looking for something for Peanut, but that's actually kind of hard to find something that suits him. He'll listen to a board book, but he really needs way more than that. And our bookstore does a...decent, I guess (?) job of having diverse board books and they have a decent enough selection of books about historical figures but those seem to be mostly geared to upper elementary students and while he will listen to parts of those as well it wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted a story about a kid, something he would relate to where the main character just didn't happen to be white. Well, I struck out. But I did find this book and of course I bought it anyway.

Why: The book caught my eye right away. It's a beautiful hardback and it has a photograph on the front of this sweet little black girl just staring up. I had to pick it up. I also know who Langston Hughes was and in addition to exposing my kids to different types of people I like to expose them to different sorts of writing as well. Once I flipped through the book it was a given. The photographs are gorgeous and the text is distinct, but simple. It is just a gorgeously put together book.

Overview: I wasn't familiar with this poem, but it's short and lovely so I'm just going to write it out here. "My People" by Langston Hughes, "The night is beautiful, so the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, so the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people." That's it. Each phrase is paired with a beautiful photograph of a black person/adult/child/parent-child/etc. It is simple and stunning and sweet.

Intended Audience: My kids like it. The phrases are so short that even Little Miss repeats them after I say them. I'm going to have my three stooges memorize this as part of our little preschool-homeschool-shebang. For now, we keep it in Little Miss' room and we talk about how her eyes look like the girls' in the book and how she is beautiful and the like.

My thoughts: Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Did I mention fabulous? There's another book of a collection of his work for children that I'd just go ahead and purchase sight unseen after how much I liked this one. The next time that I'm at the used bookstore I will definitely be running over and checking out some of his writings for adults as well. I'm also really impressed by Charles R. Smith Jr who did the photography and I'd definitely look into buying more books that he's been a part of as well.

Score: 5 out 5 all the way. This is a book that you definitely should have in your home library!

Oh, poop!

Yesterday late afternoon/early evening whatever you want to call 4:30. Andrew would be coming home soon. I had dinner cooking. I was sipping coffee. I was reading a book about homeschooling. And check this!

The kids were all playing nicely.

Be still my heart.

Little Miss was sitting at the table coloring (aka peeling the paper off crayons). Peanut and Pickle were building a train track on the kitchen floor together.

It was nice. It was pleasant. It was surreal. At one point, I actually had tears in my eyes because it was such a change of pace for us.

It was also short lived.

Pickle was wearing training undies. I had just  changed a diaper and his little bottom was getting diaper rash so I wanted him to get some air. (can you tell where this is going?)

I walked into the playroom to put something away when I heard it: a chorus of bad tiddings.

Pickle is saying: "Uh-oh. Uh-oh."
Peanut is saying: "Drip, drip, drop."
Little Miss is saying: "Pickle poop!"

What a bad combination of things to hear. And oh...my.... I increase my rate of walk for the twenty feet between the playroom and the dining room. I have a very high gross-out factor. This was gross.

The poop was ev-ry-where. It was like an explosion of very very foul  pudding. His undies were covered. His legs were covered. There was a giant pile of poop on the carpet. And of course once he saw me he started walking toward me.

He'd say, "Uh oh, mommy, poop," , would take a bow-legged grimacing step toward me, and a glob of pudding-poop would plop onto the carpet. "Uh oh, mommy, poop", and another step and another plop of poop.

And so I do this little shriek and like any loving mother I pick him up by his hands and carry him, poop-covered legs dangling as far away from me as possible and we're still leaving a poop trail behind us.

I stand him on the tile in the kitchen floor and tell him not to move which when talking to a two year old is basically a waste of breath, and I dash into the bathroom for a towel. I emerge with a hand towel, which considering the job I was facing, might as well have been a lace handkerchief embroidered with the letters F U on it.

I come out of the bathroom saying "don't panic, don't panic, don't panic" and Peanut chimes in: "I don't even know how to do that!"

Pickle has been relatively still, but is still shedding globs of poop at an alarming rate. There is no alternative. I have to go upstairs and get a real towel. I turn down the heat on the burner because while it's tempting just to let the place burn down so I don't have to try and clean the carpet I decide it's not efficient. I mumble pseduo-curses toward my husband who is late coming home from work. I should NOT have to be cleaning this up myself and let me tell you a second pair of hands would be exceptionally helpful.

I run upstairs like the madwoman that I am and gingerly open the linen/cleaning closet. You have to be gentle with it because months ago Peanut helped himself to a screwdriver, unscrewed the screws and then lost them. It hasn't been fixed so you have to open it really carefully or the doorknob will come off. So, I gently gently gently get a towel and the carpet cleaner.

I rush downstairs to find that Poople  Pickle has meandered back into the dining room where he and the two innocent parties are standing over a pile of poop examining in with great interest. I wrap Pickle in a giant towel burrito style and hold him in place with one had while scooping poop and spraying cleaner with the other ('cause who doesn't want a poop-scooping break in the dining room while dinner is cookin?!)

I put Little Miss back at the table with crayons to keep her contained-ish, told Peanut to stay away from the poop (and why that warning is necessary I don't claim to know) and whisked nasty Pickle upstairs to the bathroom.

I unwrapped him, took his clothes off, and was just stunned at the volume of poop. I mean it was everywhere and it was so much. The child is TINY, it shouldn't even be possible for him to have this much poop. It was just seriously gross.

We went through two bath towels, a rug, the socks he was wearing, all the stuff it took to clean the carpet downstairs and the poop he got on my shirt. And I cannot get this poop off. Seriously. I use cloth diapers. I know how to get rid of poop, but this is apparently demon poop. It will not rinse away, it will not be cleaned.

I might end up burning it all. I've been wanting new towels anyway....

And then I came downstairs and found that Little Miss had eaten a purple crayon, finished making dinner just like any other day. Motherhood is so weird.

Good Day/Mean Post Anyway

I feel like I need to defend myself. I'm not entirely sure WHO I'm defending myself against because I get zero critical I-think-you-suck comments on my blog (which is a perk to being puny in the blogosphere) so I guess I'm mostly defending myself from myself. Or! Maybe I'm defending myself against some uber-passive-aggressive reader who posts nice things to me while thinking mean things and prances around their snobbery little life muttering mean things about me. So, if you're doing that yeast infections upon you stop it.

This is what I want to say:


Regardless of my feelings toward my daughter now, I loved her before I brought her home.

Why don't you you just go back and read that again. (It's the least you could after I took the time to make it bold.)

Here I go again saying "boo!" to PAPs. I wasn't always this insane. (I was always a little nutty, but this flavor of crazy is new even for me.) I didn't go into this adoption planning on attachment problems, eight and going strong months of giardia, attachment therapy, antidepressants, marital strife, or some internal longing to find community among mothers of kids with RAD.

Nuh-uh.

I was just like you.

I loved my daughter.
I missed my daughter constantly. 
I thought I "got it".
I read the books. Even the scary ones.
I memorized my updates and did happy dances every time I got a new one. 
I grieved for my daughter's loss and for her mother's loss.
I wrote posts about nothing. 
I waited. Impatiently.
I did the paperwork.
I walked through the system.
I dreamed about life when we were finally together.
I loved my daughter.

I get this vibe (and maybe I'm projecting my own insecurity or whatever) on a lot of PAP blogs that they have a feeling that because they love their child, because they miss their child, because they are preparing for their child, because..., because..., because..., but mostly, almost always because they love their child already nothing will happen that they can't handle it might be hard but love will save the day!

I just want to tell you.


You can be dripping love out of your eyeballs and still end up crazy as a loon.

I'm not going to go quite so far as to say that loving your child before means nothing, but pretty close. 

LOVE AIN'T NO COOTIE SHOT. 

8 months and two days home update

Anyone who has been reading this blog for more than a millisecond knows that bringing my daughter home has thrown me for a loop, in a serious way. I hate to fall back on the rollercoaster analogy because that's just lame, but I'm going to do it anyway and you can't stop me, so there!.

Our journey thus far has really been like a rollercoaster with all the ups and downs...and screaming...and the occasional wetting of pants and throwing up.... Our particular coaster has been pretty much in a downhill dive since Thanksgiving. It straightened out a little between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we stayed pretty low.

Parenting is hard. Parenting a child with attachment problems is harder. Finding out that you're a parent with attachment problems parenting a child with her own attachment problems is harder still.

We've been home for 8 months and two days. We have been up, down, around, around, upside down, inside out, sideways, and I don't know what ways. We've had times when I've been able to step back and be objective and parent her through her challenges, but truthfully, I've been doing that less and less. The more that I've seen Little Miss act out the more I've reacted to it. She behaves out of fear and it scares me. Then I behave out of fear. You know who "gets better" that way? No one. You know who is helped by that? No one.

I'm reading "Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control: by Heather Forbes". (I'm actually reading it on my Kindle because that's how cool I am and it's fairly amazing because it's so easy to take mark the passages I want and then find them again when I need them for a blog...)

In the book Ms. Forbes quotes Candace Pert from her book, "Molecules of Emotion" where she talks about hearing these words: "If you look underneath your depression, you'll find anger. Look under your anger, and you'll find sadness. And under sadness is the root of it all, what's really masquerading all the while--fear." 

I think that is only about 300% correct, at least in our house, for myself. I have been terrified of my daughter pretty much since moment one. I've talked before about our dysfunctional dynamic, but I'm going to repeat myself.

Little Miss is afraid so she acts out. Her acting out scares me (I'm not scared of her, more I'm afraid of what her fear means for my family) and so I react to her out of that fear. When she sees that I'm afraid she becomes more afraid. Since she is more afraid she acts more afraid and has more behavior problems and when I see her additional behavior problems I become even more scared and we just keep feeding into and off of each other.

We are a dysfunctional, self-fulfilling, self-destructive hot mess.


I honestly believe that I have seen the bottom of my heart. I truly believe that the only thing that could my heart uglier, that could reveal any yet unseen part of my sin nature would be if I confronted someone who was hurting one of my children. I think that's the only low I have yet to hit would be that primal protective layer. I don't think that there's any selfishness or anger besides that hidden inside me.

I am really ashamed of my behavior since Little Miss came home. I was raised better than to act like this toward a child. I have been loved better than to act like this toward a child. I know better than to act like this toward a child. I mean, literally, it used to be my job to work in residential settings with children where a typical diagnosis would be "ADHD/ODD/RAD, unable to function in a home/school setting" and I liked it, I was good at it. Granted, I didn't know I should have been taking notes and I wasn't counting on having to live it. But the point is, that I know better. I know what I need to do. I know what I haven't been doing.

It's over. We're done. I cannot live like this. I will not. The strain on my marriage, on my boys, on myself has been too much. We are lucky to survive on a day to day basis. No one is thriving. No one is healthy here anymore. It can't go on.

I have said again and again that I'm going to fix us, I'm going to stop this dynamic, that I'm going to do better, to be better. And I haven't been able to do it. They say that addicts can't better until they've hit "rock bottom". I can't speak to that as I'm not addicted to anything, but I do know that I have hit rock bottom. I can't sink deeper than this. I can't dig myself in any further than this.

I'm not fool enough to say that "we can only go up from here" because I've proven to myself that even if I can't do deeper than where I am now, I'm perfectly capable of flopping around here at the bottom for awhile, banging my shovel to the ground to verify that I can't go farther down, making pitiful use of the resources that I do have to make myself as comfortable as possible here on the bottom, and digging out an elaborate tunnel system so that it looks like I'm working, but I'm not actually making any upward motion.

These last 8 months have sucked enough that I've got my stubborn up. I am NOT staying down like this. I might be in the pit, but I will not die here. I will not let my family stay here. Will. Not.

"Dear Little Miss,

The gig is up. Your momma is stepping off and away. Baby, I cannot ride your rollercoaster anymore. I cannot stop you from riding, you will go up and down, maybe for a short while or maybe for your entire life. I'm not sure. The only thing that I know is that I cannot go with you. It is not my job to be as crazy as you are (and I mean that affectionately, honey. It's not your job to be as crazy as I am either) I will not be the one sitting beside you, holding your hand. I can't do it. To a casual observer it might look like you are alone, but we have to learn to ignore casual observers. You might think that you are alone the first time that you look over and don't see me, but you will not be alone. God will sit there beside you. I will teach you to see Him.

He will ride up and down with you, he will hold your hand when you're afraid, he will cry when you cry, and he will love and protect you far better than I ever can. So, momma will not ride those ups and downs with you. We cannot both be crazy. I am done. I will stand in line with you though, I will go around all those corners, wait with you for hours, talk to you, hold you hand while we wait and wind our way through the queue. I will prepare you for what's to come. I will tell you what I think. I will give you hints and tips and fill you up so that you are ready, but I can't go with you. I have to stay on the ground, both feet firmly planted, smiling, quiet, and calm. I will be those things to help you internalize them, to experience them vicariously through me so that one day, when you are ready, you will be able to do that for yourself.

Baby, I can't ride the rollercoaster with you. I'll prepare you for the ride, and I'll teach you to see God there with you, but I cannot ride along. This is something that you have to conquer. Only one of us can be crazy at a time. I'll decide to be the sane one now and you can go nutso when you need to and then we can switch, say in sixty years, I'll be pushing 90 and I'll turn into a crazy old lady and then you can be the calm and logical one, okay? I've got your back now and you can watch mine then. And sweetheart, I'm 100% sure that sometimes I'm going to forget. Sometimes when that crazy train rolls up for you I'm going to jump on with you because it will be easier than standing my ground, and then we'll just be glad for the seatbelts and grace of God. I'll try not to do that too often though.

I also want you to know that I'm not abandoning you. I won't ride with you anymore (remember God will be there with you), but I will be standing right there waiting for you to disembark again. Do you hear me? When you're up, down, inside out, and which-way-what I will be right here waiting for you and we'll handle the aftermath together. If you need to cry, throw up, scream with excitement, or talk about the ride I will be right there with you. We work it out together.

I will prepare for you the crazy. I will help you recover from the crazy. But the actual craziness? That's between you and God now, Little Miss. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to this point, but I'm here now.

I will choose to be strong so that you can be weak first and learn strength.
I will choose to love so that you can be afraid first and then learn love.
I will choose to be quiet so that you can rage first and then learn quiet.
I will choose peace so that you can be angry first and then learn peace.
I will choose to pray so that can scream first and then learn prayer.

I will choose these things because I am the grown up and you are the child.
I will choose these these things because they are right and good.
I will choose these things because even if you never do because I am responsible for my choices, not yours.
I will choose these things because I promised them to your mother.
I will choose these things because I promised them to myself before I ever met you.
I will choose these things because I know that underneath your fear is a little girl who deserves them.


1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us."

Love,
           Your Momma

So, here I am ladies and gentlemen (do I have any male readers?), and I am declaring that times are a changin'. I'm not just pulling up my big girl undies. This time, I'm sewing myself into them old school homesteader style!


Watch out, Little Miss because it's beyond time that I "mom up" and I'm doing it!


2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!"