I’m picking this up where I left off, as I celebrate Ryan turning ten.
Age six, kindergarten. His teacher told us over and over how quickly he learned, how well he retained information, how he spoke up in class with what he had learned from the books he devoured as fast as I could provide them. How he knew more about animals, science, and nature then any other student in the class. At the end of the year, he was given a school achievement award, picked by his teacher and principal as one of the three top students in the school.

Age seven, first grade. My husband was travelling full time on business, and it was just the boys and I except for every other weekend. It was hard, I was stressed a lot, and I came to depend more and more on Ryan’s help.

Age eight, second grade. Nathan started kindergarten that year, and we wanted to try a new school. It turned out to be a huge mistake, but Ryan made the best of the situation and still had a great year. In this photo, he’s wearing the vampire costume that I put together myself from clothes I found at the Salvation Army. Nathan is the Power Ranger.

Age nine, third grade, and the year I learned that my son was far more mature than I had thought. When Kaitlyn came, I spent months recovering from the c-section, tubal ligation and stomach flu. Ryan not only was willing to learn how to change diapers, fix bottles, feed and burp her, but he was enthusiastic about it. Chris and I both asked him to help so much, and he never complained about it. I don’t know, maybe it’s just mother’s pride and all ten year olds are like that, but I’ll tell you what, I think this kid is something special.

And now he is ten. I wish I had more time in the day just to stop and appreciate him for how terrific he really is. I am so proud of how much he has accomplished, and I know how lucky Chris and I are to have such a wonderful son.

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I saw the doctor today. She was very nice, and pretty, which is always a little disconcerting to me. I guess I expect doctors to be old, grey haired men. Her orders were pretty much what I expected: 150 mg. of Wellbutrin XL for 30 days and then a recheck.

AND, she said get back on Weight Watchers and STICK to it. In other words, no more eating the 22 points between breakfast and dinner and then eating another 22 at night while watching tv. Dammit.

Oh, and she suggested that I might want to start exercising, because apparently you can’t lose weight just by sitting around on your ass all day. So FINE, I have to actually do what I already know I need to do, and not just think about doing it.
And now, in honor of Ryan’s birthday, here’s a retrospective of the last ten years. Starting with Chris and I and our first few minutes with our new son:

That’s my mom’s hand in the foreground. I was so shaky from the epidural that I had about twelve of those heated blankets on me. She was pulling them back so the baby was actually visible.

Age one, our little cutie pie.

Age two, meeting his new baby brother:

Age three, getting so big:

Age four:who is this little man, and where did my baby go?

Age five, my helper, my buddy, my friend, my son:

Next time-ages 6 through 10.

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I’ve been planning to write Ryan’s tenth birthday post since his birthday was on October 2nd, but I want to include photos, and I’ve done something to screw up CompuPic, and my husband and I are not getting along and he’s the computer-fixer, so the post will have to wait.

Saturday, I invited four of Ryan’s best friends over for a non-birthday-party party. Does that make sense? In hindsight, I should have gone to the dollar store and bought some streamers and balloons and stuff, but it just seemed like so much work, so I said to Ryan “hey, let’s invite some of your friends over to play on Saturday, okay?”, and he went for it.

I sent Chris to Sam’s Club for hamburger patties and buns, chips and a giant veggie tray. Another Mom sent cans of pop and cookies in lieu of a gift (which was fine, Ryan has enough toys already and it was two less things for me to buy). Each boy ate approximately one-sixteenth of a burger, one serving of chips and one baby carrot. And a frosted cookie, of course. But they had a great time playing and the time was up before we knew it.

It made me proud to see that Ryan has surrounded himself with good kids for friends. They are all polite, they play well together, there was no inappropriate language or fighting. Having never been popular myself, I have to admit it makes me happy to see that my son is so well-liked.

Sunday. If there was ever a day I wished I could have had a do-over, Sunday would be it. Sunday should be erased from the annals of history and given to me to do again. Like instead of Leap Year, I should get Leap Week, with an extra day to call Sunday.

There was fighting. Stupid, idiotic, emotional fighting, with me in tears and Chris saying “THIS is not the time to have this discussion”, and whatever. Plus, it happened an hour before we were supposed to leave to go to my Dad’s house to celebrate him finally leaving the hospital and his birthday which is tomorrow. We went, but it was all tense and unpleasant., Chris and I speaking to each other in our “polite voices”, yet never occupying the same room at the same time.

It’s the kind of fight that is best for us to not continue to discuss. It’s old crap coming up over and over again, with no real resolution. Except for my husband’s assertation that over the last ten years, “it has been proven over and over again that what he wants doesn’t matter”.

I just don’t know what the hell to say to that.

I don’t really know what’s happening to us. He claims to still love me. My love for him is so deeply ingrained into my psyche that I almost don’t think of us as two separate people. And yet he is deeply unhappy, has been for ten years, which is interestingly the same amount of time we’ve been parents. He refuses to elaborate or discuss it in any way, so I can only surmise that this ten years of what he wants not mattering is directly related to him not liking who he has become or who I have become since we became parents.

I don’t know what the hell to say to that, either.

Is it possible to become someone else when you’re not even sure who your husband wants you to be? If I lose fifty pounds and become the perfect housewife, will he love me again? If I put Kaitlyn in daycare and go back to work, will that make it better? Even if the first one seems next to impossible and the second one would make me unhappy?

I’m sorry, my dear readers. I want this blog to be about something else, but this is what my reality is right now. I’ve got nothing funny or silly or amazing to tell you. Ryan turned ten, Kaitlyn will turn one next month, and yet, despite my claim that this is in fact a Mommyblog, I can’t do any Mommyblogging right now. Bear with me, please.

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Thank you so much everyone for your comments on yesterday’s post. I spent close to three hours on the phone yesterday trying to get a doctor’s appointment. While I am grateful that my husband’s company provides us with excellent health insurance at a very reasonable price, the tradeoff is that our options are extremely limited. We have to choose doctors from a local hospital’s Physicians Network, which means offices that are staffed on a rotating basis by doctors who also treat E.R. patients, deliver babies and perform surgery. One of the offices is staffed entirely by second year residents. So I have a call in to one of the offices, the receptionist was vague but it sounds like I have to wait for one of the doctors to approve taking us on as new patients.

And not to diminish my own feelings in any way, but there are bloggers out there having a much tougher time. Our beloved Jenn from Mommy Needs Coffee is home resting after being hospitalized with chest pains and dizziness. Her husband Clint has grounded her from the computer, but if you leave a comment he will pass it along. Please stop by and wish her well. She is a beautiful person and an asset to the Blogosphere in many ways.

Dooce ended her recent Monthly Newsletter to her daughter with an apology. Depression has once again overtaken Heather, and she is sorry that it has to be a part of her daughter’s life. Since she doesn’t allow post comments, and probably gets a thousand emails a day, I don’t know how to let Heather know that I understand. I know how it feels to wish you could color more pictures, read more books, take more walks, but instead you’re lying on the bed curled up in a ball while the kids watch a video. She writes that “Often I am ashamed that I am not the mother I thought I was going to be.” Oh, how I understand that. I know that I should be taking Kaitlyn for a walk in the stroller every day that it isn’t raining or too cold. I should take her to the playground and to playgroup and to story hour at the library.

I’ve never actually screamed into a pillow, but I know how it feels to wish I “couldn’t sense the world around me”. I understand, Heather, and I’m sorry. The fact is that depression is part of our lives and therefore by extension, a part of our children’s lives, and all we can do is manage ourselves to the best of our abilities. Depression is vicious, it robs you of the very energy you need to pull yourself out of it. I hope you find your way out of the gray and back to the color soon.

And that’s all I want to say about that for now. Instead, let’s talk about TV! “Lost” premiered this week-what are your thoughts? Were there any hidden clues in the episode? I watched it twice and it seemed pretty straightforward to me. The Others are probably part of the Hanso Foundation, brought there to work on experiments and take turns pushing the button in the Hatch. Now we know why Walt saw Polar Bears, although it still doesn’t explain the horse Kate saw. I’d love to hear your theories and predictions for this season!
Tonight is the Season Premiere of Battlestar Galactica, a show I have never watched before, but I rented the miniseries and let me tell you, that is some of the best TV I have ever seen. Even if you don’t like Sci Fi, the writing, the acting, the directing are all top-notch. I can’t afford to buy Seasons One and Two right now, so I’ll have to just start with this season and try to fill in the blanks as I go. Does anyone else watch it?

I got an invitation to Vox, so I started a page there. I’ll be posting what I’m watching and my thoughts on this season’s shows there. I have five Vox invitations if anyone wants one. Did I mention I am once again NOT watching “Veronica Mars”, because Comcast doesn’t seem to have the CW network?
Blah. I’m going to lay down now. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

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Just once, I would like to wake up in the morning and know what it feels like to have a normal brain. I would like to feel clear, and focused. I would like to finish a to-do list. I would like to be able to pay bills on time and deal with papers and information that flow in every day in a timely manner. I would like to make a decision, such as losing weight or starting to exercise, and stick to it for more than a few days.

I can’t do any of those things.

It’s been really rough inside my head for the last week or so. I know it’s the seasonal depression, and I know what I need to do. But there’s the vicious cycle of needing to make the phone call versus feeling like making the phone call, which makes me feel worse.

SIGNS OF DEPRESSION:

• Exhaustion on waking
• Disrupted sleep, sometimes through upsetting dreams
• Early morning waking and difficulty getting back to sleep
• Doing less of what they used to enjoy
• Difficulty concentrating during the day
• Improved energy as the day goes on
• Anxious worrying and intrusive upsetting thoughts
• Becoming emotional or upset for no particular reason
• Shortness of temper, or irritability

SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION:

• You feel miserable and sad.
• You feel exhausted a lot of the time with no energy .
• You feel as if even the smallest tasks are sometimes impossible.
• You seldom enjoy the things that you used to enjoy-you may be off sex or food or may ‘comfort eat’ to excess.
• You feel very anxious sometimes.
• You don’t want to see people or are scared to be left alone. Social activity may feel hard or impossible.
• You find it difficult to think clearly.
• You feel like a failure and/or feel guilty a lot of the time.
• You feel a burden to others.
• You sometimes feel that life isn’t worth living.
• You can see no future. There is a loss of hope. You feel all you’ve ever done is make mistakes and that’s all that you ever will do.
• You feel irritable or angry more than usual.
• You feel you have no confidence.
• You spend a lot of time thinking about what has gone wrong, what will go wrong or what is wrong about yourself as a person. You may also feel guilty sometimes about being critical of others (or even thinking critically about them).
• You feel that life is unfair.
• You have difficulty sleeping or wake up very early in the morning and can’t sleep again. You seem to dream all night long and sometimes have disturbing dreams.
• You feel that life has/is ‘passing you by.’
• You may have physical aches and pains which appear to have no physical cause, such as back pain.

I don’t like having depression. I don’t like having to look a new doctor in the eyes (or, in my case, NOT look the doctor in the eyes, because I find it almost physically impossible to look directly at people when I speak to them, which I know makes me seem insincere, and just makes me feel worse) and say “yeah, um, I’m here because I, um, need you to prescribe me some medicine because I feel depressed.”

It’s ridiculous, if you think about it. And yet, it is my reality, every single day from the end of September until at least May of each year. I try SO HARD to think of it as manageable without medication. I think maybe if I go for a walk every day, I won’t be depressed. If I make more to-do lists so I can see what I do accomplish, I won’t be depressed.

I’m depressed. I need to stop thinking of it as a bad thing. I need to stop thinking of it as some giant cross to bear. In that symptoms list, the “feeling like a burden, like a failure, thinking about what is wrong with me as a person”? That is the soundtrack to my life right now. Which is why I don’t even want to call a doctor, even though I know it’s their job to help me.

I’m posting this because I want everyone to know that I haven’t forgotten you. I had been using a laptop that my husband got from work, but they want it back, so he got me a different one, which means I lost ALL of my Bloglines subscriptions. I had like 85 feeds, and I can only remember a handful of them. So my not having been to your blogs lately is not because I’ve stopped being interested, I just can’t remember your URLs. If anyone wants to email me and remind me, please use my new email address elizabeth@table4five.net.

And if you recognize yourself, a loved one or a friend in those lists of depression signs and symptoms, PLEASE get help. If it’s you, you know you should, and if I can do it, so can you. If it’s a loved one or friend, please encourage them to get help. It is a treatable condition, and no one should have to suffer.

I’m doing it for her.

Edited to add: Sometimes, I just make things waaay harder than they need to be. You know what I have right here on this very page? A BLOGROLL. Copied from BLOGLINES. Which I can use to restore the Bloglines feeds. I know, I could just click through the blogroll, but it’s easier for me to handle knowing who has updated rather than click through every single one of them looking for new posts. No emails necessary my friends, unless you want to email me just to be nice, in which case, that would be great. Carry on.

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