Exhausperation

My life is busy. Like… Stupidly busy. There are 21 meals every day. There are at least three different healthcare providers for each kid – and lots more for Pook – so that’s a total of like 15 different doctors/dentists/counselors to coordinate and remember. I work full time, as does Melissa. There’s two different school schedules to manage and next year it will be three. Keeping this train a’rollin is no small feat. I am constantly reminded of how very well I married, because we somehow manage to make it all work… But still. Damn, this is exhausting. And exasperating. The list of needs seems never-ending. The best word for my life is exhausperating. Just a permanently shoulder-shrugging face of: welp, I sure did try hard. The amount of work required to make this life work often feels impossible. But we’re leaving it all out there on the field, every day. We chose each other and we chose this life – the kids didn’t have much say in the matter. We brought them here and now we have a responsibility to them to heal and grow and build a healthier family.

It’s safe to say that mornings around here are a whirlwind experience. I just started my permanent shift at work and my days off rotate while Melissa’s do not, so it’s rare that we’re both here until the kids leave for school. The morning ruckus was such that she and I didn’t get a proper goodbye, which ended up in the boys getting their ADHD meds from both parents. A fact which did not reveal itself to me until after I sent them to school on the bus.

(FULL PAUSE HERE. Four of my five kids have ADHD, and three of them take medication regularly to help them manage their challenges. This is, for now, what works for us. I have zero judgement for how you manage your family, nor do I feel the need to justify why this works for us.)

So, anyway. Yeah, I had the same thought as you when I found out: shouldn’t the frickin ELEVEN YEAR OLDS know they’d already swallowed those pills? And yes. For sure yes, they should have. But then, if you’ve never seen us in full-flagged glory at 7:50AM on a weekday, you’re giving them waaaaaaay too much credit. Melissa gave the boys their meds while moderating a hotly contested debate between them and they both just swallowed on autopilot. She called up to tell me she’d given out meds, but I was wrangling with Pook and Boogie’s morning routine (the highlight of which was Boogie crowing, “Look how many socks I have! I’m RICH!” upon discovering his house elves had put away the laundry while he slept). We finished up as Melissa left for work. I asked the boys if they’d had their meds, both said no. I tried calling Melissa, but she’d gotten caught in an unexpected meeting at work. In the midst of the melee, I counted it as a win that I’d remembered before they left for school and handed out the daily dose.

I navigated the rest of the morning, got everyone out the door in a moderately good mood, albeit a wide variety of weather-appropriateness. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting. Boogie insists on wearing his ski parka and beanie, while his twin is in a dress with pants underneath. The boys might have worn those clothes yesterday – both boys say no but those clothes sure look slept in – and their hair is just… Wow. Bean is still down with the stomach flu and is in her room pretending we don’t exist. I sit on the back steps and watch the four of them (in my head they will always be The Boys & The Babies, regardless of their ages) at the bus stop across the street. They’re lunatics, I swear.. But they’re pretty cute and sometimes they actually absorb some of the things we’re trying to teach, so we’re doing something right. I sat there giving myself a pep talk as the bus drove off and then my phone rang as Melissa called me back.

Spoiler alert: the boys are, in fact, 100% fine. They weren’t even aware they’d been given extra and the look of stunned remembrance dawning on Roo’s face as Melissa recounted exactly what had been going on when she’d given him meds… Oh that was priceless. And I deserved the laugh after two hours on the phone with Poison Control, the pharmacist and the pediatrician, then the school. The direction was to wait it out and see, which symptoms to monitor and to expect a long, sleepless night for the boys along with a detox day tomorrow. The pharmacist was so sweet and told me to forgive myself several times. She said: this is real life, stuff happens. They’re gonna be ok, we have medications to manage any of the serious things that could happen, but those things are pretty unlikely. So I took her words to heart and I let it go. I am doing my best and I have to be satisfied with that, even if the results aren’t always what I’d prefer.

Sometimes it feels like we’re expending a lot more effort than we see returned in results, but failure to meet a goal is not the same as failure to try. We dust off, we make a plan to avoid that specific pitfall again, and we move on to tomorrow. I’ll figure out that pitfall when it happens. ETA: Monday morning at 8:50AM as Melissa navigates late start and I’m at work.

May the odds be ever in your favor, Melissa.