COP

I have been in a funk. Not the dark and twisties, but just a funk. A bit of a pity party. A bit of over scheduling and over socializing. A lot of hormones-I'm so not looking forward to menopause! I'm pulling myself up out of my funk today. The time limit is up for my pity party. So, I'm working on my change of perspective (COP). A dear friend commented recently that when she grumbles about laundry she remembers how fortunate she is to have the clothes to wear. It's a good spin on a chore that we Mommas seem to spend an unusually high percentage of time on!

• My son is 5 he has always been a terrible sleeper. Now that he's old enough to communicate I understand better, he's prone to nightmares. They come and go in spurts. Perhaps the trouble is his active imagination, perhaps it is a growth spurt issue, perhaps he is just trying to hasten the graying of my hair. Now for my COP: I have a child that knows he is loved and I am a source of comfort for him when he is in pain or in fear. I will also learn to enjoy the full night's of sleep when they come knowing that someday, in the not so distant future, my son won't need me as much.
• My commute to take my children to school can sometimes top out at close to 40 minutes depending on traffic. It is annoying to say the least. My COP: I have the right as a parent to choose for Paulo to attend a Charter School in SW Portland that I feel best meets his academic needs.
• I'm mentally drained from hosting parties. Over the holidays we host numerous gatherings, starting at Thanksgiving and this year culminating in a family party I hosted on Sunday for my big brother's 40th birthday and my Dad's 73rd birthday. This COP is pretty easy: I have a beautiful home that I can open to family and friends to celebrate and enjoy each other's company. And, more importantly, I have a brother who just turned 40 who, honestly, was not expected to live this long. He spent 3 months in the ICU when I was in college and lost the use of his legs and has limited upper body mobility. He survived a pacemaker and a trach when he was in his late 20s. He's overcome illness after illness that has threatened to take his life. What would be a mild inconvenience to you or I could end his life. Yet here he is, 40, married to a wonderful woman and raising a family. And this party was extra special because it included ALL of my siblings. I am the youngest of 4 children and one of our brothers has been estranged from the family since our Mother died. I've always felt this bothered her deeply and prevented her rest. But lately he has returned. We all make mistakes, my family is certainly no exception-in fact I'd say some of our mistakes are bigger than the average bears, but forgiveness and moving forward is powerful. It is healing. I welcome it.

The other thing that I'm pondering today as I pull myself, kicking and screaming, out of my pity party is Haiti. Specifically the Americans who went down there and tried to take a group of children across the border to the Dominican Republic...without paperwork. Yeah, not the smartest move, they are now in jail and are facing an uphill battle of proving they are not child traffickers. The conflict seems to center, on some level, around whether these children have families and it seems that some of them do. I listened to a reporter yesterday talk of his visit to the town where almost 50% of these children came from. He tracked down the father of two of the girls and listened to the man tell him that he himself put his girls on the bus, kissed them goodbye and asked them not to forget him. Heartbreaking. As a parent I cannot imagine the pain he must be feeling. To be faced with a decision to keep them, and watch them suffer with you, or let them go, and hope for a chance at a better life....I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it. Would I have the strength to let him go if I were faced with that decision? Fortunately I am not in that situation. Even more fortunately I know that if some catastrophic event happened in my life, physically or financially, I would have family to turn to. And likewise, if something happened to say my sister and she lost her home she and her family could come to mine. If I lost mine I could go there or to my mother in law's or to my girlfriend's house. I cannot fathom a situation where I would feel that it was in the best interest of my son to hand him over to strangers who would then take him out of the country. I feel so badly for all those suffering after the earth quake and at the same time I feel grateful for my own family's health and safety.