Our life is very stressful. I’ve never denied that. I try not to whine about it, but I state the fact as such.  Some people are comfortable with that. Others, not so much.

What is the cause of our stresses? Struggling to live on low income pensions with our disabilities. With my issues, Hubby’s physical health  issues and trying to raise two very time demanding children with ADHD & PDD NOS traits, it can be hair pulling crazy some days.

Sadly though, a lot of the stress has a lot to do with me and my ADD traits. Being ADD and trying to “run” the day to day household stuff without a husband as an extra pair of hands for most stuff is not easy. I’m not mad about it. it is just a fact of life. I’m not an ADD Wife who has a hubby who can pick up the slack easily, and when he can, I’ve made such a mess of the kitchen, or the organization of things, he wears himself out physically before he can even help me. My ADD can be very bad at times, even with medication.

I grew up in a rural hick town where basic education was taught, and I  just made it through. I often feel like I don’t deserve the diploma I was given, and I feel very stupid at times. Math conversions when cooking are difficult, easy math without pen and paper or calculator ends up wrong. I have dyscalcula and dyslexia and that hinders me daily. I “don’t get” stuff a lot… “book smart” stuff just is not who I am. I cannot retain it.So it can be frustrating being married to a man who is very educated and knowledgeable about the world, because he tries to teach me stuff and I don’t retain it the next time we talk about the same thing, leaving us both shaking our heads saying “never mind”.

Tell me how to solve a  hands on issue and I usually can, but I would not be able to remember how to solve the issue without being told every time or following instructions. Baking I’m decent at with step by step instructions. Cooking organically by feel and taste,I am terrible at. It has taken me almost 8 years of our almost 11 year marriage for me to remember how The Mundane One likes to eat a sandwich…that should NOT be that difficult!

Anyway…so… by all social standards I’m what they would have called “mildly retarded” in the 50’s before political correctness became so fashionable. Don’t get all up in arms about me calling myself a retard… retarded means.. slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress.. look it up…literally I’m retarded. It takes me longer to “get it”.

By today’s standards, I’m sure they’d slap a label of “Gifted/Mildly Autistic with serious ADD” on me given all the natural talents and life struggles I have..I don’t care for labels, but if you wanna throw em all in one basket and display it on the table like art…that’s me.

No, I can’t count how many toothpicks are on the floor if you drop them, or remember every phone number I read scanning a phone book once, but I’m a visual organic learner, I taught myself to play guitar by ear at 13, and taught myself how to design html and css webpages by having ripped the coding apart to see how it worked, I taught myself to crochet and knit, I paint, I draw, I have a talent for Photography, I can sing and I write music by ear, I can sew, I can work a chainsaw, and power tools unlike most women I know and taught myself mostly how to cake decorate watching my mother as a teenager and some lessons from her a few times I went to her work with her to help her, and then lied my way into my best paying job I ever had in my 20’s on those skills as a cake decorator at a large grocery chain store. ( Hmm, is that talent, or cheating? a later post perhaps) But even with all that stuff. I’ve never really felt smart when jokes and conversations go over my head, books need to be exlained to me etc.

I cannot retain information the way other people do. I don’t read for fun…I can’t get through the second paragraph on the page if I have ANY distractions, and I often read standing or sitting in uncomfortable places so as not to fall asleep. Remembering definitions of words i KNOW to get the context of stuff  makes it not very much fun either. I KNOW the word. I know HOW to use it, in mot cases, but sometimes I just cannot grasp what I’m reading, and taking more time to look in the dictionary is no fun.

Cold hard fact books are what I usually read… it is easier to apply. I’m not unintelligent, in fact I’m pretty smart, so I’m told… but I have an issue with communication intake and output wise.

I have issues with taking things very literally, not thinking the way others do, being very “outside the box” and auditory processing stuff/sensitivities like people with mild autism do.

In person, communication SUCKS for me. I’m awkward, nervous and I read lips a lot, otherwise I don’t hear you. I feel dumb sayig over, and over. sorry what did you say. I worry about people getting tired of needing to repeat themselves. Thick accents are bad for me to understand. British movies are over my head mostly because I cannot understand what they are saying. This is frustrating for my husband who LOVES Monty Python movies, that I sit through only mildy lauging while he’s busting a gut.

Background noise & wind render me pretty much unable to talk to you unless we are 1 foot part and I watch your lips. the phone is horrifying for me. Too much noise in a store distracts me to a point of annoying me so badly, I become cranky and just want to flee the situation as fast as possible. My kids whining arguing gets to me faster and simpler then it seems to for other people.

Written/email/chat is better, but even 140 characters seems difficult at times due to the dyslexia as well, inability to tell tone implied in a statement etc. I tend to use a LOT of emoticoons.

Entries like this one is taking me going back and forth to this post ALL DAY to get it written in a way *I* think seems understandable. I feel like an alien very often, like Mork and/or Data combined…not able to say what I mean, in order to communicate with all you cool humans I really like and want to be like and have relationships with.

I feel like I cannot trust in my own self with anything I read due to dyslexia, and I cannot trust anything I hear others say to me, because I cannot literally hear them and I think they said something else totally different, or I apply a tone of voice not there, and react to that… and well…I just suck at it…I cannot easily explain to people what I MEAN, as apposed to what I actually SAY…I have MANY MANY George Castanza moments, where I want to go back and recreate the moment to use my too late funny/sarcastic/pithy comeback. ( I know that is “called something” but I can’t remember what it is right now) I don’t know how hubby has managed to deal with me like this for 10 + years! I know it MUST be true love!

It SUCKS being this way. I hate it. I mean, I know I’m not dumb, like “dumb and dumber”, or “can’t be articulate” kind of dumb….but I constantly feel inept, and stupid. Also due to my worsening ADD because I’m now on the other end of hormone fluctuations with early onset menopause,I’m VERY disorganized, scatterbrained, clumsy…”ditzy” for lack of a better term, and that makes all these issues worse as well.

Sooo…I was enjoyng using Twitter with hubby with a core group of funny people who like to joke around and throw sexual innuendo back and forth, and be flirty, and it was pretty fun, but it was getting stressful for me over the recent weeks…though it is fun….how long can I play the horny housewife/sexy little retard and be funny? I was feeling pressure to “stay funny”, when I felt I had nothing o offer these whitty funny people. I don’t think I’m funny BTW.. I just learned to use my sexuality early on in life to get by, and so I flirt well, and have an ability to make people smile or feel wanted, even it if it a shallow sort of way. Having been a singer and Karaoke Hostess in days gone by, I perfected the deal pretty well, and knew how to ramp up the flirt to bring the customers coming back and buying booze for the bar. It may be sexism/”selling myself” in a way, which I often struggled with, and was a large reason why I left the music industry, but people seem to like that.. so I’d flirt innocently, laugh at jokes, make a ew funnies myself, and all was good, and well, let’s face it , i DO have nice boobs…but I felt a lot like many of the people were only following me because I’m the mundane one’s wife anyway ( BTW HE”S the real funny in this family and no really mundane at all) I was having fun, but what started to really bother me is that I stress on the spelling mistakes I make, since Mr Man in the next room would correct every tweet by shouting to me that I spelled it wrong, etc. He was doing it let me know how to fix it in the future.  He’s not being rude or a jerk when he does that, he does it because he loves me and figures that if he tells me how to fix it, or point it out, one day it will stick, and because he knows how much it DOES bother me to have so many spelling and grammar mistakes in my  writing. The real issue is my pride. it is common among people with ADD…we spend so much time beating ourselves up for our shortcomings, that by the time someone else comes along and points them out, we are prepared to defend ourselves, argue why we did, explain the mistake away, so as not to “get in trouble”

If you’re an Adult ADDer, you may know what I’m talking about….ya…it sucks, and is the HARDEST thing for me to change about my communication with my husband, and others when I mess up. Usually I just get angry and lash out.

So,  last week was particularly bad failure week for me. As well as trying to “start fresh” and catch up on past failings that have accumulated over the last 6 months, and failing at THAT too, there was the added high expectations for a night out alone for the first time in a LONG time for huby and I, when a friend took both kids for the night! Though we enjoyed ourselves somewhat, the night failed to meet expectations, as well as give us a taste of what having alone time feels like, and it felt GOOD, and I think it was a large case of “what the eyes don;t see the heart don’t feel” so we were in a funk. Add in seeing how “non scatterbrained” I can be when the kids are not around, and how much easier it is to shop, talk, communicate and get things done around the house when I can think without them hanging off of me I was feeling pretty crappy.

I felt like a bad mother  for feeling this way, and felt like a bad wife for how much time computer/twitter etc sucks me in and shortens the time I have to keep the house up to decent standards etc.

Then, totally unrelated later in the day  Hubby and I had a miscommunication when I forgot something we had talked about  & I was trying to explain something to him…he accused me of trying to “explain away” the issue with ADD, and then that ALWAYS just makes me say you just don’t understand ADD then” , which is a hot button for him. He was apparently trying to teach me how to communicate what I MEANT better… and I lost my patience and blew up at him and said ”just forget it, I’ll never learn anyway, so WTF is the point!” in tears and I walked away with a lump in my throat. Of course that upset him, and yada yada yada a spousal spat ensued. Now, if your married for as long as we are you recognize them, and you deal with them, and you know you’ll be having sex again in a few hours.

But then, when I walked away, he did something he’d never done before, and it really ticked me off. He made a tweet about the moment we were having and I… in my haste, deep hurt and upset for being such a disappointment to myself and everyone around me, deleted my twitter account. I had read what he wrote wrong ( due to speed of reading/scanning and my dyslexia) and got very hurt and prideful that everyone we commonly talk to would think I called him an asshole when I didn’t… and I didn’t see that how he wrote it could have been taken in any way, and “saved” later if necessary, since it bothered me so much.

So,I decided in about 30 seconds right then and there that since no one understands me…what is the point of trying, and so I just deleted the account, figuring he’d be happy so he could gripe about his wife freely for funnies and no one would miss me.

Anyway…

Until Hubby, I never knew what unconditional love was. Trust me I’ve tested it in many ways and beyond limits that ANYONE else would have or should have ever stuck around for, but he did.

Some thought he was nuts for sticking it out so long. Others look at us from the outside, and think He’s controlling and rude because he hold me accountable, but he’s a pretty amazing guy. He is my foundation in this world, and without him, I am nothing. That’s not a “i need a man to be someone”, that is a “everyday, he makes me want to be a better person”.

He is my best friend, my biggest supporter, fan, and my soft pace to fall. But he is also the one who pushes me when I think I can’t go any farther, and calls me on my emotional crap, and….well this week he’s calling me on my stuff and I was not in a place to hear it because I was feeling so defeated already…so I sorta threw in the towel and had decided I was just gonna give up. Yep, I had a little mini meltdown. But it’s ok. they say these things need to happen to be the time to make bigger strides in positive change.

He was there for me. He let me cry…he talked it out with me, held me in his arms like every other time he has over the last almost 11 years

It is a difficult time for me emotionally, I am grieving a LOT from how I’ve wasted so much time not trying to make this stuff better sooner in our relationship. I feel like crap for being a disappointment to him and the kids so much, and it is not easy for me.

I’m “ok” but it is a process, an ongoing one…things wil get better, but last I checked the retard gene can not be removed, so there will always be struggles

If this sounds like a pity party, forgive me, because it technically isn’t. A pity party is when you piss and moan about some shit in your life, and then do nothing to make it better or fix it. I’m trying REALLY HARD in my life right now to do things better, and make things easier for us regarding the stress my neurodiversities cause us. It’s not easy.. I fail every day…( I do some stuff right, but seriously awesome sexual favours and making cheesecake don’t really count do they? )

When I see you Smile-

for  #musicmonday +#mommymonday= #songtitlesaboutmykid

Sometimes it’s not you…it’s them. Don’t worry about what people think of you so much.

The Mundane One:

This gerbil was a boy. And it had babies.

I’m not kidding. She (he?) lived with 4 other male gerbils for 2 years. The father, a brother and two other males from different parents. It HAD balls.

Recently our gerbils began dying off due to old age. All the first-generation ones are gone now, as they were all well over 4 years old. There were only the 3 males left, and we thought they were pretty much at the end of their breeding age. We considered getting more and starting a new “colony” but since we’d had little success selling them in the past, we decided to simply keep the boys separate from the girls and enjoy the time we had left with the youngest of our former brood… maybe another year or so.

I tried looking up information online about hermaphrodism in rodents and if there was any scientific basis for ANYTHING like a spontaneous sex change happening in mammals – it happens in some fish, insects, amphibians and reptiles, after all. I couldn’t find anything. Except Richard Gere jokes, as I said on Twitter.

No – there was no mistake sexing – and if you knew gerbils at all, you’d know we’d have been up to our eyeballs in babies if there had been an error made for the last 2 years. No, they didn’t get mixed up – all of our gerbils have fairly distinctive markings and were also different colours – grey, black, light tan, some with white patches… mostly plain agouti.

This gerbil (J.J. for “Jasper Junior” because he looked exactly like his father) seemed to lose its nuts and became female and had babies. Seriously. It’s a HUGE WTF! But, on the bright side, if these babies survive, we’ll have 4 new friends to enjoy for a few more years.

SuperADDmom:

They are not too interesting at this point, but in a week they’ll start being soft as the fir grows in and when their eyes open, they’ll start jumping around getting used to their feet

so amazing actually. to think that before Jasper SR. I HATED gerbils and would not even touch them. our 4 year old son found them in the cage and came to tell me that there were baby gerbils in the cage with the boys the other day! total shock!

know how in movies when the lead character trains for the big battle? Why can’t housework go by that fast with a frackin’ montage?

I love my son-who calls the nintendo the ‘icktendo’-he’s awake @ 5 am finding the lost power cord! He’s excited!that is all-carry on!

When I left off the last post about Sky and his fighting to live, he was seemingly doing better.

He had progressed from crop feeding to eye dropper, rested for a few hours deeply, and then began to eat on his own. he went back and forth between eating and sleeping, and when he progressed to eating very well, and drinking on his own, we thought perhaps the worst was over, and he had overcome whatever was making him sick.

The kids finally went to bed at about midnight, giving Sky a  nuzzle and a kiss, and Hubby and I watched over him for a long time. Then in the early morning hours, he started to have a seizure. After 15 minutes into a nonstop seizure I went up and woke up our girl, to bring her downstairs with us, in case Sky was not going to make it. We didn’t want her to wake up in the morning and have him have had died through the night. We wanted her to be there to say goodbye.

She came down, and we told her how he was doing, and that we were afriad he had been having seizures all along, and that were getting worse, and perhaps this was why he was being picked on by the other birds.

It was a very sad time for us, as she held him, and cried, and talked to him, rubbing his little head, telling him how much she loved him. We laid him on a baby blanket and sat on the bed with him. After 45 minutes of a total body seizure, he started to slow down his breathing and the seizure started to subside. Then he laid down, took one last breath and died.

Tears flowed, as they still are now, but we are working the greiving process, and saying our goodbyes.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all the people on Twitter from all over the world who have written @ messages and DM’s to me and my husband for our daughter at this delicate time in her life. Your kindness and understanding mean a lot to us, and to her. Who would have thought that a little $15 budgie named Sky Blue could touch so many people all over the world and through tweeting, none the less.

Click here to read the story of how our daughter came to own Sky, and the fight for the last 48 hours to save his life

here are some pictures of our little friend we’ve take in the short 4 months ( almost to the day) he was in our lives.

The Day we Brought Sky Home-April 4th 2009

The Girl-First Day home, hand feeding Sky

SuperADDmom & Sky

Sky lovin' Stormcloud

RIP Sky Blue (Feb-July 2009)

My daughter's Budgie "Sky" in June

A few months back, we lost our Budgie Horizon due to my ADD ( another story, but I’ll save it for later if at all). Once everyone stopped being rightly upset with me, we decided we needed to go buy another budgie to give Raindrop a companion, as she was very sad and lonely after Horizon died.

So, off to the pet store we went, with the strict understanding that we were buying a family pet, and I told my daughter in no uncertain terms that she was not getting a pet budgie of her own, as she was pestering me for one earlier before we left.

She was finally fine with it, and we went and looked around. My Hubby, AKA “The Mundane One” of the family, is the smarts in the family ( literally…he’s a genius) and I am was not a pet bird kind of person, so I defer to his judgment on such matters.

While there looking at the health and nicest colored choices to chose from, we noticed a smaller blue budgie. He was ragged looking in his tail feathers and sitting off to one corner of the cage not interacting with the others much, but we were drawn to his blue coloring.

The lady at the pet store said he was hand tame because she had taken him home for a little while as the other birds were picking on him. Though he was cute for having most of his tail feathers missing, hubby was apprehensive of a bird that the rest would pick on, as it usually means the birds see that bird as a weakness to their flock for safety, and that could mean he’s unhealthy, and a risk to the other birds, which is why they pick on them..to essentially, get rid of them. Knowing this, we looked at him anyway because he was so cute, and my daughter was sad for him. The lady brought him out on her finger and he came right onto my daughters hand when she said “UP!” and he just sat there looking at her, cocking his head from side to side. They spent the next 5 minutes or so interacting with him looking at her most intently, and while my husband was looking at other choices… They went and fell in love!

I could see it in her eyes. Her eyes sparkle when she is happy. I could tell when she brought him to her nose and said “kisses” the way we do with our other budgies and he responded by rubbing his beak on her nose, giving her a little love peck, that it was going to be hard to let him go.

She was giddy with the thought of him coming home, but it immediately turned to disappointment when Daddy chose another bird, because she knew we said it would be a family choice, and she wasn’t getting a bird of her own. Having ADD she is just not responsible enough at 8 to have a living pet in her room that requires constant attention.

While Hubby was looking at the other bird, I talked quietly to him and said.. “look at her honey, she loves that bird…she has enough allowance money in her account, I think we should let her get him. I know I said we wouldn’t, and it’ll be like “giving in”, but it will be easier if we offer rather then have her beg, because she’s going to, and then we’ll have to say no. We’ll keep him down stairs with the rest. What do you think?”

He was still worried about the birds health, but too could see the affection they had for each other. So, like “the meanie” that he is….when we left the store, we had two new budgies- Sky and the soon to be named “StormCloud”.

We came home and got them settled in respective cages, and immediately  the girl was hand feeding Sky, carrying him round on her shoulder, and making bed nests out of cardboard boxes for him. Over the weeks thought I thought her interest would wean, it never did. In fact the opposite occurred and she drove us crazy always asking, “Can I hold Sky now!? He’s lonely, look at him, he needs me!”.

I swear they are like Elliot and ET.

Then, a few weeks later Sky got really sick! We are not sure why. The Girl was scared to death, and she got sick as well, a slight fever, sad, upset, crying, worried beyond belief. She could not eat unless she knew Sky was going to be ok.

We thought Sky the budgie was a goner on May 24th. But after a few hours of treatment with warmth and a concoction hubby made up of rehydration drink (lemon juice, sugar, potassium & other salts) and honey with a little baking soda to buffer it, he improved tremendously.

We sat vigil around this tiny little bird, all watching and waiting, hoping he’d get better. Our family and Friends on Facebook checking in, wondering and worrying too.

He convalesced in a covered hospital cage with a heating pad under it for about 24 hours, sleeping most of the time, until he felt better enough to go back with his cagemates. By the beginning of the day on May 26th, he’s was eating like a horse and playing with the other birds he was clearly feeling better, though looking a little ragged!

I attribute the recovery to SuperDaddy… if it were up to me to administer fluids every 10 minutes via dropper. We would have been having a moonlight funeral for him in the back yard that first evening!

As Sky felt better,my daughter felt better, and things started to look up. Though we were really sure it was only a matter of time and had prepared her for the worst to come.

Sky on the Mend

A few days later, with a complete recovery, things went back to normal , or as normal as things can be for an ADDventerous family, and we soon put Sky’s illness behind us.

The birds all seems to be doing well together and spending time together as birds do, so we housed the three of them together in our bedroom, where my husband spends most of his time due to his chronic illness. He cares for them, talks to them, and as a family we gather and play with them daily.

Three is definitely a crowd when you’re trying to figure out mating pairs and it seems that Storm and Raindrop had decided that Sky was the odd man out, more than they decided he was ok and liked him. They had been picking on him a bit the last week or so, and we’d discourage the behavior, and were about to rearrange budgies this weekend into pairs when we purchased Lightning ( A white Budgie) last week, and quarantine was over. We were going to put Raindrop and Sky together as Storm and Lightning seemed to hit it off well, and we liked the idea of the color combo in any future baby budgies.

Then yesterday, hubby called me in the house when he was napping in the early evening, as he was startled awake by a budgie crying out in distress. Sky was on the bottom of the cage, very stressed out, and looking very ragged from being picked on…seems they decided to peck and peck at him, until he sort of just gave up emotionally, and retreated to a place away from them completely. We are not sure if they had been stopping him from eating, and that was why he was so weak, but we thought he was looking pretty bad.

We immediately separated birds and switched things around, and made a recovery bed for him, since he is so tame he rarely flies at all. the girl has him trained to perch and stay where she puts him.

All day yesterday hubby started trying to feed Sky and bring him back to health, but we were not sure it would work again.  Again our daughter began to get worried and sick physically, with a mild temp, an unable to sleep well all night. SuperDaddy once again sacrificed the little energy he has in a day to play budgie doctor and try to nurse this little bird back  to health again.

Lastnight at 11:00 pm or so, I posted on twitter “the kids are screaming & won’t go to sleep & Hubby is helping keep our daughter’s budgie alive! #didishavemylegsforthis!?”

We kept on through the night, Me watching hubby care for Sky, but after more than a full day, we needed sleep. So we put him in his cage and went to bed at 5 am. He seemed to be worse then just broken spiritually from being tossed out of the flock, and tired and hungry, so we’re not sure what it was, but he was very weak. We had decided that at that point there was not much more we could do for him if he had no will to live any longer, and couldn’t fight this illness. We left it up to him and went to sleep wondering what the morning would bring.

Then, at 9:30ish the girl came into our bedroom and woke me asking if Sky sitting on the bottom of the cage shaking and trembling and squawking like a Canadian goose ( literally) was a good thing…I told her, no it wasn’t at all. She was devastated, and thinking the bird was going to die, hubby shot up out of bed and went and brought him back to the make shift cardboard bed the girl made for him.

They tried to feed him more over the next hour or so, and then he started to get worse again. It seemed like everytime the girl spoke to him, he’d perk up. when she got really sad, he’d get really weak.

I told her she needed to let Sky know she loved him, and he needed to try really hard to get better, because she loved him and wanted him to stay with her.

And she did,and we waited a little.

When I posted on facebook at noon, he seemed like he was on death’s door. I wrote “Watching my darling hubby hold my sad baby girl’s sick budgie. They are crying as he dies & saying ily & goodbye very sad day here.”

At that moment, my daughter was bawling & my hubby was holding sky cradled in his arms & thinking he was on his way out, as he had seemed to have some sort of small seizure just then.

My son was laying on the bed with his face buried in the blankets, trying not to act like he cared, and doing a very poor job of it. So, Daddy held the bird, and I laid in bed with the kids in my arms, kissing them, and telling them we needed to say goodbye to Sky. But, my girl refused to say goodbye. I cried inside for her and this life lesson and a few tears slipped past though I was trying not to, and they streamed down my cheek.

We’re not sure if he was stroking out or what. But after that, and seeing the reaction of our daughter melt in my arms in a puddle, begging Sky not to die, hubby decided to not let him go gently, as he couldnot stand watching his little girl hurt so deeply. Words cannot say how much right then I loved this man! He’s not only my daughter’s hero, he is MY hero!)

Now, all day hubby has been crop feeding him with a syringe from a ink refill kit for printers and that little bird is hanging on right now!

I’ve never seen a small bird fight so hard to live. We’ve tried to nurse hurt wild birds back to health before, with no success. Hubby is amazed at the spirit to live this little bird has demonstrated thus far. It is truly phenomenal.

A part of him is mad at me for letting us buy him, but I see how much The Girl loves Sky, and though this is hurting her, and is a major roller coaster of emotions for us all right now, I would not go back.

Yes, if we wanted to be upset, this little bird is messing up our weekend beyond belief in ruining our plans for the day.

Yes, this little bird is causing everyone heartache. Yes, my hubby is hurting emotionally for his little girl hurting, and this whole ordeal is sucking the limited precious energy hubby has in a day physically and mentally. But still, I don’t think I would change a thing.

Garth Brooks says in a song “…and, now, I’m glad I didn’t know, the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance, I could of missed the pain, but I’d of had to miss the dance.”

This…right here…right now…this weekend… fighting to try and keep this little bird alive.. this is “the dance” folks.

Sky was the runt, and very badly picked on by the other birds in the store, no one would have wanted him as a pet like that, even we didn’t… but she did.

In the 4 months sky has been wit a part of our family, he’s been a wonderful joy to the girl, and a great companion too. Sitting on her lap reading books with her and everything!

It sounds strange, but I think that bird is trying to fight for her!!!! They love each other so much! He has taught her patience, and gentleness, and how to care for a budgie as a pet, and she has given him unconditional love. He has taught my very hyper often careless 4 yo boy to be more gentle, and aware as well. He is a blessing.

IT is now almost 10 pm, and though he seems to be doing a bit better, he is still not out of the woods yet…so we are keeping on keeping on, trying to save our daughter first love from an untimely demise.

Hubby is still crop feeding him, and trying to keep him warm. The girl just had a few minutes “visitation” with him in the bedroom as I write out these final things. he’s chirping at her, though he is weak.

SuperDaddy Crop feeding Sky at about 7 pm

I don’t know if he’ll make it…if he lives and breaths on love alone He will! But if he doesn’t make it… there is one thing I do know. The lessons this little bird has taught us by being present in our lives is profound and amazing to me, and I am in awe of this universe, and the way life works.

I hope he makes it. I’d rather not have to grieve with/for my daughter just now in her young life…it will be difficult & hard I know. I’d prefer neither of my children cry or ever feel hurt or pain in their lives, yet I know that can never be.

Through all of this our 4 year old is being quiet, as per his usual way of dealing with stuff and is drawing a lot of pictures of Sky in his magna doodle.

But if that bird does die this day, I will chose not to grieve hard, but to be thankful for the lessons, and love he has given this family.

Sky has been the recipient of the wonderful caring nature of my husband, which I’ve always known, but can always use a reminder of. Sky he’s taught my daughter responsibility, and given her love and laughter and smiles, as he did for my son as well. Sky made me stop for a moment. Brought me to the “now”, and s reminded me to still find the good in our day.

Thank You Sky, you are one amazing little being.

I don’t know what lives you’ve lived prior to this one, but I am choosing to beleive that this lifetime was who/what/where you needed to be.

Perhaps you needed to find and know unconditional love and acceptance even in the worst of circumstances, from a pure heart in the form of my little girl who thinks you rule the world. And, perhaps when you do leave this plane of existence you will have complete your journey, and acheived enlightenment.

I’d like to think so.

Namaste Sky, Namaste

sigh…..where do I even begin with THIS one… ugggg… my poor husband….he is such an amazing man to put up with everything that ADD has a part in for the chaos that is often our life caused by me.

IT’s been a rather interesting week or so, you see…I’m hitting menopause…yes, at 34 years old. I’m on the way out of the childbearing years. I knew it was likely to come earlier then typical for most, because all the women in my family have started their journey to “mature womanhood” around this age.

As such I’ve been having a lot of issues related to hormones…typical ones like heavier periods, longer ones, then shorter ones, hormones and mood fluctuations. Not to mention hitting a sexual peak for being REALLY interested and easily aroused, and being REALLY REALLY scatterbrained!

So today the BIG ADD moment and screw up was I drove to the city for about 20 KLM with the parking brake on.. yes folks… totally in a daze… mostly a sexual one, being all hot and bothered for my hubby sitting beside me smelling so damn hot, while we flirted obscurely without the kids aware of what we were saying from the back seat. I drove with the parking brake on. You see I have a check list I do for a lot of stuff I do, to make sure I do them…habits that I’ve come to incorporating to make sure I don;t make scatterbrained mistakes. IF I get side tracked from them,,, my world starts to unravel and I make a LOT of mistakes. So I forgot to do my checklist hen I got in the car before I put the car in drive.

It was NOT a nice moment when hubby realized it… I had to pull over the van and he got out and walked off the steam coming from his head from the anger at THAT one… the brakes are not good at best right now, and then I go an do that

THAT was a crappy moment

We managed to make it through the rest of our trip relatively unscathed from my lack of ability to concentrate well, and are home now.. kids are fed and in bed. and I’m heading there now too. To take advantage of this new shift in sexual interest I have to THOROUGHLY make it up to hubby for the day we had !

I always said that when I was a mother I’d never lack the patience my mother had with me. But that was before I had children, before I was Dxed with ADD, and before I knew my kids would be so…diverse as well.

Now, as the mother of an ADHD child, I know what my mother must have endured with me, since she too, is the mother of an Add child now an ADDult And we are pretty sure she has it herself, along with LD’s like dyslexia etc. ( she once circled the island I live on twice trying to find our house and the next time I had to give very straight forward simple, step by step instructions that included visual point markers so she’s know they were on the right path.)

Anyway…The awareness on that level that my mother and I have of each other TODAY is uncanny, but as an ADDmother then ( her ) trying to parent an ADD child ( me) she didn’t have what I have…Knowing I have ADD while raising my ADD kids. We just didn’t understand the issues with inattentiveness and distractedness. It was a tough time. The older I got the harder it was to relate. The best years for me were before I was about 11 or 12.before it got too complicated.

I’m lucky that I know what ADD is, and that I’m medicating for it for myself ( cause otherwise I’d be a bumbling idiot, literally). It helps me have more patience then she did for mothering kids who both have pretty big adhd traits.

I also, as an ADDer, for some reason, have this very close link to childhood/teenhood…so I relate to kids very well. But I relate to ADD kids better it seems. I can be more sympathetic then their non ADD parents.

So I often probably tend to let the kids “get away” with more then The Mundane One does. I “understand” where they are coming from, and why they do some of the stuff they do. It’s a constant struggle. I go from being a “crabby mom” trying to give them more stability to see improvements in their behavior, and then waffle back to the more organic lifestyle that is simpler on the brain for me ( and them) My poor husband though, who once thrived on a “bit” of organization lives in our chaos now, since he is surrounded by it.

Between me, and the kids he hardly ever gets a word in edgewise. I can’t blame him for being upset, someone is always interrupting, but what do we do…this IS what it is.

It drives me nuts cause I have social anxiety all the time, worrying about what I said, how I said it, did I say to much. etc etc. and now living in a small hamlet… I think it is getting worse. And then I have anxiety cause I feel like I am always getting upset with the kids, and the neighbors must think that I’m a terrible mother. Or if I talk to them, I talk too much, and the kids yammer on, and I need to keep them ”
in check”

Sigh….this is just some of the thoughts going through my mind tonight. I don’t like being a crabby mommy…I need to let  it go… butit is so hard.