January 8

Oh, hello there. Long time no see. What's new?

Oh, you know, the regular stuff. I'm just sitting here waiting for the Relief Society Presidency to show up and in the mean time Duncan decides to mop the kitchen floor with the soapiest bucket of mop water the world has ever seen, because he says he is sick of the sticky mess from the Kool Aid that the girls spilled last week when they dyed their hair. Only the floor isn't sticky because they didn't add any sugar to the  Kool Aid. The floor is going to be sticky now though, what with all that soap he isn't going to be able to rinse off.

Hmm, that sounds like quite a night. Where have you been all year?

Oh, we've been around. The ER quite a bit. The maternity ward. The psych ward. The home improvement store. Chicago. It's been a busy year.

Wow, sounds busy, I hear the kids have missed hearing from you. We should catch up sometime.

Yeah, there's a lot to catch up on.  I wouldn't even know where to start. And a lot of it would be boring.

Well, you could start where you left off, on the worst day of the year, January 2.

Yeah, only it turns out that January 2 was not the worst day of the year. Not by a long shot. I'm not sure I could even pick a worst day of the year this year. But I guess January 8 would be in the top 10. So I'll start there. Pour a coke and pull up a chair if you want to hear all this.

January 8 was a Monday and it was the day Audrey's car wouldn't start, so I gave her a ride to school.  January 8 was the day we were both completely silent on the drive there. January 8 was the day that we sat in the car in front of the school, and instead of jumping out and running into her classes like she always did,  she just sat there. She just sat there until she somehow summoned up the energy and courage to tell me that she couldn't do it any more, she just couldn't stand to live for one more day,  and that she could no longer trust herself to not do something drastic. 

January 8 was the day I did what I would have considered unthinkable a week earlier. I drove my brilliant, kind, talented, hard working daughter to the ER at Primary Children's hospital for a psychiatric evaluation because I couldn't trust her to not kill herself that day. And after that, I drove her to McKay Dee hospital and admitted her to the Behavioral Health Unit, and left her there. Then I drove home and had to tell her brother and sister that she was terribly ill and I didn't know when they would see her again or what would happen, and we all cried a lot of hot painful tears that night.

January 8 was also the night that I guiltily breathed a sigh of relief when I climbed into bed that night. It was the first night in several weeks that I could sleep soundly, knowing that someone else was watching my daughter through the night to make sure she was safe. It was the first night I didn't have to wonder what I would wake up to in the morning, the first night I didn't have to dread going into her room and hoping that she was still  okay, and that nothing unimaginable had happened in the dark night while I was sleeping.

We were all pretty innocent that night. I could never imagine that night that it would be four long months before she would sleep in her own bed again, or what she would endure in the coming days and weeks.  I could never have imagined the world of treatment centers, isolation, therapists, self harm, seizures, loneliness, sleeplessness and fear that was waiting for us.

Knowing what I know now,  I still often agonize over whether I made the right call, taking her to the hospital that day.  It's a hard thing to turn your child over to strangers and admit that you aren't equipped to help her and I will never know if it was the right decision. Would things have turned out better or worse if we had brought her home?  There were terrible days in treatment, and terrible things happened to her while she was away. But in the end she is still here, alive and breathing.  Someday I might could forgive myself for sending her away and for the mistreatment she experienced. But I could never forgive myself if something had happened to her here at home while she was in my care.

January 8 was only the first of many worst days.

Post Holidays

January 2 is historically the worst day of the year. The party is over. But that's good, to get the worst day of the year over with so early on, right?

Right.

Anyhow, today is not the worst day of the year for me at least. While everybody else went back to school, back to work, back to normal, I am at home, in my Christmas jammies, sitting in front of the fireplace eating orange sticks and pretending that I am still on holiday and refusing to think about all of the things that are waiting for me to do.  I only feel a little bit sluggish and unproductive when Netflix pops up and asks me if I am STILL watching.

We had an uneventful Christmas. It was nice, just quiet and less intense than most Christmases around here. I read a wise article on Facebook about just letting each Christmas be what it is, and not forcing it to be something that it's not, and being ok with that. This year, we didn't have a kitchen, we didn't have a ton of money or time and I decided to let a lot of things go and be okay with that. So we did no baking, other than a morning of cookie baking at my mom's, which Audrey and Olivia both slept through.




We also did very little shopping, and less decorating. Dan, for his part, did get the Christmas lights up and they looked fantastic! He even took them all down yesterday, which I was not emotionally prepared for, but I was not about to complain. Better to get them down a day too soon than 6 months too late.

The best part of the day was of course talking to this guy.

He is doing good. Christmas day marked fourteen months out. It's crazy how time can go so fast and so slow at the same time. Seems like he just left, seems like he's been gone forever.

Christmas Eve we went to my moms and played our Christmas game and ate pizza. And then it started snowing! It was a treacherous drive home, lots of slide offs and tow trucks. We made it safely and it was awesome to wake up to a beautiful white Christmas. Third year in a row we have had snow on Christmas eve.

We dressed up the dogs. That was cheery.

I think they liked it. Benny left his Santa suit on all night.

\We also  dressed ourselves up.

Duncan let us sleep in til 7 on Christmas morning. We got up, opened presents, then went to my cousin Pam's house for breakfast. They were nice enough to invite us up when they heard about our lack of kitchen facilities.

Apparently I pretty much sucked at taking pictures the rest of the day. This was all I got of our evening Christmas dinner. Mitch and Ria, Alisa and Erwann, and Mom and Dad came over for ham and we ate downstairs on paper plates and opened more presents. 

These two found charcoal masks in their stockings.

And that was Christmas

New Year's Eve we were back at Grandma Sally's, playing board games and working on puzzles. Grandma wanted us to sleep over, but we opted to come back to our own beds.

And then, we started off New Year's Day with a first day hike at Great Salt Lake at dusk, There was a full super moon, and it was pretty great to see it rise over the lake. We walked down the beach in the snow, it was really cold, but a fun adventure to start off 2018.

Thanksgiving Again

I admit, I am a big Thanksgiving scrooge. I always love getting together with my family and eating, but Thanksgiving has always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed to me it was a holiday for men, who would sit around all day watching football until they were served this lovely meal, then they would go sit around some more and watch more football until it was time for pie, then they would sit around some more until the mess in the kitchen was cleaned up. Meanwhile, the women would be shopping, planning prepping, cooking, cleaning and scrubbing for 3 days straight. And we were supposed to be happy about it.  It just never seemed fair. Plus, it's just weird and a creepy homage to to power of advertising/culture that all over America families gather and eat the exact same foods on the exact same day. And they do this to show they are thankful?  And don't even get me started on the thankful Facebook posts. 

So this year, Audrey and Alisa did all the cooking. Like, ALL the cooking. Mom made yams, I brought drinks and Erwann made pie crust. Audrey and Alisa did everything else. And I realized that if I had ever had a sister to share Thanksgiving with, I might have felt different about it.

They had a good time. The food was great, and me and my mom went for a walk while dinner was cooking.

It was a good day, and we are all thankful.

Being Mrs Banks

Audrey has wrapped up her role as Mrs. Banks in the school musical.

She knocks my socks off.

I know I'm biased, but really, she has such a presence on stage, and the girl can sing.

It was a great show.

Sadly, she was sick  with a cold all week long, and struggled to keep up her voice. She drank hot tea, rested her voice, took Sudafed, drank lots of water, everything we could think of to help her get better. I thought she still sounded fabulous. She was a bit bereft, as Mrs. Banks would say, and felt she could have done better if she had been in tip top shape.  Even more sad, her voice kept getting worse and worse after the show was over. She basically had no voice for a few days afterwards, it's a good thing the show was the week it was and not a week later.

Anyhow, she did great, and now we are looking forward to the spring production of Footloose.

A few adoring fans.

Mrs Banks and Mary Poppins, a dynamic duo

One of the best parts for me about these shows is seeing Audrey in her element. When she comes out after the show and all her friends and castmates are there laughing and talking and congratulating each other, I realize what an amazing girl I have.