Mind over matter ain't gonna cut it.

Twice I have been to the hosiptal with kidney stones. The first time, I was pregnant with Drew and had suffered from a horrendous back ache for about twelve hours. I then used the bathroom and looked into the toilet to find nothing but blood. Of course, being pregnant, I flipped out and called my aunt to have her take me to the ER. It wasn't until I gave the nurse there in Labor and Delivery a urine sample that I realized that this was not a problem with the pregnancy, but with my kidneys. The dull ache in my back lasted for a few hours after the visit to the hospital, but I was given Vicoden to take with me, so survival was sure.

The next time I suffered from the stones, I had no blood, but the pain in my back was bad enough that I was sure I was going to die. I have to say that passing a kidney stone is, without doubt, more painful than pre-epidural labor. So back to the ER we went. I was just barely capable of walking, but certainly not in an upright position. I gave up all dignity by panting, scrunching up my face and moaning every now and again while some idiot took my blood pressure twice because the first time he had forgotten the numbers before he could enter them into the computer. Then a nurse came to get me and offered me a wheelchair, but I couldn't stand the thought of sitting still when I wanted to run in circles screaming, "Owie, help me, owie! (Cursing) I'm dying! (More curse words.)" So I walked/hobbled back to my curtain and was given a cup to pee in. For 3 hours at home I had tried to urinate, and simply could not make anything come out, despite the fact that I needed to pee so badly that I was on fire and sweating. So I told the nurse I would do my best but not to expect any results. I went to the bathroom and, crying just a bit, I gathered my sample. Easily. It was like a cruel joke being played on me. How could I be completely incapable of peeing for hours at a time, and then miraculously be unplugged the first time I tried to go in the hospital? And it was sooo good. I kid you not, the very second that I had emptied my bladder, I was fine. No pain. It was like going from spiked sledgehammer to the kidney to absolute normal comfort - just like that. And no blood. I stood there in the ER bathroom wondering if I should intentionally slip and slam my face into the toilet or hold my hand under hot water until I had blistering burns, because I couldn't very well go walking back to my curtain with no injury and feeling fine. That would be a waste of the nurse's time. After some internal debate and several minutes, I decided that I had no choice but to walk out of the bathroom, perfectly erect, and deliver my unimpressive urine sample to the lucky soul who would be caring for the perfectly healthy me. I was embarrassed to be there, relaxed and smiling, laying on my gurney with a polka-dot hospital gown on. The nurse came into my curtain and picked up my sample. She held it up to the light. "Oh, yeah," she said. "You passed three stones and they're big enough that I can see the spurs on them." Excuse me? You can see the what on them? She held my pee up over my head so that I could see the tiny, spiked rocks that had come out of me. Let me tell you, I felt very justified in being there once I saw those suckers. I almost asked her to save them for me so I could prove to people that I was not just being a huge wimp. I chickened out on asking, but I would have taken a gold star for surviving it, had anyone offered. Later the doc came in and told me that while he could analyze the stones to find out what precisely might trigger their build up in my particular case, I would most likely suffer from them fairly frequently for the rest of my life. I was secretly glad not to have to be told what causes them. I didn't want to have to give up chocolate or milk. I am happy in my ignorance, and I have only had one more episode since then.


My point is, the pain of kidney stones came in such different forms that I was unable to recognize them for what they were after I had already been to the hospital for them once. The symptoms were different, but the cause was the same. Today, that is exactly like being a parent. For a month now, I have been suffering from a myriad of different pain and frustration, but all of my symptoms have come from the same place. Cameron.


Before you go thinking that I am a horrible mother who doesn't love her child, let me say that I adore Cameron. He is smart, very helpful, sensitive, forgiving and fun. He has only three flaws. And I'm only going to talk about two of them right now. The first is that he is irresponsible. He "forgets" things and loses things ALL. THE. TIME. He does not put things where they go. If he doesn't understand something, he will not ask for help, he just ignores the problem. The second is that he has the attention span of a one-year-old. He doesn't focus on anything that wasn't his idea for more than ten seconds. I reluctantly did gobs of research on ADD/ADHD last year, but do not believe for one second that he has it. Aside from there being almost no scientific evidence required or available in the diagnostic process, Cameron only has the focus problem. Of the 16 or so symptoms that are common in ADD kids, Cameron only sometimes displayed 3 of them, and if I remember correctly, 8 are required to be constant problems in order to diagnose a child with ADD. (Don't quote me on that, it's been a while.)


I want Cameron to learn the importance of schoolwork while he is young so that come high school and college, he has firm study skills and a solid grasp of all the basics that are required in order to understand everything that comes after them. For that reason, I require that all homework be done before anything else after school. If my kids don't have homework, then I require twenty minutes of study time where they can choose to read or write letters or play educational games - anything they want that has educational value. Am I a cruel parent to make them do this after so many hours of school? Maybe. But I want them to get in the habit of doing their work first and playing later. But it doesn't really matter, because aside from Fridays, there has never been a day that they have come home without homework. At the very least, both boys' teachers require 20 minutes of reading every weeknight. They both know that it's just the job of a kid.



And that brings me to the most recent pain I've suffered from Cameron. Forget the lost glasses and coats. Forget the hours we've spent studying together for tests that he has ended up bombing with some real flair. This latest incident takes the cake. I almost imploded from the force of the exasperation.



Last night Cameron came home with his math book instead of a worksheet, which has never happened before. There was a lined paper tucked into a page. I opened the book to that page and looked at the paper. It was headed with Cameron's name, the page number and some other gibberish that made no sense to me at all. The paper was numbered 2 through 70, even numbers only. I looked at the page number in the math book that was written on the paper and saw that the page only had problems numbered up to forty. Confused, I asked Cameron what he was supposed to do. He had no clue. He looked at me as if he had never seen the paper in my hand that was plastered with his messy handwriting. (Don't even get me started on that.) I spent about ten minutes trying to decipher the meaning of the paper he had numbered to 70 and the jumbled mess that he had written in his planner. Then I gave up and decided to punish him for his cluelessness by making him complete all the problems on the math page, 1-40 even AND odd. I numbered a new paper for him and told him to use the paper he had numbered as scrap paper to figure any answers he couldn't get in his head. It wasn't as mean as it sounds, because it was all subtraction that he already knows. How hard is it to figure out 18 minus blank is 18? Not hard, because he had it done at the kitchen table in about fifteen minutes. Then we moved on to the rest of the work on the list.


This morning, I got a call from Cameron 15 minutes after school had begun. The conversation went like this:


Cameron: Mom, you know that paper that I numbered yesterday?
Me: Yeah, what about it?
Cameron: I need it.
Me: Why?
Cameron: It's for a test.
Me: Can't you just number another paper? (And wondering why he brought it home if it was for a test?)
Cameron: No, teacher said it has to be that one.
Me: Cameron, I just put the babies down for a nap, and it will take me a lot longer to bring that paper to you than it would for you to just number another paper.
Cameron: Mom, you HAVE to bring it.


Well, crap. His teacher is in the middle of teaching, I can't ask her what the heck is going on. So I grabbed the paper and erased all the marking he had done on it, then loaded everyone into the car. I got to the school in a hurry thinking that Cameron was waiting on that paper in order to complete a test that everyone else has likely already started as they had their papers and knew what they were for. But no. I got there and walked into his classroom, and his teacher looked at me and said, "Let's talk in the hall." Not good.


Turns out that his teacher had told Cameron that he needed his math book, he told her he left it at home, and she told him he better call me and have me bring his math BOOK. The entire thing had nothing to do with his math PAPER. And guess what? I had put his math BOOK in his backpack that morning, so I knew full well that he already had it with him. His teacher and I checked his backpack and it wasn't there. Know what that means? That means that he took it out of his backpack and put it in his desk and TEN MINUTES LATER could not remember that he had done it. I told him to check his desk, and (SHOCKER!!) there it was. Then his teacher showed me what he was supposed to have done with the paper tucked into that book the previous afternoon. She had numbered an identical paper and put it on the document projector, and told the class to number their papers like she had done and then complete those problems in their books. Everyone else in the class numbered and then did the problems. Cameron just kept numbering until he ran out of paper, and never bothered to actually do the problems in the book. What? Did he think it was a test on counting by twos? Sorry, Cameron, you've already completed the first grade.


Pain, pain, pain. Frustration. Pain.


Cameron is too smart to fail so miserably at nearly everything he does in school. I simply cannot figure out how to make him concentrate and stay away from La-La Land. He's already sitting at the front of the classroom, I've tried making him repeat every direction I give him, I have tried revoking privileges, I've tried rewarding. The rewards never happen and I run out of things to take away. It's all just becoming too painful to deal with.


My last resort? A shock collar with remote activation. I think that if I could just at random times push a button here from home that would jolt him out of whatever world he's wandered off to in the middle of class, he'd eventually learn to pay attention. I could give the button to his teacher to push whenever she saw him spacing out, but where's my satisfaction? I wouldn't do it more than twice a day. Maybe three times.



Can you tell that I've spent too much time thinking about that? I have.


So tonight when Cameron comes home, we'll be having yet another talk about paying attention and responsibility. But this time I'm going to see if he has any ideas, because I'm plum out. Can't wait to hear what he comes up with.

Progress Stinks!

Remember the good ol' days when the sanitation workers had to get out of the garbage truck and empty the cans manually? That way, when you woke up in the morning to the sound of the garbage truck coming up the road and realize you'd forgotten to put the trash cans out, you could throw on a pair of shoes and have the cans out to the curb in plenty of time. Thanks to technology, we now have the stupid mechanical arms on the side of the trucks that lift the cans and empty them in 3 seconds flat, without aid from lowly humans. So if you wake up hearing the hydraulics of said arm, having forgotten to put the cans out again, you may as well stay in bed, because you have no hope of making it to the back door, much less dragging the cans to the curb, before the truck has passed your house. Sometimes progress is really inconvenient.

They better want it, and show me that they want it. Period.

I was cruising the blogging world today and came across the below campaign:



I'm not sure if you can see it well, but in a nutshell, it says that if we were all to spend $50 a month in mom and pop shops, we could save our local economies. (Consider that the very condensed version of what it actually claims.) I got to thinking about it, and I decided that while the majority of my shopping loyalty is required to lie within the grasp of stores that give me the best price so that my family doesn't starve, I do understand the plight of the average small business owner. I decided that my first move to do my little part, (maybe not $50, but something), would be to rent a video for my kids at my local Cosmos Video here in Kaysville instead of getting it at the Redbox, like I had planned. I knew that going to Cosmos meant spending a few dollars more for the movie than I would have at Redbox, but it wouldn't be a huge amount, and I would be showing support for my community.

I walked into Cosmos, and after being hit in the face with that charming stale cigarette smell that has been lingering in the establishment for more than a decade, I was greeted so kindly by the proprietor, who looked up from whatever show was on his television, stared at me for just a moment, and then turned back to his program. I felt like a fly that had annoyingly buzzed past his ear, distracting him briefly and causing him to hope that I didn't have the nerve to land on his arm and cause him further disruption. (The odd behavior exhibited by Mr. Cosmos was especially unsettling due to his seriously frightening resemblance to the Unabomber. That, coupled with his delightful personality, would not cause me to be surprised if I found that the two are first cousins or even brothers.) Being so overwhelmed by that warm welcome, I nearly turned around and walked back out to drive across the street to my reliable Redbox, which never glares at me or makes me feel like a nuisance. Mr. Redbox is always grateful for my business. However, I remembered my goal to patron the small business scene, and persevered.

I found the movie I came for, and then looked around a bit for another that I have not seen for a while, but always enjoyed as a child. I couldn't find it. So I gathered my courage, banished disdainful thoughts, and approached Mr. Cosmos at the counter.

"Do you have a Disney section?" I asked with massive amounts of syrup and pleasantry on my voice.

He pointed to a section behind me. Awesome customer service.

I went to find the movie, and after a minute or two, I comprehended that there was no alphabetical order, system or reason governing how the movies were placed on the shelf, other than they were all displayed before me thanks to the efforts of the all-consuming Disney Empire. I gave up and went to pay for the movie that I was able to find.

Sadly, it went down hill from there.

There was a gruff inquiry as to my last name. (Cosmos employs the index card system, rather than any kind of computer system.) I gave it to him, and he sighed. Loudly. And with an unmistakable tone of irritation. He then informed me that I had four dollars in late fees. Sheesh. Miss taking a video game back by 3 hours and they sure like to take it out of you. I handed him cash for the fees, plus the current rental, and then thought to myself, you know - Netflix has no fees. I don't think Blockbuster does either.

As I thanked him and turned to go, he uttered his first, and last, complete sentence since I had arrived. In ingnorance, I hoped that it might be a 'thank you for coming in'. Stupid of me. He said, "That movie is due back by six p.m. on Saturday." I had been chastised for my former late return. During the entire visit, there was never an expression of gratitude that I had brought him my business, but rather, I left feeling that I had imposed upon his day and that he was not at all hoping that it would happen again. I also felt that he should be thankful for my tardy return of that video game, as the late fee amounted to more than I had paid for the thing to begin with and surely there was no one waiting there in his unsavory store to borrow it upon it's return.

My whole experience there at Cosmos Video left me contemplating Mom and Pop shops versus Big Box stores. At Blockbuster and Hollywood I would have paid the same price for the movie and gotten to keep it longer. With Redbox or Netflix I would have paid less for the movie and gotten to keep it as long as I wanted with no penalty or verbal abuse. And all four of those alternatives would have expressed their gratitude for my patronage, either with a friendly smile or an e-mail.

So why, I ask you, should I be expected to support small business if I am getting inferior, if any, customer service, smaller selection and higher prices? Now, I realize that not all business owners would treat customers with such disgraceful attitudes and refuse to compete in any way with other establishments, but I am bothered by this one episode. So from now on, I will only shop in or do business with stores that make an effort to show me that they care about their customers. I understand that the lowest price is not always possible for these independent stores, but I will require that they offer me a fair price with impeccable service. If I can't get that, then I may as well go to Wal-Mart. At least there I know I will find what I want, I will be greeted by someone who knows how to smile and, in most cases, comb their hair, and I will not leave feeling as though I have been insulted and robbed.

If ever the day comes when Mr. Cosmos wants to exhibit a small amount of cheerfulness, allow me to keep his movies for the same amount of time that I could at a chain store, lower his prices, join the modern age and get a computer, organize his films alphabetically, OR lower his late fee rates to be equal to, or less than, the rental charges, then maybe I will go back. Notice how I only ask for one of those things; I'm not a complete jerk. Until he does, then I hope with all my heart that no one EVER has the audacity to interrupt his t.v. shows ever, ever again.

Unpleasant bathroom surprises.

This morning I find myself completely baffled by single-ply toilet paper. What is the point? Does anyone buy it intentionally? About a week ago I was at a grocery store that is not my usual preference, unless I am buying doughnuts, in which case this store is my absolute favorite. So I only needed a few things; toothpaste, soda, (ha-those two go together nicely!), and toilet paper. When I got to the paper goods isle, there were tons of choices, and my normal brand of t.p. was outrageously expensive, (thus my reason for not frequenting this store often), so I went with an off brand that was on sale. The first time I used that t.p. my fingers got a little damp, so now, of course, I use three times as much as I would have if it had been 2-ply. So why? Why? I don't even understand why single-ply toilet paper would be manufactured! There can't be a huge demand for it? Anyway, I could rant for a while longer about the whole ordeal, but suffice it to say that I have learned my lesson and will never again forget to check the fine print on the t.p. package to make sure I don't end up sitting on the toilet cursing unsanitary and pointless bathroom products.

"'Nurse Betty', Have you seen it?"

Don't ask. Just check again when she leaves, if you must.

It's only happened twice now, but both times I thought it was rather rude. Tonight I was standing at a Redbox waiting my turn to pick up the movies I had reserved online. The man in front of me returned his movie and walked away. His movie was rejected from the slot; something was wrong with the way it went in, so I tried to return it again for him. It didn't work, so I grabbed his DVD and ran it back to him before he pulled away in his car. Well, when I got back to the machine to swipe my debit card, a man at the machine next to me asked me what movie I had returned. Maybe I'm being silly, but that seems like a personal question. What if I had rented some kind of T&A film that I didn't want to admit to having watched? I would be left with only uncomfortable solutions to the predicament. I could be honest and tell him which shameful movie I had watched, or I could lie and tell him it was "Fill In The Blank Here With Name Of Innocent Motion Picture", (but that would only work if my brain was fast enough to come up with an appropriate title), or I could tell him it's none of his business. I would be uncomfortable with any of these options. Thankfully, I have never rented questionable films from a Redbox, (not that you can get movies of the adult variety there), but even things that are simply rated R or even PG-13 can be horrific these days. Also, keep in mind that we are in Utah where all of us Mormons can tell a "member" from a "non-member" with pretty decent accuracy, so even if you had rented a movie that was rated PG-13 for language or war violence, you could still receive some pretty hefty judgement for it. Radom strangers can be ruthless. So the bottom line here, folks, is that asking stangers at the Redbox what movie they rented could be considered a rather personal question. And for those of us who want to point this out to people next time it happens, we may need to come up with a prepared answer in case we meet another nosy viewer at the kiosk. I think that from now on, whenever someone asks me what movie I returned, I'll tell them it was a documentary called "Mind Your Business" and they would probably really like it.