Typed while hyperventilating into a paper bag

Hey so this first week of school, it is not going well for my boy C. Not well at all. His misophonia has become enormous and all-consuming and so has the anxiety associated therewith. We have added a new medication (Intuniv ER, for those of you playing along at home) and a new therapy modality (cognitive behavioral therapy, WHO HAS BINGO?) and I am sort of wishing I had a time machine so I could skip ahead 20 years or so and see how this all turns out. I like to imagine I would see my kid healthy, happy, gainfully employed, surrounded by friends who love him, married to his soulmate and raising my adorable grandchildren. And maybe there's a dog. And a home studio for his music. And a guest room for when P and I come to visit. (A double bed is fine. Nothing fancy.) Let's all hold that image in our minds and manifest it into reality, eh wot?

The good news is, the staff at his school could not be more fantastic. They are implementing loads of accommodations and reviewing all sorts of possible options and we really could not ask for more amazing allies in all this. People ask us all the time whether we like this school; I think there is some stigma associated with the fact that it's the oldest high school in our district and is located in not the most high-dollar neighborhood in our district. But we freaking LOVE this school and we feel very lucky that fate (er, and some deliberate real estate choices on our part) put us here. I shudder to think how some schools might handle this very real and serious disorder that very few people have even heard of while it manifests in a kid who doesn't even have an IEP. (He does have a 504 plan, though. That has helped A LOT.)

The bad news, besides the fact that nothing we've tried so far has really worked all that well, is that we can't have a sit-down with all the people involved in trying to puzzle out a solution to this problem until next week because all of our schedules are crazy because it's the first week of school. The waiting is the hardest part. (No it's not. The misophonia is the hardest part.)

The more good news is that H loves most/all of her classes and she's making new friends and I think she kind of gets a kick out of the fact that she's in high school now. The more bad news is that I was counting on her riding the bus to and from school since she and C can't ride in a car together (her breathing triggers his misophonia) and apparently her bus driver makes Nurse Ratched look like Sister Bertrille and so that riding the bus thing is not happening. She's been getting a ride with a friend's mom every day and I feel kind of weird about it because I don't know this mom very well, so I haven't really explained to her what the deal is with me not being able to reciprocate on the whole car pool thing. I asked H to explain it and she said she would but who knows whether that will happen. Meanwhile I think maybe we should chip in for gas every week? Or bake them some cookies? Or buy them a new car? What is the protocol here?

And not to make it all about me or anything (™ my mom) but in the midst of all this I've somehow managed to get within about a pound and a half of my goal weight. That stress diet works a treat, but I can't honestly say I recommend it.

So. How are things with all of you? We should catch up sometime.

Dog days

August has not been the most relaxing month ever here in Misophonia Land and full-day summer band did not go as well for C as expected. We made accommodations, we tweaked (and are still tweaking) meds, we made many many phone calls and sent many many emails and, you know, we all survived.

This is our last week of summer here; school starts one week from today. Band is only a few hours in the evening all this week, and in the meantime there are textbooks to pick up and lockers to be assigned and ID card photos to be taken and new therapists to meet. H has "fish camp", the crash course in all things high school that is presented to incoming freshmen, this week and she could not be more excited.

It's finally hit me that I will have TWO in high school this year; both kids at the same school again for the first time in two years. And they won't be at different schools EVER again until C graduates (please God) in two years and goes off to college (please oh please oh please) or stays here for college (that would be perfectly okay, too).

Anyhoo, this last official week of summer seems like as good a time as any to check in with those summer goals I set way back when, eh? Let's go!

1. Lose 17 pounds. I've lost 14. Not bad, eh? I was hoping to lose the 17 by my birthday, which is one month from today. Not sure I'll get there at the rate I've been going, particularly this month with all the stress-snacking and stress-cocktail-drinking, but we'll see. (Also one month from today: the 20 year anniversary of my engagement to P. Best birthday ever!)

2. Read more. Books I've read since the last time I updated you on the progress of my summer goals:  Judith Arnold's Goodbye to All That (light and fun; good beach read), Ben Rehder's Buck Fever (very fun; takes place near where I live; first in a series), Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (LOVED; extremely dark and twisted and hilarious), Ben H. Winters's The Last Policeman (also LOVED and very much looking forward to more from this author), Carrie Regan's Rumors of Savages (super fun mindless romp; again, a good beach/airplane read). Right now I'm reading Valya Dudycz Lupescu's The Silence of Trees, which is gorgeous and heartbreaking and strangely cathartic, at least for me. It's not often that a work of fiction helps me sort out some of my own emotional junk, but this one has. Go figure.

3. Make peace with the whole shorts thing and quit worrying about how I look in them. Who wears short shorts? I WEAR SHORT SHORTS.

4. Quit buying coffee mugs already (also cute drinking glasses)(also BPA-free reusable plastic cups with lids and straws). I am happy to tell you I have not bought a single drinking vessel in the entire month of August. Er, so far.

5. Shop at the Farmer's Market every week. Um, no. They open at 8:30 a.m. in the summer! All the good stuff is gone by 8:35! How am I supposed to sleep late AND get a workout in? (I like to think I make up for not shopping the summer market all that often by shopping the winter market like crazy, when all they have is kale, kale and more kale and I more or less have the whole market to myself. Yeah. That's the ticket.)

6. Eradicate hornworms from the face of the Earth. I found one on the remains of my Patio tomato plant the other day. Yeesh. I really need to pull out those tomatoes; they've been done producing for ages now.

Alrighty! Time to knuckle down, get busy, and try not to freak out about school starting next week. Yeah. Good luck with that, me.

Unwinding the despair spiral

Hello, I had hoped to tell you this week that our August is starting out AWESOME, that C is loving the heck out of summer band and doing great on the new meds and that everything is super hunky-dory and we are all excited about school starting later this month.

But you know what they say about hope. It's the thing with feathers that gets shot right out of the sky with a 12-gauge, or something. I'm pretty sure that's how that goes, yes? I never was a big Dickinson fan. (If you giggled when you read that last sentence, you are totally in my tribe.)

Somehow summer band has kicked C's misophonia into high gear. I've spoken with his doctor and we're going to tweak his meds to see if they are part of the problem. We've also spoken with the band director and will be putting some accommodations in place. We will deal with this. We will, we will. And I will step away from googling "distance learning for high school credit", "homeschool marching band", "distance learning for college degree", "legitimate work at home opportunities" and "house for sale with garage apartment". There, I have totally set myself up for ALL THE SPAM COMMENTS IN THE WORLD.

But hey, let's not talk about all that. Nor about the dream I keep having where thousands of tiny objects are spilling out of containers and I have to sort and count them all and put them back where they belong, nor that dream I had about the tornadoes, nor the fact that C and I arrived home from an aborted attempt to get through summer band this afternoon to discover that the dog had been Very Ill Indeed in our absence. All over my favorite rug. Yeah.

Let's talk about some things that are good. Okay? Can we do that? I'm going to. I think maybe I need to.

Here are some things I am enjoying these days, in no particular order:

1. Avocados. I seriously cannot get enough of them right now.
2. Level 2 of Jillian Michaels's 6 Week Six-Pack DVD. Holy cheezits, that is the hardest workout I have ever done. I freaking love it.
3. La Croix flavored sparkling water. I have only just discovered this product (much like Columbus discovered America) and I am hooked. No calories, no sweeteners of any kind, no caffeine, but less boring than plain water.
4. The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. A large asteroid is six months away from colliding with the earth, world economies and infrastructure are collapsing, people are killing themselves left and right, but police detective Henry Palace is just trying to do his job. Loved this book; it was quirky and weird and actually kind of sweet.
5. Clothes shopping. I have not only gone down 2 pant sizes (well, 2.5 now, which is awkward), I've gone down a shirt size as well. I no longer hate trying on clothes, which is good, because I no longer can buy clothes without trying them on.
6. Breaking Bad. It's back, and I am so happy. Except this is the last season, which makes me sad. But this is the happy list, so I'll just say that if they were to spin off a series of just Jesse and Mike hanging out in cars being badass, I would totally watch and enjoy that.
7. Popcorn. The old-fashioned kind, popped in coconut oil on the stovetop and sprinkled with a bit of seasoned salt. I'm getting pretty much all my carbs in popcorn form these days.
8. Big Bang Theory. I am very late to this party and I know everyone else is kind of over it, but somehow this show has become my comfort TV viewing.
9. "Why Am I The One" by Fun. It's not a particularly happy song, but it makes me happy. Go figure.
10. The sun is moving south. I can see it happening. This means fall is coming and my reverse seasonal affective disorder is GOING AWAY. Real soon now. I just know it.

Well, I've had so many interruptions that it's taken me about 5 hours to write this, so hey! I think it's time to publish. Talk to you later.