I am scrolling through my mental Rolodex.

Can't call her, I say to myself, she's got troubles of her own. Can't call her, she's worn out with my story. Can't call her, she's as lost as I am.

Alright then, I get to pace around here, hoping the confusion in my head and my frayed nerves will let up.

Depression has been a part of my life since girlhood. It only became clinical after my first child 10 years ago. I got professional help and, to my utter surprise and delight, completely recovered. After many years, my husband and I found a rhythm.

Then we decided to have one more child before I got too old. Our boy is almost two, healthy, gentle, a real love. I did not suffer postpartum depression again right after he was born.

But, folks, it's back.

Not as extreme as before. The onset of this one coincides with my husband's bike crash and subsequent wrist surgery and five month disability leave. We are at each other and both of us are exhausted.

The old demons in the closet have taken the opportunity to come out for a few more bouts. With any luck, he and I can put away some of those demons (his, mine, and ours) for good.

I am not sure how it works for him, why he sticks around. But I know why I grind through each day, sit through another therapy session, walk up steep hills to raise my serotonin levels, and listen attentively to anyone who seems to possess a speck of wisdom.

It's those two beautiful children who occupy this space in time with me. I know they need me. They desperately love me, as I did my parents. If I can just hang in there, things will get better, and we will have some real fun together.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: beautiful children, demons, depression, fun, husband, Rolodex, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

“You owe her a string of apologies,” says the therapist, after listening to my husband in a private session. At least, this is where one fantasy took me this morning.

Our debts are climbing, my husband is sleeping at his friend’s house, the Genie has broken on the garage door, and our son scratched the front of the dishwasher with a pair of scissors.

The signs indicate there is trouble.

Surely, any impartial observer would find fault with my husband attending a bachelor party at a strip joint, and going incognito for four days. Why then do I not change the locks on the doors, and tell him that if he likes his friend so much, he can stay there?

Women out there, you are not going to like this, but I am dependent on him now. I have a 2-year old and and a 10-year old to look after. I promise to write more on this soon, but suffice it to say that I am not ashamed of being financially dependent right now.

The single strongest driving force in resisting divorce is the well being of my kids. There is no affair involved, or addiction, or substantial abuse going on, (although the last two have minor parts in this drama). Therefore, I hang in there.

Frankly, I am amazed at how much pain I will tolerate in order to preserve the chance of a united home.

I am not a wallflower. I don’t just sit back and take his tirades like a whipped dog. I defend myself. I withdraw from conversations that have gone into attack mode. I am getting help and I have gone back to a 12-Step program, both of which help bolster me.

Most likely I will never receive a string of apologies. All I really care about is much greater understanding and cooperation between us. That's what I want my kids to grow up with.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: apologies, therapist, understanding, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

It started with five overdraft fees of thirty-three dollars each. I pleaded with customer service to remove the charges. 

Labels: cacao, chocolate, customer loyalty, Dagoba chocolate, fridge, late bank fees, save money, spend money, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

We read that it’s good to praise your child, in fact, a ratio of five positive statements to every negative one is recommended. I understand the concept and believe in it. However, I am surprised at how often saying nothing at all is the best response, despite it being incredibly challenging given the driving insistence of my daughter.

Last week, she asked for a skateboard. Her dad bought her one. The next day at the park, she couldn’t get the board to turn without shifting the front end. She was frustrated and asked me what to do.

“Maybe your foot position isn’t right.”

“But, it is, Mommy. “

“Maybe it’s about weighting your feet on the board. “

“I can’t Mommy or I'll fall. “

“I don’t know then. “

“But, Mommy, it’s not working. The board is broken. “

“It’s not broken. You'll figure this out," I say as I walk away.

She feigns crying.

I know from experience that the ONLY plausible response on my part at this moment is to say nothing, no matter what she says, or what she accuses me of: in short, completely ignore her. This is very hard for me, because I am tempted to conjure up just one more angle that might solve her problem. The trouble is that she’s not listening to me, she can’t at this point. She has to realize that only she will solve it.

Friends, this has worked so many times. It worked with her Heelys. She was miffed when I left her stranded in the kitchen one day. But, guess what she did! She set up the kitchen chairs in a row and pulled herself from one to the next until she became more comfortable with the sliding action. Then, she took the chairs away one by one, until she was zipping solo across all the bare floors of the house, then down the aisles at Costco and Target. I could not have come up with the chair idea if I tried.

Will she master the skateboard? I’d put my money on it. Should I keep my advice and commentary to a minimum? Yes, except that I slipped yesterday. She completed a half circle on the board.

“You’re amazing!” I said.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Costco, Heeleys, skateboarding, supportive mother, Target, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

I'm seated at a table outdoors somewhere -- a swank L.A. eatery? Something occupies my hands. I'm making a pair of earrings, slicing frilly lettuce, or ???. . .

Ted Danson sits across from me and another man is to my left. I feel their eyes upon me. Interest, desire, that thing -- you women know. I feel shy, a little scared.

“You forty-four?” Ted asks.

“No, forty-two,” I respond too quickly. I immediately avert my eyes.

Time bends again. I lose myself in that primordial dream state.

Suddenly, I feel self-conscious again. I look up. Ted Danson is stretched out on a chair next to me, naked, skinny and hirsute. He searches for my approval, or better yet, my enthusiasm. I look away, trying not to laugh out loud.

Back to primordial fluid dream state.

Now my husband sits opposite me, his eyes fixed on something he’s working on -- eating, patching a tire tube, or ???. . .

“You happier with just the kids?

“No,” I state emphatically. I still want us to be an intact family.

“I am.”

This jolts me awake. Anxiety gnaws away at my solar plexus as I lay in our queen-size bed without him. He’s staying with a friend. I try to get back to sleep. I stuff a small, hard throw pillow beneath my stomach and the bed. My head’s bent at a sharp right angle, my ear pressed against the mattress. It’s a technique I have developed over the years.

Twenty minutes takes me to a deep sleep, thankfully devoid of dreams, until morning.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: dream state, Dreams, hot guy, husband, L.A., Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

I took my ten-year old daughter and two-year old son to Bob's Pumpkin Patch five miles south of Half Moon Bay this morning.

My daughter and I alternated carrying Baby Brother on our backs through the corn maze. Our dog tore off ahead of us, absolutely ecstatic about this set of new smells and sounds.

Then I wheeled my son around in a wheelbarrow through the pumpkin and corn field. My daughter picked out some big fat round orange squashes. I pointed out a flock of red-winged blackbirds. It veered off in varying directions, settling down in a spot in the pumpkin field, then launching off toward another part.

Later, I found a ladybug on the spiny stem of a pumpkin vine. I put it on my son's hand. We watched it for a good while. It stretched out its translucent black wings from underneath its spotted forewings. Then it folded them back in, content I guess with its current location on the warm skin of my son's hand.

I just love those birds and ladybugs and dogs, each with its distinct design and grace.

I make myself look at them again even if I have seen a million before, because if I were to revisit my turbulent feelings regarding my fragile marriage, I might instantly cry again.

Before I had kids, I could just let my tears flow, go write in my journal, then go have a tea or a pint somewhere with or without a friend. Now, I have to keep going. Keep doing the things that I have liked doing with the kids, and let the future shape itself.

While I cannot prevent my daughter from seeing my distress at all times, I can try to focus on the next thing. Is it cleaning? Preparing a meal? Raking the leaves? Scanning craigslist for new job possibilities? Reading "Calvin and Hobbes" with my daughter? Wrestling my son?

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: daughters, fragile marriage, pumpkins, sons, surviving, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

Gawd, parenting is fun sometimes.

My son tells me he does not like school. Since for ninety-five percent of children under the age of twelve, recess is the only good thing about education, I urge him to consider the merits of the playground at school.

“Is there a slide outside at your school?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a sandbox?”

“Yes.”

“A tricycle?”

“Yes.”

“Elephants?”

“Yes.”

Then a typical conversation between my ten-year old daughter and me:

“I have a bodyguard at school.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

I snicker, imagining the negotiation on the schoolyard. I ask, “What makes you need a bodyguard? What sort of important person are you?”

“Uh, I am special.”

“Unspecified special?”

“Yep, unspecified special.”

And:

The little one is cranky. He does not want to walk through the grass to the car. He does not want a snack. He only wants to be held. My lower back has become sore by holding this thirty-five pound lamb chop, so I am not willing to carry him the distance to the car.

I pretend I have received a call on the cell phone. “Luis,” I say, “it’s the elephant on the playground. She wants to talk to you.”

He reaches for the phone. Just as I begin to worry that he will quickly bore of listening to a silent cell phone, my daughter offers to call him and pretend she’s the elephant.

Ten minutes later, he’s lifting his leg into the car, while carrying on an intense conversation with Miss Elephant.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: school, silly, Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

In trying to be a responsible parent, last week I pulled aside one of the fencing coaches of my daughter and informed her that Natalia’s father and I were beginning the divorce process, and that this might affect her performance in class.

The coach said that indeed she was holding back, and that she was not progressing at the rate that they had anticipated given her stellar start.

Ouch.

A few days passed. As we prepared to leave the house one morning, I said – and it just came out like this – “Hey, Natalia, you go to fencing tonight. You have to train so you can kick some ass at the invitational this weekend.”

My daughter giggled. I shrank. Oopsy, I thought, I ought not use that language.

I could have said, "It’s okay to win. It’s okay to want to win. No need to be a lady."

Or, I could have gone the let’s-talk-about-our-feelings route. "You know, honey, Coach says you’ve been holding back. Is anything wrong? Do you want to talk about it?"

But, my friends, what I said worked. The next practice, she reverted to the aggressive fencer that she was before, and was much happier for it.

I remember the moment when I lost my fear of skiing. I was in a van with my brother and a bunch of his medical student friends, none of whom I knew and all of whom I feared. Vermont was six hours away. What would I do with all that time if I had no intention of talking with them?

I decided that I was going use the time to brainwash myself. I was tired of being a wimpy skier. I had been cautious way too many years, and I felt bored. So I began my silent self-hypnosis. I am not afraid of skiing. I am whizzing down the mountain and I feel exhilarated. I am strong.

The next day, I pushed myself off the chairlift and without hesitating, I headed straight down the mountain. I am not afraid. I am strong. Whee!

I want my daughter to feel the same liberation in all the things she does. If it takes a few choice words to steer her toward that, well, that’s what it takes. Language is meant to be used, no?

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

The neighbors across the street were receiving appliances from Sears. I asked for the box the stove came in. Then I dragged it into the garage. With a box cutter I cut a door, a round window and the upper three lines of a rectangle.

Later, I invited my daughter and son to decorate it. She painted one side pale blue, and wrote “Natalia’s crib” over the front door (too much hip-hop, I’m afraid.) My two-year old son scribbled.

A few days later my daughter initiated the effort to drag this box up into the living room. Not much action around the crib for a few days. Then one Saturday morning while I puttered around, I heard them talking. I peeked in. I watched as my son knocked on the rectangular pane. It came flying down.

“Yes, sir, what would you like?” asked my daughter.

My son placed two pennies on the counter and asked for candy.

“Here you go, sir, and come back soon to the snack bar.” The she folds the counter in, and my son knocks again. POW! The pane comes flying down. A little rough for my frayed nerves, but the kids are working it out.

Later, I hear my daughter shrieking unimaginably loud (the neighbors and passerby could have heard her easily), “GET OUT OF THAT SNACK BAR,” as she careens into the living room. Then some giggling. A minute passes. Some shuffling.

“GET OUT OF THAT SNACK BAR.”

I peek into the living room.

“Ah. . . are you sure that’s okay what you're doing?” I ask my daughter lamely.

“He likes it,” she says.

I look over and sure enough he’s peering out the round window from inside the box.
“GET OUT OF THAT SNACK BAR,” my daughter shrieks again. Giggles and scuffling inside.

Now my daughter uses the snack bar as a tool to comfort her brother. “Want to play snack bar?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay, after you put your underwear and pants and shirt on, we’ll play snack bar.”

It doesn’t come naturally to me to stay out of their affairs, but it’s worth the effort.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

I spot an open box of Walgreen’s tampons in the entry way of my ex’s home as I wait to pick up my son. My ex walks back and forth past the tampons and the overnight bag on his way to pick up this and that for the baby to have when he’s at my house.

My daughter isn’t menstruating – check. Must be a new girlfriend – check.

Now the onslaught of thoughts. First the selfish ones: Oh god, is he going to be the happily married one in ten years, and me ten years older, fatter, more wrinkled, and less desirable? This can’t be; he can’t possibly be that tight with someone this soon. After all, a one-night stand would not have left a box of tampons AND an overnight bag.

What does she look like? Is she thinner than me? Fewer wrinkles? Has she experienced his intimidation yet? Are they past that lusty sexual phase and into the it’s-just you-again phase? What sort of woman would sign up for his situation?

Then the less selfish concerns: How is this affecting my daughter and son? How weird must it be for my daughter to see this woman with her father? Does it hurt her? Confuse her? Do I tell her that I know? How is affecting my son?

My son was absolutely impossible last night and this morning. Wouldn’t pee on the toilet, so he peed in the bed. Wants a banana, doesn’t want a banana. Wants the bicycle book, doesn’t want the bicycle book. Is there a connection between the presence of the other woman and his agitated state? I don’t know. How freaky is his and my daughter’s life going to be?

One might say that it’s just contemporary life; they will get used to it. I think that’s a cop out. I have observed a sort of pained resignation in the faces of many children of divorce when they speak about their parents in any depth. Pain and resignation. I am sorry that this has happened. I am sorry for my children. Yes, they will survive, but something was taken from them that I am not sure can ever be replaced.

And that hurts.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

Okay, so I have met a guy that I like. Now, I want to meet his eight-year old son, and I’d like him to meet my two children. I am very proud of my children, I love them very much. Of course, I want my acquaintances to know these two lovely creatures.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?” you may ask.

Well, there is no problem for me. Quite the contrary. It would make my day to meet another young person, especially someone so important to this guy.

I imagine that this guy would like to meet my children. It would make his day.

It’s the dear children that must be considered. They are the ones with one parent in one house and the other in a different one. They really don’t need a third person to triangulate. They simply are not equipped at their ages – three, eight and eleven – to grapple with the uncertainty of whether the new guy and I will stay together.

Introducing one another as “just a friend” is not an option because the eight- and eleven-year olds will sniff that lie out right away. Even if we have no physical contact, they will figure out they we are sleeping together.

“And so?” you may ask.

A conservative would jump right in here and yell about the extramarital sex thing, and he/she had a point forty years ago. But, times have changed. What’s the figure? You might know it. Let’s just say that the vast majority of Americans don’t have a problem with sex before marriage and sex after marriage.

I don’t understand how Dr. Laura expects divorced people to abstain from sex until their kids are eighteen years old and out of the house. Either she is patronizing her audience by failing to mention that level-headed people can take good care of their children and date without harming the children. Or, she is a cruel person that actually believes that a normal person can simply switch off his/her libido, and then switch it back on at a future date.

I fall squarely into the group that knows that it’s normal and natural to want intimacy before a marriage, in a marriage and after it.

That said, my kids do not need to know about my love life.

My having an intimate relationship with someone very much does matter to them. In their young minds, such an arrangement would mean that maybe the new guy and I as a couple, a little closer to the husband/wife ideal relationship, might/could/would become the new gravity point in their lives. Therefore, the relationship with the remaining parent shifts in some imperceptible but certain and disquieting way.

And they really don’t need to go there, not now, not until I am sure that the partnership between me and a new guy is serious, strong and lasting. Asking them to assimilate a new member to their family is a lot. It ought not be another exercise in hope and loss.

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post

My daughter has officially begun flirting. She’s at sailing camp at Treasure Island.

She said while setting the table the other night, “Martin is mean.”

“Ah, ha” I responded, trying not to pounce all over that statement. I just wanted to savor it because I knew something delicious would follow. You see, she wasn’t acting hurt.

After a minute or two, I ask, “How is he mean?”

“He asked me, ‘how are the wife and kids?’”

“Ah ha,” I responded, “did you say something back?”

She said, “I asked him later, ‘how is your hubby?” Not the shrinking violet that I was when I was her age. I only pretended to like boys in that way because the popular girls were into the boys.

I just need to take a deep breath and listen. I watched the last half of The Ice Princess with her last night. The boy and girl kiss on the lips in the end. After she put away the DVD, she skedaddled downstairs, her energy is different; something has awakened.

My energy has changed, too. I amused myself at my daughter’s expense the other day. I asked the mother of a schoolmate of my daughter if she would take her home one day this week. She agreed.

Then I ran to my daughter and said, “Ha, ha, you are going to get a ride with Ivan and his mom on Thursday. “

“With Ivan?” she asked.

“Yup. Ha, ha.”

“Oh God,” she said, melting down into the car seat.

Sometimes, I feel an inkling of panic. My mind coughs up the thought, if she weren’t with that whirling dervish friend of hers at camp, this wouldn’t be happening. However, it was going to happen. My daughter is an intelligent, attractive, stylish (more than I ever was) young lady. The boys were just looking for a way to talk to her.

My tasks are to first keep my mouth closed and then coax my mind into acceptance. If she is going to begin flirting, Treasure Island Sailing Camp is a good spot. She’s under the supervision of the camp counselors.

“So, was Martin mean to you today?”I ask.

“No, but Ivan was.”

“Really?” I am trying not to crack up.

“Yes,” she said, “he left us on the beach.”

“But he came back for you?”

“Yes.” Then she added, “Then we left him on the beach.”

“Did you go back for him?”

“Yes.”

By Vicki Inglis

Labels: Vicki Inglis

Stumble This Post