Satiety: the feeling or state of being sated / from Satis ‘enough’ (Ruby)

So, while you were touring Ireland – and I hope it was great – I spent a couple weeks in the hospital with Blue – number one son, about to turn 20 – because of somewhat bizarre complications from an otherwise routine appendectomy. I won’t even attempt to describe the outward appearance of the abdominal distortion that resulted from a hematoma, nor the pain that he expressed because of an Ileus (resulting blockage and shutting down of the intestines). Such a surreal reminder of all the times you sign something, acknowledging the risks, accepting the outcome in advance. Typically, nothing happens beyond the ordinary…we wake up from surgeries, our scars heal, our lives resume. We don’t expect something to get knicked unnecessarily, poked or popped, for things to leak into unexpected places, for one minor move on the part of a surgeon to turn into a condition that later has him admit to you that he is truly “stumped” for several days. Some very uncomfortable moments for all of us and especially for Blue who was in horrible pain, all of which he has recovered from at this point, thankfully.

While nothing about this was anything I’d wish for again, I must admit that it felt very special for me to be able to be with him for so much of the time, to sit quietly with him for hours, holding his hand, watching him sleep. It segued into so many flash backs, a speed-rewind to our time as new Mom and first baby in the late ‘80’s, the first absolute solid focus in my life and it had me thinking so much about SATIETY on the part of a child or a Mom...or anyone…as in when do we ever have enough of anyone, or anything? Will we recognize it when are in the thick of it? Or do our need states just run us over, like a perpetual freight train, colliding with us unless we quickly switch tracks and start needing something else?

Since the spring, so very few months ago, I feel like my kids have changed in interesting ways…entering new phases of need…redefining “enough” as a broad concept. I told you a few months ago about my youngest’s (Ollie – 10) new wanderlust and his accusations (not yet angry, still mild accusations, thank God!) that I have essentially locked him up his whole life as he tries to convince me that “other Moms” simply don’t keep tabs on their kids…nope, not those other Moms…they let their kids just go wherever, do whatever and figure it all out on their own. Well, as of July 2009, this child is literally breaking loose every day in one way or another…not just to leave our yard for greener grass, but for the sheer pleasure derived from escaping, that thrill of having a secret…of giving your parents the sense that you are predictably in one place, while you move and roam quickly, sneakily…if only from the back yard to the front, just to get away with it (which in the case of our home, as I have described, is not easy to do because of the particular style of moat & alligators / lock & key that we adhere to for the safety of autistic Louki (17) who will definitively escape if we’re not careful, as well as the Peach – our insatiable Puggle – who believes that, according to her highly evolved dog-snack-strategy, she will get the snack of her dreams if she somehow temporarily runs away and has to be lured back home by something yummy being waved – with desperation - at her from the front steps of our house). So Ollie has figured it all out, how to slither and slink through impossibly narrow openings, how to bound over the tops of fences, walls, snarly vines, splintery obstacles, agitated bees, etc., for the singularly triumphant feeling of getting away with something he hasn’t done before and of not being where we think he is. Something magical about it. And like I’ve said before, I think it’s healthy…but not so healthy that I was eager to share his new skill with Scot the first time my visiting Mom and I noticed Ollie’s wispy frame crawling through vines at the top of our privacy fence around our backyard, before jumping down onto the top of our air conditioning unit at the side/front of our house. He looked horrified to have been busted in the act and I talked to him about needing to be super careful and to never wander away after breaking free to the coveted front side of the house, but when Scot discovered him doing the same thing a few days later – because I had not “tattled” on him to “Daddy”, Ollie protested that “Mommy said it’s fine!” which is the well honed method of children throughout history - to scapegoat one or the other parent when the moment calls for it. So this is the beginning phase of a child who has Aspergers and is severely OCD and normally super dependent on me, no longer wanting me to design his days, not even wanting me to know where he is or what he’s doing and he cannot get enough of this. He thirsts for this freedom from the moment he wakes up until bedtime and so far it has the ingredients of a self-made fun and mildly adventurous summer even if it never goes further than the front or back half of our own property.

Bowie, who just turned 12, is experiencing his own wanderlust too but his involves getting further from home than the front yard and having an infinite amount of money to spend on snack food. How perfect then that a new close friend of his lives a couple miles away and very close to some key fast food joints, including McDonald’s and Dairy Queen…other than the fact that the never-ending flow of money is not happening long term and he is too young for a summer job (although he’d love one). He did receive some cash for his birthday and will most likely invest it mostly in Blizzards, Soda and fries and although I’d love to be a parent who could tell him he has to save ½ of what he got, I think the experience of being just a tad more “out there”, making some choices on his own, budgeting at least a little and understanding that what he has is finite…has some noteworthy value.

So all of this brings me back to Blue, baby-first-born; as I sat with him in the hospital in June, I was reminded of crazy first-mom-ish behavior when I’d nurse him for as many as six straight hours and not because I thought this was a great idea but because he was insatiable and somehow I did not know, then, how to say "enough is enough" (I say this as if I know how to do this today...hmmm...still working on this one). After his appendix was removed and the complications had started to take over, Blue couldn’t drink anything for a few days and he became consumed with thirst, it was all he could think about, it almost eclipsed his pain. At the same time, he was needy, thirsty for my undivided attention and it was reminiscent of those early years when he wanted me to never take my eyes off of him, to never stop nursing, to have no interruptions take me away. During the hospital stay, I would be with him virtually all day, with quick trips here and there throughout the day to grab a meal, pick up groceries, do laundry, say hi to the other kids, etc., and while he slept when I was with him, I’d use my laptop; all of this he saw as distractions, the things that added up to my inattentiveness to him, my not being present and focused. And the crazy metaphor of his real thirst and a never-ending need for love, care and attention at this particularly vulnerable time had me thinking quite a bit about the concept of never enough presence vs. never enough absence in the lives of my children. And I don’t mean literally absence but the need on their part for you to turn your Mom-head (the one that does NOT have eyes on the back of it), let them be free, let go of them. It’s such a push-me-pull-me reality for Moms. The message is so clear: COME HERE RIGHT NOW / NOW LEAVE / LOOK AT ME / NOW BACK OFF / STOP LOOKING AT ME / COME HERE / HOW COME YOU CAN’T BE HERE FOR ME WHEN I NEED YOU? / NOW GO AWAY…

And then there is my own “thirst” and it sounds like this: I wish I could simply wave a magic wand that would make them all understand better that I am here for EACH of them as much as I can be, that my presence is sincere, not without effort and even when it does not appear to be so, it is a 24/7 commitment on my part… but that not one of them can gobble me up entirely without negative consequences for them and for me. And that when they’d prefer my “absence”, that I cannot promise I’ll ever truly look away, not meddle to a degree, not share my opinions…because this is the other side, the under-belly of a Mother’s love…and all part of the very normal ebb and flow (this comes up a lot, doesn’t it?) along the normal-but-wacky babies-to-children-to-adult continuum.

Phew...can't wait to hear about Ireland...

Ruby