Five minute blogging: Travel

 We just took the kids off on a Big Adventure Trip. Things I learned:

• I am not taking the 16 year old on any more trips for at least 4 years
• Travel clothesline and power banks were the two most useful things 
• Honorable mention to fast dry travel towels in a moderately priced four-pack
• The little one rises to the occasion on adventures, but also wears out well before her siblings
• They will eat pretty much anything 
• I am the only person in the family who sleeps on planes

ADHD Part 2

Having now accessed legal drugs for this,  it is absolutely WILD to take controlled substances that are stimulants and feel calm and a little sleepy.

Children

Child #2 just got a cellphone because I'm tired of managing all the things and I don't want to deal with it. Like music from his sax teacher and soccer messages and texting his friends to get together and looking up recipes. This is how parents just give up as they work through the children. 

(The usual draconian parental controls have been applied. It's fine.  He goes away for soccer games and legit needs to get in touch with us. Also, he's 13.)

ADHD

I have an evaluation on Monday.  I'm not that kind of doctor,  but I feel like the normal number of times per month to set your smoke alarm off at 3 AM because you forgot something on the stove is probably  ZERO. 

Important Note To Self

When you can't walk up all ten stairs without pausing, and/or when you spend two days in bed because you can't breathe,  it is time for MEDICAL ATTENTION and LOTS OF DRUGS,  dumbass (and somewhat short of breath) self. (My baseline is I lift weights and do vigorous exercise 3-5 days a week.)

Cue my favorite neurologist saying "my patients often accept as routine a level of pain and disability that other people would find completely unacceptable."

Five minute blogging: ADHD

 My oldest kid has just been diagnosed with Inattentive Type ADHD,  which is good to know and explains a lot. We can help him more effectively now that we know this thing! However, in reading about it, I've realized that I too have this thing.

Now I'm wondering how much of who I am is normal human behavior and how much is a bundle of problems glued together with anxiety and a rigid organizational system.  Like is all of me one big problem that I need to solve? Probably no but then which parts ARE the problems.  

????

 The other night at the Hobby Group Party, a very nice woman said (in all sincerity) that she couldn't take her daily (one teaspoon of) apple cider vinegar while pregnant. 

I was polite and did not ask her about her salad dressing and pickle consumption while pregnant.  But truly, the mind boggles.