As you can probably tell by the long pause in blogging, December was a difficult month. Zoe and Leo are doing well, but we had a lot of hiccups. Under normal circumstances, I manage to keep things under control – barely. But if one little thing goes wrong, it gets hard. In December, we had a few little illnesses (just sniffles), I hurt my back, Sam was on holiday from school, my babysitter got sick, there was Christmas itself, and my babysitter spent m0re time with her family. That was enough to put blogging (and a lot of other things) on the back burner. Adam was home a bit more than usual, but he did most of the work for Christmas – setting up the decorations, wrapping presents, etc., so that was a wash in terms of taking care of babies. The back injury required muscle relaxers which meant that I couldn’t breastfeed, which meant that I had to pump to keep up my milk supply. That was a horrible week. Anyway, when you’re living on the edge like this and something goes wrong, it’s like cascade failure. One problem causes another, and another, and another, and that went on pretty much the whole month.

The other thing that happened in December was the onset of mild postpartum depression. Just like with Sam, I was fine for months before I noticed a problem. I’m not even sure if what I’m going through would be called PPD or just “baby blues.” I just tend to find the negative in everything, and as soon as I finish the day’s work, all I want to do is crawl into bed and watch Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab. Even if I had had more time, I didn’t want to blog because I had nothing good to say. I feel good today, so I’m hoping to get two posts done, but I make no promises. I might just crawl back into that hole in a few hours.

Along with the depression came the lovely part of postpartum life when all your hair falls out. Clumps of my hair are everywhere. My psoriasis is worse than it’s ever been, and my mystery pain is coming back. And in December, I didn’t lose any weight. My scale tells me that I gained a tenth of a pound. Maybe I don’t have PPD after all – who wouldn’t be down with all of that going on?

In fact, maybe I’m depressed because I haven’t been blogging. Or maybe it is just the shortened days of winter. Who knows – causality is beyond me right now – I’m just getting through each day.

It probably sounds worse than it is. I’ve done some thinking on paper and have plans to address the things that are under my control. I plan to keep using my babysitter this semester and not to skimp on that help. That’s the thing that keeps me most sane, and allows me to spend time with Sam. Sam going back to school will help too. I have doctor’s appointments lined up to deal with my health issues. The return of the pain scares the crap out of me, but I need to remember that, even if I don’t know why I have the pain, I do have a way to make it better: the PRP therapy I had a few years ago. I’ll do that before I let it get so bad that I’m crawling up and down the stairs. I’m letting go of the weight loss goal for now. I don’t think I have much control of it while breastfeeding, so I’ll just try to maintain, and address it again when my hormones settle down. But so that I don’t cry every time I have to get dressed to go outside the house, I’m buying some fat clothes. I hate to do it, but it’s better than the alternative. With Sam, I refused to buy any new cl0thes because I would not accept my new weight, and I’ve spent the past 5 years wearing whatever I could pick up at Target while shopping for soap and towels and boxed wine. There are other actions I plan to take, too, like setting up regular date nights with Adam and things like that.

But with all the talk of New Year’s resolutions, I feel even more pathetic. I hear people planning to get in shape, travel, start a new career, or other such ambitious notions. My resolutions are to keep showering every day and to eat more sushi. My plans are so small. Really? Going out for dinner with my husband twice a month is an action-item? Yes, it is, and it is difficult to achieve. I don’t know why I find it so hard to accept that taking care of Leo and Zoe has to trump so many other things, but I do. I did this dropping context thing with Sam too, and I thought I learned my lesson: that it is all just temporary. But even though I know that, it bugs me. I want to be doing those ambitious things, too.

And that brings me to my final note. I do have one project that is ambitious. In fact, in my context, it is a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). It is time to begin the real preparation for homeschooling. Sam graduates from Montessori in June, and I plan to start working with her in August. I figure if I start now, I’ll be ready by then. And that is exciting. Still, instead of starting at the beginning of January like I had planned, I have to put it off for at least two weeks to catch up after crazy December.

As you can see, my emotions about these things are all over the place. I feel like I’m doing nothing, but I have a huge goal in front of me. I want to hole up and watch tv, but I want to be out pursuing more values. It’s all part of the first year with babies, for me.

What I do have is tendonitis.  I also have the equivalent of carpel tunnel syndrome in my ankle (tarsal tunnel syndrome), plantar fasciitis in my heel, and other inflamed areas around tendons and ligaments.  That’s all in my right foot and ankle, so we’re assuming that the pain in the other areas of my body is of the same nature.  Since I’ve had no injuries and I don’t overuse any of these parts of my body, my doctor thinks that I might have a genetic condition that makes me more susceptible to damage to my connective tissue.  Basically, I’m fragile.

This concierge physician I hired is finally starting to pay off.  The rheumatologist who ordered the MRI wanted to send me to a podiatrist for the foot problems and to a hand surgeon for my hand, and to specialists for every other part of my body that hurts.  She did not integrate the evidence.  My concierge physician did, and assures me that we will keep working to understand why this is happening so it can be treated in the most appropriate way.  He agrees with me that it is absurd to see separate doctors for each area of the body.  He and I agreed that the best step now is for me to go back to the pain specialist who performed my PRP therapy two years ago and get it done again.  It cured me for over a year last time, and the fact that it worked is consistent with this tentative and vague diagnosis.  I’m a little worried that I won’t have time to get it done before the donor egg process interferes, but I’ll find out in the next two weeks.

After that, the doctor wants me to have the genetic analysis he originally suggested.  His very first theory about my pain was exactly this (apparently there are rare but known genetic disorders that cause this kind of fragility), and I thought it was such a remote possibility that I didn’t do the tests.  I’m still not sure what it would get me to do the genetic testing – I mean, I don’t know if it would affect any decisions about long term treatment or management of my condition.  I plan to talk to the doctor more about that in a couple of months, as well as discussing what else might be causing this besides a genetic abnormality.  (The genetic analysis is expensive and not covered by insurance.)  For now, I’m just trying to get myself back to being functional without meds.

But I’m feeling a huge sense of relief since getting this diagnosis.  It’s somehow much less scary to have tendonitis than lupus, even though I really have no idea yet if my condition could be degenerative or have other long-term effects that are worse than lupus.  But knowing that my pain is the same thing that people feel when they have tennis-elbow makes it seem less mysterious and threatening.  I guess the real issue is that I have less uncertainty.  Not knowing what was wrong with me was such a huge source of stress.  Not knowing why it would get worse and worse was scary because I never knew where it would end – at one point I was convinced I would be bedridden in a hospital within months.  Now I know that it gets worse because I keep moving.  I can’t really live without moving, but at least I have a framework for understanding what is going on in my body, and I can develop a plan to deal with it.

I have to admit that I also have a sense of relief and validation that now I know that my doctors and others can’t write me off as a hypochondriac.  I’ve had crippling pain, with absolutely no evidence of a health problem, for years now.  I’ve had dozens of tests which, until now, have all been negative.  I’ve been told to consider what I deem to be irrational, non-scientific answers such as fibromyalgia (whose definition is essentially “mystery pain” and so means nothing) and leaky-gut syndrome (which claims to explain practically every ailment known to man, and so can not possibly explain anything).  I went by my own independent judgement and refused to accept anything that did not make sense to me, or which conflicted in principle with the rest of my knowledge, and I’ve been vindicated.  Even when I was wrong (by not following the concierge physician’s initial advice), I had good reason, and I ended up at the truth in the end.

It’s been a real strain on my self-confidence, though.  If I were Howard Roark or Dagny Taggart I might have been able to travel this path without self-doubt, but I have had a lot of self-doubt.  Coming to this place now is more than just a step towards physical health – it’s also a great lesson for my mental health.  I just spent three years trying to solve a problem and it seemed that at every turn, there was someone or something trying to convince me that I was deluded.  But, by persisting and relying on my own judgment, I did solve the problem.  Or, at least, I’ve begun to.  It’s a great boon to my self-esteem, which, lately, has been very fragile itself.

Before I go on, I need to say that I have so much sympathy for Kate and I think she is an extraordinarily brave woman for writing so honestly about her situation.  Her frankness about this taboo subject is exactly what I’ve tried to do here on my blog regarding miscarriage.  She is also an excellent writer and has many other virtues.  I like her. 

But what I want to talk about is something that came up on OGrownups that relates to something I’ve been working on in my own character.  A couple of people (whom I respect and don’t mean to pick on) made comments about Kate facing reality (a good thing) and acting selfishly (another good thing).  Read the linked posts for the full background, but basically, Kate is acknowledging that she did not fully face the reality of her son’s situation soon enough, and she is choosing to have an early, scheduled C-section with her current pregnancy because she can’t cope with the uncertainty of when a natural labor will occur (something that might be considered selfish).

I think it is a mistake to attribute to Kate the virtues of facing reality and of selfishness.  It’s the kind of mistake I used to make all the time—well, I’m sure I still do, but I’m working on it.  I am only speaking for myself here, but I have a long standing error of psychologizing others based on my own motivations.  I am not objective in my view of other people.  More concretely, I see others’ actions and words in terms of my own character, and since my own character is pretty damn good(!), this means I end up being much too generous in my judgments.  (Occasionally I make the revserse mistake, too, though.)  If I could see myself saying or doing the same thing, then I attribute my own reasons to the other person, even when there is no evidence for it.  So when someone is, say, afraid to drive a car, instead of asking myself if that person has a pattern of acting fearfully or if they have something in their past which could explain it, I ask myself, “Have I ever been afraid of something for good reason?” and then I assume that they have as good a reason as I would have.  It seems ridiculous when I write it out, but I’ve used this pattern of judging people for my whole life!  It is very difficult to change, but I believe it explains a lot about my difficulties in judging and dealing with people.

So I’ve been working hard at being more objective in my evaluation of others, and the comments about Kate Granju set off my red flags.  I don’t mean to make my usual mistake here and assume that the comments on OGrownups were made based on the same problem I have, but I did have to think through the evidence to figure out if I agreed that Kate Granju acted selfishly and was focused on reality, espcially since I already do like her and want to believe that.  Here is a sample of my thought-process:

I don’t think Kate is really facing reality in her self-condemnation regarding her son’s drug problem.  She blames herself for not seeing it as a disease sooner.  It may be true that she made mistakes and did not face reality in the past, and it’s good if she can see that.  But I note that on her blog she is more and more often calling her son’s addiction a “disease” and saying he was “sick.”  I think this is a new evasion, not a recognition of reality.  Calling addiction a disease is a way of evading the choice involved in using the substance or engaging in the behavior one is addicted to.  I do not accept the “disease” label of addiction, and I can’t overlook Kate’s use of it as irrelevant.  (I’m not going to make an argument here for that position – the point is just that I hold that principle and I can’t overlook it and assume it has no bearing on my judgment of her.) 

I also don’t think that the idea that “this could happen to anyone” (an idea Kate seems to be really pushing) is valid in the case of addiction.  That is the same as saying, “becoming a wife-beater could happen to anyone.”  Becoming addicted ultimately rests on a series of choices, even if there are huge physiological factors involved.  (Again, I’m not making a full argument here, but stating the principle I hold which applies.)  There is an element of truth here, though, which is that parents cannot directly control their children’s behavior.  Maybe Kate doesn’t mean that “addiction can happen to anyone” but that “anyone’s children could become addicts.”  No matter how well you parent, your child has free-will and could indeed become an addict.  But, paired with the “disease” theory, I can’t assume that Kate means it this way.  And my hackles are raised just with the phrase itself.  Cancer can happen to anyone and car accidents can happen to anyone, but we all know this so we get checkups and wear seatbelts and move on with our lives.  We also teach our children the facts about drugs.  Kate’s insistence upon this point sounds to me like she is looking for another way to evade awareness of the choices that were involved for her son, as if it were mere bad luck that he was an addict.

As for the C-section, Kate questions whether her decision might be “selfish,” (which she seems to define as better for her than for the baby) but I don’t think that means that she is acting selfishly, in the proper sense.  Kate is religious and has lauded altruistic principles many times in her blog.  There is no reason to think that she is acting out of selfishness, even if it appears so in some ways.  In the past, I would think how I might make the same decision for selfish reasons and assume that she is doing the same (and I do, in fact, think it is a good decision).  But there is no evidence that this is the case with Kate because of what I already know about her beliefs.  This seems to be an instance of inconsistency, and as we Objectivists know, the bad/evil/immoral requires inconsistency since it is incompatible with life.  Kate’s decision to have a C-section to satisfy her own needs looks to me exactly like those mothers who talk about how it’s ok to have “me-time.”  They are not acting selfishly, but granting themselves an exception to the rule of altruism.  Often, they will justify their “me-time” by claiming that it makes them better mothers, and it’s true – it does.  For me, that would be an instance of “no conflicts of interest” but for them, it’s a rationalization.  That is not selfishness, and neither is a choice like Kate’s.

Again, I don’t mean to denigrate Kate.  I do think that she is virtuous in many ways, and I love her writing, and I certainly don’t think her son’s problem was her fault.  Despite my views, I don’t think her son was necessarily a bad person because of his addiction.  The whole thing is tragic and horrifying.  And even though Kate Granju is not an Objectivist and is not just like me, I can still like her for what she is.  And I’m starting to see how wonderfully clarifying it is to see people for what they are, instead of just through Amy-colored lenses.  Now, that’s facing reality, if I do say so myself!

What struck me about this list is how heavy the home improvement category is.  I mean, it really shouldn’t need its own category!  I spent a great deal of time on this house and it looks like it will continue for much of this year.  That’s ok with me.  I enjoy the process and it’s very important to me to live in a pleasant, orderly environment.  Still, I plan to work on shifting the balance at least a little bit in 2010.

Writing out the list was definitely a valuable exercise.  I already felt like 2009 was a good year for me, but I had no idea that I did all of this!  I am also in the process of writing out my future goals, and I used the Accomplishments list to remind me of things that I am already doing that I want to continue, or which fit into broader goals that I have.

I edited the list a bit for public consumption, and I’m sure it’s quite a bore to anyone but me, but just like the Three Good Things, planning to put it up here on the blog helped motivate me to both start and finish it.  I bolded a few of the most significant accomplishments, but really, 2009 was a year of many Little Things.  Here they are, loosely categorized but otherwise in no particular order:

Personal

• I did the Three Good Things exercise for about 6 months out of the year
• Made significant progress in my introspection work (details omitted)
• Organized and decorated and shopped and cooked for a great Christmas at home
• I took a fair amount of pictures and got some of them organized into photo albums
• Did volunteer work for ARI
• Got a fish
• I walked the dog regularly when the weather allowed
• I started getting monthly massages
• I managed my pain through massage and stress reduction, so that I had almost no pain all year
• I changed my diet and worked on new habits of shopping and cooking to suit it
• I started listening to music again
• I started listening to LP and DH podcasts
• I lost 8 pounds (and gained them back)
• I showered about 75% of the time
• I found an inexpensive hairdresser
• I joined a book club
• I read a few books in the Great Books Series, Ten Years of Reading project.
• I read many books
• I went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
• I went to the Reston Zoo
• I went to Mt. Vernon
• I started practicing the piano again
• Adam and I decided to have another baby
• I got pregnant
• I grieved a lost pregnancy
• I hosted a party for the first time since 1999
• I visited North Carolina
• I visited Florida
• I visited NYC
• I took a lot of videos of Sam
• I attended a talk by John Allison at The Ayn Rand Center
• I found a dentist
• I watched the entire Battlestar Galactica series
• I kept in touch with my friends
• Started using Skype with a few friends
• I hosted at least 23 different guests at my house
• I hosted a couple of playdates and took Sam out for a few.
• I attended a Tea Party protest
• Visited the Jefferson Memorial
• Visited the Smithsonian
• I found a dermatologist
• I graded essays for ARI
• I celebrated my 7^th wedding anniversary

Blog

• I maintained my blog regularly all year – 554 posts
• I upgraded and added a few new features to the blog: subscribe to comments, search Objectivist parenting blogs, and Feedburner
• I more than tripled my blog readership during the year
• I added advertisements to my blog
• I made my first money with ads on the blog
• I hosted the Objectivist Round Up 4 times

Writing

• I decided to try fiction writing
• I started my first novel
• I came up with a few other story ideas

Home Improvement

• Found a good housecleaner
• Installed a mirror in the bedroom
• Created a prioritized list of home improvement projects
• Got the toilets fixed and put on new toilet seats
• Got the basement laundry sink fixed
• Put up all of our art
• I designed and Adam put together my new, personalized office space with a short desk.
• Replaced the eat in kitchen light fixture
• I did a lot of unpacking and throwing away old junk from the previous occupants of this house, and continued the cleaning process
• Adam and I got rid of all of the cardboard boxes that we had been saving and hauling around for all of our moves.
• I cleaned the grout in the kitchen (a 2 month project)
• Had new windows installed
• Moved playroom to kitchen and created dining room
• New lighting in kitchen, dining room, basement, and foyer
• Got the roof fixed
• Started planning for painting the house

Financial

• I created and stuck to a budget for 10 months of the year
• I did the taxes
• I moved Sam’s 529 to VA
• I paid all the bills and did all the financial planning and reporting

Parenting

• I was Sammy’s mommy for 365 days and nights and there is no way to list all of the accomplishments this involved
• I explored Positive Discipline parenting techniques
• Took Sammy to see “Go, Dog, Go,” the musical
• Did an “observation” at MSO
• Found a good and cheap babysitter
• Took Sammy to the pumpkin patch
• Planned and executed Halloween with Sammy, including lots of decorations
• Re-read Faber and Mazlish
• The daily schedule whiteboard
• The cooperation chart/new task chart
• I found Sam a new doctor
• I made up many songs
• I made 31 Valentines day cards with Sammy
• I found a Montessori school after a long quest
• I registered Sam for Montessori and helped her through the transition in starting school
• I attended a 7 week Montessori for toddlers program with Sammy
• I potty trained Sam
• I took Sam sledding
• I took Sam to the water park and helped her conquer her fear of the water slide
• I started teaching Sam to read
• I attended 2 homeschooling conferences and made significant progress on my homeschooling plans.
• I taught Sam how to dress and undress herself, all except for shoes.
• I continued to arrange the house in a way that allows Sam to be very independent, including many stools, the light switch extenders, her own broom, rake, and shovel, her low-slung closet, her low mirror in the dining room, and her low coat rack.
• Moved Sammy from her crib to her toddler bed
• I arranged for two occasions where Sammy spent a couple of nights away from mommy and daddy.
• I made up dozens of stories
• I taught Sam how to know it is morning using her teach me time clock.
• I planned and executed Sammy’s 3^rd birthday party

Here is Ms. Moroney’s description of how to take stock of your achievements:

2010 is just getting started. To begin on an inspiring note, I suggest you spend a little time taking stock of your achievements from 2009. Make a record of your accomplishments–everything you did or said or bought or made happen that you’re proud of. This is not a journalistic account of the ups and downs of the year; it includes only the successes. They’re what matter most in the long run; they’re worth pausing to reflect on to give you fuel for 2010.

This is similar to advice I relayed some time ago to record three good things at the end of each day.* It is not a mindless exercise in feel-good, rah rah positive thinking. Reviewing your actual achievements is much more profound than that. It reaffirms emotionally that these successes are good and important, and keeps that context activated.

There is an added benefit to reviewing the whole year. You get to see the brightest achievements all in one list–a list as long as you can make it. To make sure you remember the highlights, I
recommend you review your calendar or some other record of your activities; it’s surprisingly easy to forget important achievements from months ago.

If it was a difficult year, you can see clearly all you accomplished in the face of adversity. If it was an unusually good year, you get to count up the amazing total of successes. When you see the year as a whole, you add to the sense of yourself as one who achieves something over time. As you do this over many years, you can reflect on long-term improvements that you see from year to year.

I think you will also find that reflecting on the successes of the
previous year puts you in a good frame of mind to look to the
future. As you review, you will find some unfinished business. Seen in the context of all you did accomplish, it’s natural to treat these items as next year’s successes, rather than last year’s failures. I always find the process leaves me inspired to achieve more in the future, because I am building on the success of the past.

This reflection takes a little time, but the time has a payoff.  Reviewing your achievements across the year gives you a sense of yourself, and helps you keep your life in perspective.

A productive and happy 2010 to you.

*The “Three Good Things” article is on the site at:
http://www.thinkingdirections.com/Tips03ThreeGood.htm

Jean Moroney, President of Thinking Directions, teaches managers, business owners, and other professionals how to tap their own knowledge banks to solve problems faster, make better decisions, and communicate more effectively. Corporations hire her to train their managers in “Thinking Tactics” to help them get more done with fewer resources. For more information, visit: http://www.thinkingdirections.com.

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