Stuck Inside of Madville With The Headache Blues Again
Should write a poem about it, this headache,
all these headaches, but my head hurts
too much to do much.
*
Busy week and a half. Spent last Friday
thru Monday in Lexington. Kept Isaac
for the first time Friday night while
my son and daughter-in-law went out
to dinner. I have to admit it was a bit
scary. He got choked when he taking
his bottle (as babies do) and I was
so scared. I know mine did the same
thing--choked when they were nursing--
I only bottlefed the firstborn as I had no info
about breastfeeding when he was born, but I did
some research and found a breastfeeding support group
before I had my other two and enjoyed every
minute of the experience(well, maybe not every
minute--wasn't fun to wake up with your bed
soaked when baby slept through a feeding), and my
daughter-in-law is nursing too, but she pumps
so others can help out and have that bonding time
with Isaac as well, but it's been a while since I've
had a baby and one forgets these things. Then I worry
about tripping and falling with him (my mother
used to call me grace--I was so clumsy!). He just
seems so fragile, but I know that babies are quite strong.
Overall, things went well, but when I couldn't calm
him down and he started crying so hard that I thought
he was going to stop breathing, things got a bit hairy.
So, I walked outside in the front yard with him and he
got easy, and then about 5 minutes later, his mommy
and daddy got home and he was fine.
*
This week, my daughter called to say she and a friend
of hers were coming to stay the night and would I please
cook dinner and that she would help me when she got
here, so they came in on Tuesday night.
We invited Jake's mom over as well. I was glad
that she accepted the invite.
We had dinner and then sat outside under
the carport until well after midnight talking, laughing,
crying.
She talked a lot about Jake's death, but she also talked
a lot about his life.
There are just no words I have to give her
except I am so sorry, and so I give those,
and I hug her.
*
On Thursday, my son, daughter-in-law,
and baby Isaac came here to visit. It was
their first trip here. He did very well
on the drive and very well with his
Gramma (me) that night when his mommy
and daddy went to an interview. He also got
to meet two of his great-grandmas, his only
great-grandpa, his Uncle Wes (my baby),
and his second cousin, Elizabeth.
That night, he didn't want to sleep, and
my son came across the hall to my room
with him. He said, Mom, could you just rock
him a bit and then let him stay in here
with you for a little while? He said he and Jess
were so tired and had had so little sleep, and I know
they needed sleep, so I took him and rocked him
and then put him in the bed next to me, like I once
put my others, and he slept until 5:30 that
morning. So his mommy and daddy got about
6 hours of sleep and were most happy, and I had
my sweet grandbaby there next to me all night
making sweet little baby noises. It was more than
worth a night of no sleep, but I am playing catch-up
and have been in bed most of the day.
*
Reading Those Who Save Us--a story about
the German women of World War II and their
stories of what life was like for them as they witnessed
the atrocities of the concentration camps and the madness
of the SS.
Also reading Mark Strand and James Wright.
The intro about Wright (written by Donald Hall)
is quite interesting. And I have found a number
of poems I've never read to be so worth the price
of the book. Many of the pages in the book are
now dogeared, ready to be returned to again
and again.
*
It's such a beautiful day, but I don't think my head
is going to let me take a walk. Molly will have to wait
for hubby to get home to take her. She started obedience
training last Tuesday and did well that day and the next,
but it's been all downhill since. I am largely to blame
because I haven't had the time to work with her.
*
Some James Wright (this one I had read before and was
glad to read again):
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
9 comments:
Migraine?
They stop me.
I can't think or talk or look at anybody when I have one.
The day after is just as bad, the echo of the headache as it leaves.
All the synapses broken. Nothing makes sense.
During a migraine, people can be talking to me and I swear I feel like I don't know what the hell they're saying. Literally. It's the strangest feeling to be a speaker of English and not have a clue what any of it means.
Plus smells get all fucked up and weird during a migraine. Anything artificial, like those candles and shit that are scented smell like vomit during a migraine. Peanutbutter smells like cat piss. Roast beef smells like bad fish.
If it's a migraine, god be with you. I had my first migraine when I was 25 and they're crippling, truly brain damaging.
Glad glad glad to hear you've gotten Mollie to obedience school. It's hard work. Keep at it, eh? She sounds like such a happy, boisterous spirit.
Not quite migraine but not far from it. I have only had one migraine and I thought I was going to die--it was excruciating! Every sound amplified, every smell nauseating, any light--unbearable.
I had my first "optical" migraine when I was 8 months pregnant with my youngest son. I thought I was having a stroke. I was helping a student with some math homework and could no longer see what was on the page. Then I lost all of my peripheral vision and then all I could see were halos of light and shadows. It was terrifying but not painful. I have had several optical migraines since that time, and even though I know now that they are harmless, it is still frigthening. I usually just go lie down, but closing my eyes actually makes it worse.
This is painful. The weather has changed (thank god--I love the cool weather!), and it's wreaking havoc on my sinuses, which I am sure has much to do with this pain.
It is a strange feeling--I noticed the odd way food smells and the sort of out-of-body experience of it all.
*
Molly is a very spirited animal, and I don't want to break that spirit, but I need her to behave. She is the most stubborn dog I have ever been around! She tries my patience daily, and sometimes I lose it with her completely, but I am going to keep trying. This is a typical morning:
Get Molly on the leash to take her out to the bathroom. Molly sees the cat and nearly breaks the back door down. We manage to get out the door and immediately she's trying to play with the cat (who hates her and starts swatting Molly). I have to pull Molly away. Then Molly starts trying to pull me all over the place. She spots a bird, squirrel, rabbit, etc. and she bolts and many times pulls me straight down to the ground. We finally get back in the house and I go to the fridge to get something to eat. As I open the door, she darts from around the corner and literally grabs something out of my hands before I can do anything. I get mad, threaten to beat her to death, my head starts pounding, my hands are shaking, and I am enraged at her audacity and appalled at her bad manners. Before I can ever even get a cup of coffee in my system, she has totally worn me out (and it's only 6:15 a.m.!).
My friend told me the other day that she felt Molly could not have come to me at a better time, and that without her, perhaps I would not have even gotten out of bed many mornings. In other words, she sees Molly as something of a godsend (though she's an antheist and wouldn't use that term), and I know some days, she's probably right. I needed Molly. I need her still. I love Molly, but some days I really wonder what in the world I've gotten myself into!
For example: we are renovating the kitchen and recently had new corner round installed. She chewed up the corner closest to the back door. Literally chewed it up. She did the same thing to the baseboards in my living room (they are about 8 inch baseboards). She must lie down and just get her teeth wrapped around the corners. I don't know why in the hell she does stuff like that, but it is moe than frustrating. I have spent time and money to get things like I like them, and in one short hour, Molly destroys them. She has plenty of chew toys, but she prefers to eat my baseboards and corner round!
I just hope this training helps, but I haven't seen much difference yet.
*sigh*
Yikes.
She's a um, handful.
Sounds like one of her issues is that she's an alpha dog and doesn't want anyone or anything to be alpha over her. When she was puppy, when you picked her out, did you flip her on her back, do that test to see if she'd struggle to right herself or lay their quietly for a moment? It's supposedly a very telling test. The ones that struggle or that won't let you flip them over at all are very willful, dominant alpha animals that will fight tooth and nail to maintain that dominant status over their "pack" and that pack can consist of animals or humans.
It's the trickiest relationship that a human can and should fix. You have to be the alpha animal in the pack and your dog has to believe that status and respect it. Until you become alpha, she's never going to listen to you or obey you or respect you.
Have you heard of the dog whisperer? I think he may address this whole alpha issue in a book or maybe there's information online. (if you google "becoming alpha over your dog" all kinds of articles pop up)
I'm not sure if this is Mollie's problem or not but it sounds like she's not buying your roll as leader/parent/disciplinarian and until she does, until you assert yourself as such, she's going to continue to be a "bad" dog.
(yeah, easy for me to say--owner of 2 cats, one of which is very alpha male but it only effects his relationships with other cats and his insistence that I pay complete and total attention to him and ignore all other cats--it's not like he's eating the house or anything....)
ps: Those optical migraines, my god....that sounds like some seriously scary shit.
My first migraine was triggered by exposure to fumes and dust in a house that was being renovated--the surfaces were coated in dust from drywall, etc, and I walked out of their with a headache so bad that like you I thought I had a tumor and was going to die.
All my migraines since have been triggered by stress (used to have doozies at the ends of semesters in school) or believe it or not, weather. When fronts move through, I can feel the shift from really hot air to cold or vice versa in my head.
pss: My family's first dog was an alpha bitch. She was a beautiful silver shepherd mix that my parents adopted from the ASPCA, the cuddliest cutest worst behaved puppy imaginable. She chewed up the lineoleum flooring on a porch, chewed up any toys regardless of what they were made of if they were left out, chewed and gnawed on all the furniture legs and corners of doors. I'd forgotten how bad she was.
She was classically alpha. She would growl if you went anywhere near her while she was eating. And there were certain people that she just didn't like and would growl at. Back then, in the 70's my parents had no clue about all this alpha stuff so they tried their best to discipline the dog, to no avail. She was only 2 or 3 years old when she was hit and killed by a car. Back then, there were no leash laws, so she used to run loose with another dog in the neighborhood named Buffy. Tippy (our dog) and Buffy used to like to nap in the sun in the middle of the street. I know that sounds crazy and wrong but it was very rural New Hampshire and traffic flow was such that dogs could mostly safely nap in the middle of the street without consequence.
On Holy Saturday, a young man driving a little too fast down our narrow country road ran right over Tippy and came to our door crying saying he'd just hit our dog.
It's one of only two times in my whole life that I saw my father cry. My parents walked out to see if there was anything that could be done but she was gone. They came back and told me and my brothers that she was dead and we stood there in the kitchen, all of us, and cried.
She was a beautiful, spirited animal. A bad dog, but jesus, as wild as the woods that surrounded us back then.
Thanks for reminding me of her. I haven't thought of Tippy in years.
I have thought about the alpha-female thing and confess I have read nothing about it, so I am going to do that today.
Her trainer told me he could tell I had worked with her (she was exceptionally well-behaved that day, as if to say, These people are going to think you're lying about me!), but that she was going to have to learn that I am the boss. Period. He also said that he noticed I didn't tell her No one time during the training sessions--I just redirected. I told him that I tell her No so much I figured there must be something wrong with No as a command, so I, just that day, decided not to say No. He said that it was very important to correct her and to tell her No each time she doesn't follow through.
It's exhausting working with her.
What he tells me to do is to start her walk from a Sit command. It goes like this:
Sit Molly (she knows how but I had to keep pushing her butt down)
Count to 20 in your head and require that she continues to sit.
Give the Heel command and start walking, pulling up on her leash if she attempts to pull me and telling her No as I walk her.
Walk about 20 ft.
Give the sit command again.
Count to 20 in your head, again.
Give the heel command and turn her around and walk another 20 ft.
Repeat.
You do the same with the Down and Stay command.
You can imagine how taxing it becomes. It also wears her out, which is good, but she's doing things like turning around and biting my hand or the leash, or simply refusing to walk when I say Heel. I have to drag her, choking her along the way. At some point, she picks up the pace, but honestly, there are times I just say, Ok, and let her sit there.
I don't want to choke her (well, sometimes I want to strangle her),
so I don't like that pulling her along thing.
We had a male Irish setter, and he was the best dog in the world. He was calm and loving, he didn't jump on people, he came when I called him (well, some of the time), and he was very spirited as well. I guess I thought she'd be the same way, but like people, and like children, all dogs are different and respond in different ways.
We took a 40 minute walk this morning at the cemetery. She found some water (and mud) to splash around in, so she was wet and muddy by the time I loaded her in the car to come home. We got home, I gave her a bath outside, and she's been low-key for most of this afternoon.
Good thing because I needed the break and I wanted to finish my book, which I did.
Those Who Save Us.
Now reading Angela's Ashes.
If you come across any good alpha info, let me know. I just have to get through to her. I'm too old and out of shape for what she's putting me through!
SHE BITES YOUR HAND?????
Oh, my. That's bad. That is very very bad.
She's alpha. And you have to get her to believe you're alpha soon or you'll never be the head of the pack, the parent, the adult, the disciplinarian.
Does your husband have any interaction with her at all? I'm wondering if there's anyone that she reacts to as being above her, anyone who she will submit to.
What's weird is when you told me about your male Irish Setter, I said yes out loud. That's been my experience with the two Setters I came into contact years ago when I was kid. Calm, easy, laid back, gentle, kind, obedient, so quiet that you sometimes didn't even know they were in the room. Molly must be the fluke.
Or, maybe not. Here's the breed description I just found:
"Irish Setters are energetic, intelligent, affectionate, high-spirited, and full of energy. They have no guarding instincts, get along with other animals, and are good with children. Irish Setters are responsive yet sensitive. This breed can be giddy and high strung, while some are more reserved. It is very lovable and impulsive. Some are difficult to train, probably because of their independent spirit, but given firm handling and plenty of exercise, these dogs can be a joy to own."
Giddy. High strung. Difficult to train.
Gulp.
But there is that joy at the end of the paragraph.
Firm handling.
Let me go nose around online and see what cures I can find for your alpha bitch. (of course, now that she's fixed, she's not really, technically a bitch anymore is she? I never was sure if that word applied only to female dogs that can actually breed or not.)
Okay, I'm back. Alot of this stuff I've read or heard before but having never had to deal with an alpha dog firsthand, I'd sort of forgotten it.
Of all the articles I just skimmed through, this article Alpha Bootcamp seemed to provide the most information.
There's another article that I found when googling "becoming alpha over your dog" which suggest that once a day you should stand over your dog and assert your dominance. You give the sit command then stand literally over the dog with a leg on either side of her body. You can talk to her or pet her if you want, but she shouldn't be allowed out of the sit command until you indicate it's okay for her to go on about her business.
The alpha bootcamp article is pretty comprehensive. It might seem tiring at first, but I like the idea of insisting the dog sit before she eats, before she goes out, before she goes for a walk, before she does anything. It's yoru way of saying "I'm the boss and this is how it's going to be" plus it puts her in a submissive position, and she learns that she can't do anything unless she obeys you.
Too, I like the idea, and I've heard this before, of just standing up really straight and lowering your voice. Instead of shouting at her, say no in a low calm voice and MEAN it. Change your attitude. Act like the boss of her and she'll eventually realize that you ARE the boss of her.
Remember, YOU are the human. She's the dog. YOU are the owner. She's the pet. She just doesn't know that right now.
Read the bootcamp article. I think you'll find it really helpful.
I loved reading about you and your grandson. Isn't it nice to have a sweet baby in bed with you? I know they (the American Board of Pediatrics) recommends not putting them in your bed and all of that when they are so young, but it is sweet. I still let Hadley (2years old) come into my bed with me when she wakes up at around 5:00 am. Its either let her come into bed with me or get up with her. She is so sweet when she's half-asleep, reaching over to kiss me and mumur "love you."
Laurel,
I am going to read the alpha bootcamp info tonight!
Yes, she bites my hand and the leash. I found myself telling her today Not a good thing to bite the hand that feeds you
knowing how cliche and ridiculous it sounded.
She has not done that before this training. Which just reinforces, to me, the need for training.
And as I wrote you, the trainer always has her start at the Sit command, which I think is smart.
I have given that info to hubby and youngest son, and when they handle her, they are following through with the training as well. She is not any better with them than she is with me.
I am just soooooooo worn out with it.
Jo-Jo, our other Irish setter, was the best boy, but my husband reminded me of why he ended being a truck riding dog (digging up the flowers and rampaging through the neighbor's gardens), so I guess he wasn't as grand as I remember (no leash law when we first got him, but funny story about what happened when they passed the leash law shortly before he disappeared).
Talia,
I believe in the family bed regardless of what the experts say. Glad you welcome your daughter into your bed in the morning.
My oldest son loved his crib and his bed after that, but my two youngest wanted to be next to me, and I had no issue with that, and we all made it just fine. Are the family bed kids more dependent? Perhaps, but I don't think so. My youngest son was in the bed with us for years and he is very fiercely independent.
My daughter is as well, though I will say she is the one who stays in contact and consults with me more, which is not at all the same thing as being dependent. It is knowing you can go to mom and talk to her.
Boys/men are a whole different story, though I will say that both of my boys are very nurturing, caring, and helpful people--they just aren't as forthcoming with their news.
That being said, I can say that my youngest son and I share a very close relationship, and he does talk to me about most things that trouble him or amuse him. He's so strong, as are the other two, but he has this wonderful complete personality that is so much his own and so much a bit of me, his dad, his sis, and his brother.
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