Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Friday, March 09, 2012
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I don't know much, But...
I do know this:
1. My daily outfit choice has less to do with what the weather or occasion is and more to do with the last time I shaved. And how close I will need to get to people that day. And how good their vision is.
2. Feta cheese makes everything taste better.
3. I'm really thankful for my weekly mom's group meet-up. If you're a new mom, or an expectant mom, or an old-pro mom, or an in the middle-ish mom, you need to make time to be with other ones. You do.
4. Home Owner's Association meetings. You learn a lot about people. That's all I'll say about that. I'd like to say more but I fear some of them might read my blog. And then report me to the new anonymous tip line (true story) for heinous neighborhood crimes like leaving my stroller on the front porch ;)
5. Going from a working every day and lots of weekends mom, to a working a few days a week mom, to doing my own freelance design almost entirely while being a stay-at-home mom has been....better and worse and easier and harder and more fun and less fun all at the same time. But I know it's worth it.
1. My daily outfit choice has less to do with what the weather or occasion is and more to do with the last time I shaved. And how close I will need to get to people that day. And how good their vision is.
2. Feta cheese makes everything taste better.
3. I'm really thankful for my weekly mom's group meet-up. If you're a new mom, or an expectant mom, or an old-pro mom, or an in the middle-ish mom, you need to make time to be with other ones. You do.
4. Home Owner's Association meetings. You learn a lot about people. That's all I'll say about that. I'd like to say more but I fear some of them might read my blog. And then report me to the new anonymous tip line (true story) for heinous neighborhood crimes like leaving my stroller on the front porch ;)
5. Going from a working every day and lots of weekends mom, to a working a few days a week mom, to doing my own freelance design almost entirely while being a stay-at-home mom has been....better and worse and easier and harder and more fun and less fun all at the same time. But I know it's worth it.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Thursday, July 07, 2011
digging tunnels
I haven't posted in going on two weeks now, and every day that went by I thought maybe the next day I would feel like writing something.
I think it's not that I didn't feel like writing, but that I wasn't sure which pieces of life lately I want to share.
But I thought about it, and blogging is the equivalent of a pink, sparkly diary with a lock on it and that pen that writes in six different colors depending on which little tab you press down.
So I might as well be real. Straight up. Factual. I'm about to get all "dear diary" on you. Prepare to be hit square between the eyes with the realness of it all.
............................................................................
Big Picture:
Life is good. I have food, shelter, water, and the Real Housewives of NY. The basics.
Small Picture:
Depending on the day, I either feel like a fly stuck inside a window that keeps cracking it's head on the glass trying to get out, or some type of mole that keeps digging holes and flinging dirt all around and the tunnels are all intersecting and crisscrossing and up and down and the other moles are all "what the heck is up with this mole" and the tunnels aren't going anywhere but by gawd I'm digging those tunnels like it's my job.
Which, incidentally I no longer am gainfully employed so tunnel digging is actually a possible career option. This is piece number one contributing to my stress.
I'm losing my marbles here people, and here is why.
Thing One: I really need routine and structure in my life to feel balanced. I like to have calendars and schedules and time-lines. And I haven't had any of that lately. My husband's been working a lot for the past 4 or 5 months. A lot a lot. Our church (where he works) finally found a great person to fill in a much-needed staff position. In the time since the last person left and they hired a new person, he's been pretty much doing both jobs. It's kept him out most nights of the week.
I don't know how single parents do it. I absolutely tip my little tunnel-digging mole hat to you, because what I've been doing has only been a small fraction of what single parents have to do every day all by themselves and It. Is. Hard.
Thing Two: I can count on one hand the number of times Juliette has slept completely through the night. She'll be 10 months old in a couple of weeks, and combined with not sleeping well at all for the last 2 months of being pregnant with her, that's pretty much a solid year of not enough sleep. Maybe this is normal. But her older sister has been sleeping for nearly 12 hours straight since she was 4 months old, so this has been a rude awakening (literally) for us. Just about every single night I yell "I can not do this for one more night!!". And then like the movie Groundhogs Day...bam. I'm yelling the same thing the next night.
Thing Three: I'm all set up to start my own interior decorating and event design company. I have the name. I have the office space set up in my house. I have marketing materials to mail out...stamped and ready. I have the LLC paperwork that makes it an official company. I have a website. I have everything ready. And I haven't pressed "go". I'm seriously paralyzed. completely frozen. It's ridiculous how frozen I am. It's like when I did theatre in high school and every time I was about to go on, I would stand in the wings and my entire mind would go blank and every word I had memorized would disappear for one horrible second. It would happen every single time. This is like that. Except that this time I have no idea if all the right words will come rushing back at the last second, or If I'll actually be left standing there with nothing to say or show for it all. I can't decide which is worse; that I get absolutely no response at all and not a single interested call, or I get calls but it turns out I can't do this thing that I've hedged all my bets on, that I'm not good enough. That I've put all my eggs in a beautiful, expensive basket and then it turns out the eggs are all rotten and spoiled.
We have about 3 months for me to try and make this work, and if it doesn't, financially we'll have to take a good look at what we're going to do going forward.
Thing Four: I've never written about my husband's ongoing struggle with an extremely painful neurological disorder called Trigeminal Neuralgia. It's not a commonly known disorder, and it's fairly rare for it to affect someone in his demographic so it took a long time to diagnose, and it's been a long struggle to find treatment. He's been on and off of so many types of medications; none of which bring lasting relief.
He's had this for nearly all of Charlotte's life...he was diagnosed when she was about 4 months old. So it's been almost 3 years now. It's a horrible, horrible thing to see someone you love be in pain and not be able to do anything. It's also horrible to have to admit to you that I've been seriously lacking in grace and patience with him on many occasions. After I've been alone with the girls all day, if he comes home and isn't able to help with what I think is his "fair share" of parenting or cleaning duties because he's in pain and needs to rest, I don't always think about him or his needs. I think about how tired I am, and when am I going to get a break.Ugly, but true. Two weeks ago, Wes was gone with the youth group at summer camp and his pain level grew so unbearable that we had to push up a new type of treatment he was planning on trying... from August to as soon as he got back. I'ts a (expensive) relatively unknown and new laser treatment that he has twice a day, every day, for two weeks. He had already been gone for a week at this point, and the girls and I didn't want to go another two weeks without him so we all packed up and have been staying at the empty vacation house of a generous family friend near the clinic (about 3 hours away for our home). We're at the end of week two now, and although he thinks it's working to some extent, he's still having periods of bad pain. I hate to be skeptical, and I want to be encouraging and hopeful, but I just have this giant pit in my stomach thinking about the lack of options left for him if this doesn't work.
All of these things by themselves have been hanging over me for a long time, but in the past three weeks they've all culminated into this giant rock I feel like I'm hefting around. And I'm pulling it behind me with a baby on my hip and a toddler pulling on my leg and all while it's 1045 degrees outside because GAHH south carolina, you and your summers!!
Well that is enough of that, and if you got all the way through this post you deserve an extra diet coke today. And bring me one too.
We will now go back to regularly scheduled programming of pretty pictures and lovely things
like this:
I think it's not that I didn't feel like writing, but that I wasn't sure which pieces of life lately I want to share.
But I thought about it, and blogging is the equivalent of a pink, sparkly diary with a lock on it and that pen that writes in six different colors depending on which little tab you press down.
So I might as well be real. Straight up. Factual. I'm about to get all "dear diary" on you. Prepare to be hit square between the eyes with the realness of it all.
............................................................................
Big Picture:
Life is good. I have food, shelter, water, and the Real Housewives of NY. The basics.
Small Picture:
Depending on the day, I either feel like a fly stuck inside a window that keeps cracking it's head on the glass trying to get out, or some type of mole that keeps digging holes and flinging dirt all around and the tunnels are all intersecting and crisscrossing and up and down and the other moles are all "what the heck is up with this mole" and the tunnels aren't going anywhere but by gawd I'm digging those tunnels like it's my job.
Which, incidentally I no longer am gainfully employed so tunnel digging is actually a possible career option. This is piece number one contributing to my stress.
I'm losing my marbles here people, and here is why.
Thing One: I really need routine and structure in my life to feel balanced. I like to have calendars and schedules and time-lines. And I haven't had any of that lately. My husband's been working a lot for the past 4 or 5 months. A lot a lot. Our church (where he works) finally found a great person to fill in a much-needed staff position. In the time since the last person left and they hired a new person, he's been pretty much doing both jobs. It's kept him out most nights of the week.
I don't know how single parents do it. I absolutely tip my little tunnel-digging mole hat to you, because what I've been doing has only been a small fraction of what single parents have to do every day all by themselves and It. Is. Hard.
Thing Two: I can count on one hand the number of times Juliette has slept completely through the night. She'll be 10 months old in a couple of weeks, and combined with not sleeping well at all for the last 2 months of being pregnant with her, that's pretty much a solid year of not enough sleep. Maybe this is normal. But her older sister has been sleeping for nearly 12 hours straight since she was 4 months old, so this has been a rude awakening (literally) for us. Just about every single night I yell "I can not do this for one more night!!". And then like the movie Groundhogs Day...bam. I'm yelling the same thing the next night.
Thing Three: I'm all set up to start my own interior decorating and event design company. I have the name. I have the office space set up in my house. I have marketing materials to mail out...stamped and ready. I have the LLC paperwork that makes it an official company. I have a website. I have everything ready. And I haven't pressed "go". I'm seriously paralyzed. completely frozen. It's ridiculous how frozen I am. It's like when I did theatre in high school and every time I was about to go on, I would stand in the wings and my entire mind would go blank and every word I had memorized would disappear for one horrible second. It would happen every single time. This is like that. Except that this time I have no idea if all the right words will come rushing back at the last second, or If I'll actually be left standing there with nothing to say or show for it all. I can't decide which is worse; that I get absolutely no response at all and not a single interested call, or I get calls but it turns out I can't do this thing that I've hedged all my bets on, that I'm not good enough. That I've put all my eggs in a beautiful, expensive basket and then it turns out the eggs are all rotten and spoiled.
We have about 3 months for me to try and make this work, and if it doesn't, financially we'll have to take a good look at what we're going to do going forward.
Thing Four: I've never written about my husband's ongoing struggle with an extremely painful neurological disorder called Trigeminal Neuralgia. It's not a commonly known disorder, and it's fairly rare for it to affect someone in his demographic so it took a long time to diagnose, and it's been a long struggle to find treatment. He's been on and off of so many types of medications; none of which bring lasting relief.
He's had this for nearly all of Charlotte's life...he was diagnosed when she was about 4 months old. So it's been almost 3 years now. It's a horrible, horrible thing to see someone you love be in pain and not be able to do anything. It's also horrible to have to admit to you that I've been seriously lacking in grace and patience with him on many occasions. After I've been alone with the girls all day, if he comes home and isn't able to help with what I think is his "fair share" of parenting or cleaning duties because he's in pain and needs to rest, I don't always think about him or his needs. I think about how tired I am, and when am I going to get a break.Ugly, but true. Two weeks ago, Wes was gone with the youth group at summer camp and his pain level grew so unbearable that we had to push up a new type of treatment he was planning on trying... from August to as soon as he got back. I'ts a (expensive) relatively unknown and new laser treatment that he has twice a day, every day, for two weeks. He had already been gone for a week at this point, and the girls and I didn't want to go another two weeks without him so we all packed up and have been staying at the empty vacation house of a generous family friend near the clinic (about 3 hours away for our home). We're at the end of week two now, and although he thinks it's working to some extent, he's still having periods of bad pain. I hate to be skeptical, and I want to be encouraging and hopeful, but I just have this giant pit in my stomach thinking about the lack of options left for him if this doesn't work.
All of these things by themselves have been hanging over me for a long time, but in the past three weeks they've all culminated into this giant rock I feel like I'm hefting around. And I'm pulling it behind me with a baby on my hip and a toddler pulling on my leg and all while it's 1045 degrees outside because GAHH south carolina, you and your summers!!
Well that is enough of that, and if you got all the way through this post you deserve an extra diet coke today. And bring me one too.
We will now go back to regularly scheduled programming of pretty pictures and lovely things
like this:
and this:
See, I'm not a complete dried out old prune-y downer. I still have some pretty stored away. It just felt ridiculous to keep hanging the pretty pictures if all they're doing is covering up the big ugly holes in the wall behind them.
Here's to good days ahead. I know they're there.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Of Things Lost and Found...
This was a weekend of things gone missing.
Some were found. And some were not.
And a few things were stumbled upon that I didn't even know were gone. Like my everlovin' mind.
Lets go back.
Our main car, the family car, the one with the girls car seats, the necessary vehicle to transport this jangled mess of a family...has just one key. One. Ridiculousness in and of itself. We've been telling ourselves since we got the car that we needed to get another one made. But it's the kind with a microchip in it and they're expensive and we'll get around to it and blibbity blah.
To raise the stupidity stakes even more, the top loop of The Key where it should attach to a key ring got broken somehow. So there it sits. A lone, detached, little key. Dutifully being passed around from me to my husband and back again, from purse to bag to counter top, a thousand miraculous times without being lost.
Until Friday. It disappeared. And I desperately wanted to get the girls out of the house and go somewhere.
Anywhere.
And in the witching hours between 10 and 1, when anything that's worth doing has already been done {in a 3 year old's mind at least} and the time until naps stretches out before me, as long and hot as a WalMart parking lot in the midday Carolina sun...that 'anywhere' was typically McDonald's. A DietCoke for momma and yogurt parfait for the smalls. A 15 minute drive, quick, but a break none the less.
And I couldn't. Find. The Key.
I looked everywhere. Quite literally tore the house apart and put it back together again. Since it was not only my potential misplacement, but also the possible finding-and-hiding of said key by a sneaky toddler, there was no place too insane to look.{the freezer?? the toilets!??} And as I looked, I organized and cleaned each and every drawer, each closet, every toy basket...I figured I might as well get something good out of losing The Key.
I looked in the car, in the diaper bag (not once, not twice, but THREE times). I even became convinced that I might have somehow thrown it away, and I put on gloves, went outside, and picked through our giant trash can piece by piece in the middle of the driveway, all the while yelling through an open window to Charlotte "No, mommy is the only one who can play in the trash! Now stay inside and don't poop on the carpet!!" {we're potty training}
I'm known far and wide in my neighborhood as that classy girl, and I get invited to all the swanky get-together's and pool side parties.
False.
Long storyshort semi-medium in length, My husband came home, reached into the diaper bag (the one I checked THREE @!%#$'n times) and pulled out The Key. It had somehow become lodged in the corner of a bottomless pocket and hadn't fallen out despite my vigorous shaking and dumping out of all it's other contents.
Of course.
He probably mistook my blank silent stare as one of exhausted relief and undying gratitude so great in measure that it would surely lead to certain nocturnal enjoyments for him later on.
False.
So if you're still reading...I lost a key...and found a reason to clean.
And I seriously haven't felt this organized since we moved into the house.
I also lost my job. It wasn't misplaced so much as it fell victim to the kind of tough times being felt by many in my boss' industry. He is honest and caring and terribly hardworking, and I love his family to bits. I hope the changes he's having to make will bring about new growth and success for them.
But friendlies, it's all ok. There is lots of this...
Some were found. And some were not.
And a few things were stumbled upon that I didn't even know were gone. Like my everlovin' mind.
Lets go back.
Our main car, the family car, the one with the girls car seats, the necessary vehicle to transport this jangled mess of a family...has just one key. One. Ridiculousness in and of itself. We've been telling ourselves since we got the car that we needed to get another one made. But it's the kind with a microchip in it and they're expensive and we'll get around to it and blibbity blah.
To raise the stupidity stakes even more, the top loop of The Key where it should attach to a key ring got broken somehow. So there it sits. A lone, detached, little key. Dutifully being passed around from me to my husband and back again, from purse to bag to counter top, a thousand miraculous times without being lost.
Until Friday. It disappeared. And I desperately wanted to get the girls out of the house and go somewhere.
Anywhere.
And in the witching hours between 10 and 1, when anything that's worth doing has already been done {in a 3 year old's mind at least} and the time until naps stretches out before me, as long and hot as a WalMart parking lot in the midday Carolina sun...that 'anywhere' was typically McDonald's. A DietCoke for momma and yogurt parfait for the smalls. A 15 minute drive, quick, but a break none the less.
And I couldn't. Find. The Key.
I looked everywhere. Quite literally tore the house apart and put it back together again. Since it was not only my potential misplacement, but also the possible finding-and-hiding of said key by a sneaky toddler, there was no place too insane to look.{the freezer?? the toilets!??} And as I looked, I organized and cleaned each and every drawer, each closet, every toy basket...I figured I might as well get something good out of losing The Key.
I looked in the car, in the diaper bag (not once, not twice, but THREE times). I even became convinced that I might have somehow thrown it away, and I put on gloves, went outside, and picked through our giant trash can piece by piece in the middle of the driveway, all the while yelling through an open window to Charlotte "No, mommy is the only one who can play in the trash! Now stay inside and don't poop on the carpet!!" {we're potty training}
I'm known far and wide in my neighborhood as that classy girl, and I get invited to all the swanky get-together's and pool side parties.
False.
Long story
Of course.
He probably mistook my blank silent stare as one of exhausted relief and undying gratitude so great in measure that it would surely lead to certain nocturnal enjoyments for him later on.
False.
So if you're still reading...I lost a key...and found a reason to clean.
And I seriously haven't felt this organized since we moved into the house.
I also lost my job. It wasn't misplaced so much as it fell victim to the kind of tough times being felt by many in my boss' industry. He is honest and caring and terribly hardworking, and I love his family to bits. I hope the changes he's having to make will bring about new growth and success for them.
But friendlies, it's all ok. There is lots of this...
and heaps of this...
So now is the time to start something that I've been wanting to do for the past 4 years. Building up, slowly, slowly to it. And I wasn't quite prepared to fully chase this particular dream yet, but it looks like I'm at the top of the high-dive people, and I've got to jump..ready or not.
I'll tell you more about it later, but it involves doing this...
By way of starting this...
Lost a key, found a better house.
Lost a job, found a better dream.
Life...Life is a twisty, crazy, messy type of thing isn't she?
{must be a she...it's beautiful and a bitch all at the same time}
See you on the flip side reader-roos. xoxo - B.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Tina Fey...you rock my socks
A mother's prayer, by Tina Fey
“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen.”
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