Tag Archives: mental illness

Love to all of the mothers of the world…

Earlier in the week, I selfishly dictated to my family that I didn’t want any recognition of Mother’s Day.  It was an expression of pain that I wasn’t able to keep to myself and I am deeply ashamed and remorseful for it.  Especially since my sweet girl has such profound feelings around mommies and such a deep, strange need to have every occasion memorialized.  As far as I have come, I still falter.  And the miracle of motherhood is that my children love me anyway… Continue reading Love to all of the mothers of the world…

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What happens when parenting perspective is not a gift

Recently I was involved in a friend’s Facebook post asking who your MOMMY Inspiration is.  It was an interesting question, probably inspired by Mother’s Day coming up.  I’m actually really proud of my parenting given that I grew up in a home I should have been removed from (my state subsequently underwent federal overhaul of their child protective services division) and another I actually WAS finally removed from (although I was 18 and 2 weeks from graduating when they finally got to it).

What happens when you have kids of your own, start to really understand parenting more, and it DOESN’T give you a greater appreciation for your parents? Continue reading What happens when parenting perspective is not a gift

Christmas Morning

Well, we managed to land in our garage at home at about 11:45pm Christmas Eve.  Papa was up until about 4am putting out the already-wrapped gifts and trying to fight the effects of the coffee he drank to keep him up while driving.

The children were up promptly at 6am and it went a little something like this… Continue reading Christmas Morning

Day 9: Honor our heritage

We are a MIXED bag at my house.  Husbeau is 100% Italian.  I am 1/4 Welsh, 1/4 Italian and the other half is a mix of Scottish, Irish, Alsatian (I’m gonna call “German” on that one based on the food, words and preferences of my grandmother) and “unknown” because my great-grandmother was a foundling.  So BigGuy is 5/8 Italian and then a bunch of “other European” and Girly is half Guatemalan and half completely unknown.  Her history is very much like my great-grandmother’s except they no longer call those children “foundlings” and they generally don’t grow up in a hospital setting like my great-grandmother did.

So what do we honor today…?  Continue reading Day 9: Honor our heritage

Real understanding

It’s been quite a week.  Mama is starting to get her footing and get back to engaging better with the small people.  Engagement.  That’s what I’m going for here.  It’s hard.  I have horrible Seasonal Affect Disorder and am truly thankful that we spent our emergency funds on a skylight in the master bedroom.  So the last few weeks have been very sluggish and mama hasn’t been very engaged.  I think I didn’t really realize what was happening, either.  My semester in review post made me think about it. Continue reading Real understanding

The semester in review…

And so comes the time to look back at the last few months and assess what has worked, what hasn’t worked, what to change and what to keep.  I probably wouldn’t be doing this except that we tried to make a monumental change and I’m not sure we’ve managed it well.  In my former career, “continuous process improvement” was actually part of one of my job titles.  It’s something I fully embrace.

So let’s review… Continue reading The semester in review…

Things that got done today

Things that happened today:

  • The skylight installer arrived around 8am to install what we hope will be the cure to my Seasonal Affect Disorder (which we have known about forever, but didn’t realize this master bedroom was the cave it turned out to be).  We have tried the special lights and the extra Vitamin D dosing, but my body needs the real deal.  But this also meant I had to get OUT of bed before I was ready.  :/
  • The boy slept “late”.  Yesterday, Husbeau woke the boy and that process woke up everyone else.  I noted to the man that 1) we homeschool so that our kids don’t have to be woken up regularly; 2) that waking the boy from a sleep has NEVER. EVER. gone well; and 3) that the boy has shown multiple signs of fighting off an illness.  I then suggested that he not wake the boy again.
  • Girly watched a lot of Carmen Sandiego.
  • BigGuy got all of his assigned work done except for reading “Science in Ancient Egypt“–a library book that disappeared the second we found the previously missing ($30 to replace) book “The Ancient Egyptians“.  Seriously, people… we FUND a library employee.
  • We went to a friend’s house to play chess and that went quick so the bunch of us walked to a nearby park.
  • On the way home from that adventure, we stopped at ANOTHER friend’s house where the mommies did a peer accountability session and the kids played.  And by “played” I mean that we HEARD Britney Spears singing “Toxic” from the back patio, but we didn’t realize they were watching the video.  When all was set right in the world and they were left only with music, I saw all three small girls jiggle in ways I didn’t know they had ever SEEN before.  Girly has gone on to fake-sing the refrain over and over and over and over and over and over and over.  And explain how 1) she knew it was just pretend; and 2) she wore poisonous lipstick… multiple times to multiple people.  10559929_10152397321458753_1551285787687603624_n
  • We said goodbye to our beloved babysitter, who is off to Sicily.  Wow are we going to miss him.  He was such a good friend, not just someone who watched our kids.  We love that guy and hope he is safe in his travels.

 

Things that completely sucked today:

  • Saying goodbye to someone we love.
  • Not being able to sleep in our bed tonight because the very last tiny bit of sanding and painting couldn’t be done on the skylight in the master bedroom today (the joint compound wouldn’t dry fast enough)
  • BigGuy ate an apple, which means he will wet the bed tonight and I will have sheets to wash tomorrow.

 

Things that need to happen:

  • I seriously need to get to Socratic discussions with BigGuy.  Especially now that he’s been asked to leave the Young Philosopher’s group (which is content for an entirely other post that I wrote, but then had more stuff happen related to it and need to rework that post).
  • We need to prepare this house for the winter.  Get the fireplaces operable and a generator for the freezers and I think we should get a snowblower, but who am I, really?
  • Get that which is still packed UNpacked and organized.  E-f#%!ing-nough already.  We moved in MAY, people.  There is no longer the excuse that this house is temporary or that this house isn’t ours and therefore we don’t want to put systems into place that may not work wherever we land.  We have landed.  (notice I’m banking on that skylight doing the trick).
  • We all need to get on our game with our supplements and eating habits.  I’m the fattest I have ever been and I understand that my trauma therapy for the last year has contributed to that, but dude… let’s go.

I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print over here.  It’s been a day.