Category Archive

We made it through the first week as a family of five.  It was easier than I hoped. Work and life kept me too busy to worry, for the most part.  Between doctor appointments, choir concerts, work deadlines and my birthday, I was fairly sufficiently distracted. But the last few days I’ve felt older.  Maybe it’s the scatterbrain feeling, or the potential perimenopausal symptoms, but I expect to walk into the bathroom and find my mother staring back at me in the mirror at any time.

It’s a time thing. Time heals, but by the time it does, you no longer recognize yourself.  People don’t mention that trade off very often, do they? Of course, I’m still young. I still have a preschooler at home to suck the life out me for the next 14 years keep me busy.  I’ll get over this ridiculous post-birthday self indulgent fear and grief soon. It’s a lot at once, and I’m dealing with it.  I even had the presence of mind to edit the following paragraph out of my first letter to my son at boot camp:

We miss you, and it’s hard for me not to wonder where you are and what you’re doing from moment to moment. I’m starting to understand the failure to launch syndrome from the parent’s perspective. It’s hard to walk around with this hole in my chest.

But, the fact remains that it IS difficult.

It’s been a busy weekend.  Yesterday Paul and I took Will to our favorite Mexican place where we used to go all the time when we lived thirty minutes closer and we were a family of only four.  I only teared up once in the car, and neither of them noticed. We had a great time reminiscing and talking about his upcoming bus trip.  The food was wonderful, just like we remembered it.

William went with me to pick up Girl Scout cookies and do the grocery shopping and we talked some more. It was nice.  We watched some movies after dinner and hung out and made cookies.  This morning I made biscuits and gravy and teared up again over the dishes.  It’s not just that he’s leaving, it is that we’re getting older and things are never going to be the same.  Despite the fact that we’re open to our lives evolving, it’s bittersweet.

After breakfast, we rushed to our appointment for a last ditch family portrait. We haven’t taken one since before Aristotle was born, and he’s been a bit resentful about it.  In any case,  with things changing so quickly and permanently, we figured a picture would be good before we die. We made sure to keep it real, too.

I am not a paid endorser for Walgreens, btw.  I just can’t say enough about their excellent customer service though!

I submit for your enjoyment the following chat transcript:

 So, my issue is now fully resolved and I just want to publicly thank Walgreens for really brightening my weekend.  I am STILL laughing!

I’m struggling to find focus, and it’s because my blood pressure is still up from a LONG week of streaming nonsense. It would help me to get a few things off my chest, so please indulge me or click away as fast as you can.

10.  My son throwing his new Valentine stuffed animal across the room because “I want PUPPY!”

9.  My son losing PUPPY every.single.night at bedtime.

8.  My other son leaving dishes in the sink every.single.night until the next morning.

7.  Having to park my van because the rear brakes died and the front brakes have been hosed for months.

6.  Having to depend on other people to get to work (although those other people were lovely about it)

5. Only managing to make it to work  ‘on time’ once this week.

4.  People bitching behind my back that I didn’t explain something fully, when I did AND they didn’t ask for clarification.

3.  People tellimg me that I’M stressing THEM out.

2.  People simulatneously benefitting from technology and bitching about having to work with it.

Sigh. Big drum rolll please……

1.  My HR dept threatening to drop my kids from my insurance over a technicality.

In ten days, my oldest will be boarding a bus in Oklahoma City that will take him to basic training in Illinois.

It’s exciting.  It’s stressful.  It’s a hopeful time. It’s a bittersweet time.

Because we are a super-dee-dooper mushy kind of family (not), we are having a sentimental countdown beginning tonight, and ending in seven days, when he moves out of our house for good. I realize he could get out of the Navy in six years and still have a failure to launch relapse, but chances are that he will not ever live in my house again – possibly not even in my state again.

Our countdown is a movie marathon. It is a Military Movie Marathon, (could anyone love alliteration more than I?) because we want to celebrate his decision and maybe make him a little nervous. We’re caring like that.

The line-up:

• The Pentagon Wars
• U-571
• Major Payne
• Men of Honor
• A Few Good Men
• Private Benjamin
• An Officer and a Gentleman
• Down Periscope
• Full Metal Jacket
• Stripes

I’ve also got a lot of home cooking to do in a week’s time to give him an extra incentive to come home on leave. We’re really gonna miss the little poot-head.

My four year old has developed a disturbing habit of waking in the middle of the night and staying up for his own private party.  He doesn’t wake me up.  If he does wake me up, it’s by accident or he’s dropping by my side of the bed for a quick hug and kiss before returning to his debauchery. We’ve tried hiding the tv remote, thinking if he can’t turn on Noggin in the middle of the night, he’ll give up and go back to bed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we forget.

Last night, I half-woke to “mom, I want a kiss”. I complied, and then glanced at the clock bleary-eyed. 3:15 am. “Go back to bed”. When I went downstairs at 5:45, tv was on, lights were on, duplos covered the floor, and he was running around in circles. We don’t give the kids caffeine or excessive amounts of sugar, nor does he have a meth habit as far as I know. I think we just need to get him into preschool so he can run off more energy during the day.

In the meantime, I’ll admire his middle of the night creations:

And pray to the gods that he doesn’t take up soapmaking.

I found out on Friday that the grandmother of my high school best friend had passed away.  I was, and am, heartbroken.  This was a truly beautiful person who I loved and admired. She was a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother.  She was a devout Christian (to me, that means a person who lives their faith instead of preaching it). She had a brilliantly green thumb. She was sweet, loving and kind to every single person she met.

The world is a darker place without her in it. That is the long and short of it.

I could not attend the funeral, but I hope her family knows how sorry I am for their loss. It’s a loss shared by anyone who was ever graced with her presence.

To honor her memory, I resolve to:

• let my family know I love them every day
• plant more flowers
• define myself by my abilities and not my shortcomings
• find the beauty every day
• live my beliefs in a way that makes at least a few people sad to see me go when my time is up

I’ll live, probably.

It started out as a twinge in my lower back while I was alternating housework with the 3rd season of LOST yesterday.  I was concerned, because my twinges have a tendency to grow into giant life sucking monsters, so I immediately tried to stretch it out.  I laid myself down and curled my knees to my chest, twisted from side to side, did several cat-cow rotations, and sunk into child’s pose.  It seemed a smidge better.

I popped a couple of muscle relaxants and went back to cleaning up the toy room.  I knew I was a goner when I moved my leg to better reach a toy box and observed the bleeding stump there on the floor.  I know, I’m exaggerating, but that’s the last time this post.  The stupid limb was still attached, but the white hot pain wanted to debate that fact.

So I gave up on industry and considered a hot bath. By the time I made it to the bathroom, I was in tears. (Here is where I mention that I had four children sans epidural, the last two at home with ZERO pain medication, before or after. It’s contextual information. It speaks to my normal pain tolerance. Thank you, come again.)  I ran a hot bath, dumped in a load of epsom salts and dissolved into tears.

Because it hurt. Because Paul might have cared more, might have taken a break from leveling his 37th consecutive WOW character, had I not instigated a “therapeutic conversation” 36 hrs prior.  But unfortunately, he didn’t care. I would be punished for my honesty, you can be sure. When I asked for his pain meds, he cavalierly tossed the empty bottle into the air as if he’d imagined a time when I might need them and intentionally let the prescription run out.  How does he do that?

He walked in and asked if I was ok. Because when a woman is curled up naked in the bath tub bawling like an infant, the situation is a little unclear. I shook my head. “HUH?” he said? “Nuh-uh-no” I stammered. “Ok, let me know if you need anything”, he replied. “Oh, Here, let me turn that water off. It’s already up to the overflow.” Yeah, thanks for the help. He doesn’t take baths, so he doesn’t know that it’s ok to let the hot water keep running to keep the tub warm when you’re in agonizing pain. I resumed the hysterical sobbing until the water was too cold to carry on.

I somehow got myself out of the tub and dressed myself by holding onto one wall while leaning against another. It’s a lovely picture, I realize that.  Paul may have felt I was being melodramatic. That’s only because he was unaware of the invisible giant who mistook me for a Thanksgiving turkey and was trying to twist my leg off to feed to his kids.

The best part of all this is that I had time to crochet my son a scarf while I sat medicated on top of the heating pad watching the rest of Season 3.  It took a lot of distraction and a moderate dose of vodka to make it throught the day, but I made it out with my leg. I’m limping, but I’ll live.

I do this to myself 2-3 times a year. If I knew how, I’d quit.

I haven’t been writing much because I’ve placed some restrictions on myself based on present priorities. Priority one: eat healthy and exercise; Priority two: devote the month of January 2010 to getting my house in order. That’s literal and figurative, because they are linked.

So…eating well and exercising takes some planning and time commitment, and until it becomes natural, it will stay at the top of my list above all others. I’m down 30 lbs since August, which isn’t bad and is definitely progress. The declutter thing is a huge time committment. I’m neglecting my favorite tv shows, blogs, and facebook, and I haven’t logged into World of Warcraft in a month. Amazing how someone with no hobbies manages to fill her time, huh?

The first week of January, I cleaned out my closet, reorganized and decluttered my living room and bathroom, set up chore lists, meal plans, and a functional calendar.  Week two, I cleaned my desk, decluttered the kids’ bathroom, sorted through my files, and organized my bills. Week three I painted my kitchen cabinets and then wussed out for the rest of the week. This is week four. So far I have declutterd my bedroom dresser and scanned all of my outstanding bills so that I can shred the originals. I need to tackle the kids’ room, but I keep procrastinating. It doesn’t help that by the time I am done with my workout and dinner, it’s their bedtime. It’s looking like this project may start to bleed into February.

That’s ok because it feels pretty good to get my life in order.

While I’ve been painting my kitchen for the last three days, I was lucky enough to get featured on a local website. Please check it out: http://918moms.com/pages/webpage/?wpid=1

I’m in the middle of a 30 day declutter/home improvement spree to kick off my new year, but I will start posting updates as soon as I can sit still for longer than five minutes!