A New Year

Last year was a year of, what felt like at times, almost riotous change.  We'd spent far too long trying to sell our condo, slogging ahead every step of the way.  Not one, but two moves finally found us in our own little house.  Glorious summer and fall, turns to winter.  I want to embrace it, and yet each year around this time I seem to go into hibernation mode.  It's its own battle of sorts.  I want 2014 to be my year of being still.  Embracing it all.  Finding my groove, and trusting that all is unfolding as it should.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Thermostat

Some days I'm still figuring it out.  I mean I grew up in Michigan!  Spent loads of time in Wisconsin.  I live in New England people!  You'd think I'd have adjusted to the cold!  It seems like there is always a moment each evening where I am just freezing.  I float by the thermostat, just to see where the temperature is set.  Then it's a double-check of the thermometer.  Yup.  Heat must be working because it's showing an OK temperature in here.  If I have to step out of doors for even a moment, take out the trash or something, I get blown back by a gust of cold.  Then, suddenly my internal "gauge" registers that maybe it's warm in here after all.  It seems like every year I swear I'm moving someplace warm.  I'd love some tips about how to be more accepting of the seasons...

Sigh.

It's going to be a long winter.

This Post Brought to you by...

the Number 13.

Different months, but my boys were both born on the 13th.  I didn't think about it until later, but our new house?  The road it is on is also called Route 13.  And this year?  The year we finally moved into our own place?  It is our 13th Anniversary.  Aren't my flowers gorgeous?  They've opened up huge...  and smell divine!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fall TV is in swing!  I want to like Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Really I do.  I've even sat down with my two boys who are into all such actiony stuff.  Lost the three year old almost immediately, as he kept looking for Iron Man or Thor or Hulk...  The eight year old made it two episodes in, and seemed to like the action... and then missed last night's episode.  I've been teetering.  I'm watching for Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg).  Love the mystery surrounding the how and why of his return, and he's a likable (better drawn?) character than the rest thus far.  Last night saw the eensiest bit of character development for Skye and Ward and some of the others...  as well as some cool effects when a scientist starts playing with gravity.  Action and a cool universe will invite me along for the ride.  But if you can't engage me with the characters, the ride may be a short one.  Staying tuned a bit longer.

My Kingdom for a...

Finally got caught up to the first episode of Sleepy Hollow.  Just in time for the second to appear.  Thank goodness for On Demand TV these days.  My kids and I keep a  - let's call it fluid - schedule.  It makes it especially hard when I want to watch shows that I really don't want them walking in on...  RIP Walking Dead.  I can't even squeak by with on demand for that one.  Sleepy Hollow shows some promise.  A twisty backstory with a modern take on the headless horseman tale.  Some chemistry with the lead actors.  I was immensely disappointed to see Clancy Brown in the cast, only to have him fall victim in the first 15 minutes of the show.  Here's hoping that he appears some more in flashbacks, or even voiceovers after his deputy discovered his stash of tapes/information.

I'm still trying to decide if my kids are going to get to see Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  They've seen all the Avengers movies.  That reminds me.  Now that we're heading into October, I'm going to have to keep one finger on the remote at all times.  They always start previewing movies that are way too over-the-top for my little ones as they lead into Halloween.

We gonna rock down to...

So yes, my new town has an Electric Avenue.  And I find myself humming this chorus every time I drive by...  It also has:  multiple instances of bear sightings noted in the local police blotter.  Note to self...  no bird feeders!  Apparently they attract bears.  There are lots of crickets and peepers.  Lovely to listen to at night, until they creep into your basement and chirp directly under your feet at top volume.  There was also the skunk that kept breaking into the garage until we spread some mothballs.  (Thanks Google!).  Everything we worried about with the new house when we bought it is currently not a problem, but surprises and head scratching things keep cropping up.  I wish properties came with instruction manuals as part of the buying process, seriously!

And my big fret... pulling my 8 year old out of school in our old town, and having him start over at a new one (I'm uprooting my child!) appears to be progressing smoothly.  There was a slight incident of getting on the wrong bus to come home the first day, but we worked that one out.  D's been very positive about the whole thing.  Now to establish some "Mommy roots" as I still feel a bit adrift...  But hey.  It was 12 years at the last place.  We're at the very beginning of this new adventure!

MayDay

 

How to emerge from this - I hesitate to call it "lost" time?  Stuck on an island like in LOST?  No black smoke monster here, unless you count my mood from time-to-time.  Limbo?  Ten months of trying to sell our home of twelve years, and I expected to be settled by now.  Instead we are in temporary housing.  It eases Daniel's way as he finishes school, and yet leaves all of us suspended.

So many things to weigh.  Towns with schools we like, have limited choices we can afford.  Many of the things we can afford come with lots of work needed.  Scoot out further there are nice towns/schools/houses, and H winds up with a monster commute to work.  We can't seem to make things line up.

Home is so much more than the structure you live in, or the location.  If anything, this sojourn back to apartment living with kids in tow has helped remind me of that.  Yet I feel as if I'm casting about...  trying to find our place.  Still holding my candle up in the darkness.

Funkity, Funk, Funk...

So, I can only partially blame Miss Zoot.  She's one of my favorite, really real bloggers, who I had the privilege to meet at a Blogher conference a number of years back...  She started the earworm with "Funky Cold Medina..." and a post about landing in a funk, working your way out, coping skills...  and me, I've been humming "Funkytown!" ever since.  So now that you're thanking me for the dueling earworms...

My reality is that I've been feeling funky for awhile.  So much so that I've hesitated writing here as I haven't much liked the stress running through my head/life, much less putting it to paper (or at least down here for all to see).  Ten months of trying, showing, selling our condo put a stress on all our lives.  Not an easy task while running a family with two kids.  Two failed offers, and finally a taker - who would only buy if she could move in at the end of February - no ifs, ands or buts.  And so commenced the packing and moving, frantic and in the snow, to...  where?  Despite our best efforts, we are struggling with where do we go from here?  The right town?  School system?  At least an OK commute for H?  What can we really afford?

We found some temporary housing that is serving its' purpose for now.  But with the idea that it's temporary, we strive to not unpack completely - and so the chaos continues.  I stress, and I have trouble sleeping.  In between I hug my kids tight and try to keep life spinning as normally as possible for them.  Other than Daniel's school schedule, and H's 12-hour workdays our schedule is all over the map.  Suggestions for coping with a 2.5 year old in tow?  Other than my obsessive re-watching of Big Bang Theory?

Oh, to be 2 Again...

Where can I bottle the confidence of a two year old?  Ethan wakes in the morning asking for "D" cereal and his cup of milk.  Unfortunately for Mommy he seriously discovered the candy this Halloween season.  My insistence of:  We'll eat lunch first, and you can have a piece for dessert...  is met with "NO!  No lunch."  He'll enter the room and turn off the television for you.  He turns into a baby yoga master of epic proportions if he really doesn't want to be buckled in a car seat.  Today he spent part of the afternoon in a winter coat riding his "schlow-schlow" (big wheel) out on the deck since he simply had to, even though it was 46 degrees out.  The toddler negotiations are rampant around here these days.

And yet, I can't help but admire my boy's confidence in the rightness of his world.  And hope to take a page from his playbook for myself from time to time.

Busy, Busy

Where is the summer going?  Somehow July just got crammed with busyness - the Fourth led to a week of Cub Scout Adventure Day Camp.  Daniel had a blast outdoors all day getting to try stuff like archery and BB's... and get a little braver about his swimming.  Directly following camp we spent 9 days to and from visiting Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Andy in Wisconsin.  Always lovely and relaxing, if only it weren't bookended by 2 days each way of hard driving.  Upon our return we began vacation bible school.  That was capped by a weekend of "family camp" with the cub scouts.  (In the rain.)

I just looked it up.  School starts August 29th.  Eeps!  I need some serene lake time for an eensy bit longer.

Testing the water...

Ah, me.  Absent again.  It has been a rough winter, with two kids and two adults seemingly cycling from one illness to the next.  I've felt closed off.  Constricted.  All about the putting out of the fires and not about the savoring the bits of life.  It's a vicious circle - as I've pulled in, I can feel my self-talk gremlins speaking up.  You've got nothing to write about...  nothing to talk about...  nothing to do but complain...

And so I don't write, and I don't get to feel creative, and the tides pull me under one more time.

This needs to change.  Daniel is almost out of school for the summer.  I want this to be a summer of fun, for me and all three of my boys.

Weaving

Somehow, I didn't anticipate leaving this space for so long.  The end of 2011 and the ushering in of 2012 seemed to be determined to kick my behind.  The croup/hospital stay morphed into a round of colds for everyone.  Getting better led us into a round of a nasty stomach virus for all four of us one by one.  And I started allowing some of my gremlins to creep in.  Mired in illnesses and the day-to day dealings with them I started wondering if I had anything to say.  My voice felt whiny and complainy and "poor me"-ish.  I didn't like listening to myself, let alone put such stuff out there for others to have to deal with.  This naturally led to my perfectionist gremlin rearing his pointy little head.  If I couldn't write perfectly then it just wasn't happening.  Frozen.

We've been finishing out January of 2012 with all of us coming out of yet another nasty cold.  And rather than the balance that I used to try to achieve, I'm struggling with the varied threads of my life.  Sister, daughter, wife, mother...  aiming to weave the bits into the creative soul I'm reaching out to become.

Most certainly not for cookie...

So.  Late in the evening of my last post, Ethan woke coughing and gagging and pretty upset.  His chest and belly had him looking like he was sucking hard, trying to get air and H and I went - not into panic mode, but call it "crisis mode" of what do we do here?  We tried a hot and steamy bathroom, but nothing seemed to be keeping the situation from spiraling further.  Leaving H home with Daniel I bundled Ethan into the car and off we went to the ER.

Anyone who has dealt with croup will probably guess that the cold night air calmed things a bit, but I was still plenty worried and continued my journey.  Frustration set in almost immediately with my little local hospital as they trundled me through their admittance procedure - even though it was Ethan and I in a completely empty waiting room.  We were finally ushered back, and after Ethan was diagnosed we were started on blowby oxygen, rescemic epinephrine and steroids.  It was around 4:30am when he still wasn't responding well to the treatments that it was decided to transport us to Bigger Hospital via ambulance.  EMTs strapped a car seat to a gurney, Ethan to the car seat, and off we went.  It's still a vivid memory of my teeny kid looking wide-eyed around at this commotion all for him....  and his little voice saying "Cuck?" (Truck?) as he looked out at the ambulance.

They settled us as best we could be settled at Bigger Hospital.  Any way you go about it, though, it's hard on a 16 month old to be getting Xrays, monitors, IVs (3 pokes there), steroid shots...  and he absolutely hated the most common treatment of the epinephrine being blown in his face.  Each treatment he'd get temporarily better, then worse again.  None of us expected a case of croup to result in a 5-day hospitalization.  Most everyone helped us make the most of a bad and unexpected situation.  I thank God for those who looked after my little boy with such care.  And I learned to appreciate those who gave a little extra TLC to an exhausted Mama trying to look after her boy...  the kind nurse who ran to the cafeteria for me to make sure that I had something to eat, who made sure to ask if I needed anything at all.

After 5 days Ethan finally had a night of not needing any breathing "treatments" and we were allowed to go home.  We've all been dealing with congestion and cold symptoms but nothing like the problems that we were having that sent us to the hospital.  Here's to getting back on track for the start of a healthier winter.

We Have Liftoff!

Ethan has been a stubborn little booger when it comes to things like walking.  He seems to get sort of stalled at each stage of the game.  I can remember when he was "commando crawling" around and it seemed like he'd never get his belly off the ground.  Now he's been crawling and cruising for quite some time.  Each of our pushes to do any walking seemed to be met with an attitude of:  Feh.  Why do that silly stuff when I can crawl around here so much faster?
We're finally seeing him initiate some steps all on his own, which sends us cheering.  I'm trying to remind myself too, however, to not wish each stage away.  It's those little milestones that take your breath away, when you realize they have suddenly slipped by you...  the last time breastfeeding, the last bath where they fit in the sink, the last word they sweetly mangled in such a cute way that you had to keep it...  Savoring these precious times.

Doctor, Doctor...

Baby up bunches last night - a slightly up temperature, and a raspy cough that concerned me.  Quick run through the doctor's office today resulted in a negative strep test and decision of bronchiolitis.  Even with all that, he's been playing and smiling and refusing to nap until late in the game today.  Definitely acting like there's a sore throat in progress.  I'm a little concerned about it affecting his weight gain  which was progressing nicely.

I know that it is inevitable, but I have a hard time with the illnesses...  that wheezy breathing makes my heart turn over.  Off to check on the patient...

Just Because

I've had this picture floating around for quite some time. Thought we would start November with a clean slate and a funny/adorable pic!

I've been away from here for much longer than planned. October ran away with me with Cub Scouts and karate classes, school and homework, chasing my youngest and his food issues... All excuses, excuses. If I honestly stop to think about it, I've been falling into my old perfectionist habits regarding my writing. Wanting it to be perfect as it flows onto the page and allowing that to paralyze me. I need a kickstart to allow myself to just be writing again, however imperfectly. Many folks use November as National Blog Posting Month - NaBloPoMo. Not sure if I have the gumption to "officially" sign on, but I thought I might set myself the challenge. Here's to November!

(This little fella is an orphaned albino seal. If I remember correctly, he was found somewhere in Russia and was being cared for... I've since lost any credits I had pertaining to the photo/story, and will add them if I (or someone else) can find/provide them.)

Spiraling

Fall is here! There's that crisp little bite to the air in the mornings and evenings (while our mid-days are still hovering in the 70s-80s...). I still don't feel like the parent of a 1st grader. Daniel seems to be adapting fairly well to school, although I've gotten comments about how it seems to be a really long day. (Kindergarten was half-day.) We're still doing karate and considering Cub Scouts. And I'm finally getting to do a playgroup that is devoted to Ethan and not just a tagalong with his older brother event. In many ways we're rocking this new schedule. And yet...

What do you all do for, well... you? Don't get me wrong, I love my family dearly and wouldn't change a thing. H works his ass off so that I can be home with the kids. Between his work schedule and my spinning top household/kids schedule it often feels like we simply wave at each other before falling into bed at night. I'm wishing we could get to a movie or something that doesn't involve, say The Smurfs. And I find myself pondering the me that isn't attached to the labels we all have: daughter, sister, wife, mother... What fills you up, sparkles your rainbow, puts a Cheshire Cat grin on your face? I'm struggling to reconnect with that core of me a bit more of late. Lately it's involved some clandestine reading of my favorite fantasy authors, while swigging frozen lemonade. What do you do?

And could someone please come over and figure out where the clicker to my DVD player went when it vanished? Not sure if it's where the stray socks go, but it's been missing forever...

The Other Side of the Scale

It's everywhere: talk of the obesity epidemic in children, campaigns to improve school lunches... even one memorable article I read somewhere where someone was advocating taking obese children away from their parents. So I've felt a bit adrift recently after Ethan's one year pedi appointment where we found out that he had bottomed off the chart where weight is concerned. My reactions have skipped willy-nilly from "They must think I don't feed this kid..." to "What if there's something terribly wrong?" We were drawing blood anyway for the lead test, and so the pediatrician checked a number of things, 98% of which were fine. Low protein and low IGA resulted in a referral to a pediatric gastoenterologist.

That appointment seemed pretty anti-climactic (take a history, and yup - he seems pretty healthy) and resulted in an appointment with a nutritionist. Long story short, we're massively striving to find ways to get extra calories into this kid. I add a teaspoon of canola oil to every meal. Push proteins, fats, dairy, avocado, cheeses, butter - anything I can think of to give his calories a boost. We just had our followup appointments, and yay he gained .7 pounds! If we were pushing calories and he weren't responding we'd have to look at other problems, such as celiac disease. But I think we're headed in the right direction. Honestly, I think he's so busy/active that he doesn't pay attention to food cues. Rather than let him lead I'm going to have to be stricter about plunking him down and insisting that "We're eating now." Still roughly 2 pounds to go to get back on the charts...

Overture, Curtains, Lights...

I miss movies. Daniel is finally of an age where he would sit through one in a theater, but I highly doubt we could get away with having a 1 year old there as well. A good action / escape flick like Cowboys & Aliens sounds great about now. H may try to take Daniel and his cousin Nicholas to the Drive-In in the near future. A great summer adventure!

Wonder if I can get away with making popcorn while I am up at 3am with the little guy surfing the On Demand selections on cable?

To Sleep...

Sleep training sucks. I know I created this monster, and that it will take some time to undo it, but Holy Cow. Sleep training. Sucks. My eyeballs feel like they've been rolled in Tabasco Sauce, kicked around in some beach sand awhile, and been popped back in my forehead a little too close together.

Ethan spent the first two days at home with us sleeping in his crib. Then refused altogether. We slept awhile in a bouncy chair, and then it was co-sleeping. He is so mobile now that none of us were getting proper sleep. Well, perhaps he was until he pulled himself off the end of the bed one morning before I woke up. And I knew it was time.

This past week has taken me back to those newborn months of waking round the clock for feedings. It's like the kid has some sort of internal gyroscope. He can be sound asleep and the very act of trying to lay him in his crib has him awake and shrieking. Tonight is the very first night that he went into the crib with only a whimper. Please, please let this be the start of a trend! I am off to bed!