School's Out for the Summer! *sings badly*

Ah, the summer. I love the summer. Most people think I'm an odd duck when I say that. I do not like winter; I do not like to be cold, shivery, and achy. I also don't like to sweat, but I'd much rather sweat than shiver.

But the start of the summer is a bit bitter sweet for me. It is the start of time with my kids and hubby and a few good books, but also the end to another school year. The latest set of graduating fours leaves us for Kindergarten, and all the walls in the school are bare.

But, I have the next eight glorious weeks off, and I plan to use them fully!


What I learned today: Do not move furniture around in the school and then go do push-backs in the pool...it makes your arms, back and abs hurt way more than they should.

Special Days

I was talking with some friends at church and as usual conversation lead to why our children were dictating our plans. It is the joy of a parent to work their lives around their children's needs and I don't begrudge them that time. I mentioned that I was leaving just after church because K was having a special morning and I needed to go rescue Daddy.

Another mom said, she liked that term as it was a much more positive way to look at those rough mornings. I have to give credit where it is due. One of the teachers at my preschool uses that term for one of her more challenging students, when he is having a particularly difficult day.

I adopted it. :D K, is an internalizer and you never know when what you say to her is going to come out slightly skewed and self-deprecating. I do not use the words stupid, bad, or dumb, as K will take those words and turn them against herself. I will tell her she's done something wrong, made a choice I don't like or the like.

I try really hard to make sure that if I am talking to or about her, she doesn't hear something that will make her feel bad about herself. Self esteem even in little ones, is fragile and easily broken, and like Humpty Dumpty difficult to put back together.

So, I say, enjoy your special days, and remember that tomorrow will be better.

The Snake

Ok so, I was walking home with the girls today, and we saw a snake. It was a cool little garter snake guy and K about peed herself waiting for Daddy to get home from jury duty so she could tell him all about the snake she saw first and how cool he was and how he had a black stripe down his back and he followed along beside us on the other side of the fence, for like about a hundred feet, well when the cement wall came and we couldn't see him no more, but I bet he followed us still. He was so neat, and then I saw a lizard in the thingy that holds the thingy for the gate to open. It was gray and had stripes and spots and he turned his head and looked at me. Oh and Daddy I saw the dead bird, did you know he had brown feathers and I think something tried to eat it, but it must have tasted bad because it was still mostly there. And did you know tomorrow is field day and I'm going to wear a skort so I can run and jump and play, but teacher says I have to wear my tennis shoes. I think that's a good idea because I don't want to kick a ball with bare toes in sandals. Mommy gave us frozen meals for dinner, and I wanted the bug sprinkles but not the meal they were in so B traded me the bug sprinkles for my popping sprinkles, bug sprinkles are really good. Ok, bye Daddy.


Poor Daddy, just stood there trying really hard to follow everything she was saying, and by the end he'd given up on holding in the laughter and was openly chuckling. He patted her on the head and said "Nice to see you too K."

I think Daddy should get called to jury duty more often, or maybe I should walk to pick up the kids more often so that K can see more snakes and tell Daddy all about them.

I'm just sayin...

I'm bothered by something and because I'm not really seeking advice, but I need to talk about it, I decided to blog. This has become my journal, so it seems appropriate.

In the interest of keeping private affairs private I will not give huge detail here, but the gist of the back story is that my mom and I have some issues that we've not really worked out and they sort of came to a head at Christmas. I then did what my therapist suggested and wrote my mom a letter, one that was meant for sending, and was sent. I do know she got the letter, but beyond that I have no idea.

So, I struggled for a long time about how or if I should acknowledge my mom on Mother's Day. What would be the best thing? Do I let this holiday pass pretending nothing is wrong and send the obligatory gift and mushy card? Or do I not send anything at all? I took the time to talk with my girlfriends and between them and my personal prayer life I chose to send my mom a card.

It wasn't a gushy, thanks for always being there, gosh I love you so much card. But rather an I'm praying for you, and I hope that this was a good day for you kind of card. Honestly I din't expect anything back from her, not a card or a call or anything, so when I opened my email Sunday afternoon and found a very short email from my mom.

I really don't know how I feel about it and I don't want to know how I should feel about it, but honestly I'm bothered by it. Why? I have no idea, but there it is.

Ok so there I said my peace. Thanks for listening.



What I learned today: I palm mute my G and B strings when I strum a G/F# I have to stop doing that. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

I was encouraged to write a Mother's Day blog. What does one write on Mother's Day? Do I write about my mom or about being a mommy? So I share my childhood or my motherhood? I had thought perhaps to share the birth stories of my little monkey faces, because with out them I wouldn't be a mommy, but then I decided that that much TMI makes me a bit squicky. So I decided to troll the internet for a poem and I found one that fits my feelings perfectly.

Before I was a Mom
Author Unknown

Before I was a Mom -
I slept as late as I wanted and never worried about how late I got into bed. I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was a Mom -
I cleaned my house each day. I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby. I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous. I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom -
I had never been puked on - Pooped on - Spit on - Chewed on, or Peed on. I had complete control of my mind and My thoughts. I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom -
I never held down a screaming child so that doctors could do tests...or give shots. I never looked into teary eyes and cried. I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin. I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom -
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down. I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt. I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much. I never knew that I could love someone so much. I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom -
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body. I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby. I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child. I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom -
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay. I had never known The warmth, The joy, The love, The heartache, The wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom. I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.







Mother's Day swag: Several hand made cards and drawings, a cute Hoops and Yoyo Queen of Mothers card, a gift card to Barnes and Noble, and a gift card to Torrid. I lubs my kids and their patient father who took them shopping.

Friendship for Grown-Ups by Lisa Whelchel

I finally finished this book, so here is the review. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This book is about Lisa's journey through figuring out what it means to have deep personal friendships. She shares what it is like to break down your walls and to truly know and be known by another human being, through and by Grace. She gives a glimpse into what it was like for her to give up the easy mask of happiness, and to ask another person to accept her bumps, bruises, warts and all.

Lisa is a fabulous writer and has a wit about her that I found fun and interesting. However, she is incredibly vague most of the time and while I am not so much interested in the tiny details, I would very much have liked to know more so that my understanding was complete. I do understand that she was vague on purpose in order to protect the hearts of those she wrote about, but she was also the same with herself. She shared little vignettes of her life, but nothing that helped me to really see her journey.

However, that does not make this book a loss in any way. There is some very practical advice and she shares some very interesting things about why we need deep intimate friendships with other women, and how to make sure that these are safe friends and what a safe person looks like. All in all it wasn't a bad book, but I was left feeling disconnected from her in the end.

http://booksneeze.com/blogger/resources/9781400202775

Round 287... Ding! Ding! Ding!

There are days when I'm never quite certain how I got to the point I'm at. It is never fun to find yourself sitting on the edge of your bed in a shouting match with your child, only to realize you are not winning and no amount of shouting is going to change that. Then you remember that it isn't about winning it is about breaking the bad habit in the first place.

K has lived her very short life in a sort of state of flux. Her moods never being the same from one hour to the next and it made life difficult for all of us. During those first five years, we let a lot of behaviors go that in B we stopped sort. It was easier to give in than listen to hours of screaming.

However, K has been on meds for 9 months, and her moods are quite stable, and her activity level is even and normal for a girl her age. For the most part. This has lead us to discover some very unattractive learned behaviors that we must now change. One of these is a hair-trigger temper that is expressed with high pitched screaming, stomping and a great deal of prolonged just-for-sympathy crying.

Her therapist has given us a tool to help negate this behavior, and I must admit it is not my favorite tool ever. K usually does this tantrum-y behavior after being told no, not specifically the word no, but more a you can't do what you want, because you must do as I say kind of a no. So, our tool is to state what is expected, allow her to question once, state what is expected again. If she chooses to question or goes into tantrum mode, I'm supposed to say "K you are not taking no for an answer and we will not discuss this further, go to your room."

So far this has equaled, a great deal of "What? I cant even speak now?" kind of screamed retort. For clarification, a scream is when it is so loud and so high pitched that it is physically painful, and yelling/shouting is just a raising of voices from normal conversation level to they can hear every word we say in the other room. Back to K...

I am supposed to not talk with her again until she has calmed and completed my request. That is not an easy thing when you have a child sitting on her bed screeching into her pillow or making a loud humming-crying noise so that you will come in and talk to her. Though I will admit that length of time for this noise has shortened considerably.

I have also found that I do not always remember to use this technique, and that is when I find myself in the aforementioned shouting match.

I think that if K had not been inclined to the brain development issues she has, then we would have on our hands a child which leans toward the dramatic in all that she does. One that is incredible canny, and often devious. Who learned and uses the art of manipulation early and well, and has one of the sweetest most giving hearts I have ever met... Oh wait, we have that, only we just found her in the last nine months. I wonder what our lives would have been like if only my sweet sweet baby had started talking as a toddler instead of waiting until she was just a little past her third birthday.



**For those unfamiliar, K, my youngest and 8 years old, was diagnosed with Bi-polar Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD and Dysgraphia (like Dyslexia only with writing instead of reading) at the ripe old age of four. She is currently receiving Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, play and talk therapy, and we see a psychiatrist who closely monitors the mood stabilizers and stimulants she currently takes. It took nearly failing the 1st grade for us to give into the last resort of chemically altering her brain chemistry and I will admit I feel a small pang of maternal guilt each time I open those pill bottles and shake those two white circles and that long blue oval into her hand.**

What I've Learned since chopping up the bunny...

A week that starts out great has no guarantees of ending that way.

A Sinus infection is in fact contagious.

I do not like the smell of new plastic.

Using wine to help wash away a bad week now equals a "hangover" the next morning.

Not everyone will respond well to my personality, that's okay I'm not perfect and I'm not going to change myself just because you don't like me.

I do not have to be liked by everyone to do my job well and to be the best person I can be.

I am really bad at budgeting. I have been pretending for years that I am great at it, but the reality is I am not.

I do not like hard truths that come in threes, they suck donkey balls.

My children desperately want to start swimming. I wonder if they will tire of the pool before September.

I need to buy new sunscreen, mine actually expired.

Kit Kats come in dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate varieties and you can buy the miniature size of all three in one bag.

I can sleep until ten, get all of the chores done I want to and still be tired at 9:30 and want to go to sleep, but I can't because we bought a new video game and you need me to play it with you or you won't be able to get past this boss. But honey it's 12:30 and I just want to go to bed now. Please?

Mother's day shopping with my children is an adventure.

Chocolate therapy doesn't cure everything, but it sure does help get you through the little things from time to time.

And finally,

Spilling olive oil on your garage floor is not awesome sauce and requires that you drive to wal-mart and purchase a giant bag of kitty litter. The good news is that non clumping store brand litter costs two dollars for the most giant bag ever.