I am thankful for my three monkey kids who are my world.
I am thankful for my family being mostly healthy this year.
I am thankful that my mom and step-dad live only two hours away. Especially since I don’t have to take three kids on a plane this Thanksgiving.
I am thankful for my best friends who make my life so much better.
I am thankful for my dog who keeps me company when my kids are with Logan. Just don’t tell her I said it.
I am thankful for the pies sitting on my counter and the pumpkin brownies in the oven.
I am thankful for Starbucks. Always for Starbucks.
I am thankful that I’m doing so much better this year than last. I’m happier with my life than I have been in a few years.
I am thankful for a four day weekend. Ha.
Mostly though? I am thankful for each of you. I don’t know why you keep coming back here, but I’m so thankful that each of you do.
I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving.
1. I’m actually looking forward to the holidays this year. Last year was hard. It was the first year of sharing holidays. Even though we’d made it completely fair, it was still just hard. This year, we split up this week, as the kids have the whole week off. So right now they are in the mountains with Logan and his parents and they’ll have a blast. Wednesday night they come to me and we’ll go to my parents for three days. Christmas break will be the same. We’ve sorta just split it down the middle. I’ve gotten to where I enjoy the time with them and (mostly) don’t fret about the time without.
2. Of course I cried for a few minutes yesterday after leaving them with him. Which, sorta weirded me out. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. It was momentary.
3. I won something on the Internet for the first time ever. I’ve been blogging since late 2005. I’ve entered a zillion contests. I rarely enter them now, just because I know I’ll never win. Last week, I entered Jodifur’s contest. Mostly because I like her. Yet I WON! Go me. Also thank you Jodi.
4. There are days where I wonder what in the world I’m doing online. Days where I find it all so tiring. Days where it feels like more work than fun. Then I see something like Anna’s daughter Margaret getting to go to the AMA’s and meet Justin Beiber, all because of social media and I know why I’m here. I remember why I do this. Because the Internet is filled with amazing people. People who help a devastated little girl have a night of pure joy.
5. I’m currently addicted to Plants vs. Zombies. It’s a silly game that’s been out for a long time. The other night I needed something mindless to do. I downloaded the app. I Luff it. Seriously.
That’s what I know right now. If I don’t post again this week, I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving.
I don’t remember where I saw that line, or if I heard it somewhere. It’s stuck in my mind for months and months. It may have been said to me, it may have been on the side of a bus. I think of it often.
It takes courage to feel.
Truer words have never been spoken. It does take courage. Maybe not the courage one thinks of, because we tend to think of the word in larger ways. People who run into burning buildings to save little old people. Kids fighting cancer. Anyone who stands up to a bully. Courage means all of that and more. That’s the joy of words, they tend to mean many things.
Can I tell you what else feeling your feelings does? It makes you very, very tired. I feel kinda foggy this week, if that makes sense. Which it may not. I’m not depressed. I’ve had no trouble getting up. Darkness at 5pm no longer makes me weepy. This week, so far, has been pretty decent. Yet, I feel like I’m walking around in a fog. Everything takes more energy than I have.
Last week was emotionally exhausting for me. Dealing with things that I tend to ignore, is hard. I don’t like being that person, the person who gets triggered by things in the news. I have to be honest and say, I am that person. Being triggered all week, was tiring. I am proud that I didn’t give into the depression. But it wasn’t easy.
Saying what I said the other day, wasn’t easy. I hate opening that closet and sharing what’s inside. I’d like to close that closet door and throw away the key, but I know that’s not healthy either. Tried that for years. It worked until it didn’t. I can’t do that again.
For now, I’ve re-closed that door. It means I can’t respond to your lovely, kind, supportive emails and comments. I’ve tried. Oh how I’ve tried. Just know, I appreciate every single one of you.
This week, I’m trying to be kind to myself. Last night I opened up the bag that was hiding the chocolates I bought for Christmas. My first Christmas purchase. Whatever. I will buy more. Sometimes you just need some Harry and David Treats. This week, I’ll recover from last week. Hopefully by next week, I’ll feel back to normal.
In other news, I just want to say a HUGE congratulations to my amazing friend Christy on the birth of her new baby boy yesterday.
I’ve tried to ignore it. For an entire week I’ve tried so very hard to ignore the Penn State drama. I’ve ignored Twitter. I’ve stopped reading news sites. I hit mark all as read on BlogHer in my reader. I’ve not commented on any posts about it.
Yet, I’ve been depressed. I’ve been falling. Sinking into a place that I hate. A place that I am having to fight very hard to not stay in. I could have blamed that on the time change. In fact, I have tried to blame it on that. But…I’ve been having stomach aches. I’ve been getting headaches. A single commercial can make me sad. I’ve started having nightmares again. It took me a few days, but I did figure out why.
This Penn State thing is a major trigger. In fact it’s the first major one since I spent a year in therapy trying to learn to deal with my issues. Trying to learn to not flip out like this at everything. Therapy was successful to a degree. There’s only so much work one can do on an issue though. It never goes away. I can’t seem to get away from this one, this time. With small triggers, I can. I’ve learned the skills to deal. This is EVERYWHERE though. I don’t blame the media, or people on Twitter for talking about it non-stop. It needs to be talked about. Maybe then next time someone will stand up and do the right thing. Next time someone sees or hears about a child being abused they will do the right thing. Instead of just thinking it’s none of their business. This issue? It’s everyones business.
I am triggered, because no one protected me. I was abused from seven to fifteen years old. I was sexually abused as a child and no one knew and no one ever protected me. I am damaged people. I put on a brave face and go about my life. But I’m still damaged. No amount of therapy changes that. I’ve learned to cope better. I’ve learned what not to watch, what not to read, what not to listen too. However, this will never go away from me.
I wasn’t protected. All kids deserve to be protected. All kids, no matter what, deserve that.
So…I hope you’ll forgive me for ignoring Twitter at times. For getting off Facebook. For not reading your posts about this issue. It’s not that I don’t care. Its that I have to protect myself. Because I’m the only one who will.
Once there was a boy. An older boy, but still a boy. He was seventeen years old. He had no facial hair. He was tall, yet still kinda scrawny. Strong willed. Opinionated. Bright. Kind. All of those things and more. The second to the youngest of nine children, he knew the only way to get anything in life, was to find a way to get it yourself.
This boy decided that the best way to get out of the middle of nowhere was to sign up for the military. There was a war going on anyway. It seemed only right. He was a strong, solid guy and that’s what they said they wanted. Nowhere, Texas was exactly where he didn’t want to stay. He went to the recruitment office for the Air Force the day after graduation and told them to sign him up. He wanted to be a pilot and he wanted to join. Today. Now. Right now. He didn’t care that he’d never been close to a plane, much less ridden in one. He knew he could learn anything.
The guy laughed and said, okay kid how old are you? Well….here’s the thing, the boy said, I’m seventeen. I won’t be eighteen until December. But I graduated from High School yesterday, I’m smart and sir I’m ready.
Son, we can’t take you until you’re eighteen. I’m sorry, the man told him, but thems the rules.
The boy hung his head and turned to leave.
Wait a second, the man got up walked over and said: let me walk you out. When they got outside, the man told him, son you come back in here tomorrow and tell me that today is your eighteenth birthday. It’s not like they make you prove it when we’re at war. The boy came back the next day. His “birthday” he said. He never looked back.
That boy grew into a strong man. A man who learned to fly. A man who flew in two wars for his country. A man who moved his family from place to place and never once complained about it, because he knew why he was doing it. In between the wars, he got an engineering degree and supervised new construction on bases all over the world. He was a phenomenal pilot and he trained as well as flew.
He’d joined the Air Force, to leave. He’d joined because the only life for him in Nowhere, Texas was to join his brother’s dairy farm and that wasn’t the life he wanted. He’d joined because there was no money to send the eighth of nine children to war. Hell, there wasn’t always shoes for the eighth of nine children. He joined to fly.
He stayed though, because he believed. He could have gotten out after the war, had he wanted to. With his education and experience, he could have joined a major airline and flown his entire life. Instead, he choose to stay and protect his country.
He was a hero. He was a hero in his early life, saving tons of people in WWII and Korea. Flying in and out of war zones for years on end, never being afraid of anything. He was a hero later to the people he helped in his second career after he retired from the Air Force.
He was my hero too. He was my Grandfather. He’s been gone three years and two months and not a day goes by that I don’t think of him in some way. Today though? I remember what he did for his country. I remember what he, my other grandfather and many, many others do every day for their country. They put us before themselves.
Today is a day to remember our veterans. The ones here, the ones who are gone. They all deserve to be remembered.
The days go by faster. Sunlight dwindles. Night comes earlier. It’s completely dark before I am able to pick up my kids. Monday night two of mine asked me why I was picking them up at bedtime. Night at 5pm is an adjustment for us all.
The gorgeous leaves have all fallen away and left brown in it’s place. Brown grass, brown trees. Winter. Winter is here.
My mother tries to convince me that it’s still technically fall. She’s technically correct. Yet, winter is here.
I feel it in my bones. The cold is already hard to take. The dark is already hard to take. It may be a long six months. Today was the first day in months where I really could have just hidden in bed all day. I didn’t, but I could have. I wanted to.
The child abuse case everyone is talking about non-stop sits badly with me. I have to turn it all off. I can’t listen. I can’t engage. I can’t…I just can’t.
Winter. Yep. It’s here.
Tomorrow I may do something else that scares me.*maybe*
Why you may wonder? Because I’m a masochist. Okay…maybe not. The lovely Undomestic Diva put out a challenge that she’s calling the Operation Eleanor. The goal I guess is to do 30 things this month that make you uncomfortable. Small things, big things…it doesn’t really matter. Something that you’d look back and regret not doing.
While there is absolutly no way I will do thirty things that scare me (Hi, I’m a wuss) I’d like to try to do a few.
Today was a big one for me. I signed Morgan up for camp next summer. Sleep away camp. Two weeks long sleep away camp. Fourteen days and nights away from me, her dad, her siblings or any other family.
I’m shaking right now. I really am. I wanted to maybe somehow miss the deadline. I wanted to throw away the pamphlet and forget about camp. I wanted to tell her I think she is too young. That ten will be too little to go away that long. That maybe she can go when she’s…I don’t know, twenty-five?
Really though? It’s my issue. I can’t and really, I flat out refuse to put my issues on my children more than I already am. So I signed her up.
Somehow between now and the end of July, 2012, I have to figure out how to trust human beings I don’t know with my daughter. I have to trust that they will protect her. That they will keep her from harm. I’m not worried about her hurting herself. Nope, I’m worried about other things. Bad things. I can’t protect her forever, this I know. But dam I wish I could.
I may need a Xanax prescription for those two weeks next year. I may need to call and check on her every dang day. But she’s going and I know she’ll love it.
October wasn’t my month. That’s about the only way I can say it. October just plain wasn’t my month. I have high hopes for November. We’ll see if it cooperates.
Halloween was mostly a success. I spent some time at the girls school, which I never get to do. I made cupcakes, which I never do. We had dinner at their dad’s house and were gearing up for Trick or Treating, when Bailey got sick. So…I took her home and the other two had a blast. It’s all okay. Life you know? Things happen. Bailey is the kid who rolls with it most of the time. She woke up this morning to a bag of candy from her dad who went door to door for her, so she didn’t really miss out. I did Halloween well this year. I’m proud of that. Pumpkins. Crafts. Cupcakes. Costumes thought of in advance. I did Halloween right.
Morgan turns ten next month. (Lord help me.) I’ve ordered her the new Kindle Touch. I remember when I was the one who wanted and got the newest whatever. Those days seem to be gone. Now it’s me buying the newest gadgets for my kids. Lucky kids. Ten is special though. Ten deserves the newest gadgets. Ten will be celebrated well.
Holiday cups at Starbucks this morning. They made me happy. This month makes me happy. I’m ready for change and November tends to bring change.
This post was part of Heather’s Just Write.
SNOW!!!!! That’s how my kids said it this morning. For me it was more like meh snow. Either way, it’s still pretty:
I’m okay with it since well…I have no choice. But also because it’s really wet snow which will hopefully melt tomorrow. I feel super bad for all the trees though.
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I once saved a woman’s life. As in I saw a neighbor half out of her window, called 911, waited while they broke down her door and followed her to the ER. She’d had a stroke and had been trying to crawl to her window to get help for three days. It was six months before she came home. She calls me her angel. She sent me a pretty fall bouquet of flowers this morning.
I still feel bad all these years later that I didn’t somehow get to her before she’d been alone and trapped for three days.
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Until three years ago I didn’t know how to cook. No, I mean I seriously had no clue what to do in my kitchen. I’ve taught myself in that time. Mostly by trial and error, but also with the help of amazing friends who laugh at me, yet always answer my questions.
I never thought I’d get to the place where I’d try to make new things, just because. Nor that I’d love it as much as I do. Yet here I sit, planning on attempting making Fried Green Tomatoes for the first time tonight.
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The kids and I carved pumpkins last night. Which is code for I carved pumpkins last night. They don’t look half bad if I say so myself.
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I will never, ever understand non-smokers who love to tell random smokers: you know that’s bad for you right? I always wonder, what does that person expect? That the smoker will throw down their cigarette and go, oh no I didn’t, thank you so very much for telling me this kind stranger?
I’m not a smoker. I’ve never been a smoker. Yet, I’d never tell random strangers crap about it.
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On Saturday I tweeted about how I hated being the bad guy, but I’d just had to be one anyway. We went to the pumpkin patch, one kid acted up and well…said child is now without pumpkin. There are two pumpkins in my house waiting to be carved. Yesterday I even considered finding a way for her to earn it back, but I remembered a hard choice my friend Stacey wrote about a while back. It reminded me that sometimes parenting is about making the hard choice, even when it physically pains us. That in the long run, they are better off for having to deal with their consequences. So….said child lost that privilege of getting a pumpkin with a horrible attitude that day.
Then I got a “well meaning” DM from someone stating that I’m likley “harming my child’s Psyche” with my choice. (Interesting how my mother the shrink was with me and thought I did the right thing.)
I wanted to be livid. I did. I wanted to get all ragey and crap. Yet, last week was very hard and I don’t have the energy needed to care. I ignored the DM and went about my weekend. My kids know that when I make choices like that, I follow through. Chances were given and ignored. Punishment stands. End of story.
This morning I heard a comment in the halls of the girls school about my daughter. Or well me, I suppose. I’ve allowed Morgan to have one of those feather things in her hair. She also currently has two blue streaks as well. I’ve heard comments before about this and I’ve read tweets online about how lame those feathers are and how can anyone let their little precious have one.
Eh. It’s hair dude. That is really my opinion. I pick my battles very wisely. Hair is not one of them. Well except for it needing to be clean and brushed. I didn’t pay for M’s feather, she did that herself in August. (They last months.) I did however take her to the mall to have it done. She adores it and that makes me happy. It doesn’t bother me in the least. Her older cousin did the blue streaks in the past few weeks and that doesn’t bother me either.
Parenting is all about picking what works for you. You and only you know what works for your kids.
I am a stickler about bedtimes. I have friends that aren’t. I could care less. That’s their deal. I personally don’t like parenting by 7:45pm at night. Ha. We also get up very early.
I don’t pick food battles. Yet…I also only make one meal. Eat. Don’t eat. I am not having an argument about it. Yes, I have a picky eater. She doesn’t starve.
Only one of my kids is in an activity right now. Morgan is in dance. The other two are in a very lovely class called, mommy is too busy and lazy for that shit. If my kids end up ax murderers because of this…well I’ll live with that.
We all do what we do. I do the best I can. Sometimes? It just isn’t enough. I know this. Yet, I also know I have three very sweet, loving, smart, happy children. So, I figure I’m doing something right.
I guess what I wanted to say is this: We all make choices for our kids that others wouldn’t make. That’s why they are ours and not yours. Judging each other really doesn’t do much good.
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