Finding balance

The last two days have been very different.

Yesterday I was exhausted. I only slept about 3 hours (combination of a might-be-dying cat, a neighbor mowing his lawn at 6 am, and a little boy with nightmares). The day seemed hard before it even began. I got through the morning--I watched a friend's 3 kids as she was preparing to go on vacation with a new baby. I scrubbed a few floors and supervised kids vacuuming and folding laundry. I helped the girls with some new piano pieces and did my Thursday rest-day-from-running yoga routine. We read a million stories. We ate lunch and everyone pitched in to clean the kitchen. And then I pretty much collapsed. I was so tired. It seemed like every part of my body hurt. I cried six times at different ridiculous things (like Nathan scribbling on the kitchen floor with a crayon, which Isaac then cleaned up when he saw me melt into tears). We had takeout pizza for dinner and I felt like the worst mom in the world condemning my children to a terribly boring summer where all I wanted was for everyone to be asleep so that I didn't have to do anything.

Last night I got enough sleep. I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day. Everyone did all their weekend cleaning jobs until the house sparkled. We went to the library, then met up with friends at a local gym for free play/open gym time. We came home, ate lunch, and I read piles and piles of books to the little boys. I ran 8 very speedy miles, then packed up the kids and went to a carnival hosted by our church congregation. We went to two different grocery stores on the way home. We ate a bedtime snack, cleaned up, had a brief bedtime phone call with Neil, and then I tucked everyone into bed and went off to do midterm grades.

Today I felt like a good mother.

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I remember that when I very first started parenting that I felt like there was this invisible ledger that I kept in my head with credit and debit columns for Good Mother and Bad Mother. Things like waking up before the kids, reading stories and going to the playground went on the Good Mother side. Things like letting them watch movies, sleeping in too late, and working while the kids are awake went on the Bad Mother side. I wish I could say that I've moved past this ledger, but I haven't. Every day with every action I'm actively ranking myself as to where I stand--yelling at that child is a mark on the debit side, explaining how wind moves over the wings of a plane to give it lift is a credit in the other column.

This summer has been hard because I'm exhausted all the time and I'm usually in pain. This pregnancy has been much better than my last three, but it's still pregnancy with all of its accompanying miseries, and I'm older and my body has done this five times already. I'm still trying to run my 30 miles every week because I know the downturn my mental health takes with each mile subtracted from my weekly total. I'm teaching this summer for the first time since 2007 when I was pregnant with Juliet and had only Abigail. And Nathan has given up his nap!

For years and years I have sat down a month before the children were out of school and mapped out every single day of the summer--what adventures we would go on, what topics we would study. I haven't done that this year, and it's been a huge source of stress. I've tried to tell myself over and over that it's okay, that my kids love the slow-paced days full of Legos and baking and endless popsicles and afternoons at the pool--and they do!!--but I still struggle so much with the guilt of not being perpetually present, engaging, upbeat, and energetic. And at the same time, I know that I simply don't have it in me right now to parent the way I have in past summers.

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On the 4th of July I ran 7 miles, prepared a gigantic BBQ spread for my family, gave both of the girls piano lessons, graded an entire class's worth of midterm projects, read to the boys for an hour, cleaned my house, and spent hours lighting & watching fireworks with the children. I can't remember the last time that I was that tired.

The children were radiant. It was, they told me, the best day of their lives.

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I read this article earlier this week. Then I read it again, and then again and then a fourth time. Then I read parts of it out loud to Neil. I didn't want to post it on my Facebook wall because it felt so raw and real to me, and I didn't know how to unpack everything that it meant to me into just a few sentences. I have thought about this part over and over and over:

"I have tried to say it to my husband; I have tried to say, “I hate my life.” I have tried to say, “I need help.” I have tried to explain why I am finding being a mother so difficult, but in the face of his questions, my explanations collapse. It isn’t exactly that spending time with the children is so horrible. I mean, sometimes it is, sometimes we have a bad day, but most of the time it is relatively pleasant: we go to the store, we go to the park, everyone is well behaved, the three-year-old says something cute, the baby does something new. The problem is not in what I am doing. The problem is in what I am not doing, which is writing every day, but which is also leading a life of the mind."

Sometimes I think a lot about what my life would be like if I had made different choices. I've thought a lot about that the past two years. I don't feel like I have much control over my life these days; I'm primarily reacting to other people's decisions and actions and the situations in which they place me. That's not a place that I'm comfortable living in. It's very difficult for me to not be the master of my fate/captain of my soul. I don't like feeling powerless.

But when I think about an alternative life, I don't know that it would necessarily bring me more joy either. I have several friends who have made very, very, very drastic life changes lately--the kind of changes I've thought about. I don't envy them their new freedoms when I see what those choices actually look like; instead, I feel overwhelmingly grateful for my current life.

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I ran into a friend today. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked how her summer was going. She told me how fit I looked and expressed her admiration for all of the things I do.

"I spent most of the day crying in bed yesterday, " I told her.

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I had a long talk this week with another friend whose husband is very ill. They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. She told me countless stories about their life together and the children that they've raised.

"My former coworkers were so surprised years later when they saw me pregnant with my sixth," she confided to me. "They all told me they never thought I'd have any children because I loved my job so much and I was so good at it. But I knew that being a mother was best. And that's what I told them. And that's what I see in you--I've watched you grow up as a mother and a woman from the day I first saw you with that tiny little blond baby and you've grown more beautiful every year and with every child."

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Some nights I fall asleep reading.

Some nights I lie awake worrying for hours. Hours and hours and hours until I finally get up at 3 am and walk around my house and obsessively check the locks on all the doors like I've done for years. I worry about whether Neil will ever graduate. I worry about whether this baby's birth will send me into another depressive spiral. I worry about whether I'm too old to ever meet my athletic goals--will I be able to qualify for Boston? Run a 100-mile race? Has my body taken too much of a beating from years of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and toting around heavy toddlers on my hip, shortening my obliques, damaging my knee, leaching calcium from my bones? Should I sign up for the evening oil painting class Neil's been encouraging me to take, or is that selfish to take precious hours away from his research? Where will we be next year? Am I truly giving the best that I can to my children and my marriage? Why did I give away all my baby clothes?

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I don't know how to end this post. I don't have any wonderful answers or relevations or tie-it-up-nicely anecdotes. What I can tell you is that my children are asleep, my husband is at work, I haven't eaten dinner yet, and it's time to do my grading.

Have a baby, they said. They smell like flowers, they said.

Old picture of Abigail, circa 2006

So the last three weeks have been really fun, in that "it's summer break, so let's come down with fevers/coughs/intestinal unpleasantness" kind of way. So basically NOT fun at all. The best 
part is that the actual sickness lasts for about four days but the crankiness? Well, so far it lasts
 for 2 weeks and three days (please oh please let it end tomorrow!)

I was thinking today that it's so bad that it's actually like a movie--like one of those comedies
 where the cute heroine, who is probably in advertising and lives in a flat that she could
 never afford in real life, visits her friend who left the ad world a few years back and 
now is a full-time SAHM, and boy, is her life soooo unglamorous compared to our 
plucky little heroine!

So this is why my life is perfect for a movie set right now:

8:05 PM: All the kids are in bed. Start menu planning (oh, dreaded task!)
8:35 PM: Luke wakes up from a nightmare screaming like a banshee and utterly inconsolable.

9:00 PM: Put Luke back to bed. Pick up menu planning stuff again.

9:05 PM: Luke is out of bed lying against the door and kicking it with both feet. Incidentally,
 this wakes up 2 other kids, who start crying.

9:23 PM: Everyone is asleep again. Pinterest is making my mouth water. TOO BAD
because I am on this health challenge with my sisters & mom & I can't eat
after 9 PM.

10:05 PM: Nathan wakes up. Really should have gone in to check on him instead
 of standing outside the door, because it turns out that he stripped himself naked
 (including his diaper), so that's going to be a fun project in the morning when you
 find it.

10:35: Nathan wakes up again but goes back to sleep. Again. Second chance, but you
 didn't take it.

10:54 PM: Nathan and Luke both wake up at the same time, but Luke is the one
 actually standing next to your bed screaming his head off, so you jump on that fire
 first and then Nathan (in his soaked bed) goes back to sleep and you STILL don't
 check on him, because heaven forbid that you open that door and awaken the
Kraken (guaranteed hour until you get him back to sleep).

11:05 PM: husband finally home from the lab and wants to talk about his day.
 You just want everyone to leave you alone so you can sleep, but hey, this is the
first chance you've had to actually interact with the person you married today.

11:35 PM: Oh look, there's Luke again...

then it sort of blurs out from there until morning again, when you wake up to
hear the washing machine running and realize that Luke also wet his bed (this
pretty much never happens) AND Nathan (that's a first) and this day is off to an
awesome start.

Husband tells you that he thinks the kids are finally well enough to leave the
house--they're just grumpy. You aren't so sure, but it's been TEN DAYS since
you have left (and you've now run 58 miles on the treadmill!) so you decide to
go to the library.

Things Luke cries about at the library:

1) The librarian has light blue paper, not dark blue paper.

2) He wants to read the penguin book but the librarian is reading the rabbit
 book.

3) Everyone is tracing their hand but he doesn't want to trace his hand 
but he knows everyone wants him to do it OH THE PRESSURE.

4) Nathan looked at him.

5) He doesn't want to go to the bathroom.

6) Nathan looked at him again.

7) Isaac looked at him.

8) Abigail picked up his book when he dropped it on the floor. 

9) He wants to go home.

10) He doesn't want to walk.

11) He doesn't want Nathan to touch him even if you are already carrying 
Nathan because he doesn't want to walk either.

12) He wants to open the door but he can't reach it from your arms.

13) He wants to get down.

14) He doesn't want to get in the car.

15) When he threw a temper tantrum on the grass next to the car, he sat in dog poop.

Then, because you are REALLY a glutton for punishment, you decide to stop
at the grocery store super fast because you are out of milk, fruit, yogurt, and
popsicles, and Nathan will only eat popsicles right now and three of the times
Luke came into your room last night, he was looking for yogurt.

We'll pass over the grocery store trip and just note that the guy at the checkout
 told you that he hoped you would have a better day than the one you're having
 right now, and you smiled at him on your way to pull Nathan's hand out of the
door which he'd just shut on his fingers (because OF COURSE the child restraint
 belt was broken on your cart, but you couldn't get another one because you
were holding two toddlers and you only had one quarter for the cart lock) and
let's just get out of here, minus the ingredients for 4 of the 7 meals you planned
this week.

Grocery store parking lot: you bag all your groceries and toss them into the
back of the van, thanking your lucky stars for your older kids, one of whom is
 helping with the groceries, and the other one who is pressing the button on the
remote every time Nathan tries to decapitate you with the rear van door. Thanks,
girls--you are the real heroines today! Oh, and Nathan needs a diaper change and
smells so bad that the kid next to him is crying, so you wrestle him down to the
van floor to change the Apocalypse of All Diapers, but of course someone took
 the extra diapers out of your purse, so...he's riding home commando.

And then you get home, start bringing in the groceries, and Luke has locked you
 out because he doesn't like the way Isaac's upside-down shoe is looking at him.
And you try to feed Nathan but he throws his blueberries on the cat, and when
you open the child's Ibuprofen to give him a dose, the bottle explodes all over your
 hands and pours down his legs and you just start to laugh and hope it's not
hysterics, and Nathan wants a nap, but all of his bedding is still in the dryer.

So yeah, have fun with all those babies.

The plus side, of course, is that you know eventually they will grow up to be
the kind of people who prevent your younger children from decapitating you with
 the van door, so there's that.

Oh...and the formatting on this post won't work. Huzzah!

Still here

Most days I feel like I've given up on blogging, but occasionally I don't, and apparently this is one of those days.

I was thinking yesterday that poor Nathan doesn't have much record of his life and Nathan, if you want to know why, it is because YOU WERE CRAZY and you had not one self-preservational bone in your body and I sure hope you've grown out of it by the time you're old enough to read this. Pretty much all of my free time these days goes to frantically trying to keep you safe and putting out fires (literally--last week you figured out how to light the gas fireplace and it's only by the grace of God that we escaped unsinged).

 At 23 months, Nate, these are your favorite things to do: lie on the cat, pull the cat's tail, lie on top of Luke, sit on Luke's head, break Isaac's constructions, follow Juliet around begging for her to read to you, climb to the top of Abigail's bunk bed and jump up and down, eat toothpaste, eat chapstick, hide everyone's toothbrush, put all the toilet paper you can find into the toilet and flush vigorously, carefully pour milk over the kitchen windows, turn on every faucet in the house, sit on Luke, wreck Luke's traintracks/Magnatiles creations/Little People towns, run away at the library, and basically do all of the two-year-old stuff that none of your siblings actually did so your parents were completely unprepared when you acted like a normal two-year-old. Thanks for making sure we didn't miss out on that one.

 Good thing you're so darn cute, even with the juice of a dozen strawberries all over your clothes and face. And it's a good thing that your sisters think you're the cutest thing in the world so that they're motivated to protect you from wrathful brothers whose Lincoln Log house has just been destroyed for the millionth time...

So...life has been so busy. I don't know if it's just because I have five kids, or because of Neil's schedule, or because of my work schedule, or because of the THOUSANDS OF HOURS of homework the girls seem to have lately (seriously, folks, I don't remember having homework in elementary school, much less multiple hours every night). There definitely are never enough hours in the day these days, and I'm really looking forward to summer break and actually having some down time with the kiddos instead of trying to help three of them with homework while I simultaneously keep Luke and Nathan from killing each other and cook dinner (which is why today we had takeout pizza, thank you very much...I literally had not eaten all day because it was just so, so, so hectic, and the three oldest had swimming lessons and I needed to get them to their lessons and then take the youngest two over to the church with me so I could help teach the Activity Days girls). One of my friends told me once that things change so much when all your kids are in school, and the days are so slow-paced and then the afternoons/evenings are frantic activity. I'm starting to see that happening and I think what is going on? My kids aren't even that old and they aren't doing the gazillion activities that all their classmates seem to do!! This is already crazy town!

But anyway. I guess I don't have much to say other than we are busy busy busy and I just keep on hoping that someday I will feel like I'm all caught up on everything for longer than 5 minutes. And I wish I could recapture some of the energy and vitality and confidence I had in my twenties when I thought I had it all figured out and felt like I was doing an awesome job on everything--the older I get (and the older my kids get!) the more I realize that I'm just touching the tip of the figuring-life-out iceberg.

Changes

My three oldest children are all at school right now and I am missing them SO much! Yesterday was a really, really, really hard day for me. Lots of tears (from me, not them!). I have felt so great about Abigail & Juliet's classes & teachers this year, but Isaac's has caused a lot more uncertainty. Fortunately, yesterday I finally worked out a schedule with his principal and teacher that makes me feel much better about things--essentially he goes to school until around naptime and then I pick him up and have two precious glowing golden hours with him while Natie (and maybe Luke?) is/are napping.

In any case, I am home with just Nate and Luke this morning and boy oh boy is it going to be good for those two to get some time together to become friends! It is sorely needed (it's been a long morning already!).

Last night I was lying awake thinking about things and I suddenly had a flash of inspiration about this blog. I've been searching for a more appropriate name since Juliet was born, and I realized that the quote I have inscribed into my planner pretty much perfectly encapsulates how I feel about my life right now. It's from Anne Campbell (unfortunately I couldn't format the header to display the quote attribution as well so hopefully this will do).

The poem is called "To My Child," and I like the first stanza best:

“You are the trip I did not take, you are the pearls I could not buy,
you are my blue Italian lake, you are my piece of foreign sky.

You are my Honolulu moon, you are the book I did not write,
you are my heart's unuttered tune, you are a candle in my night.

You are the flower beneath the snow, in my dark sky a bit of blue,
answering disappointment's blow with "I am happy! I have you!”

It's a bit of a downer poem in some ways, but that's one of the things I like about it. Motherhood isn't all about self-fulfillment. There's a lot of sacrifice and putting yourself on the back burner and questioning all the time if you're doing ANYTHING right at all or if you're messing your kids up irrevocably. But at the same time, there IS so much joy and fulfillment of a different and deeper sort. It's quiet and it's not grandiose and your post or tweet or status update about making it through another day isn't going to go viral.

But you and I know that inexpressible heart-swelling gratitude for the opportunity to pour every bit of ourselves into this calling. And those children of mine truly are my foreign sky.

31 and counting

a decade ago on my 21st birthday

Today Neil came home and gave me some (unexpected & not good) news about work that affected my plans for this week. I was feeling pretty upset about it to the point where I knew I needed to just get out of the house and defuse, so Neil & the kids had dinner while I laced up my shoes and went for a run.

I headed to my favorite trail through a nearby forest a couple of miles from my home. Towering oaks, maples, and sycamores are laced through with a winding wood-chip path that runs about 1.5 miles one way, and it has just enough hills, mud, and roots to keep it interesting. I have spent so many hours of our years here running the trails in those woods--with running partners, with Neil, and a hundred times over with myself in long, endless loops. I know every foot of them so well that I can (and have) run them in total darkness, but I love them best as the sun is rising over the nearby bog and the herons fly up to meet the clouds.

Those trails have seen me through four pregnancies, who knows how many pairs of shoes, a gazillion mosquito bites, and have been the primary training ground for every race I've ever run. I've run those trails in the blazing sun of a Midwestern summer, the crackly-leafed glories of fall, the icy slip-n-slide of deep winter, and the sucking mud of spring. I have crawled--literally--over roots and downed trees when I thought I was miscarrying with both Luke and Nathan. I have laughed and wept and prayed more there than I have anywhere else in my life; it has been the battleground for many fights with my inner demons, and the place where I have communed most directly with God.

I've been thinking a lot about this past year and what the next year is bringing to my life. I'm hoping so much that it is a year of change--that by my birthday next year we will be done with graduate school. We're drawing to a close with some other chapters in our lives and for some reason this birthday feels so much more momentous to me than turning 30 did. It's been a hard year, this last one; I think I can safely say that it is the hardest one I've lived through yet with the most soul-stretching and wrenching growth. I've thought so much about how things that once seemed immutable to me are now very fluid or even completely gone, and how much my perspective, goals, viewpoints, and values have altered or solidified in the last decade. Life has given me the opportunity and experience to decide what things are truly worthwhile to me and what is more transient. I hope I don't sound too pretentious here, as I (hopefully!) have many more decades of living to do and experience to acquire, but I've been thinking about things that used to matter to me and don't now, or things that I used to disregard that are now of tremendous importance. And so...

1) Sleep is so vital and so important--for everyone, not just children. It's impossible to be good-natured, productive, and likeable without a good night's sleep.

2) You are your own worst critic. Nobody else is judging you as harshly as you judge yourself, so ease up. Learn to focus on the things you love about yourself and record them so you can remind yourself of those good qualities when you're feeling low.

3) Drink more water.

4) And green smoothies.

5) Get outside every day. Even if it's miserably hot or bone-shatteringly cold, just go to the mailbox. This especially holds true if you have small children. It's so easy to go an entire week without ever leaving your house, but it's not good for your mental state.

6) Conversely, it's also good to have "home days" where you do nothing all day other than sit in your yoga pants and play Legos with your kids. Those are some of the best days, and they will pass all too soon.

7) Set out to create magic deliberately. Occasionally it happens on its own, but more often it is the product of studied effort. If you want to enjoy your family, create opportunities where you will enjoy them--it's much more likely that you will feel blissfully happy when you are hiking together than when you are folding laundry.

8) Those Go-Go squeeze pouches are the best thing ever. Ever, ever, ever. Speaking as someone who made her own organic baby foods, just buy the squeeze pouches and celebrate their existence.

9) Even if you don't feel like it, spend time with your friends. Yes, it's a pain to put on makeup at the end of a long day. Yes, you're exhausted. Yes, your kitchen floor may be sticky. Yes, the kids may kick up a fuss if you're not there to put them to bed, but your friendships with other women are so vital to your happiness. 

10) Learn the beauties of selective multi-tasking. Kids can splash happily in the tub while you wipe down the bathroom, dinner prep can be started while the last slowpoke is talking to his lunch, and you can sneak in amazing amounts of other activities while reading stories aloud to children. (I have knit entire blankets, painted woodwork and walls, nursed babies, cut out innumerable laminating pages sent home from school, etc. The key is to have someone else hold the book and turn the pages--and for things like painting it really helps if you have the story mostly memorized!)

11) Create. Something about the act of physical creation is immensely satisfying, whether it's a painting, a scarf, or a loaf of bread.

12) Fresh flowers, natural light, and beautiful music are instant mood-lifters. Bonus points for a delightful scent (I, for instance, am happily shelling out for Method's pink grapefruit spray because it actually makes me WANT to clean).

13) Don't wait to live your life. If you're not happy, identify the things that are making you unhappy and see if you can resolve them. If you're looking forward to something as the point when you *will* be happy, are you working every day to actively bring that thing closer? What can you do NOW to enjoy your life? The grass is always greener, so stop wasting your time and live in the now.

14) Take time away from daily life, whether it is on your own or with someone else. It may be financially costly, but it is an investment in your happiness, your relationships, and your life.

15) Be true to yourself and quit worrying about the things that you "feel like" you should like. If you really like reading Hemingway in your down time, go for it! (Okay, I love Hemingway, but when I have a rare moment of free time, I would much rather read something like this or this. I would rather listen to John Denver or Vivaldi than anything else, I always order the exact same thing at restaurants, and I don't care about current events (too depressing and ignorance is bliss, amiright?)

16) Learn new things or improve existing talents. There is something so satisfying about having a project or hobby that you're doing because you really love it and not because someone else is paying you to do it, but you're working diligently enough that you can see measurable improvement (my thing is bread--right now I have a sourdough starter that I am lavishing the kind of love and thought upon that most people reserve for a newborn baby).

17) When your kids want to talk to you, listen. Give them your full attention and respond to what they're feeling as well as what they're saying. I really, really, really love this book and it has made me a much more perceptive, sympathetic, and effective mother.

18) If a friend offers a meal or to babysit your kids, take them up on it. Don't be a martyr. Reciprocate when you can.

19) Take care of yourself. It's good not just for your own health and well-being, but for your children to see that you are worth that time, effort, and investment.

20) Look around for what your community has to offer--local festivals, library programs, museums, etc. Get involved wherever you can.

21) A clean house is so, so, so important to me. We've gone through so many iterations of chore charts, assignments, etc., and guess what? My version of clean is not the same as my children's. Mutual happiness has been achieved by implementing a "stuff basket," wherein I throw everything that is still floating around after clean-up time is finished. If someone is missing something, they know where to find it and meanwhile I'm rejoicing in a visually clean house that can be dusted & vacuumed without an hour of nagging people to put things in their proper places.

22) Don't beat yourself up over your inadequacies. On Monday nights we (theoretically) have family home evening. I am not good at planning family home evenings with a lesson (I'm more the "let's have a discussion during dinner and then go on a bike ride afterwards" type) but I AM good at making sure that we have daily scripture study and family prayer. I'm choosing to focus on those.

23) Kids will do anything much longer if they are aurally distracted. When we're hiking, we can cover many many miles if we tell them stories about our childhoods or their childhoods. When we're eating lunch, they are all completely entranced and eat pleasantly (rather than jumping up and down on chairs and complaining about the food) if we listen to Classical Kids or the Chronicles of Narnia (please note that the current list price is $200 and that's completely insane. Mine was $25 for all 19 CDs, also from Amazon. Look for the BBC Radio Theatre Focus on the Family production).

24) Take photographs.

25) I've said this a thousand times, but read with your children. It is so important and does so much for your relationship & their mental development. See my favorite books for children here.

26) Exercise. I really hate this word--let's say instead, "find a method of physical movement that brings you joy and renewal" (okay, that's very wordy). Making this enjoyable is different for everyone, so don't feel like you should do something just because your friend does (be true to yourself, remember?!)

27) People are innately good. Give them the opportunity to be so.

28) Say the nice things out loud that you're thinking in your mind, even (and especially) if you don't know the person you're complimenting. I can vividly recall many instances when a complete stranger said something so kind to me and it completely changed my outlook on myself and my attitude towards the day.

29) Spend out on things that are important to you. If you can't afford it, don't buy the "acceptable" option; save up until you can get the one that you really and truly love. This same rule goes for just about anything in life--if you're doing something, it's worth the time and effort to do it right (Neil was laughing at me the other day for rewriting bin storage labels three or four times, but I knew I would be looking at them for years and the extra minute of rewriting was 100% worth avoiding the mental eye roll I would be giving myself in the future).

30) Reach out to others. It's so easy to become isolated. Sometimes it sounds overwhelming to invite friends over for dinner, or plan a party, or even just make a phone call; sometimes it's the effort and sometimes it's the worry of rejection. But connections are so important, and chances are, everyone else is wishing that someone would make an overture of friendship towards them.

31) God's love is often so manifest to us through the love, actions, and service of those who surround us. One of the greatest gifts we have in life is the opportunity to literally be His hands and bless the lives of others.

Depths

image

I have another blog post loaded and ready to publish with all kinds of pictures and peppy talk and whatnot. Tomorrow.

Tonight is a night for journal-posting, and fair warning, this is a real downer.

I’m in the middle of switching to a new antidepressant right now. I was on Zoloft and it was working really well to control my moods, but there were some side effects that I was tired of dealing with, and so I’m switching over to Wellbutrin. I knew going into it that it would be rough, and Neil knew it would be rough, and I tried to give the kids a warning…but man oh man, I forgot just how hard it would be.  At 2 PM today I had to call Neil and ask him to come home from work because I was so far from myself that I didn't feel like I should be alone with the children.

When I got off the phone with Neil I had collapsed into a heap on the floor and was crying when I felt Isaac’s little hands patting my head and saying, “Oh Mommy, I am so sorry this day is hard. Things will be better soon.” And then he picked out some of my favorite kids’ books and asked me to read stories to him—we’d just had a conversation yesterday about how reading to the kids is my very favorite thing to do as a mother. Sweet, sweet boy.

I know that a lot of what I am feeling right now is induced by the drug cocktail that is making its way through my body, and that I’m both going through withdrawal from the Zoloft and adjustment to the Wellbutrin, to say nothing of all the regular hormones! But it is just hard right now.  I can’t sleep without taking a sleep aid, I’m jittery and anxious and none of my usual methods work to calm me down—I went for a short (3.5 mile) run yesterday and ended up having to walk the last half-mile home because my body was shaking so much and I was so nauseated—I barely made it to the bathroom in time. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had to walk during a run.

Today I ripped through my kitchen and dragged out the hutch that Neil bought me for my birthday the first summer we were married. It’s been with us for almost 12 years and I’ve always loved it, but today I couldn’t stand to look at it for one more minute.

I wish I knew how much of my anxiety and depression stems from physical factors, and how much of it is situational. I can’t even tell you how stressed I am right now about Neil’s graduate program—if you’re keeping track, we are starting our ninth year of graduate school. 

Nine.  

Even typing that makes me start to hyperventilate.  Abigail will be in 4^th grade this year. We’ve outgrown our house and we have long since outgrown the student stipend Neil gets as a research assistant (hah, who am I kidding, it’s enough for a single student and that’s it!).

 I am so tired of working and I know I should be grateful that my job has enabled us to stay free from student loans or car loans, but all I can think about is the retirement accounts and 401(k) accounts and the kids’ college and things like that that we aren’t actively saving for aside from our general savings.

 I’m so tired of having my husband gone until 2 am every night. I worry about how his stress and exhaustion are impacting his relationship with our kids. 

I’m heartsick after saying goodbye to dear friend after friend as they have graduated and moved on—I can’t even count the number of friends I have lost. I miss them so much but at the same time it’s exhausting to think of investing similar energy into new friendships that will inevitably end in another year or two.

One of the things that is most frustrating to me right now is how out of control I feel in so many aspects of my life. I don’t  know when we will graduate. I can’t do anything to help that timeline move more quickly. I don’t have a good rock-solid system for getting my kids to help around the house and that is an endless source of stress for me (an ongoing war between worrying that I’m nagging too much and the thought that they may grow up without a good work ethic if I don’t teach them now).  I’m not as organized and on top of things as I usually am; I feel like I’m really letting things slide this summer with the kids academically. It’s incredibly hard for me to get enough sleep and instead of being up at 5:30 AM like I used to, I’m lucky to be awake by 9. I used to love cooking and deciding what exciting meals I would make, but it’s become the thing I dread most due to the children’s responses to anything I make. And let's not forget that five kids is a lot of work--hard, exhausting, not-at-all-glamorous work. Last but not least, I am so, so, so unhappy with my self-image right now; the anti-depressants I’ve been on have made it really hard for me to maintain my normal weight, even with marathon training. I look in the mirror and feel so unattractive—over the last month I’ve dyed my hair once and cut it three times. Each time I was happy for about a minute and then I felt worse. I got together with some friends this morning and all I could think about was that I was the most dowdy, out-of-shape, and unattractive woman there.

So. There it is. I’m praying that this gets better soon. Right now I feel so full of despair and I don’t know how it will get better, but I’m retaining enough clear-sightedness to know that it will even if it seems impossible now. 

time for a picture dump again!

Abigail made this label and stuck it on a bottle filled with peanut M&Ms for Neil.  Totally stole the idea from my friend, but it was awesome.

Done with project grading and I figured I’d knock out another to-do list item: blogging!  But first of all, I feel like my blog has been sort of lack-luster in content for the past…while.  I have lots of ideas for posts but I’m curious as to what people would be interested in reading.  Stuff about my kids? Recipes or food somethings? Holiday books we love that I think you might love too? Books or toys my kids love that I would recommend? (Can you tell I’ve thinking about Christmas?) Something else?

Anyway…some photos.  Confession: it’s been so long since I uploaded the photos from my camera (I’ve mostly been using my iPad) that I couldn’t remember what the cord looked like.  Sheesh.


So if my kids ever complain about their childhoods when they're adults, I'm just going to show them these three pictures and say, "WHATEVER.  It was awesome!" (And then they'll be like, "Yeah, Mom, we remember exactly how much of that candy you really let us eat...")

So one day we went on a hike & packed along a picnic lunch.  Isaac really didn't want to go (it was a couple of weeks after he had his tonsils out and he was still super grumpy but ohmygosh I felt like I would die if I was inside the house all day for one more day).  Anyway, he took all of his clothes off in protest, so we loaded him up totally naked into the car and went on our way.  He did eventually put his clothes on midway through the picnic and we went on our walk.  This probably says quite a bit about my approach to parenting Isaac--I've learned that I never ever win if I make it a power struggle, and I tend to just sit back and let him work it out on his own.

Somewhere on our walk...

A month or so ago Neil and I met up for lunch at a playground (I think maybe I blogged about this already?) to "celebrate" our engagement.  It was so nice to be with him.  He had ordered a couple of pizzas (there are some extremely passionate feelings about pizza toppings in our family and never the twain shall meet) and we just hung out and enjoyed the rare treat of seeing each other during the day.

I promise that Luke really WAS having fun.

And it was my darling Tot-Tot's first venture on a swing!

This is my view whenever the kitten hears dishes clinking--he comes racing in and starts mewing for someone to give him his canned wet food.  It's kind of the cutest thing ever.

Someday I will get a decent picture of myself running, but this was not the day!  I'm the one in the white jacket looking like a moron.  I had so many layers on, and I was trying to wave to Luke, and the combination of layers and waving didn't go well.

I looked even more attractive post-race.  DO you like that pink sweatshirt?  I've had it since seventh grade and it is a total wreck and I will never throw it away because it's the most comfortable piece of clothing I own.

Here's a real-life confession for you:  I had some pink frosting already made up and so when the kids wanted to frost sugar cookies for their Primary teachers I just mixed food coloring into the pink frosting.  Because I'm awesome like that.  Bats are sort of greenish-blue, right?

And I still think these are the best toys ever.

And Tot-tot is awake, so I'm done for the night.

Outsourcing

I was reading the blog of a family member the other day who was discussing how his therapist had asked him to make a list of triggers for his depression and anxiety, and another list of things that helped to calm him.  In thinking about similar lists for myself, I’ve realized that the state of my house is a huge trigger for me—it’s the easiest way for me to feel overwhelmed and bring on panic attacks. I’ve always been kind of a neat freak (understatement), and it’s been an adaptive process for me learning to be okay with the inevitable mess that accompanies a family like mine.

What I’d ultimately decided was that I was okay with the skiff of toys if everything was clean underneath.  I’ve written before about how I’ve had my regular to-do list items laminated on my ‘fridge for years—that list includes everything from daily storytime and one-on-one time with each child to cleaning out my ‘fridge and vacuuming my car. 

But. It’s been many months since I managed to cross everything off on that list each week (usually I do pretty well on Monday and then it’s a downhill slump from there.  Today I spent most of the day in my pajamas reading stories to the boys and building Lincoln Log towers.  Good on the mothering front, but not so great on the “bathrooms really need to be cleaned” front).  Today after dinner (which was PBJs because a) I was so tired and b) I haven’t been to the store in two weeks because oh my gosh have I mentioned a million times that I was sick and Isaac has been…recovering?  Not well, in fact, and his doctor started him on 3 new medications today--I've been doing well on dinners up to this point and making up random things from my cupboards [i.e. yesterday we had cheese tortellini with roasted carrots & broccoli tossed with fresh pesto & cherry tomatoes from the garden], but today I so did not feel like making food or cleaning up), anyway…today after dinner I was folding laundry with the girls and I said something about tired I was and they said they would clean up and I just dropped the socks in my hands, told them thank you, and went to bed with a book and a headache.  Half an hour later, they had cleaned everything up and I felt SO much better just looking around at my serene home.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this other than the fact that I have finally decided to hire someone to come in and deep clean my house on some sort of regular basis.  I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot—I’m home all day!  Shouldn’t I have time to do it myself? Is this really what I want to spend this money on? Can’t I just get the kids to pitch in more?

But the bottom line is this: I stay home with my children because I want to be with them, not because I want to deep-clean my house in the way that it needs to be cleaned with the 7 people living in it.  And yes, there will still be plenty of daily maintenance work going on, and my children will have far more chores than they’d like, but I feel so much calmer already now that I’ve committed to outsourcing some of the big jobs that I dread. So I’ve decided that if a few dollars can buy peace of mind, it’s money well spent.

So that’s what I’m thinking about today.  Keeping it real, folks, keeping it real.

(And the image at the top is the list Abigail made of their cleaning tasks—I found it tonight after the girls were in bed.  She is SOOOO much like me that it’s not even funny.)

Queen of the grumps

we made salt-dough ornaments for our little springtime tree.  Luke was convinced that they were
sugar cookies and--despite our best efforts to dissuade him--ate about half of one in one bite.
poor kid.

I've been in an impressively bad mood almost all of this week--if I was in a comic strip, I'd have one of those  angry gray rainclouds sitting above my head.  It's a combination of perpetual fatigue (at that stage now where the baby's movements are constantly waking me up all night), a head cold/cough on its second week (I think it may be headed towards sinusitis), the irritation of contractions every 10 minutes or so ALL DAY AND NIGHT, and feeling guilty because I'm so snappish towards my family.  Topped off with the fact that I haven't been able to run since Monday's lovely little hospital interlude, so I'm really hoping that I can start again this next week (as the ER doctor said I might), because I need those endorphins SO much.  I've been walking and doing yoga, but it just isn't the same (although walking is intensifying my contractions, so who knows if I'll even be able to run).

Today poor Neil did his best to hit all my happiness triggers--I knew that things had really been bad this week when he came home from work an hour early (on Saturday, nonetheless!) and suggested that we all go for a walk in the woods (I griped at the kids the whole time to stop sticking their hands in the mud, stop digging up the trail, hurry up/slow down, etc.).  It was not exactly a success.  Then when we came home he turned on John Denver, so I knew that I was really being awful if he was pulling out the big guns (John Denver is my very favorite but I listen to him so much that Neil generally prefers something else when he has a choice).  After dinner my contractions were strong enough that I had to go lie down, and since I was so exhausted I promptly fell asleep and then I woke up just in time to snark at everyone before bedtime.  Sigh.  I really hope I can get some real sleep tonight and that my nap didn't jeopardize it all.  So frustrating when I know I'm being awful but I'm losing my temper at the drop of a hat despite my best intentions.

Grump, grump, grump.  I need to snap out of it so I stop focusing on all the things that are ongoing and seem completely unsustainable but unchangeable.  (I feel pretty much the same way about grad school and pregnancy right now.)  Oh well.  A couple of pictures here...

Isaac made himself this giant nest the other day and I was so jealous.  Doesn't he look totally blissed out?

An afternoon trip to the moon when the "chocolate milk bus" (aka the UPS truck) delivered a giant box with a baby swing inside sent by my parents.

The kids decided they all would be safest wearing these "astronaut hats."  Nice, eh?

This picture is my favorite.

 I took this picture the other day after I made dinner (but before I cleaned up) to ensure that Neil appreciated the clean kitchen that greeted him when he got home.  It's the little things that count, right?

One of the things I wanted to do this year was to knit something other than (larger than) a scarf.  So I made this baby blanket.  It took me about four weeks of knitting while I listened to Juliet read to me or was reading stories to the kids myself.  I originally started with a much more complex pattern, but it was driving me crazy because I kept losing count of my stitches while I was reading aloud.  I've decided that I enjoy knitting much more when it is repetitive and relaxing rather than complicated and requiring lots of counting.

The end.

Grumpy contest

This is the time of year when it seems like everyone (myself included) put up posts full of holiday cheer and joy.   And things are not always joyful.  In particular, since we have now had this stupid cold since the first week of NOVEMBER, there is a lot of grumping going on around here, especially since we haven't been going anywhere or interacting with anyone since we're like walking vectors (we did go to church today and it was easily the worst.behavior.ever.  As in I listened to the closing hymn sitting on the floor of the coat closet with a sulking Abigail by my side, and I said really good parenting things like, "Oh, come on.  I've seen you make way more angry faces than that.  Is that all you've got?").

So I sat down to upload photos once the kids were in bed (which means that they're fighting in their rooms rather than in the living room) and saw that mixed in with the happy-looking shots where I was saying, "OKAY EVERYONE SMILE NOW OR YOU WILL NEVER SEE COOKIES AGAIN" there were a lot of good grumpy ones.  Enough for a post, in fact.  So please indulge me and feel free to be thankful that these aren't your kids today.  :-)  

So the other day Isaac was throwing a tantrum and I just sat there and took pictures the whole time (which made him even more angry, of course!)

And a few nights ago we were making a gingerbread train and Luke was furious that nobody would let him eat it. (He threw an even bigger tantrum when we tried to take off his Rapunzel costume.  If the girls get to wear it, by golly he wants to wear it too!!)

Luke tantruming in the background...

...and the foreground.

And perhaps my very very favorite photo--we took the kids to the zoo on Saturday (which deserves its own post), and Abigail was absolutely irate whenever I asked her to smile (she was pretty cheery the rest of the day, she just did not want to have her picture taken).  I took a lot of pictures of the other kids all throughout the day and then finally insisted that she had to be in just one.  And this is what we ended up with.

Awesome, right?


And not to leave me out, I was sitting in the dolphin dome feeling irritated about the fact that the girls told Isaac it was full of sharks, NOT dolphins, and creepy/scary/frightening, and so he was terrified of the dolphins that he had been talking about all.day.long.  I think Isaac took this picture.  (On a grumpiness sidenote, this is the very first semester that I have not finished my grading the Saturday the semester wraps up.  Usually I set aside the whole day and finish it all in one shebang, but this has been easily the most difficult and stressful semester I've ever taught--confidentiality prevents me from saying more, but man oh man, I could not face that grading yet.  Hence the zoo trip.)

 And last but not least, the final photo of the night.  Look, kids!  Happy lights all over the zoo!  Please go smile together and look like you love each other and you're having a great time!