Step #5

Act.

Acting in this political/internet climate has NEVER been easier. Like Michael Moore said, "Wake up, brush teeth, make coffee, call Congress." Hopefully in Step #4 you journalled a little bit to help gather your resources- phone numbers, email addresses, and locations you feel connected to. And then you pull the trigger. Inhale and dial the phone (5/7 times you'll get either a busy signal or an answering machine). Print out your letters and throw them in the mailbox. Figure out which train gets you to which rally on which day. And then get in the car (or have your bff drive you to keep you accountable) and go.

Start that website that connects people to resources.

Make a date and invite people to that cool thing you want to plan.

Start checking things off the list.

And then, after lunch (haha!), take a nap. Because this is overwhelming. You'll definitely need to go back to Step #1 (self care) during and after this step. Because being around a crowd of people can be draining. And watching your calls and letters seemingly fall on deaf ears can be demoralizing. So Act, but then step back and rest, so you can Act again tomorrow (or, you know, next Tuesday).

This is exhausting. But I keep picturing the #resistance as waves that keep battering the shore. Or like shark teeth- more rows are waiting in line to take the place of people who've gotten tired and need a minute to rest. So maybe you weren't Wave 1, or even Wave 2. But when it's your time, you'll be ready. Be well friends. Keep stepping up where you are.

Step #4

If you're someone who is also my Facebook friend, you've recently seen that my 2-year-old took the keys off of my laptop this week. I've managed to fix everything except the space bar. So, if you try to read my blog hearing my voice, today, the typing sounds like.I'm.punctuating.every.word.I.write.

Let's start talking about Step #4. It's the hardest step. Research and decide what your strengths are and where you can do the most good. A friend this week offered this advice: Pick 3 causes, and stick with just those three (Refugees, Civil Liberties, and Human Trafficking are mine... for now.... I think). I also needed to narrow down my sources of information. I picked one Internet action website (Moveon.org), one print media source (The Chicago Tribune), and one radio source (NPR).

And then there's the honest assessment of how I can help. In November, I started planning massive, sweeping neighborhood and national projects. I wanted to make blankets for kids in hospitals, CareBoxes on our streets for homeless people, a dinner for our neighbors who live alone...... also, it was Christmas so I had also to do all the Christmas things. I've backed WAY down since then.

Things I can do:
~make phone calls
~send letters
~show up to one thing a month (if it doesn't require a babysitter)

That's it right now. Because I have a job, and kids, and I do a lot of things for my church women's group. I'm tired a lot of days. So Step #4 is really about creating a filter for incoming information, and assessing what parts of your life you can use for causes. Life is SO overwhelming right now for EVERYONE. Step #4 takes time, and it's hard. But then you can feel amazing to work on Step #5 next!!

Step #3

Step #3 (in the Steps for recovering after a truly unsettling tragedy happens) is Gather with like-minded people.

This morning I attended a lecture by one of the pastors at my church about a program she runs that helps parents of other-abled children take a night off. It's a great program. This post isn't about that program (which can be found here).

This post is about me leaving my house 1-3 times a month, dragging Adam to the church-provided babysitter, and sitting in a room with other women for about 2 hours. I'm lucky to have found a church that aligns exactly with what my values are. So when I go there, I feel 100% nurtured and accepted. I can blurt out whatever insane thing my mind comes up with- and I know I'm safe. The catchphrase for the church is, we are a NICE Church: Nurturing, Inclusive, Connecting, Empowering.

Someone this morning asked why we haven't been to children's choir lately. Instead of making up something like, "we've been really busy" or "you know, just life" and making an empty promise to try to make it more often, I looked her in the eye and told the exact truth, "We've been having a lot of trouble with Sawyer lately, and we've decided to pause our extra activities until we can figure out how to help him be ok with himself and the world around him."

The week after the November election, I sat at a table as a leader of a group of women, and we all took deep breaths and cried. We said all the things we'd been holding in so we could appear strong to our families and "not crazy" to our friends. We just let it out, and brainstormed next-steps, and I felt better as I was leaving.

Don't get me wrong- everyone needs their close circle of friends. Jesus is there when there's even just two of us together (how did this post get so religious today???). But when there's more, and you can look around and know an entire pyramid of people share your dreams for our Earth and our future and our children, THAT'S the empowerment you need to keep going in tough times. Stronger Together. I'm SO glad I took the social-situation risk a while back and started Gathering with women. I've gotten SO much more out of it than I ever imagined I would.

Things I Don't Post to Facebook

Since it's been a whole year since I last posted, I feel like I'm shouting down an empty hallway.

Let me catch you up. In 2016 I....

~closed up my "daycare" (because seriously, worst. idea. ever.)
~helped raise $1000+ for DetermiNation
~ran a little
~drank a lot
~was elected secretary for our church's women's group
~started working at a high-end spa and actually making adult money
~gained a little weight
~went on a diet
~continued worrying about my kids' mental health
~started meditating with more consistency
~found a new friendship soul mate in my son's best friend's mom
~continued therapy
~ran a little more
~was on TV with DetermiNation
~quit DetermiNation
~rejoined DetermiNation
~tread water most of the year

I don't think there's a roadmap for how to recover from 2016. I've tried little things here and there. I created a List of 5 things to do while recovering from a tragedy (e.g. the 2016 election).

Step 1: Self-care
Step 2: Donate something
Step 3: Gather with supportive people
Step 4: Research and decide where your talents are best used
Step 5: Change the World

That's all I've got. I want to write more. Because I miss it. And because creating time to sit still needs to be on my 2017 list.

Seriously, WHY does the finish line keep moving??

Let me walk through something with you guys.

In 2012 lots of stuff was falling apart, so I went to therapy. Blah blah blah, Bipolar II. Blah blah blah, I can handle this. Yadda yadda I quit therapy. Almost 2 years later I end up back in therapy because things are again not going well.

Then today.... at the end of today's session, New Therapist (Meg2.0) tells me, "hey, I'd like to lift something off of you if you're ok with that." Well sure! You can do anything you want to!

"I want to lift that Bipolar II diagnosis off of you. I've been with you for a bunch of months now and I've heard a lot of things about your life now and your life in the past... and I'm sure a lot of things really do look like bipolar II, but I'm here to tell you right now- it's not that. You don't have that. You have different challenges, but not that. So I'm sorry to drop this on you at the end, and we will definitely talk about it more later. But there you go."

Thud. And also yay. And also also. Wow.

I'm not sure what even to think about this. I'm not sure I totally believe her yet. I have a lot to think about. But if it's true that I don't have that particular flavor of crazy, then a lot of things I think about myself are totally different. A lot of the things I've been afraid of don't exist anymore. A lot of things I thought were permanent, or inevitable, or impossible, are totally changed.

SO much to think about.

Caution: I've Been Drinking

This is about being married. I know a few people who are getting married in the next 12 months. And I've been married for 7 years (maybe 8.... it's almost midnight and I'm not prepared for counting).

If you're one of those people, think about this please.... When you're "getting married" to this person, you're signing up for SO much more than a wedding, maybe a house, probably kids. You are essentially saying to that other person....

I'm ok with washing your clothes.

I'll be awake with you at 1am wrapping Christmas presents for our kids while watching stand-up and drinking rum out of wine glasses.

It's cool that I know where your 8th grade dinner-dance was.

You like eating Spam sometimes, and I won't move out when I have to smell it.

Maybe you'll always put your toothbrush away wet and that means that MY toothbrush will be in contact with your toothbrush-water. And I'm ok with that.

We will naturally know who will hold the vomiting child and who will gather necessary materials (i.e. wash cloths, rags, buckets, thermometer). And sometimes we will switch to keep things interesting.

Occasionally we will text each other instead of talking because we are in different parts of the house and we don't want the kids to know what we are really thinking because it involves swearing.

I'll always save the last drink's worth of your alcohol in the bottle, and find something else to drink for myself. Because I love you.

I'm going to wear your clothes in emergency situations.

I'm going to look at you some days with a look that says, "I can't do this anymore" and you'll know that I need to walk into another room. And you'll take the kids to the store and when you're back you'll just hold me and let me cry and not tell me that it'll be ok because you know I might not believe you tonight. But that I might believe you tomorrow so you just let me be for right now.

Other days I'll get a text that you're going out for drinks with your friend after work and I'll actually go to sleep earlier because I know you need to eat wings and drink beer, and that you'll come home and be happy you're married to me and not anyone else's wife. Because really, other guys have it much worse.

And we'll teach Sunday School together.

And we'll cook together.

And we'll plan things. And execute those plans. And plan more things, and decide that we don't have to do EVERYTHING. And we'll help each other get dressed to go out. And I'll tell you if you have hair growing on your ears, and you'll tell me I have a zit on my back, and I'll throw away your really thin underwear and you'll laugh when I try to shove underwire back into a bra.

And we'll hold each other and cry sometimes because we know that life goes really fast and that however much time we've been given with each other will NEVER EVER EVER seem like enough. And that one day one of us will be gone and the other one will be alone. So we'll stay awake another hour tonight just knowing that for right now, we have everything we need.

That's what being married means.

It's Electric (LONG post)

I know how muscle fibers work. There's a sodium/potassium pump that exchanges electrical charges, producing a pulse that stimulates muscle fibers to contract. To build muscle, you stimulate these fibers so much that they break down. When the body goes to rebuild the fibers, it adds more this time so the body is better prepared for the work you're probably going to ask it to do next time. This process hurts some- it definitely produces soreness. And you, as the human in charge, can usually feel it when you're exerting yourself enough physically to get stronger.

So here's my question: how do we get emotionally stronger? Is it a brain-chemical thing? Like you shoot through your chemical connections enough and your body begins preparing a stronger response for the next time?

Here's why I'm asking... over the last few years I've had a bunch of moments when all I can think of is, "This is hard and I hate it." Times when it feels difficult simply to exist in the current situation. It's hard to be in my body. It's hard to breathe in and out and stand up and walk to the kitchen. It feels the same as trying to do 25 squats, or 30, or 50. Toward the end, it's hard and it hurts- physically. Sometimes, life hurts mentally/emotionally.

But then we get stronger. Right? You push yourself to do those last 5 squats- and it's easier the next time you do squats. You get to the kitchen and wash the dishes, and next time it's..... here's where the analogy breaks down. Because sometimes it's easier, but sometimes it's harder and you just never make it into the kitchen and your husband gets home and you're on your 3rd episode of Intervention and you both end up staying awake until midnight cleaning the kitchen and getting ready for the next day.


And here's the other part: parenting. Parenting is the hardest exercise I've ever done. Because there's poop. And laundry, and cooking, and crying, and banged heads/knees/toes, and whining, and more crying and laughing, and kissing, and napping, and snuggling, and loving, and powerful joy, and awe-some pride. All of these things happen in an hour. It's like emotional High Intensity Interval Training.

New Therapist recently told me that the best thing an adult can do with a kid is to witness their emotions. Acknowledge that what they feel is real, live in that feeling so they really learn about it, and help them move through it safely. That's a LOT of 'feeling' every day. As I've been doing it the last few weeks (with three to four kids a day in daycare) I'm wondering if I'm building up my 'feeling' muscles. I have no idea how to answer it. But it's interesting to think about.

Awkward Jello

The best thing about seeing a new therapist?? An entirely new set of metaphors to rest my mind on.

So we were talking about how I have this tendency to let insane things out of the mouth part of my face when trying to make small talk with people. Here's one story: Mom-of-a-First-Grader (who I've met maybe 2 times and don't know ANYTHING about), says hi. "How was your day?" And I reply with, "Oh my gosh, I was listening to the police scanner this morning and heard a grade school practicing an Active Shooter Drill. It was terrifying. So if you ever listen to a police scanner during a shooter drill, turn it off because parents with kids in school should NOT be picturing that stuff."

Honestly, that's how my day was. But the woman looked horrified and we haven't spoken since then. It's a situation I brought to Meg2.0 as an example of why I shouldn't be allowed to talk to strangers. She thought that it was very brave of me to give such a truthful answer to a question like that. But... that maybe I started having a conversation with myself earlier in the day that First-Grade-Mom accidentally stumbled into the middle of. So she just got a small cut-out of the entire conversation. And yeah, that can be fairly confusing. She didn't know why I listen to the police scanner (because of drug dealers), or that I'd only recently started listening to the scanner (that very day), or that I wasn't even listening to the scanner for the town we live in (because it isn't available online). So she didn't get the whole picture.

It's like this......

Say that talking to people is like making dessert. And most people, when they make small talk (and the quickest, easiest, most readily-acceptable dessert) make normal Jello. "Hey, it's chilly today." "Did your kids enjoy the pumpkin patch?" I think these things are boring so I usually space out and get a dazed look on my face (I've seen it in pictures). Talking about these things tells me nothing about the person I'm talking to either. So in an effort to make life more interesting, and elicit memorable conversations from people, I make Jello Jigglers!! They are much more dense, and have fun shapes, and last a lot longer sitting on the counter!! It's a denser version of small talk that's cut out of whatever is going on in my life at the moment.

Apparently, though, not everyone is a fan of the more formed, slightly rubberier, jello cutouts. And if they're looking for normal squishy jello, giving them something they're not ready for might turn a few people off.

BUT........ Meg2.0 forced me to think of all of the times that I've given someone the awkward jello ("Yeah, I'm just not sure how to explain felony aggravated robbery to my six-year old") and they LOVE IT and respond back with something memorable and honest ("No kidding! Schizophrenia is really a tough topic, but it's totally manageable if you frame it the right way.") and a friendship starts that is actually pretty fun and comfortable.

The risk can be pretty scary, but the friendship reward is actually super cool. Awkward Jello. It's what's for dinner (or dessert, whatever).

1-2-3, 1-2-3, Count. With. Me.

Week 2. I mean, Week Whatever since I started this daycare thing 4 months ago with a healthy break in September/October.

Ya'll. This is not easy. No one napped today. And everyone wanted their Mommies. Even me for a while. The bar I aim to hit moves constantly. Do you know what a circle is? Can I work it so that only one child is crying at a time? 4 diapers in 20 minutes (I only have 3 kids here so....)?

The good news: Everyone eats. Everyone poops. Everyone survives the day.

The better news: I haven't lost it yet. Well, not while the kids are here. I did a bit of drinking over the weekend, with Stephan, in the kitchen, over the Christmas planning/budget/ordering. But 8 hours of work is manageable. Because time marches on. 4:30 arrives. Every day. No matter who's pooped, who threw grapes, who tried to eat rubber bands (all of these are my own kid). 4:30 happens, and then it's just me and mine (which, again, isn't always easy either, but my standards are much lower for my own kids).

8 hours goes pretty fast. Sometimes it's the 3-5 minutes of triple crying that can feel super slow. And when that happens, we all just take a breath and Count. With. Me.

.... All Through the Town

Dude. You guys. I was in full-on mental-meltdown-mode last weekend. My 8 weeks off of "work" (i.e. the daycare kid was at home because her mom had a baby) ended. And I was freaking out because I had no idea how I was going to handle three kids in my house:

A 2 year old
My 1 year old
A 2 month old

Sunday I kicked Stephan out of the house and prepped lunches and dinners for the whole week. It took 3 hours. Curriculum for the week (this is a circle; it goes round and round) was another 30 minutes, and cleaning, laundry, furniture moving was the last hour.

And yesterday and today were easy.

I mean, not easy, but it wasn't hard. The baby cried. Adam was mad that I wasn't holding him and decided he wanted to nurse all day. The little girl stared deeply into my eyes and calmly told me "I'm not doing that" when I asked her to put something away. But they all slept (never at one time), they all ate (always at the same time), and no one cried for more than 5 minutes before I could empty my hands and pick them up. And at the end of they day I zoomed through each room to tidy up, cleared the sink of dirty dishes, folded the laundry and prepped the next day's lunch/dinner.

And the circle... it DID go round and round!!! And I... can TOTALLY do this! Why did I think I couldn't do this?? Stephan knew I could do it. The parents knew I could do it (or at least appeared to when they handed me their kids and a check). And I'm not just not failing. I'm kinda rocking this. That little girl totally knows what a circle is (despite telling her dad tonight that it was a heart). That baby drank 9oz of milk. And Adam......... well, he's asleep so let's just be happy with him not hitching his own ride to a grandparent's house yet.

"It's Just Brunch"

Stephan and I were listening to the radio a few weeks ago. The hosts were discussing the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. I love that show. I had to slow down my binge-watching to make sure I wasn't hurrying through the episodes.

Suddenly, Stephan turns off the radio and starts huffing in annoyance:

Him: That is terrible.

Me: What?? That they are romanticizing female incarceration?

Him: No. That people keep thinking they're so oppressed. It's discrediting the actual struggle of African Americans.

Me: Uuhm..... what??

Him: People keep saying they are the new Black like it's no big deal to have been abused and mistreated for centuries. It's disgusting.

Me: That's... uh... not what that phrase means. It's literally the color black. How it used to be reserved for people in mourning but now it's fashionable. The phrase is about fashion. Not race.

Him: No way.

Me: .....

Him: Really?

Me: Yup.

Him: I need to rethink a lot of things.


Which has to do with brunch in the following way... As a family we had accidentally scheduled three things to happen on one day.
1) Volunteering at a race in Milwaukee (70 miles away)
2) Attending a fundraising brunch buffet
3) Sawyer's 6th birthday party

Stephan and I went back and forth over how we were going to divide and conquer the day. At first I was going to send him to the race so I could take the kids to the brunch. But when I thought about the small-talk and group of people that would be attending a fundraising brunch, I freaked out and traded him for the early-morning smile and wave and "here sign this paper to learn more about the Santa Hustle" thing.

When the brunch friend found out that I was bailing on the brunch because I was too nervous to talk to live people (runners don't count as people I guess?) she texted me, "Uhm. It's just brunch."

Noooooooo. It's not "just brunch". It's being polite. It's "what do I say next?" It's "what do I wear? Is my hair ok? What was her name again? Where can I hide to nurse the baby? Am I making enough eye contact? Should I reply with something funny or serious? Have I quoted NPR too much? Will this person be insulted by a political joke? Did I really just make fun of Cuban refugees? OhmyGod I just totally made a refugee joke. That's not funny AT ALL right now. There's no recovering from this. Let's all go hide in the bathroom until this thing is over."

I guess I was just surprised that, with all of the sensitivity to people who have hard times in social situations, and especially given my outspoken terror of strangers, that someone would say that to me. That anyone would be confused about ME not wanting to spend 2 hours at a table with strangers, trying to make new friends. I regularly mess up the friendships I already have. Why would I want to start over with new ones?

It's totally possible I've been living in a Blogess bubble of love and acceptance lately. Her book was fantastic, and I just keep reading websites that are encouraging and supportive. Places on the internet where hurting and fear and wackiness are totally acceptable states of being. I guess this is why that bubble exists in the first place- so I can remember that I'm not the weird(est) one.

That it IS about fashion.

"Please don't joke about cancer."

This is going to be confusing.

I'm reading Jenny Lawson's most recent book, Furiously Happy.
And when I went to post a loving comment on her blog I saw that the comment above mine was, "please don't joke about cancer." and I thought:
Ugh! Please DO joke about cancer!! That's what I've been saying for all these years!!

So I went back to her website today to try to re-comment on the cancer comment BUT what I found instead was awesome. And instead of reading any more words here, you should go read these other words:


These words. Click here and read and it's ok to cry a little.

"Mom.... MOM.... MOM!!!"

There's a Healing Touch class called "Energetic Communication." It's a class where the practitioner learns how to listen, really listen, to the client in order to find out how to work with them. And one nugget of information I've carried with me since taking the class is this:

People will repeat themselves until they feel like you've heard and understood them.

If you've ever been talking to someone and they just keep retelling the same story, or keep hammering home a point, or using the same word or phrase over and over again, it can be a sign that they don't think you've heard them. This is never more true than with kids. It might mean that the person feels like no one is listening, or it might be that no one is actually listening.

At my church I'm lucky to be a part of a few different groups of women who meet to support each other and the community. But recently the actual work isn't getting done because several women keep talking. And talking. And talking. And we've responded by shortening meeting times, cutting them off, and just flat out not including them sometimes. What happens? They keep talking, louder, more often, and to more people. We stopped listening, and they kept talking.

So now we're trying to figure out how to start listening again. Because the point of being on this planet is to be with other people, and communicate with them, and create the world with them. I'm wondering if the email/text/tweet/Facebook culture is stunting our ability to listen to people. Or if we're so busy (as women, as people) trying to get stuff done that the quiet listening time has been preempted.

"This is Hard and I Hate It."

14 years ago I wanted a pet, but I was traveling too much to take care of a dog. So I got a cat. I went to a local shelter, picked out a small black cat and paid the money to take her home that day. She was about 6 months old and had just had a litter of kittens. BUT she was given to the shelter without those kittens, and still physically in recovery from delivering them. I was single at the time. The two of us watched a lot of daytime television. She loved "Who's the Daddy?" shows because she hoped to one day find that jerk who walked out on her.

Then I got married and we moved to a quiet house next to a lake. She was an indoor/outdoor cat and often left dead birds, squirrels, or chip monks, (once it was two semi-live baby geese) on my bed as presents. Then I got divorced and we moved into a small apartment. Then we drove her to Montana [OMG you guys you should read this] and I got married again. Then we had a baby and moved back to a house in the suburbs. Then we had another baby, and then she got sick.

And now she's in a box in the backyard.

And between every single word of our short summary of 14 years is a lot of love. And snuggling. And cat puke. And litter boxes. And fur. So. Much. Fur. Stephan constantly threatened to shave her. It's incredibly hard to put into words what losing a pet is like. Because it's pretty much something you own. But it's something alive. It's not a person, but you take care of all of its needs, and it connects to you without words. And if it's not your pet, it's just an animal. We lost our other cat a few years ago, but I never felt like he was "mine". So it was sad, but very different. A long time ago we lost our family dog. Again, not "mine" so not devastating.

Pets have been dying lately. And it's hard to know how to be supportive or to know if anything you say will make it better. I'm pretty sure nothing really does at first. You just sit in the suck. And don't do laundry because the litter box is still down there and laundry can wait a day or two.

Day Care Week #1

So many thoughts. This week was amazing. It really did unlock some weird part of my energy-level that sucked the most out of every day. Every morning I woke up to the alarm (?!) and got myself ready first thing. Fed and dressed the baby and the two of us opened the drapes and the door to the day care room at 7:45. Stephan was in charge of getting Sawyer out of bed and ready for the day- a job I'll have starting next Thursday when he's in school full time.

BUT it's been amazing to have a segmented day- and a list of chores that get finished at specific times. About 20 minutes of meal/lunch/snack planning per week.... and another 20 minutes of project/song/art planning sets up the week to run on auto pilot. There have also been surprises!!

~ We found some bubbles. Day over.

~ Chalk is too messy for causal use.

~ My washing machine takes 40 minutes per load.

~ One art project, one large-motor activity, and one song is often TOO MUCH for a 9 hour day.

~ We eat something every 2 hours, which burns 30-45 minutes at a time.

~ Girls sit still. Often.

~ Someone else's kid is fascinating.

Some other things that have been surprises are not so great:
+ It's tough to wake up at work.
+ When there's no time for makeup I feel different.
+ Being 30 minutes late with a meal melts everyone down.
+ Three kids eat a LOT of fruit in 4 days.
+ I'm tired.

So it's good that it's Thursday night, the dishwasher is running, the laundry is working its magic, I've got an iced drink in front of me, and tomorrow I sleep in a little. In a few months we add one (and then two) infants. So it's good that we are getting the routine set up with the bigger kids now. All in all, daycare might be the best thing I never thought I needed. Some people get their energy from being in groups, or being alone... I think I might get mine from following a daily schedule.

Day Care Day #2

At some point last week I realized that I would be learning a lot from the kids I would be watching. Before our first official start, I learned that the children would NOT be spending the whole day in the "day care room." Little Girl (LG) took a complete tour of my house, dirty laundry and everything, within the first hour. Areas I had planned to be off limits (really, everywhere, so I didn't have to clean my house every day) were explored, and declared fit for playing in.

Lesson #2 was about scheduling. My pretend "9am art class, 10am snack time" turns out to be completely fluid, within a 20 minute grace period.

Lesson #3 is buy more coffee. We ran out this morning and my heart sank in a way I was not expecting.

Lesson #4, screen the art supplies before letting them near the kids. We accidentally played with non-washable markers today. LG's favorite color is purple. So..... the kid looks totally bruised across her hands and arms. Sigh. Her dad says it's no big deal. But the hand-print on my wall may disagree.

Lesson #5. Just keep moving. I'm not sure if I'll have the energy to maintain the schedule of the last two days, but as I sit here after 8pm on Thursday evening, 90% of my house is totally clean. Because, apparently, I can have my own kids crawling around on a dingy, dog-hair-matted kitchen floor, but the minute I see LG trailing a tuft of fur I freak out and vacuum the whole place.

I had assumed the "give the work to the busiest person" theory was going to kick in. Maybe it already has. Laundry is put away. Dishes all done. Fridge full of food. I love the routine I've set up for the boys and me to get the day started and ended. Actually, I just love routine. And maybe I've created the day care so everyone around me will finally have to bow to my master plan. All of you? In bed by 8. Daycare starts at 7:30am!!!

Resting vs Slacking

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the fight of the century!!

In this corner, weighing in at a perfect 22 BMI, lean, mean, fighting-machine.... It's a well-deserved break in the middle of a busy afternoon, a seat on the couch with a tall glass of water and a short trashy television program, a glass of wine at the end of a jam-packed day, a slow walk in the middle of a 5 mile run, a day in bed fighting off an incoming viral attack, it's.....

RESTING!!!!

And in this corner, edging right around the 24.8 BMI mark [just below "overweight], resembling, but not quite copying The Blerch... It's an extra serving of ice-cream after a large pizza dinner, a fourth hour of a marathon viewing of something socially irresponsible, an entire 20 oz soda WITH caffeine AND sugar, a slow walk in the middle of giving-up-on the 3 mile run, watching the laundry and dishes pile up because "I'm not the only one who lives in this house damnit!", it's......

SLACKING OFF!!!!!

Sometimes when these two go toe-to-tow (haha! see what I did there?) it gets messy and you can't see whose arms are whose. And it can be confusing and frustrating when resting feels like slacking off, and sometimes slacking off feels like resting when life is just toooooooo complicated. But it's a push and pull I think everyone wants to end up on the right side of. Obviously, if you've read this far, you know it's a distinction I've been working on for my entire life.

I don't think there is a set answer to it. Maybe there's an internet quiz about it. I'll go check and get back to you.

;-)

And the Hits just Keep on Coming!!

To answer a few follow-up questions from my last post:

~The new career path (Ha! Melanie, I should just call you!!) is.... dah dah dah DAH!!! I'm starting a daycare in my home. For an entire year I've been trying to make the massage thing happen profitably while leaving Stephan's schedule to be his crazy schedule, and not wasting all my income on babysitting. While I still LOVE massage, and continue to study and experiment with bodywork, for an income it's been tough. Add to that the desire to spend as much time as I can with the new baby.... and Yay! We happen to have two neighbors expecting new babies this fall, and one of them already has a small one needing day care. So it will be a slow start, but I'm SO excited!! I've been spending the last month on websites, borrowing books, chatting up other daycare owners, and putting together the resources and knowledge base to make this a really fun and educational experience for everyone. Even more than "keeping them alive," I hope I actually can help the bigger ones to learn a little more about how the world works.

~Running is amazing!! I'm still in 2+ year old shoes and the aches and pains are mounting, but I've pulled in some 10 minute miles, and added some stroller-cross-training to the mix. With the Fitbit I've been watching my steps and really try to hit the 10,000 step goal every day. That has meant a LOT of walks to the grocery store (1.8 miles round trip!), to the park (0.8 round trip, but I can usually pace back and forth enough in an hour to get up to 2+ miles), and up and around the park district while swim lessons happen. Add to all that the diet tweaks (vegetarian-based!!) and I'm down 10 lbs since May!!!

Hopefully this year I can start sleeping more- that's a giant goal. We have a few more weeks to get the baby's schedule dialed in before kindergarden starts, and the rubber meets the road with the daycare. I remember working a full time job. It was busy, but stressful in the good "checking stuff off the list" kind of way. Cheers to that being the case in the next 10 months!!!!

(Sorry for the exclamation points. Maybe that sleeping thing isn't quite put together yet)

"That" Run

I went out for a run tonight, and it turned into "that" run.

It was that run that started as a 3 mile, but got an extra mile tacked on because it just felt so easy to do. The last 10 months (let's be honest, it's been since I got pregnant 18 months ago) have been hella crazy. I did not own my body, and a lot of things in life got tossed around. Stephan was finishing school, started a new job, this tiny roommate moved in and never slept... So many things in the last year and a half flew around the room like a bad scene from Poltergeist.

But today, this weekend, finally, things started to settle. Stephan found a groove at work. We got some really good news we've been waiting for about his school stuff. I figured out where I'm going professionally for the next few years. Sawyer started taking new classes that he totally loves, and is looking forward to kindergarden in the fall. My last cancer screening came back clean (7 years!! Yay!) The baby is sleeping.... somewhat... predictably... and I've actually started running 5 days a week again.

Today was the definition of "in the groove". Everything is settling down. Finally. We are all breathing much deeper than we have in a long, long, long time. And toward the end of the run this amazing song started to play. I love it. It embodied everything I was feeling.

Enjoy life!!

"You think you can do these things, Nemo, but you JUST CAN'T!!"

Stephan and I lived through 24 hours that, while completely our fault, was some of the toughest hours we've ever survived. (Not counting all the hours we haven't survived yet?)

We've been on vacation. We were vacationing in southern Missouri, where my family congregates once a year to sit at the pool and catch up while drinking beer at 10am. But when that vacation was over, our trip was just ramping up:

5am: baby wakes up
6am: make coffee
9am: leave for fish hatchery
10:15am: arrive at fish hatchery (temp = 96 degrees F)
10:30am: feed fish
10:45 am: hike up a mountain with a baby wrapped to me
11:45am: re-live our youth by talking to strangers
12:10pm: arrive at water park and drink shakes
12:20pm: begin sliding down concrete water slide
12:21pm: walk up hill to slide down again
12:23pm: slide down again
12:24pm: walk up again
[this repeats until 1:20pm]
1:20pm: manage preschooler fit
2:30pm: arrive back at pool and swim
4:30pm: out of pool. Begin packing
5:30pm: finish packing
6:15pm: baby smashes his face into the floor and bleeds everywhere
6:30pm: still bleeding
6:45pm: bleeding is stopped, time for dinner
8:00pm: drive away from rental house
9:15pm: stop at Walgreens for Orajel so baby can eventually eat again
9:30pm: cross into Arkansas

I can't honestly tell you the order of events after that. I know Stephan was driving. I stayed awake with him until about 12am, you know, for moral support. We stoped about every 2 hours to feed the baby, or let someone go to the bathroom. But then...

2:30am: sketchy rest stop in Alabama.... Stephan tries to find bathroom and is directed to a gated, fenced, padlocked enclosure at the edge of the property, with only one "women's" room, in disrepair, with two mystery doors that appear to be locked.

4am: Stephan asks me to drive
5am: the sun comes up
6am: I start crying in a McDonalds parking lot because I'm so tired I'm seeing things
6:30am: Stephan starts driving again while I sob sleepily next to him, disappointed I can't drive my shift this morning
8:00am: I get back behind the wheel.
10:30am: I'm done. Apparently I'm swerving so much that Stephan feels uncomfortable letting me drive.
12:30pm: We arrive at DeFuniak Springs, Florida.

At that point we visited Stephan's aunt, who lives in a nursing home there. We manage to finish driving to Destin, Florida, where a condo on the ocean awaits us. We heat up some left over chili (yes, we brought leftover chili on this trip) and take Sawyer down to the beach for his first ever encounter with The Ocean. After the driving we did, and the crying I did, the moment we all four held hands as the vastness of The Ocean met the miracle of our first son, at sunset, it was.... there might not be any words. I took a picture with "the camera in my mind" and we mostly just stood there letting the incoming tide remind us how big our world is.



One of the lessons from that day was this: some things are just different now. Stephan and I can no longer power through a 14-hour drive and expect the kids to fit into our plan. We used to drive 14 hours to and from Montana 3-4 (or more) times a year. But we have to admit that, at least for the near future, our driving days need to be shorter. It's a big shift for us. We once drove straight from Chicago to Oklahoma city, and then to San Diego, only stopping briefly. That's just not us anymore. But "worth it" is so fantastically, actually AWEsomely, not even close to what we get to do instead.