I’m over at Hot Mom Reviews today, talking about Buckets for the Cure, a new KFC program benefiting The Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Come on over and find out what it’s all about. See you there!
Author: Dre
Categories
Beautiful
I met with the lady part specialist on Friday, to get the results of the myriad tests/scans/probes he ordered.
I’m bursting with the news. I don’t have Ovarian Cancer. For sure. It’s not there.
I have extremely low estrogen, which accounts for all of the symptoms I’ve been having. The treatment is easy, inexpensive, and effective.
Can I tell you I’ve been holding my breath, afraid to let it go? I didn’t even realize.
Friday morning, I saw the sunrise. Caught between the mountains and the ominous clouds looming above, the sun struggled to shine.
Yes. That’s it, exactly.
My world suddenly seems brighter.
There is beauty all around me. I’d been refusing to see it.
But there it is.
It’s everywhere.
Blinded by their beautiful spirits, I catch my breath. I hold them close. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Categories
Ostrich
It’s been six months since Blythe was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder.
She’s made incredible progress. A few set-backs, to be sure, but mostly progress.
I just realized today that I haven’t been taking advantage of all the resources available to me, to help her. And in that discovery I was smacked in the face with something my best friend told me many, many years ago.
When things get tough, I invert. I do things by myself. I don’t ask for help. I reinvent the wheel when there’s a perfectly good one sitting 10 feet away.
Why do I have to keep learning this lesson?
I let myself get so overwhelmed by the heaviness of it all, never asking for help until I’m being crushed into the ground, like Atlas.
Why am I so afraid of letting others help me, or in this case, my daughter?
Why haven’t I connected with the many people who have offered support with Blythe’s special needs?
Why didn’t I assume there was a website dedicated to clothing for kids with SPD (many thanks to Heather for the link)? So many simple solutions to problems we face every day. Why didn’t I at least do a quick internet search?
Why did I take it upon myself to research every possible preschool for Blythe, instead of calling our county’s office of education for recommendations?
Why haven’t I hired a housekeeper?
Because I do things myself. Even if life around here would have been a hundred times more pleasant for the past six months, had I just reached out for some support.
Why haven’t I learned to ask for help? Or at least learned to gracefully accept it, when it’s offered.
Every time I re-learn this lesson, I want to give myself a swift kick in the ass.
Categories
Here
Last night, I lost it with my kids.
It was past bedtime, way past, and yet no one was sleeping. The routines we had set up from the time they were wee little babies, the ones that worked so well and gave me evenings to myself, got lost somewhere.
Somewhere between the illnesses and the long work hours, the routine morphed into something unrecognizable. And they push, push, push until it is something more like child wrangling than a bedtime routine.
I screamed at them. I cried. I told them that I just could not listen to another whine word out of their mouths. I called them ungrateful and asked them how they had turned into children I didn’t recognize.
They got quiet.
And I wondered how the hell we got Here. To this moment in time when I’m yelling at my children instead of trying to find a solution that fixes the problem.
I wondered how I had turned into a parent I didn’t recognize.
My husband came home after yet another 14 hour work day, and walked right into the hornet’s nest that was me having a grown-up temper tantrum. Because, let’s be honest, that’s exactly what it was.
We got the kids to bed. I apologized to them for yelling, and for saying things that were unkind. For losing my temper. And they apologized for not listening, for pushing buttons, for acting out.
We all promised to try harder to have patience and be kind to one another.
Stress does things to people. I think it causes certain character traits to become stronger, and others to fade. It’s fight or flight, all the time. Our bodies aren’t meant to live this way.
We are making changes. Setting new limits, creating new boundaries – and not just for the kids.
We are Here, but we are getting There.
Slowly, but surely. Together.
Categories
Bye-Bye, Baba
This morning, Blythe and I watched the slide show I made for her first birthday.
I pointed out how big she is becoming, how tall and smart. We talked about how big girls drink milk from a cup, and babies drink milk from a bottle.
I pointed to the Blythe on the screen, baby Blythe. I pointed to the Blythe on my lap, Big Girl Blythe. We talked about how there are babies out there who could really use her bottles.
So, I made her one last bottle. She asked that it be a BIG ONE.
And then we emptied the contents of her bottle cabinet into a box, and sealed it up with miles of packing tape. I think all kids love tape. 
Blythe decided to send her bottles to Baby A. She knows he could use them.
She carried the package out to the front porch all by herself, and set it on the bench for the mail lady to pick up.
She said good-bye to the box, good-bye to her baba’s.
And then, as we read books and got ready for nap, she began to cry. She missed her baba’s. She loved her baba’s. She didn’t want them back – in her mind, they already belonged to Baby A.
But she was grieving. She was so very, very sad. She doesn’t want to be a big girl anymore, she said.
I lay there in the dark with her, rubbing her back and feeling the tears fall down my cheeks and I mourned with her. For a kid with Sensory Processing Disorder, there aren’t a lot of sure-fire options when it comes to soothing.
Baba’s were her thing. If she got overwhelmed and her senses felt like they were going out of control, a baba would calm her right down. It’s hard for both of us to let them go.
But it’s time. Recently she was very, very sick for two full weeks. During that time, she developed a bad habit of “needing” a bottle to get her back to sleep every time she woke up in the night.
Now that she’s better, she continues to wake up every 2-3 hours, asking for one. There are at least a dozen reasons I want to nip that habit right in the bud. And the only way I can think of to do that, is to make bottles completely unavailable.
I know she’ll be alright. She’ll find another way to soothe herself, and I’ll help her every step of the way. This is a good thing. It is.
But walking away from that package, from the last thing that kept her in “baby” status? It was hard. She’ll always be my baby.
But it’s time for me to let her be a big girl. My big girl.