The Devil’s in the Details

 

A year ago, I thought I was pretty familiar with anxiety. We were more than acquaintances, a first name basis. He came for lunch, sometimes stayed for dinner, and once in a while, he had a bit too much drink and crashed on the couch. That friend that overstays his welcome by a few extra hours, the one that doesn’t take a hint when you tell him you have an early morning meeting to get up for. I thought I knew him. I thought I knew him well. I trusted him, there was an understanding: he provides a low level of motivation to help me power through life, and I only evict him with Xanex when he gets too rowdy. Then I had to schedule an EKG for my 7-year-old. That night, anxiety had more than a few too many, he didn’t crash on my couch, he didn’t become the life of the party; his eyes went dark, he crawled into bed with me and made himself comfortable. He whispers in my ear slowly, methodically, repetitively. He threatens my sanity with a calm, terrifying voice. He isn’t the inconvenient acquaintance I thought I knew, the friend I learned to use to my advantage… he’s a predator, and he’d been waiting for something with substance to bite in to.

I’ve had a headache since I was 14. It’s not always a life-halting headache, typically it’s just a dull discomfort.  If I tell you I have a headache, it means I’m hitting a 6+ on the pain scale, anything under a 6 for pain isn’t worth mentioning. My baseline hovers around a 2-3, I don’t actually know what having no pain feels like, I can’t remember.  It’s an ‘everything’ condition.  Some days it’s a generalized “everything just aches”, some days it seems to centralize in one spot.  Sometimes it doesn’t manifest itself as pain, as much as shows inabilities of my body to function ‘normally.’  From dry eyes to nephropathy, from brain fog to fatigue, from heightened senses to flu-like symptoms we don’t need to get into.  The diagnosis is Fibromyalgia, but really, it’s just part of being me.  I don’t really know life any differently.  And unless you’re married to me, you don’t hear me talk about it much, most people forget I have it.  When asked what it feels like, the only way I know to describe Fibromyalgia is to tell them it feels like you’re coming down with the flu.  You’re not completely sick just yet, but you know it’s happening. Those 12 hours prior- that ‘run down, can’t get comfortable’, achy feeling you have. You’re off. It’s coming. But you’re not yet to the point where you’re debating Tylenol and tea vs. writing your will.   Those 12 hours before, that’s just my normal. I have good days; days I probably feel like everyone else, and I have bad days; days that most people would call in sick to work and hop on tele-doc to make a series of appointments for blood work and specialists swing by Urgent care to check vitals and make a plea for a narcotic. On those days, I take a handful of Advil, pour some coffee on it, and close my office door while I work.

But, I’m not writing this to gain pity or even attention to the cause. The last thing I ever want in life is pity. I don’t need it.  The cause just is what it is, you learn to handle it, you learn how much coffee, how much Advil, how much sleep you need, and when. You learn what is likely to cause a spike, and you work around it.  You learn to pay attention to the small things, the shifts in how you feel.  You take note of what changes in the environment, diet, medications there may have been.  You learn to do this only after years of searching, after years of doctors and blood work and pills and experimental treatments. You learn to do this when none of that works.  You learn when the 10th doctor tells you that whatever ailment of the day you’re seeing him for isn’t severe enough to address and piecing the ailments together isn’t really ‘a thing we do’ in western medicine. You learn to do this when the last failed doctor tells you he has no more tricks up his sleeve and you should ‘just learn to live with it’.  So, you do.  You ignore everything they told you, you take the details of each symptom, of each change, and you research, and research, and research.  You dive into eastern medicine, and you eliminate things from your diet, and you learn that, no,- giving up gluten doesn’t fix a neurological problem, but sometimes acupuncture or blue-algae pills help.   You find things that lessen the intensity, you find ways to shorten the attacks and you just move on with your day, because this is just part of what it is like to be you.  You change your mindset, over and over, then change it back for a day or two because you need a moment to be upset about it, then you change it back again.  It’s not about ‘fair’.  This didn’t “happen to you” this just is.  You don’t beat it, but you also don’t let it beat you. Quitting isn’t an option.

I fell rollerblading when I was 14.  I hit my tailbone.  I got up, brushed it off, and went about my day.  A few days later, I turned my head and my neck spasmed, and that was the beginning of a now 23-year headache. I fell rollerblading.  Something every kid does, and for me, it triggered fibromyalgia pain.  But the more I learn about it, the more I notice how many signs and symptoms I had BEFORE the pain ever started.  I was awkward and clumsy, my joints were loose, my eyes were dry. I squinted a lot as a kid, even though I didn’t need glasses until I was a teenager. I had signs of depression at a young age for no specific reason. I cracked every joint in my body that I could, because there was always tension, even when there wasn’t pain. A million little benign signs that didn’t seem to add up to anything.  The devil was in the details. 

The concerning part about it isn’t the symptoms or the lack of solutions, it’s the fact that no one really knows what causes it.  The tests for it are “clinical”  you need to check enough boxes on a worksheet, and have enough specialists eliminate other possibilities they can run blood work for, and when everything else comes back negative- “well, I guess it must be this”.  After that, they stop looking for a source.  I was officially diagnosed after 3 years of appointments and tests and specialists. That was 20 years ago.  20 years ago, they had no answers, and most doctors didn’t believe it was real. It took 3 years to get a ‘non-diagnosis’-diagnoses for a condition half the medical community didn’t believe in. It allowed them to stop looking. Today, they admit it’s real and at least know the pain signals come from an overactive nervous system that travels through your connective tissues.  They know that it often has co-morbidity with other autoimmune diseases, although Fibromyalgia isn’t actually an autoimmune disease, they have no idea why. 

This year I, ironically, spent Valentine’s morning watching Sawyer’s heartbeat on a screen. It started with a deformity in his ankle bones and knees that bend backward, noticeable at birth.  At 3, he had chronic ear-infections that never fully went away, often accompanied by colds and strep. At 4, he got tubes for his ears and an orthopedist and ankle braces.  At 5, they finally admitted that two straight years of being sick and fighting strep might be caused by tonsils so large they touch, and gave me a referral to an ENT to remove his tonsils, adenoids and put in the second set of tubes. At 6, I asked about his worsening ankles and his knees and his jaw that bites sideways and causes him pain.  They told me to wait, he might outgrow it.  At 7, he could pop his shoulders in and out and he was noticeably weaker than other kids his age.  We had a new pediatrician that year, he finally agreed that there were too many “details” to ignore.  He sent me to a geneticist to have him evaluated for a connective tissue disorder. I found out that we have some family history of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), and he, and I, check a lot of boxes.  I did my research.  He came with an hour of questions and a worksheet and measured how far he can bend this way and that. He studied his skin, his nails, his height.  There is no genetic test for the hyper flexibility version of EDS.  Just a worksheet and professional opinion.  He checked 4/5 boxes needed for a diagnosis, the one missing was ‘immediate’ family history.  I wasn’t diagnosed with HEDS. HEDS can affect all of the connective tissues in your body, not just your joints, which means, his eyes, his heart, his lungs, his colon, his spleen, his blood vessels- all on the list of places that could have a “weak spot” and cause an aneurysm at any point.  He gave us a referral for an ophthalmologist and an EKG – the eyes and the heart are the most common.  If those are clear, he should be ok… for now.   A week later we went in for his eyes, then his heart, and a week after that, we got a call that they were ok.  the Ehlers Danlos Diagnosis is ‘inconclusive’ and for now, he’s going to label it as “Generalized Hyperflexibility Spectrum Disorder”. He scheduled PT and gave a list of things he’s not allowed to do anymore to avoid injury.

This was supposed to be good news.  And to everyone else who’s never been through it, it was. But, I already know there’s more to this than hyper-flexible joints.  I see it in his skin, I see it in the way his eyes are always dry and he flexes his face in an effort to relieve the tension in his jaw.  I see it in the pain he has in his legs and back.  I see it in the way a skinned knee takes forever to heal and how easily he scars. I see it in all of these small signs that were just not quite severe enough to check a box, but the number of signs that were near misses didn’t seem to matter.  The devil is in the details. 

So, we forced him to choke down bone broth, he hated, to add collagen to his diet, until he heard the doctor tell me he didn’t think that would matter, and now refuses.  We got proper orthotics for his shoes that help ease the pain on his knees, and we work on building muscles in an attempt to take the pressure off his joints.  He gave up monkey bars, and I watch to make sure he doesn’t rough house with his friends in any way that can dislocate a shoulder.  I forced him to learn to swim the right way this summer in an effort to give him something athletic that he not only can do without risk but should help take the pain away in the long run. 

I pushed him hard during baseball practice, despite his lack of interest to show him that he can’t give up when something is hard and that quitting isn’t really an option.  I stood there and made him finish practicing his piano, allowing breaks, but never eliminating the overall time, when his wrists hurt. Because quitting won’t make it go away. To anyone watching, I seemed mean.  Who cares if he’s not a baseball player?  If his wrists hurt- why does he need to play the piano?  I was hard on him this year.  No mercy.  And, for everything in me as his mom that wants to make every exception for him, and for the child in me that remembers what it feels like to be uncomfortable and want to be told I could sit it out, I know that letting him use the pain as an excuse is something the world will never do. 

This year, he looked at me and asked “why is everything different about me?” and I had to tell him that he’s not different, he’s like me.  I watched him limp in from the outfield and burst into tears in the car because the coach told him to ‘hustle’ when he simply couldn’t ‘hustle’.  The coach didn’t know something hurt, he looked OK to anyone that doesn’t know what it looks like when you’re trying to fake it. I spent nights rubbing his back with peppermint oil and stretching his hamstrings for him and teaching him how to position pillows to help avoid stress on trigger points. I watched him get mad and tell me how much he ‘hates his stupid joints’ when he was told he couldn’t play with the other kids on the jungle gym.  I watched him get accustomed to pain that he now has his own measurement of when its ‘bad enough’ for Advil and when he knows he can just ‘handle it’, and he toughs it out most of the time. 

This year he needed glasses and physical therapy, and he saw what his heart looks like on the inside.  This year he noticed that he can’t keep up with the other boys physically and that some days, just sitting in a desk chair too long means your hips hurt at the end of the day, or that losing a glove in winter has greater consequences than cold hands, as he battled eczema so bad it bled.  This year, reality hit, and she has a mean right hook.

I parent him differently now. I lecture him on controlling his reactions and coach him on taking a minute to assess how he feels and ask himself why he might suddenly be crabby because at 8, he doesn’t always know when he’s hungry or tired. He can’t always tell because he doesn’t really know what it feels like to feel ‘good’. I watch how he moves, I watch what natural adjustments he makes, I check on him in the middle of the night if he had a headache that day to make sure he’s breathing. I don’t give in, I make him redo work if I think he has half-assed it. I’m more likely to let him stay home if he says he doesn’t feel well, but on the days that he feels fine, I require 120%. I don’t allow him to be lazy, because quitting isn’t an option and success is in knowing that on a bad day, his 120% will be everyone else’s 60%, so on his good days, his 120% will be everyone else’s 240% – and those days he will outshine them all. Understanding that is how he will keep up. It’s how he will be allowed a bad day without major consequences. It’s how his bad days will be fewer than his good ones. Laziness leads to quitting. Quitting isn’t an option.

At the end of the day, the predator whispering in my ear at night isn’t whispering about pain management or EKG results, he knows I know how to handle that. It’s reminding me of what quitting for people like us could mean. It’s reminding me what the depression feels like, it’s reminding me that quitting depression doesn’t always equal thriving. He’s whispering the details that need to be taught, the details that need to be observed, the advocacy that he will need to ensure the details aren’t overlooked. Because the devil is in the details.

Sawyer,

This year sucked. There’s no eloquent way to put it.  From an unpleasant first grade teacher to a doctor’s appointments and quarantine, you were handed a heavy load, and I added to it with lectures and re-dos and correction.  And for the fact that your year was so hard, I am sorry.  For the fact that you are built like me; that I am the reason you will spend life carrying more than others, I am so very sorry. To be like me, was the last thing I ever wanted for you.    But I am not sorry for how hard I was on you this year, for I would rather teach you how to face the world by facing me first.  I would rather you learn the value of work ethic now, so you have it to rely on during the hard days later. I would rather you be mad at me for being harsh today than mad at the world for it at 20. Because at the end of the day, I will be there to tell you it will be ok, that you can find a way to work through or around anything life hands you.  I will be there to advocate and comfort and remind you that there is no such thing as “normal” and that being built differently will make you stronger.  There will come a time when you realize just how much different your perspective on life is than others, and that will stem from facing daily challenges others may not have to. There will be a day that you realize you would change the pain, but not the journey because the journey offered you an appreciation for life and a book of wisdom you wouldn’t otherwise have. Until that day, and after, I will be there to check for the details you may overlook, and endlessly attempt to teach you how to notice them, in every effort to ensure that the devil never crawls into bed with you and begins to whisper. 

My wish for you this year is that you remain as happy throughout your life as you are at 8, and that no matter what life hands you, your laugh stays as strong as your will to conquer it.  For if you laugh when the devil’s eyes go dark, he will never follow you to bed, and you will never lose the battle.  

Happy 8th Birthday Peanut, I simply couldn’t love you more. 

-Mom

“…When the Devil finished Johnny said, Well, you’re pretty good, old son
But sit down in that chair right there, And let me show you how it’s done…”

– The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Emerson Drive. 

Hello, my name is…

“I want to be a teacher when I grow up…because I like telling people what to do!” Violet, age 3

When I was 7, I wanted to be a hairdresser, like my aunt, or a teacher like my mom. I remember being told by a friends mom, a very practical lady, “You don’t want to be either of those things, your feet will hurt by the end of every day”. At 7, this seemed ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine my feet hurting, and I was always told I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up! At that moment, I heard her tell me I was wrong. What I didn’t hear in that statement, until much later in life was: ‘Keep thinking about it, you’re just not there yet.’ I know now, that although sore feet is a perfectly valid justification, the reason she wanted me to keep thinking about it had a lot more with wanting me to decide for myself what was best for me, and not just follow in someone else’s footsteps. I wish I had picked up on that life lesson earlier than I did. Not for the sake of my career path, but as a general rule of thumb. ‘Don’t follow because it’s easy.’ I spent a lot of time growing up at her house, watching and listening to this single mother take life head-on in what seemed like an independent and fearless existence.

Being independent was something that was always instilled in me. Neither at home nor at my friends house, were things done for me that I was capable of doing for myself. I made my own cereal and school lunches by first grade, and no one made my bed in the morning, if it went unmade, so be it, and it usually did. I folded and put away my own clothes and if I wanted a snack, I went and got one. I don’t remember my mother preparing a snack for me once in my entire childhood. By middle school, I could use the stove to boil water and make pasta and if I forgot my gym clothes, no one was running home to grab those for me. Those responsibilities were mine to remember. If I needed help, I needed to ask for it, and if asked, I would then receive it, but things were never going to be done for me, because that’s not the way the world works. Being taught to be independent may have made life seem unfair as a kid, but as an adult, it’s something I genuinely value. I have needed and asked for help along the way, and remembering that it’s okay to ask for help as I get older is definitely something I struggle with occasionally. It challenges my independent nature. It challenges my personal sense of strength.

Strength can’t be taught. We can throw out a million statements to define it, and we can make chore lists that are eight pages long to teach abilities and independence. But strength, that’s gained through experience, and that experience can only be your own.

To say that these last few weeks have been hard would be an understatement. Working from home full time with both kids, while my husband still goes into work, is a juggling act I never trained for. Homeschooling isn’t something I do. I’ll help with homework, and I’ll print out worksheets, and I’ll purchase all the puzzles and ABC coloring books on the planet, but the expectation that I’m going to sit to teach them academics a few hours a day is an expectation I have no intentions of meeting. I’m going to click the link to the zoom meeting for them and walk away, provided I’m not already in my own meeting at the same time. That’s as far as that it is going to go. I have a full time job to do, and I simply can’t do both. I’m also not qualified to teach academics. Throughout all of this my kids have had to spend the majority of the time ‘raising themselves’ in one part of the house, while I attempt to focus on work in another. It results in a lot of mess, bored children, sub-par work and some tears (mostly mine). It’s caused anxiety I can’t describe, some reasonable, some not, and a communication gap at work that has done some likely irreparable damage to some relationships. For me, it has shined a light on some realities that I won’t ever be able to ‘unsee’. This has made me question my strength and reflect on my experiences in an attempt to put this uncharted territory into perspective.

But on the flip-side, my children have become best friends. They fight and bicker, and Sawyer intentionally does ‘big brother’ things just to get a reaction, but they also laugh harder with each other than I’ve ever heard them laugh with anyone else. They’ve developed inside jokes that only they will ever understand and they’ve become so accustom to helping each other in an effort to help themselves, that its becoming second nature. Sawyer’s reading ability has skyrocketed, not because I’m teaching him, but I’ve required him to read to his sister in an effort to keep them quiet while I’m on a conference call. Violet’s learned letters and strategic thinking and how to manipulate the system, as she takes candy and a tablet into her room and closes the door so I’m less likely to hear what she’s doing. Sneaky, yes, but also, its forethought she didn’t have two months ago. They’ve learned how to make themselves snacks, design and assemble a projects, and Violet can sit and do 1000 piece puzzle with the family. These are skills that to me, are immeasurable. I’d love to take credit for teaching them, but I can’t. All I did was stop doing things for them, because I don’t have enough hands. I stopped following the “good mom” rules in an effort to survive. As a result, they are learning to survive. And through this, I hope they will gain some strength in the face of the ‘unfairness’ of life and ability to lean on each other more than anyone else. I hope they learn from each other, exactly who they really are and just how capable they can be.

Throughout the past year, I have watched Violet begin to develop capabilities, independence and sense of self. She has struggled to find the balance between speaking up about the things she enjoys, and deciding to simply find joy in things others enjoy. She’ll play super-hero’s with her brother, but she wants to do it in an Elsa dress. Every morning for the last two weeks she has gotten up and told me a different name she wants to be called that day. This is everything from “Mom, today my name is Anna” to “Today, I’m Unicorn Sunshine, don’t ever call me Violet again”. I’ve always had pet names for the kids, Violet has had all sorts of names, from Princess Peach to Snuggles, and from the day she could tell me not to call her those names, she has the majority of the time: “My name is Violet, not princess peach”. So, her new want to change her name lately, I found interesting. She’s always had a strong self confidence that I admired, so why the sudden want to be someone else? I can only assume it’s due to the mass amounts of imaginary playtime with her brother, the confinement in the house leaving her longing to go anywhere else, and a desire to have greater abilities than she currently does simply as ‘ 3 year old Violet’. Her need to be independent has been this years theme, as she has learned to think a bit for herself, skate the system, and rely on forgiveness a whole lot more than permission. This year she worked to find her place. Place in the family, place in the group of neighborhood kids, place in the classroom at preschool. She’s found herself in a variety of situations that left her wanting to participate, but not in ways that didn’t suit her. She’s had several imaginary friends, all with elaborate backstories and when I ask about the kids at school, she’s selected a few that she talked about endlessly, but never really played with much during class. She’s a watcher. She pays attention to the people around her, studies what they are doing and decides in her head why they might be doing it. Everything she does has a purpose, even if no one else understands it. Little is done purely on impulse. She speaks up when she feels things are unfair without hesitation, and she isn’t afraid to walk away to go play by herself if she isn’t interested in what others are doing. She’s the 2nd born struggling to find her own voice, her own ways, her own sense of control.

Independence, I was taught. What I wasn’t taught, and what I can’t teach, is just how much harder the world will be on Violet than on Sawyer. An independent man is expected, required even. An independent woman isn’t always a respected trait. This isn’t speculation, this isn’t a feminist rant, this is just pure fact from someone that lives it. If you are forthright in your opinions, even when fully fact-based, you are often considered a bitch. In the world of mostly men in leadership, especially in business, she will have to work twice as hard to be seen half as good. And even then, she will be questioned at every turn. If she becomes a mother, but also has a career, she will be judged on the things she isn’t able to participate in at school, but will also have restrictions on career advancement or capabilities at work. One can not actually ‘do it all’, but the expectation will be as such. She will be judged and dismissed and overlooked at times and it will be unfair and frustrating, and in many situations, down right offensive. She will find she will be asked to do most tasks twice, the 2nd to prove out her work, or at least fully explain it. Trust will never be fully granted at work, while earning respect in the world of motherhood when you don’t have the time to volunteer for the PTA or attend field trips, is almost impossible. She will sit and watch the men around her not struggle with these things in either situation. Emotions are frowned upon. She will be praised when being passionate, having drive, being invested, but only if those things positively effect those around her, and if her emotions get the best of her because all the passion, drive, and dismissed work, she’ll be written off as being an ‘irrational woman.’ “Be passionate, be yourself, but only if it benefits me, when it doesn’t – sit down and let the men work.” will be the unspoken message she will hear, and work against, as an independent woman.

Despite knowing these are the challenges she is likely to face, I will raise nothing less than an independent women. Her purposeful nature will crave it, and the strength to handle it will come. The strength to stand her ground, challenge rules she knows are wrong, and take on more today than she did yesterday in an effort to better herself and her surroundings, is strength that only comes from learning to survive the adversity she will undoubtedly face. It comes not from the battle, but from the recovery. The self-reflection, the evaluation, picking up he pieces and assembling them once again, this time with a stronger glue than last…refusing to ever remain shattered, despite the number of times she falls. Strength is gained not because you are never broken, but because you were and then you put yourself back together. It is not defined because you did not cry, or because you didn’t lose your temper. Strength happens because you allowed yourself do those things, you were willing to invest enough of yourself to risk breaking… then you took the time to reflect and repair. Strength comes when you continue on with the war, even though you lost a battle. It’s constructed from broken hearts, disappointment, tears and failure. It manufactured from sadness… and then survival.

No, I will not raise anything less than an independent woman, as there is no greater satisfaction than when you find you have the strength to sit in the darkness and defeat and rebuild knowing that when you emerge you are even more prepared for the next adventure, and renewed faith in yourself because you didn’t take the path of least resistance, and you lived to tell about it. These last few months, locked in the house, I’ve watched her be forced to grasp concepts well beyond her years, understand why she can’t see her friends, her cousin, her grandparents. I’ve watched her struggle to play 7 year old games, when she is only 3, and find ways to adapt them to her level. I’ve watched her learn to to help herself in 100 different ways, learn to ask for help and learn to endlessly wait. I’ve watched her get upset and frustrated, then learn to compromise. I’ve wiped her tears as she began to feel the weight of the unfairness of life, and then I’ve watched her take her sadness, close her door, turn on her music, dance by herself and come out with a smile. I’ve listened to her lists of things she plans to do when “the corona virus is all gone” in her small three year old voice, and say it without fear or doubt, but simple fact. I’ve watched her repair, on the days that I couldn’t.

Violet,

Three was an the year you became ‘you’. You became unafraid to embrace the things that YOU love instead of the things everyone handed you, and your world became full of Princess Anna, Ice powers and a want to conquer the world in a dress that sparkles. Your love of Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” maybe questions my parenting choices on the surface, but your smile and confidence when singing along, hand motions and all, made me know that despite the age-inappropriateness, letting you sing that was one of my better decisions. The way in which you love your brother unconditionally, while also fearlessly putting him in his place sometimes, gives me faith that you will never let someone push you around, but you will always love in the end. The calm, ‘matter-a-fact’ way you told me “God is watching out for us, and he doesn’t like it when you yell” with your little hand on your hips, as your polite way of saying ‘You’re going to hell for this’ in an objection to being told to pick up your toys, gives me hope that you will hold on to the ability to find effective ways to make your point known, without truly crossing the line. You’ve shown me what resilience looks like in its truest form, and been my saving grace and reason to smile more times these past few months than I can count. So with everything we’ve been through lately, I have more than one wish for you, I think you’ve more earned it.

My wish this year as you blow out your candles will be that you learn to follow your own path, not the easy one and stand up for what you believe is right. Fight with passion, but also facts, cry when it feels like life has beaten you, sit in the sadness for as long as you need to. Don’t let anyone tell you how long is long enough, but when you’re done, wipe your tears, get up and face another day, knowing you are stronger rebuilt than you ever were before you broke.

My wish will be that you are never afraid to take on a battle you believe in because you are independent enough to know who you are, instead of what you want to be, for that is a far greater goal.

And lastly, my wish for you will be that you always know that when you need an army to follow you, you will already have one, when you need an adviser, you have three, and when you need time and peace to reassemble, we’ll all help you find the pieces and dance with you in the dark.

Happy 4th Birthday, Miss Violet Elora. I am so very proud of you.

Love,

Mom

“…Woo child, tired of the bullshit, Go on dust your shoulders off, keep it moving…” Lizzo, Good as Hell

Impossible Blueprints

“We’ve got to believe in our beautiful, impossible blueprints” – Doris Lessing

Some days, I get up with ideas. Big ideas. Limit-pushing, idealistic, unachievable ideas. Skyscrapers with glass facades that gleam in the sunlight, intended to raise standards and reveal resolutions hidden in the shadows. They develop in my head like a drawing. Always in images of the final product, perfectly overdone, complete with quoined corners and marble laden steps, monuments in my mind. I will sit with these ideas for days. Sourcing materials, researching construction, eventually realizing the breakdown isn’t reasonable. Time, energy, payoff – just aren’t there. A grand idea isn’t always a good one. The letdown sets in. The disappointment that my newest skyline addition can’t be what I imagined it to be. The realization that I fell short on ability, execution or sound mind. Frustration, self-doubt, and then acceptance. Only after acceptance can I take the monument down to a building – realign the goals. Maybe a well-built 4 story office building with a box bay window will suffice. A solid foundation on a budget. I’m short on time, maybe just a flip that needs fresh paint and landscaping. Practical.

Eventually, I get around to practical. I hate it. It feels cheap and unloved. It feels half-assed and half-hearted. It’s just enough to get the job done. Most people seem to be ok with ‘good enough’. I’m not. I know what the intent of the skyline was supposed to be. I know the possibility was out there. I just couldn’t create a proper blueprint. No one realizes I sold-out, fell-short and gave up on an opportunity to create or be something truly great. No one realizes these windows only reflect the light on the southwestern exposure from noon-two. Solutions will emerge slowly from this catalog selection, the shadows are plentiful. I move on. There will be other designs, other buildings, and different problems to solve.

It still takes me a while to get to the acceptance stage. I feel like I’m lowering my standards when I do. But it took me years to ever get to the “move on” stage. I might calm down enough to refocus, but that building would be in the back of my mind, it would be filed into “someday” in my head, and I’d never really stop working on it. I’d never really let myself off the hook for not pulling it off. I’d also never really get around to making it happen. The design would become irrelevant by the time I had it figured out.

I see this in Sawyer. I see the big thoughts, the constant inventing – the constant designing in his head. The buildings get mentally erected and his eyes light up. He knows exactly how they should look and what their purpose is to be. The disappointment and frustration come in huge waves when his creation isn’t possible. He has self-doubt when we have to tell him that his big idea isn’t practical, and we try to help him scale-down. He knows how it was supposed to be. He knows the outcome is half-hearted. His wheels turn, he finds materials and researches construction. The difference between us is his ability to deconstruct.

I woke up one Saturday and came downstairs to find him cutting the flaps off of a cardboard box. Markers, tape, and boxes scattered all over, his little hands holding large scissors.

“STOP! What on earth are you doing?!”

“What? I’m just making a candy machine”, he replied as if this is standard Saturday morning practice. He continued to cut.

To his extreme objection, I took the scissors away and I told him he would have to wait for his dad to build that, and that he should take this time to draw out what he wanted it to look like, and how it would work. He did. He wanted slots for multiple candy types, and labels and the ability to start and stop at the desired volume of candy distribution. BIG ideas. His dad got home later that day, I left to run errands and they spent an entire afternoon building a candy machine to his specs. I’m sure dad did more of it than Sawyer did, but it was not without Sawyers design and imagination. He woke up with an idea. A monumental idea. He wasn’t going to let it become an unachievable idea. He worked it backward, he discussed the options, he sourced the experience needed to help with the construction and he didn’t give up. There was not going to be a letdown. He took the skyscraper in his mind and instead of being overwhelmed by the scale and complexity, he took it in parts, in pieces and developed it. This wasn’t the last of his cardboard creations this year. He prefers cardboard to build with over Legos or blocks. I asked him ‘why’ the other day, as I was attempting to stunt his creativity in exchange for a clean house, and he said: “I can’t invent the same with toys that already exist.”

I completely understand this sentiment. I don’t want to do the same things everyone else is doing either. Never have. There’s no artistry in it, no personality, no sense of accomplishment. Self-pride is the motivation. It’s what keeps people like us going. It’s what makes the effort worth it. Without it, there’s a lackluster feeling where life starts to feel mundane and repetitive. Boredom quickly comes. Routine can often be the enemy. If you’re not taking something on because it infringes on your routine, then nothing great can ever happen. There’s a self-inflicted sense of obligation to make sure that is never the case. It comes with a side of stress.

Stress from constant thinking, stress from the analytical nature of solving the problem, stress from overextension and personal expectations. Being overwhelmed becomes such a way of life that on the days you aren’t, you don’t know what to do with yourself. There’s a discomfort in the quiet moment. I’d rather be anything than be bored.

Sawyer got bored this year in kindergarten. He had three years of pre-school before actual pre-school, which made actual kindergarten pretty uneventful. So, he joined the chess club. I couldn’t have been more proud of him that day. He wasn’t intimidated that he was so much younger than the other kids and he learned enough that he was able to teach me how to play, and let me win. He put himself out there and added something to his plate. But more than proud, I was excited for him. He was going to learn how to strategize, predict a few moves ahead, see and analyze the full board. He was going to play against his opponent, learn how they think, and learn how to plan. He’s going to learn how to see all the moving parts and see a blueprint in his mind, not just the finished product. This is a skill I’ve always struggled with. His monumental ideas will have an outlet, a way to come to life outside of his head. Maybe he won’t have to spend his life in the cycle of dreams that will only be dreams and executions that will forever be personal failures and disappointments. He’s developing a way out. An exit strategy. He’s paving the roads for his future skyline.

Sawyer,

When you started your candy machine in January, you just started cutting without a plan. Last week, you asked me for a few 2-liter soda bottles and some straps. You wanted to make a jetpack. You thought if we shook them up right before we put them on you when we uncapped them, you could fly. You thought it through. You took the idea, broke it down, and used the knowledge you had to create a plan. You were disappointed when I told you that it wouldn’t be enough force to make you fly, but you accepted it quickly, then asked how much force would be needed. You went back to the drawing board and decided it wasn’t something you could do on a Sunday afternoon. In a few short months, you’ve learned to hone your big ideas into achievable tasks, assess how achievable and determine if you have the time. Learning to be ok with this mental process took me years, and nothing excites me more than watching you figure this out before age 7, as it may save you from years of frustration and doubt. So as your ideas get bigger, as the buildings in your mind move from 10 stories to 30, never forget this process. Remember that an impossible dream only seems unachievable if you don’t take the time to strategize, find the practical center and build out from there. Don’t get discouraged, never give up, and never settle for simply “good enough”, for you have the mind and the tools to achieve great things. And for the moments you realize you need to scale down to the practical, I’ll be here to remind you why every cityscape needs an occasional apartment building or parking lot.

My wish for you this year is that you spend your lifetime inventing and creating. That you never give up on the vision of your skyline and that you will always remember the blueprint.

Happy Birthday to my first, truly successful, big idea: I love you.

-Mom

“The blueprint for success is inside you. It will stay there unless you take it out and create it”

-Larina Kase

Lipstick and Tacos.

“Life is a party. Dress like it.” – Audrey Hepburn

---

I weigh myself every day. Sometimes twice. Theoretically, its a method of weight and health management. Realistically, its a practice in self-loathing and control. I take a deep breath, exhale fully and step on the scale every morning just before I get in the shower. If I don’t like the number, I might hop off and hop back on, hoping a slight shift in weight distribution or a mental picture of a salad may shave off a half a pound so I can start my day on a ‘lighter note’. Sometimes I celebrate the results, usually with some form of counter-productive dietary reward, like extra cream in my coffee, sometimes I realize I need to increase my ACV intake and vow to have a salad at lunch. Usually, that kills a pound or two by the next morning.

When I’m not obsessing over the number on the scale, I’m focused on the shape of the various parts of my body, obsessing over if I’m disappointing anyone throughout the day with my lack of organizational and time management skills, or I’m eating. Sometimes it’s my vowed salad, usually, it’s chocolate.

To add to my masochistic tendencies, today I asked a handful of friends how they would honestly describe me to someone in a few words or sentences. I got all sorts of colorful adjectives to pull from. On the high end: beautiful, sexy, brilliant, smart, wise and selfless. This wasn’t my worst idea! On the low end: Materialistic and Temperamental. Fair statements. What everyone found a way to agree on in some fashion was that I’m stubborn (my favorite word for this was tenacious), blunt, caring and complicated. They didn’t all say those things in the same way, but there was definitely a resounding theme to the results.

So, why did I make eight of my friends super uncomfortable today? Because Violet LOVES make-up. As I scrolled through the years pictures to reflect back on her year of being two, I realized she had a lot going on! So many activities, firsts, and new found interests and joy. But I realized that NOTHING brought her more happiness this year than make-up.

My favorite day with her to date was an impromptu ‘girls day’. I took her on errands, which started at Ulta. She walked in and her eyes lit up. She was in her own nirvana. She immediately started asking for things and reaching for the brightest and shiniest items on the shelves. Then I turned around and she had found a caboodle, just her size. It was over. We spent an hour walking the aisles as she loaded up with all things pink. -She did it in sunglasses. As we got into the car, she climbed into her seat and said: “Ok, now let’s go get Tacos!” – This chicks going to be the leader of the pack. (and expensive!)

After that day, she’s spent lots of days playing dress up, and smearing hot pink lipgloss all over her face while requesting snacks. When she gets upset, she will climb into my lap and ask to see the “dresses” on my phone. – She likes to scroll the toddler dress section on my Zulily App. It seems to calm her down. Most days, she’s insistent her socks are pink and has an opinion on her hairstyle. And after every hairstyle, I tell her how pretty she is. She smiles at me, touches her pigtails and says ” I’m so beautiful”. She doesn’t need a mirror to know this.

This year I’ve watched her unwavering self-confidence with admiration. She doesn’t wear makeup because she thinks she needs improvement, she plays with makeup because it’s fun. She doesn’t need a mirror to know she’s beautiful, she knows it because I tell her. Many people would tell me to stop commenting on her physical appearance and replace those words with “bold”, “strong” “courageous”, and I think telling her shes those things is important, but it doesn’t replace ‘beautiful’. All girls want to hear that they are beautiful. There hasn’t been one day of my entire life that I have been half as self-assured as she is. Then last week, I was with some friends, and through some general conversation, one of them said: “…ya know the worst thing about you is your [lack of] confidence…” This was a compliment, a backhanded one, but a compliment nonetheless. And probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. So, today I asked those that know me what they thought of me. I put it out there, I made everyone uncomfortable, I asked for blatant honesty. I gained some perspective. They had similar words to each other, but there were very few similar words to how I would have described myself. It won’t stop me from getting on the scale tomorrow or applying the 2nd coat of mascara. But it will change the words I choose when talking about myself in front of my daughter. It will change the words I allow her to use about herself as she gets older. It might make me stop the next time I’m comparing myself, my work, my everything and remind myself there’s a chance it’s all in my head. I might also try to learn how to graciously lose an argument, I’m told I’m bad at that.

Violet,

I will always indulge your ‘girly nature’, as it might simply be who you are. But as you get bigger and more insistent on a well-rounded shoe collection, stop and take note of how beautiful you are barefoot. Never lose your confidence. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re anything but stunning. Let your strong will, blunt personality and intuitive heart shine through every situation and realize that your favorite pink lipstick is doing nothing more than getting people to glance in your direction so they can see the unmatched character and loving heart that shines through those big brown eyes. And most certainly don’t ever let your love of all things pretty keep you from your love of Tacos. There’s room in life for both.

Happy 3rd Birthday my pretty pink princess. I love you more than chocolate.

-Mom

“Makeup is art. Beauty is spirit” -unknown

Do you believe in magic?

“An Idea survives not because it’s true, but because it’s interesting.” – Murray Davis”

R.I.P. Waves and June; August 3, 2018- August 8, 2018

I listen to a fair amount of podcasts. Mostly True Crime type stories, but also some ‘This American Life’, ‘Revisionist History’, ‘Ted Talk’ type stuff. I’m typically choosing something that is an offbeat topic, something factual, but fascinating. ‘Criminal’ with Phoebe Judge is a common go-to when I need to plug myself in and focus on a project at work. I like the analysis, the story, hearing how peoples brains work. I like learning. I like knowing stuff. But for the amount that I listen, I find that I retain very few actual facts. I retain the premise. I retain the analysis of behaviors, the overall story. I don’t retain the characters names, or dates, or even the specific murder weapon most of the time. I retain my first and last impression of the program. Was it interesting or did it take me a while to get into it? Did I agree with the verdict? Was the perpetrator a sociopath? I retain the portions that allowed my mind to wander. Never the facts.

When I was growing up, before Google, my stepdad was our google. He retained every fact about everything he had ever read. And he read a lot. My sister and I would make a game out of it and think of random things to ask him, just to see if he had a reasonably believable answer; like “how do bees mate?” or “what’s the average circumference of an oak tree?” – I would never play him in Trivial Pursuit, it would have been soul-crushing. My sister also has a memory for details. I’m pretty sure she remembers everything that’s happened to her since 1980, while I have retained a totally of 27 cumulative minutes of my entire childhood. I remember the moments that evoked a powerful feeling or idea. I don’t remember most of the details of the rest of the day surrounding it. I can come up with the memories, if prompted, but I’m not always sure if they are accurate.

This makes me wonder how much of their childhood my kids will remember. I feel like we spend a lot of time, as parents, trying to ‘make memories’ for them and it’s interesting to think back on my trip to Disney World when I was seven and realize that I remember primarily the elements that upset me; the terror that was ‘Space Mountain’, having my one allotted souvenir, a glass figure of Mini Mouse, smash in the bag while wondering the park. (which, by the way, I blamed completely on my fact-retaining stepdad- He was the one hauling all of our bags, clearly he did that shit on purpose.) The happy moments I remember? Swimming at the ‘Days Inn’ pool, and mickey mouse shaped pancakes with whipped cream. Yep, that’s it — mere minutes of the entire week-long adventure captured. As a results, I’ve crossed Disney World off the list of ‘things that are a requirement for childhood.’ I retained feelings, not events. Clearly, meeting whatever princess I’m sure I did, didn’t impress me.

Sawyer’s always had a knack for remembering things. His wild imagination pays close attention to the world around him, but seem to fill in the holes with the parts of reality that he doesn’t understand yet. He’ll never just sit in the unknown. Lately, he doesn’t seem to live in reality at all. He lives in the land of make believe, on the planet of the Pokemon, and vacations on video game island. A good portion of this year was spent trying to decipher what he was saying, and if it was actual English or not. He speaks in made up words, or in fantastic concepts that develop into elaborate stories that only his imaginative mind can follow. It was both frustrating and awesome at the same time. Last year he started finding language, this year, he figured out the best ways to use it includes challenging reality. Maybe he’ll be the next J. K. Rowling.

He scolded me on several occasions for crushing his dreams by explaining the basic concepts of science to him, debunking whatever grand possibility he was hoping for. I worried about the amount of time he spent inside his head like this, and if his inability to separate fantasy from reality was normal. I was like that as a kid. I believed in my grandfathers imaginary pets, and that my stuffed animals had actual feelings. Even when logic told me these things weren’t true, I rarely let go of the emotional tie. “…but what if the ARE real, and we just can’t see it?”, a little voice in my head would nag. I carried this issue for a long time, I would create and dream and plan, and convince myself that my plans and dreams were actually going to happen. Then they wouldn’t and I’d be crushed. This happened well into adulthood.

So his sense of imagination this year caught me a bit off guard. and I wanted to find delicate ways to explain to him what were realistic options and what were not. We had several conversations, most of which he had in tears, about getting a real live Pokemon for him. He wanted a pet with powers. Our two cats and brand new puppy were clearly falling short. I explained that Pokemon were pretend. Cue tears. I explained that ‘powers’ are things that exist in cartoons. Cue dirty looks and yelling. I then explained that cartoons aren’t actual places. Cue 40 minutes of sobbing as if his favorite cat had just dropped dead in his arms. At that point, I offered him a goldfish. He stopped crying, gave me the most evil look I’ve ever seen and said “how DARE you offer me a goldfish? The fish Pokemon are the WEAKEST of the Pokemon. Why do you want me to have the WORST of something?” – clearly, I’m not winning any ‘Mother-Of-The-Year’ awards. After that, I bowed of the conversation and told him that sometimes we just don’t get everything we want in life. Eventually, he settled for a goldfish.

Settling for the goldfish, however, didn’t stop him from discussing his want of a real-life Pokemon. I tried to explain to him that magic is an illusion in a simple, delicate way that wouldn’t crush his ability to believe in things. Then he looked at me and said: “You don’t know that, mom. There might be a magic store on the other side of the world where you can go in, and anything you can think of can come to life. Have you been everywhere in the world?” “No.”, I said. “Then you can’t tell me that magic isn’t real. Because you haven’t been everywhere that it might be” – “you’re right, buddy”, I conceded. “I guess I don’t know that magic isn’t real and there could be real-live Pokemon with powers somewhere on this earth. Tell you what, if you catch one someday, you can keep it.”

I lost that battle. As I should have. He was right. at 5 years old, he proved me completely and totally wrong. The fact that magic is an illusion is nothing more than a theory. He still has the ability to see past the concepts of “achievable” and see the possibilities in life. He believed in something, truly believed in it, and he wasn’t going to let anyone break him down. He fought back. (For a full week!) about this subject, and he found a way to make me understand that the concepts are just as important as the facts. That’s where everything begins. That’s where memories are made, and discoveries start. Albert Einstein once said:

“I’m enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

I don’t listen to podcasts because they are true. I listen to them because that person’s interpretation of the facts is interesting. There’s always more to the story. There are always unknown details. There’s always a little magic to be found.

Sawyer,

You have big personality and you’ve already learned to only slow down for the truly important facts. As your interests lean more towards science and math, I hope along your way, you don’t let the facts, and non-believers, inhibit your ability to see beyond them. Facts are only facts because we’ve yet to prove them wrong, and there’s always more to the story. My wish for you this year is that you continue your search for that magic store where you can make all your dreams come to life, and that no matter how old you get, that is a quest you never turn your back on. Read the great story tellers of the world, learn to create, and invent. Learn to write. For then, you will always see the magic in the world around you, and continue to enlighten people, as you did me, and the world will forever be nothing but a sea of possibilities. Happy 6th Birthday, Peanut. May your convictions always include a bit of magic.

 

“Those who do not believe in magic, will never find it.”- The Minpins, Roald Dahl

The good old days…

Writing birthday blogs for Violet is much harder than it is to write them for Sawyer. At least it is in these younger years. With Sawyer, everything is new, not just for him, but for me. There are new epiphanies and thought processes, lessons, and discoveries that I’m making along the way that I don’t have the second time around. I was told that I should write about the differences between the two kids, and there are definitely differences. But when I went back to read the post for Sawyers 2nd birthday, I realized that all of the things I had noted to write for Violet, were almost exactly the same as the things I had written for Sawyer. Turns out, at this age, they really do advance and grow in similar ways, at similar times. Especially when being raised in a similar way. She turns two today. I’m currently hiding in my bedroom to write this, so they don’t know I’m awake. I can hear her jumping up and down in her crib, and when you say birthday to her, she responds with “cake”, because at two – that’s the whole point.

My first thought was to note all of the things she suddenly can do that she couldn’t a few weeks ago. She counted to 13 the other day when I didn’t know she could count at all! And she busted out a rendition of “Happy Birthday” in the car yesterday when I was unaware she could sing. And the other night, I put her to bed, and she said “love you” unprompted. Now, shes said it before, when repeating it back to me. But never on her own. That’s when you know they actually understand something – when they say or do it totally on their own. Those are the moments of pure joy and pride for a parent. I’ve had those moments with both kids, and apparently, in similar timelines. So, writing these for Violet is harder. But, the more I watch her, the more I see her emerging personality. The words I would use to describe both kids would likely be similar; big, strong, independent, opinionated. But the way in which they are those things is very different. Violet will take ‘no’ for an answer. It takes a while. It’s never the first ‘no’, and rarely the 5th. But eventually, she will grasp that she’s not going to win this one, accept it and go find something else to push her limits with. Sawyer still doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He negotiates, and gets mad, then sad, then tells my mom how mean I am to him. He’s my little salesman. Violet has a sense of rationality buried in her. She has tantrums and cries and pushes and screams, and pulls hair – like any other two years old. But when you watch her, she simply doesn’t let upsets get her down. She rolls with the punches in her own way. It’s never without a fight. She’s loud and stubborn and determined. But, once she’s sure something isn’t going to go her way, most of the time she simply moves on – It may take a while, but she doesn’t hold a grudge.

I think this is important. I think it’s one of the keys to happiness. Letting go. I’ve written about finding happiness before, it’s something I’ve struggled with over the years, and it’s something I think a lot of people in my life have struggled with. We were taught, as a ‘xenial’, to be goal-oriented. To always be working towards something. Eye on the prize. So, there comes a point in life when there is no major goal on the calendar. No major life change or event to focus on. No college, no home-buying, no major career jump insight, no more babies to prep for. Now, it’s just retirement. And when you have 30 more years until retirement, you realize you simply can’t just focus on that. Cue anxiety. So, we focus on the goals of the children. But when they are little, they get to those naturally. I think this is one reason why studies say that an individual’s overall happiness significantly drops after they have children, and that child turns 2. The first 2 years are new and exciting and well, babies are hard but miraculous. Then they become toddlers and little people that you can’t always contain, whine and complain, and turn everything into a giant battle. Even if you do have personal goals, hell will freeze before you will reach them. Little actually gets accomplished on a daily basis, and our want to feel productive to give us purpose and satisfaction is stripped from us. We never learned how to look at the little things for happiness. Find that silver lining. We all know we SHOULD do that, but that’s not what we were taught to do. It isn’t innate. Those small accomplishments were a distraction. We might celebrate for a moment, then we refocus on what’s next. The main goal. keep moving forward. By this rationale, success and happiness can never be achieved. And we never learned to let go of the things that stood in our way. The moments or people that created roadblocks physically, mentally or emotionally we carry with us. We let those moments and people define us in an inner monologue that allows negativity to reign. Being the best and reaching that goal was, and is, a requirement. It was the definition of success. And if you aren’t “successful” then you have no right to be happy.

But I’m learning from the toddler that happiness is hidden in the daily moments, in the contentment of the present. It’s there. It’s the cake. It’s in the random moments of laughter over something the silly cartoon bear on TV did, the tiny hands wrapped around my fingers, dragging me to the cupboard to ask for candy in the slyest, sweetest way one can at 2. It’s in the countless stories told in half English, half baby-babble, that make just a little more sense each day. It’s hidden in the corners of screaming frustration, the last place you’d look. It’s there in the shadows of self-doubt and anger and sadness. Waiting for you to finish struggling. It’s waiting for that moment of pride when you’ve overcome or conquered, persevered. It’s in the moment your child tells you they love you for the first time, after a lost battle against bedtime. It’s there for when you realize you survived.

Somedays, all one can do is survive. Get from sun up to sun down, take a head count, and go to bed. There are lots of days that feel like that. Just this past week, my Saturday started with whining and screaming children at 5:40am. One wanted cold meds and video games, the other “MORE JUICE!” – and she wanted it NOW. Not 5 minutes from now, not after you’ve woken up, brushed your teeth and gotten a cup of coffee. Now means now, or in toddler world – 5 minutes ago, because I should have predicted that she was about to die of thirst from NOT having a 3rd cup readily available. So the day began. It began with yelling, and it continued with flying toys and spilled cereal, coughing, fevers, todo lists, and errands. It continued with napless children and dishes and mountains of laundry. And then it ended. It ended with pizza, laughing children, roasting marshmallows, and friends. This is how most of our summer Saturdays end, and it is one of the best parts of our life.

No one really wanted to be outside for that bonfire last Saturday. It seemed that everyone had had a shitty week. But we did it anyway. Even if just for an hour. It was the first nice weekend night, and sometimes you just need to force it. Sometimes you do it because the kids ask you to, sometimes you do it because, despite the lack of time and energy you have, you need to be reminded that this is what the struggle is for. Summer nights with friends and family, who aren’t talking about work and dishes and depression. Who aren’t focused on the things they feel they failed at, who are ignoring typical bedtimes in exchange for games of ‘tag’ after dark, and a few drinks and sitting with people that are surviving each day just like you are. Those are the times that will get remembered. These are the days we will look back on when we reach retirement and miss. These are the memories in the making. Our back alley, while we are all in our pajama pants with our glasses of wine, while the kids ride their bikes in footy pjs at dusk, waiting for the fire to be ready for marshmallows – These childhood memories our kids will take with them. The definition of happiness, if we can relax enough to notice it – the ‘good old days’ we will look back on with a smile.

Violet,

As you start to become your own person, my wish for you is that you will keep your sense of resiliency. That when you find life’s upsets, you try to conquer them, but when you can’t- you move on the way you do now. Struggle for and strive for the goals that are achievable, because you can do anything you set your mind to, but don’t let minor failures define you. Don’t forget to stop along the way to appreciate the days successful moments, the bonfires and support of those around you. Allow those to become your inner-voice. Remember that no one can write your story except you, so don’t let other voices narrate. And always remember that happiness is found in the joy of simply eating birthday cake.

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet pea.

Love, Mom.

“I wish somebody would have told me, babe. / Someday these would be the good old days. All the love you won’t forget. / All these reckless nights you won’t regret. / Someday soon your whole life’s gonna change. / You’ll miss the magic of these good old days.”

-‘Good Old Days’, Macklemore Feat. Kesha

“What is a home without Children?…”

What is a home without Children?…Quiet.

Sawyer is my chatterbox.  I shouldn’t really be surprised by that based on his genetic make-up, I knew going into this that my kids were never going to be the shy or quiet type. But this year language was no longer a foreign concept that was struggled with. This year the words and phrases flowed- imaginatively, repetitively, endlessly.  This year I was the mother of a variety of super hero’s, all with powers and backstories.  I was a privy to defenses that blurred the lines between reality and make believe, and had his imagination being used as an excuse for why he did something he knew he shouldn’t.  He learned to negotiate by age three, this year he learned to refine those in fantastic terms that he knew would either make me laugh, or simply have no ability to argue.  He became quick-witted never lacked a response.   Yes, this year I have to deem the ‘year of language’.  He’s full of stories and descriptions and his little mouth moves faster than his brain meaning most stories are met with sentence after sentence of stuttered phrases that requires a PhD in patience some days.  But when you can take the time and truly listen, it’s been pretty amazing to see the development.   He’s develop original thoughts and has figured out how to piece things together and tell stories.  We’ve discussed everything from friends to the latest cartoon to space and countless things in between. He taught me that Pluto is actually an asteroid, not a moon or planet, and was so excited to find out that I didn’t actually know that prior to that conversation, he then continued to explain how Night/Day works.  I told him I didn’t know that before either – just to see his smile.  Yes, full conversations are finally possible, a trade of ideas and the ability to express thoughts and feelings – when something doesn’t seem fair and why.  Now that he can fully communicate, he’s particularly annoyed that his live-in playmate can’t.  He swings from days where he just yells at her: ” learn to talk!” to deciding that it may advantageous for him to decide what her baby-babble means and dictate for her.  He’s a self-interested problem-solver, maybe he’ll go into politics.

What comes along with the ‘year of language’ are new rules to life for all involved.  I am not one that has the ability to filter well, so I have simply taught him that there are some things grown-ups can say, and other things everyone can say.  One day during a few moments of frustration, I yelled at him and used a four-letter word, I don’t remember which one – my repertoire is extensive.  He asked “Can I say that word?”  – I said “No, that word is for grown ups.” He argued that point for a moment.  I finally said ” If you make it to 18, you have earned the right to say or do whatever you’d like, but until then you follow my rules.”  -Now, I stand by my statement 100% – but of course this came back to bite me in the ass.  A month or so later, we went up north with my family.  My mom took him on a walk with a few other people and he proceeded to randomly tell her cousin (who thankfully has a sense of humor):

“When I’m 18, I can do whatever I want”  She said  something to the effect of “oh really…?”  and he proceeded with: “Yes, when I’m 18, I can tell you to go to hell.”

Thankfully, I wasn’t present for this conversation so I didn’t need to crawl into a hole and die on the side of the highway, but it was relayed to me by my mother, who thought it was hilarious and assured me that he was simply stating a fact and not actually telling her off.  I felt slightly better about it.  But I have noted that at some point, we need to discuss that just because you CAN say something, doesn’t mean you always should.

In addition to learning WHAT to say (or not say), he’s learned the art of expression – mostly for the purposes of pure and complete sass.    His newest favorite word is “seriously?” and uses it whenever I ask him to do something he deems to be completely ridiculous, like carry his own lunch. It comes with a hand motions and everything.    “Seriously mom?  Why do I have to do EVERYTHING? you’re the mom- you should carry it!”  I thought I had until he was a teenager to be deemed the dumbest person alive, but no – age four and he’s pretty much already made that determination and is now trying to perfect his eye-roll.  I’ve spent a lot of time this year attempting to explain that it is my job to make sure that he grows up to be a good, responsible person and sometimes that’s going to mean that he doesn’t like my rules or my answers and that he’s not always going to get what he wants.  Typically, his response to this conversation is to inform me that I am most definitely the “meanest mom ever” and that the neighbor is his favorite mom because she never yells at him and always has snacks.  –  Its a true statement, she does always have snacks and I do yell – I’d like her better too.

Then there is the combination of ‘expression’ and ‘inappropriate’ that is hard to argue with because those sentences are based on a feeling and one needs to learn how to filter feelings before you can filter the language.  For example, while watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time, he turns to me and says:

” I hate that witch. If I was there, I’d take that broom and hit her in the privates!”

Then I had to let him know that we don’t hit people, even the ones that deserve it – especially in the privates.   Kindness. At the end of he day, this year’s language battle has been mostly about kindness.

So the lesson gets bigger and harder.  Now that we have the words, the new goal is  making sure that no matter WHICH words he uses, he’s using all of them in ways that express kindness.  It’s a tall order for a four-year-old, many adults have yet to master it, but to me, this is one of the most important lessons I could teach him.  Everyone wants their child to grow up to be successful and well adjusted, strong.  Sometimes I think we forget to put enough emphasis on growing up to be simply kind.  We focus on grades and team building and sports, assertiveness and extra-circulars. Yet we assume we can teach kindness and empathy by just saying “don’t do that, it’s not nice” and moving on.  I think there are a lot of adults out there that take their opinions, or feelings and assume they have the right to express them in any way they choose because their feelings should always be validated.  We get hung up on feeling important and justified and forget to take the high road.  We forget that empathy has to be explained, understood and then practiced.  It’s in us innately to care about other human beings.  I see it when he defends his little sister, or tries to find her pacifier when she is crying.  I see it when he tells me he’s getting big, but he’ll always be my peanut and snuggle with me, because he know’s it  makes me sad that he’s growing up.  His reaction is to want to fix it.  He’s uncomfortable sitting with someone else’s distress.  But as a species we are wired to look out for ourselves, and at age 4- jealousy and self-serving behavior rules over the other emotions.  Quickly kindness and empathy go by the wayside.  It can be over something as simple as a piece of candy he wants that someone else gets.  Fairness is expected, and when life isn’t, kindness is never the immediate reaction.

To understand the importance of kindness, one needs to truly grasp empathy and to grasp empathy, one must have had a few experiences in life to relate to.   It’s a conflict of interest for a mother.  My goal is to protect him from injury and hurt on a daily basis.  That includes hurt feelings.  So to know he has to go through some bad experiences in order to grow up to be kind is  well, difficult.  I do my best to subtly teach him the concept of a ‘social contract’ in order to force “kindness” by way of manners, correction and forgiveness.  And hopefully this will, in-turn, protect him from feeling the wrath of anyone he may offend, or opening himself up for ridicule.  To do that, we’ve started ‘leveling up’ the evolution of his language a bit to statements like “I need to go to the bathroom” vs. “I need to go potty” –  this spurs 800 questions as to ‘why’ that I can’t actually answer, and boils down to – ‘it sounds nicer buddy, just do it.’  BIG concepts.  Little person.

Baby steps.  This week it was proper bathroom language and why we don’t strike people with brooms.  Next week maybe I’ll explain to him what ‘hell’ is and why we don’t wish people there at any age…  maybe I’ll wait until he’s 6 for that talk…

Sawyer,

Four has been my favorite age so far as we could finally communicate and understand each other.  Your imagination is endless and your spirit immeasurable. It all went so fast. I can’t believe you are already five years old.  This is a big birthday, and watching you change and grow and get smarter every day is exciting and sad all at the same time.  You start Kindergarten this year, and will be without mom, dad or grandma all day, every day and entering a space with so many influences that I can’t control.  It’s going to be an adjustment and a world of learning you didn’t know existed and my wish for you this year is that you truly learn what it means to be kind.  I hope for you to always do what you know is right by moral standards, not by situation or emotional reaction. I hope you learn that kindness is more important that winning an argument, and that following the crowd or hopping on your high horse is fruitless if it means hurting someone else in the process.  Use your new love of language and your new vocabulary to encourage, love and accept all and never to hurt another.  Words take only a moment to speak, but can move mountains when used to inspire or motivate. They also can cause damage to another for a lifetime so, proceed with caution.  Learn to think before you speak and know your audience. When in doubt, simply be quiet and offer a gesture of kindness- let your inherent thoughtful nature take over.

Happy 5th Birthday to my big kid (who will forever be my peanut). I’m so proud of you.

Love,

Mom.

 

“Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind can see”

Mark Twain

Two of You and One of Me

This is my first blog post of 2017 — which makes me a terrible blogger, but also a busy mom.  Similar to Sawyers first year of life, I found myself busier than expected, mostly due to disorganization and constant adjustment to the ever-changing needs of children and career.

This ‘chaos’ also means that its been a full year since Violet was born and she has been the victim of ‘second child syndrome’…fewer pictures, fewer posts, an untouched baby book, a half-assed first birthday party.  I promised myself that this wouldn’t happen. As a second-born child myself, I know what it’s like to have 1 photo album of you from ages 1-5, half of which is shared with the dog. But as this year went on, I never seemed to have enough hands.  Sawyer insisted in participating in 90% of the photo-ops in the ‘photo-bomb’ sort of way that only a 4 year old can do best, and I found myself much more interested in enjoying the moments instead of documenting them.  So, here I am once again, taking stolen moments on an airplane to write excuses to my children for the areas in which I failed.

This blog has become my corrector-of-wrongs, and I’m now heavily relying on it to someday explain away any feelings of animosity, doubt or resentment my emotional, practical (and occasionally unstable) style of parenting causes.  I refuse to apologize to the rest of the world anymore for my behaviors at this point.  My house is a mess, my office is in constant revolving chaos, I will be late for every play date until the end of time, and my kids watch entirely too much TV.  It is what it is. I do my best. But I do permanently feel the urge to explain myself and apologize to my children for my short-commings, despite their inability to comprehend or know any differently.

So, today I am writing Violets ‘First Birthday’ blog, and I’m beginning it with an apology: I’m sorry more of this year isn’t documented.  I don’t have non-cell phone camera pictures of every cute outfit or face, I don’t have a good grasp on her first word (I think it was ‘all-done’, but Grandpa thinks it was ‘Jack’ (their dog) ) There are probably several words in the mix that are feasible.   I don’t know the date she first slept through the night – and honestly, she  just started doing that consistently at 11 months- and I can’t tell you the exact moments she pulled herself up or crawled successfully, but I can just tell you that she and the pug look super cute waddling next to each other around the house…and I wish I had a gotten a picture of that.

What I do know is that she is and will be a force to be reckoned with.  She is persistent and loud and charming.  She has a sense of humor, likes to make silly faces, take baths, eat, and that she’s going to be an alto.   I know that her favorite person is her brother, and she is most definitely his.  They have developed a relationship already that I didn’t expect and I know that I want nothing more for them than for that to last.

This time around, I knew how fast it would go.  I knew how quickly she would stop being a helpless little baby and that I had mere months to rock her at night – I never put much effort into sleep training her the way I did Sawyer.  She didn’t need a midnight bottle after 6 months, but her loud insistence and my knowledge that it wouldn’t last forever kept me from forcing it.  We didn’t get endless moments snuggled alone this year like I did with Sawyer.  “There’s two of you and one of me”.   That became our mantra this year.  So I took those midnight moments. Exhausted and barely functional, averaging four hours of sleep a night – and I held her.

Alone in the dark, she would take her bottle like she’d never been fed before, and then turn her head in towards me and stare at me.  She rarely fell asleep in my arms after six months, but she would have been content for me to hold her like that all night long, and if I didn’t have to work in the mornings, I might have.

So no, I didn’t get everything documented the way I wanted to, and I’m sure that part of me will regret it someday when the baby face is gone and I don’t have a picture of the silly scrunchy face she makes – but I thoroughly enjoyed her.  She came with less stress, despite her broken collar bone and colic.  I knew what I was doing this time.  I worried less.  I knew how important it was to just watch her, carry her, let her make the mess, because preventing it was a fruitless effort anyways.  It will only be 1/614 that day- but letting it happen meant she discovered something new.  A feeling, a texture, a motor skill.  She grew, she changed and so I watched.  I enjoyed.  I tried to keep up, because she is an unstoppable force, and I didn’t want to miss it searching for camera.

Violet,

‘Two of you and one of me” – That was this years theme, and I hope someday you will keep that in mind when you ask for your baby album, and I hand you 3 pictures, and a handful of these letters instead.

You completed our family.  You are my last baby, and as sad as that is for me, I couldn’t imagine a better finale to this chapter in my life, so with that, I close your first year out with advice that only this year with you could bring:

Eating has always been your favorite activity, so I have no doubt that you will make quick work of your first birthday cake, but in the moment before that, while the candle is still lit, I will be wishing that you never lose your sense of adventure, that you continue to speak your mind loudly, so you you are heard over the crowd (the way you do now), and always try new things with as much confidence and pride as you have this year, for it will be that inner-force I see in you that will take you places.  Just don’t forget to slow down enough to appreciate the things that truly matter, as moments are fleeting and the number filled with amazement and aw are few and can often get missed (and try and remember to bring the camera)

Happy First Birthday Snugs,

Love, Mom.

Forgiveness, Not Permission.

“I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m gonna ignore your advice.” Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl.

I have a love/hate relationship with the age of three.  I absolutely love the hundreds of funny and observant things this kid says on a daily basis.  I love watching him figure out life and finally be at an age where he can accomplish tasks, play games and do puzzles without endless frustration and help.  I love that he is little enough to want to snuggle in my lap and be carried in sleeping from the car.  I love that he still says words incorrectly sometimes and his sentence structures are often that of a foreigner learning a second language.  I love that simple things, like a package of fruit snacks, can make his entire day, and that he was finally old enough to take a tumbling class during which he learned how to hop like a frog, and as a result; for a week, I was a parent to a fictitious amphibian that catches flies with his tongue, but also still eats ice cream.

I hate the new found sense of negotiation and trickery.  I hate the arguments over which plate he deemed acceptable today and why he couldn’t help me chop vegetables with the sharp knife.  I hate the constant demands as we continually remind him to use his manners and say please and thank you, and the blatant disregard for pretty much anything I tell him to do the first 5 times I tell him to do it.  It was a challenging year for both of us.  The term “threenager” couldn’t have been a truer statement than it was in this house.

Three-year-olds are at a turning point where they want to know ‘why’ to, well, basically everything, but they aren’t quite able to understand all of the actual reasons and answers.  There is a disconnect between wanting to be given an answer, and wanting to accept an answer they don’t like as a fact.  As a result, debates over everything from what color the sky is, to why he can’t survive on nothing but gummy worms occurred.  I was forced to pick my battles and let him learn some things the hard way.  Watching a disaster happen that you knew was preventable is challenging.  Being the one to clean up the mess and deal with the aftermath over and over makes it an exercise in insanity.  But, its the only way some kids learn, and throughout our year of fighting and yelling and crying,  Sawyer figured out how to self-serve.  He learned how to sneak around the system to get what he wanted, be it by becoming more physically independent, or flat out lying to serve his agenda or avoid getting caught. He learned how to avoid the fight.

“Sawyer, eat your breakfast.”

“I don’t want toast for breakfast. I want ice cream”

“You can’t have ice cream for breakfast”

“Mom, I think you need to go take your shower now…”

This year, he learned which buttons to push to get my attention, and what to say to get me to look the other way for a minute while he tried to get away with something sneaky.  He became my sly, stubborn little fox that never takes ‘no’ for an answer. Then he realized that if he doesn’t ask permission, nobody can tell him no.

This year was tough for both of us.  Three is a hard age, and I spent most if it pregnant, exhausted and hormonal.  Then, I brought a new little person home that he had to share his attention with.  Needless to say, our relationship has had a rough patch or two.  I’m not intentionally a masochistic person, but getting knocked up the week he turned three was clearly not a logical decision.  But really, who could predict that overnight my sweet little boy would suddenly turn on me and every single conversation we would have for the next twelve months would be AT LEAST as frustrating as this one:

S: “Sawyer can do it!”
Me:”say ‘I’ can do it. ”
S: “but you cant do it mom, sawyer can”
M: “no, say the word ‘I’ instead of Sawyer. ‘I’ is for Sawyer”
S: “mom… ‘I’ isn’t for Sawyer, ‘S’ is.”

[ bang head on table].

During the conversations where he did fully understand what I was saying, he argued, negotiated or flat out refused to acknowledge whatever I was talking about.  I’ve watched his debates become more constructed, his retorts become wittier, and his defeat become an annoyed, labored “sigh” as he says “uuggghh…fine!” and stomps off.

But through all of this, I also watched him struggle to understand and accept our family changes.  I’ve watched him process emotions he never knew existed before now, and find ways to tough it out and grow.  I’ve watched him gain confidence in his ability to take care of things by himself and be so proud in the end that he will tell me ” I’m big now mom, I don’t need you anymore.”, as I cheered him on and found out what it feels like to be both happy and sad at the same time.  I watched him accept his little sister and love  her without question (at least on the good days) and sit patiently and play when she needed all of my attention.  I’ve watched him learn to communicate feelings with words instead of just screaming temper tantrums.  I hear him talk himself through things when he thinks no one is listening.  He will count down from 10 quietly and breath when he’s upset, as we’ve practiced before, and he will have conversations with himself as he tries to figure something out on his own before simply asking.   I’ve watched him get completely dressed, superman hat and all, all by himself.   I’ve watched him lose his baby face.

He watched me struggle.  He watched me cry through the hormones and listened to me scream out of frustration.  He learned my mood swings, and that it was best to let me sleep in the mornings and figured out how to get his morning cartoon on Netflix by himself. He watched me hold and love another baby the same way I hold and love him and he allowed it.  He watched me figure out how to answer some tough questions this year and listened patiently to most of the answers.  He let me hug him when I told him I needed to, even if he didn’t feel like it.  He told me not to be sad during countless moments of tears, and he told me he loved me even when I was yelling at him. He continued to believe in me, even when I didn’t.

This is the year I finally feel like I became a parent.  This was the year where it truly became about developing a person, picking the battles, winning the wars (and losing some).  This was the year of questions; questions about babies, and death and feelings, and human behavior.  This was the year of learning what it actually means to discipline your child and then follow through and not simply ‘redirect’ an action.  This was the year of watching him struggle physically and emotionally, and having to let it happen.   And he did it.  He overcame, he conquered and he grew.  This was the year of forgiveness, not permission, for both of us.

So Sawyer, my wish for you this year is that you never stop asking questions and pushing limits.  I hope that someday you find a balance  that allows room in life to challenge the rules,in safe ways, that will ensure the same amount of self pride I witnessed in you countless times this year.  Continue to forgive your (and others) mistakes and believe in your abilities.  When you come up short, ask yourself why it didn’t work out, find the answer and try again. Become a problem solver and never stop believing that you can do it.

We survived this year together and I couldn’t be more proud of you for being the one that never gave up.

“…he sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe, believe in him, and believe in me…”-‘Lost Boy’, Ruth B.

 

Welcome to Wonderland/Nursery Pictures

“Maybe she’s a wildflower…”  – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

She was due May 14th, Her induction was scheduled for May 9th, and she made her arrival all on her own on May 5th, 2016.  She’s decided that she’s not going to follow my timeline, schedules or plans for life from day 1, just like my first baby.  Her birth was a simple surprise that began a few days earlier, and hit full force while I was sleeping when my water broke, but she was easier on me than Sawyer and waited until after I had my epidural to let the contractions kick in, and came within a few hours.  She made that part easy.  She must have known that my pregnancy was miserable and she was trying to make it up to me.  She must have realized that every inch of my body was swollen and practically immobile and I hadn’t slept in months.  The night before she was born, she let me sleep. 6 straight hours.  It was equivalent to sleeping for a week at that point.  She knew I needed it.  Pregnancy and I are not on good terms.  I think the people that tell me they love being pregnant are lying assholes. Every time she moved I got a shooting pain to my lady bits and peed a little.  Every time I laid down I coughed until I choked and spent the last few weeks vomiting – seriously, who could love that?? But they are always worth it in the end; She’s sweet and snugly and healthy and insists on being held most of the time.  I’ve fallen in love all over again and having her here doesn’t seem new, it doesn’t seem like the foreign shift I was expecting, instead, it feels like I know her already and that she’s been here the entire time.   The adjustment is there, and it’s mostly Sawyers.  There’s no way around that. But for me, she’s familiar amazing adventure that affirms that nothing is impossible and that my little world is complete.  To make sure she had her own space when joining our little family, I had a little fun with her nursery and went with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme so she can start this life knowing that following your dreams can lead you almost anywhere.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Dear Violet,

You have already proven your sweet nature to us with your snugly demeanor, as well as your assertiveness with your insistence on fighting any sort of schedule on a daily basis.  Your personality is already different than your brothers, and we are already preparing for all the new parenting challenges you will present us with as we attempt to adjust our lives and style to meet your needs.  Your big brother has a big personality (enough for 3 kids!) And I have a feeling that you will find subtle ways to outshine it when you need to and become comfortable hanging in the background when you don’t.  Please bare with us as we stumble along to satisfy both of you day to day and try and figure out when the rules should be the same and when we need to allow you to chase a white rabbit – It’s not always an easy call.  My hope for you is that you grow to be strong and independent like Alice and creative and and unabashed like the Mad Hatter.  May you always know that impossible things are to be believed,  white rabbits should be followed, and time can be frozen only in your dreams – so never stop dreaming.  But regardless of how your personality develops what adventures you choose, know that you are loved and supported every second of every day.  Welcome to Wonderland Violet Elora.

Love Always,

Mom, Dad and Sawyer.

Violet Elora Fuhrman. – Born May 5th, 2016. 9:44 AM.

Picture take: May 26th, 2016.