1) Having a Friday without an agenda to spend with the girls.
2) Laughing with sisters and friends.
3) Sleeping in LATE this morning.
4) Birdy having moments that require her to disrobe and dance.
5) I think things are falling into a workable groove lately. Joy before perfectionism.
1) Nora was playing with the dollhouse and had the dad doll rocking the baby to sleep singing, "Don't ever give up on yourself" repeatedly.
2) The opportunity to improve. Tonight my therapist told me that she thought I possessed all of the skills needed to seriously improve my depression.
3) Laughing with Joe.
4) Birdy's sweet "Good Morning!" from the stairs EARLY each morning.
5) Beautiful weather.
6) Mom had a good report from her doctor.
i recently returned to therapy after a long break. I really want to beat depression in every way that I can and figured it couldn't hurt. In the past I thought a therapist had to be smarter than me and had to have some sort of magic powers - I felt that I already KNEW things and that they couldn't help me by telling me about those things.. This time around I realize that they are simply a partner in creating the life I desire. Much like a personal trainer -- I wouldn't mock a trainer for directing me to do crunches or push ups -- even though I am already aware of them. My point really is that we did the intake appointment (which was rough) and I asked her to give me one thing I could work on this week to improve my life. She told me to do a gratitude journal. My immediate reaction was that I've done this before and it struck me as cliche`. Regardless, I am here and I am going to do it. Only I'm going to call it my three highlights because gratitude makes it seem so DEEP and universal. Also, I love Highlights magazine. So no pressure... here are three highlights from today:
happy new year. I love a fresh start and the freshness of New Year can't be manufactured at any other time so I'm digging it right now. So much is going on that I never blog because I can't figure out what takes precedent for recording for our family or what needs working through by writing.
But then I had a thought. The kind of thought that you probably already have thought but that I've never grasped. On Friday, I went to the gym and met a mommy friend there. As an indicator of our fitness and commitment level, we thought we were going to a half hour beginner's class and both of us considered canceling. We made it there for what turned out to be a one hour intense step interval class. And it rocked. We modified where needed, we succeeded some, laughed a lot -- we survived. I left feeling so triumphant. Like ME -- me --- regular, nonathletic, fat, uncoordinated, undisciplined ME did a class with THOSE women. And I could not have cared less what I looked like or what anyone thought. While wonderful, this was not the epiphany. The epiphany was that it took the good portion of the morning to get everyone ready, get to the gym, take the class, get the children, go home and clean up. For once, I didn't try to 'make up' for the time lost doing something for myself. Normally, I would feel guilty and work double time during the afternoon on whatever I think other people think I should have done. Here it is: doing something for myself is worth REAL time -- not late late nights or stolen moments --- REAL time. The sort of time where you could meet with people who want something from you, the sort of time you could schedule with appointments, cleaning, laundry, shopping, or phone calls.... REAL time. I've seriously often wondered how people fit in working out, getting hair and nails done, doctor's appointments, creative time... now I know what they know. It's not magic. It's not better discipline or scheduling. It's knowing your own worth and enjoying the trip.
i keep trying to find a way to sum up last week so that I can move beyond it and there just isn't a good way to do it. It was an awful week and you know what? Even in the midst of awful, I surely have so, so much to be forever grateful for. I'm just going to list it here without all of the stories I'd like to include on each item. Maybe another day, another time.
Sunday was the wake for our friends' baby daughter.
Monday Joe's mom text broke up with us.
Tuesday Nora swallowed a quarter and had to have an emergency procedure to remove it.
Wednesday we attended another wake. This time for a dear friend's father. He was one of the good guys.
That's all there is. We are so blessed beyond any measure.
i can't blog because i haven't blogged so i can't blog. Instead, I think of a few things a day I would like to blog about (thogging) and then don't do it because if it's not about the girls then I feel guilty not updating them first and if it is about the girls, I want to get it right. I am well aware that no other posts have been so well thought out and multi-drafted -- in my imagination, I am much more on top of things.
So here is today's out of order, not most important, not anything really - thing. Today I got to meet another mom and family from Nora's online playgroup (more on that in a minute.) In preparing for it I became nervous, as I do when meeting new people. Am I too fat? Too silly? Not smart enough? But mostly, I worry about my speech impediment. Like, what if they can't understand me? Should I 'warn' her ahead of time? Am I an ungrateful narcissist? Am I being ridiculous? My solution to this thought process was to call my two of my dearest friends and get their opinions. This is, and always will be, the best solution to many a problem and I'm lucky to have it. Only this time it occurred to me that 1)They don't have a cleft palate and speech impediment, I do; and 2)If I was going to get precious time to talk to either one of them, I didn't necessarily want to waste it on such negative trivia. So it is that at the age of almost 38, I figured out that I don't need a popular vote, approval, or social safety in order for a decision to be right for me. I am sure that to most of you this is an obvious truth, but I am often sure that others know better or are in the very least laughing at me or judging me. This is profound for me. Even if everyone disagrees with me, I may still be doing just the thing I should. Wow.
When I was pregnant with Nora, I joined an online 'expecting club.' It was a group of ladies who, like me, were all due in October 2006. Occasionally, it was helpful but I mostly found it clique-y and stupid. When Nora was born 7 weeks early, I found myself even further alienated from that group and checked out the September 2006 Expecting Club. I immediately liked the group better. Amazingly (or not), I am still in contact with many of these women. I feel so lucky to be a part of something that so simply (but almost magically) just worked. This has gone way beyond our initial bonding over pregnancy, delivery, and newborns -- these women have regularly made me laugh so hard I choke, been fun and snarky with me, gotten me through grief and loss, shared the tedium of every days, taught me about parenting, community, everyday home skills, life, generosity, strength, love and have, generally, made me a better person. Four years later, I count them among some of my best friends. Today marked the tenth woman I was able to meet in person. Can't wait to make it more!
just a couple of random thoughts. Before we had Birdy, I wondered how it would be to have two children. Of COURSE we'd love baby number two, but really, there was no way that baby number one wouldn't be our favorite. After all, how could any one person be asked to live up to all that baby number one is? I went forward and trusted that there was enough love to go around and that we wouldn't completely ruin baby number two.
So here's what it's really like for me: when I'm with Nora alone, I am positive that she is my favorite. Like, giddily positive and how could anything or anyone in the world compare to my first baby. And then... when I'm with Birdy alone, I feel almost guilty for how SURE I am that she is, indeed, my favorite and imagine if we hadn't have had her wouldn't life be so empty. And when I'm with them together? Well then I'm sure I won the universal lottery to have been given TWO children such as these... TWO. Me! Me - who isn't 'lucky,' me - who has a birth defect and was told by a doctor at the age of 17 to never have children, me - who is adopted and doesn't know much useful genetic information, ME, unbelievably me! The lottery is not fair, I didn't deserve it, I certainly didn't earn it, but damned if I didn't win it.
because staying at home has somehow made me even worse at blogging, here is yet another scattered update post.
Birdy First
Everyone comments on what a happy baby Birdy is. She really is a joy. She gives the most delicious hugs and giggles easily. Most of the time she is smiling and babbling and even when she’s not, you can easily remedy her problem and return her to her happy self quickly. She has almost five teeth that have cut through now – three bottom and two top. Her first tooth came in May 21 – correction, her first TWO teeth came in that day. Before that, she had been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Since then, she has cut one more through and ALMOST has another one. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to capture a picture of her three little bottom teeth, but so far, not so good. Gone is her gummy smile. She still has Physical Therapy once a week because she is not yet sitting up on her own (it actually started when she wasn’t rolling ‘on time’). I’d like to cancel it because I feel that she’s progressing just fine but they act like it’s really something. Truth be told, I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have another set of eyes observing her progress; especially when I’d be happy to keep her an infant forever. {UPDATE: Birdy sits with the pros now but still doesn't crawl. They have continued her therapy biweekly until she crawls. Which will be any day now.} Since allergy season started strong, she has been waking 3 – 4 times a night. Once the allergies cleared, she was teething, and now? Who knows? All I know is that she was much closer to sleeping through the night at 3 months than she is at 7 months.
Despite her 'need' for therapy, she wiggles and kicks constantly. Her squirmy acrobatics are constant - she even holds her bare foot while she nurses. I call her my monkey girl because if I move her little hands away from something I don't want her to have, she tries immediately to get it with one of her feet!
roberta layne
fifteen pounds, 11 ounces
twenty-six inches long
{totally random me stuff} On top of the regular February blahs, I have hair falling out by the truckload. I remember this from having Nora, but forgot how MUCH hair. It's just what I need when I'm feeling fat, pale, and depressed. I'm considering going tanning a couple of times just for that feeling of the sun. I swore off being a tanimal after Nora was born, but this is more like therapy for S.A.D. :P
Nursing Birdy has been the most wonderful experience for me. Nora was born at 33 weeks and my milk barely ever came in. She was in NICU and I was pumping every couple of hours day and night. I would only get an ounce or two each pumping session. Couple all of that with PPD and it just became impossible. This time around, it has been easy going and wonderful. I just can't say enough about how much I'm enjoying it all. The bonding, the convenience, the two of us... all of it. That said, my boobs are crizazy huge and I'm getting worried about them post breastfeeding. The are ridiculous and so ugly to me. The biggest nursing bra I could get was and I/J and I'm busting out of that. Before breastfeeding, they were about an F -- which was more than I'd like and now? Blech. Its worth it but I'm seriously considering a reduction once Birdy is done breastfeeding.
{stuff} Winter has brought its normal gift of dry, itchy skin. Here's what I'm loving:
Cetaphil for my face. It cleanses so gently and is so affordable. 
Lush Sympathy for the Skin. Best. Cream. Ever.
from family fun magazine. This picture just looked so colorful and scrumptious to me:
I'm not posting it because it was the best dish ever. In fact, if you look at the picture of ours, it was a bit gray. I'm posting it because chopping up vegetables in the middle of winter lifted my mood so much. It's reminiscent of summer and fruit salads and lightness. And for that reason alone, I recommend making this with fresh veggies even though (and I hate to say this) it would have been just as good with frozen vegetables.
Vegetable Cobbler Recipe
i have eleventy drafts of this post and am determined to get it out even if its incomplete and imperfect. Self sabotage and redemption are recurring themes in my life and the other day, another one of my phone conversations with m. led to the topic. She was saying that she understood the draw of physical contact sports like boxing or football -- that she bets the hit feels good in a psychic sort of way. Like you know its coming and you know you deserve (or at least are going to get) something, so its just nice to get it over with. This resonates deep within me. Now m. has somehow never seen Fight Club; this led to a discussion of the popularity of sparring/kickboxing/etc. classes for women and whether a women's fight club might be just the thing. I can't really do our conversation justice but will just examine a few points that stuck with me...
If you took your 'beating' physically, would you be less likely to put up with emotional or psychological garbage from others? This starts with the assumption that you believe you deserve or need or something negativity/difficulty/abuse. It sounds so obvious in black and white, but the truth is that I do believe it. And another truth is that when I've left various kickboxing/self defense/sparring classes, I've felt invincible. Not just physically. This feeling doesn't come from my yoga or step aerobics classes. {disclaimer: it has been years since I've attended ANY of these classes; lest I mislead you.}
Now, this is sick, but this is my true observation, as well: Repeatedly, abuse and negativity have, for a lack of a better way to describe it, brought out the best in me. It primitively frees me to be the best I can be. I told you it was sick so don't look at me like that. This freedom to be my best leads me to what I think my actual issue is: REDEMPTION. Do I believe I deserve bad things so much that getting them is a sweet relief that allows me to go on and become something good? Here's a self-sabotage example: I have always struggled with food/weight issues. Certain foods are like wonderful punishments for me -- double stuff oreos fit into this category. They're horrible for your body, destroy any diet you might try, and are delicious. Except I need to eat them until my stomach hurts. Like HAVE to do that. If they are in the house, I have to eat them until I hurt -- but then? Oh, that moment when I can throw the package away! It makes me want to be light, and good, and clean, and accomplished, and creative, and, and, and... Another example: I've been struggling with some things that I've never really struggled with in the past. Things like homekeeping. Could it be that I am not driven to prove how good I am without the presence of an abusive husband or boss? Finally, I have not one abuser in my life and suddenly, I'm tripping over things that have, in the past, been my strong suit. When I was married to prick, I kept a perfect home, never ran out of groceries, and made meals without the frozen feeling it all gives me now. Now things are taken care of, but without the energetic drive I had before. What gives?
If this makes no sense its alright with me. I just need to figure this out somehow.
