Planting pinwheels

I’ve been a little lost lately — fighting that need to be valued– a lot of people probably never grapple with this, because your work keeps you connected daily. For me, feeling like I contribute to society more than just upholding the economy with grocery shopping and soccer games, tugs at my ego and my identity daily. A part of the challenge is that overwhelming feeling of where do I start? What’s my motivation and where can I make the most impact?

So I’ve opened my mind to going full time and it’s been stressful.

My time with Doodlebug is strained, and many parts of the day I find myself flustered or frustrated, but I hate the thought of missing out on any of her amazing moments. And lately, our bond has been very strong, and very important to the balance of her day. We see her initiating a connection with me when I pick her up from school and her teachers say they can tell if we didn’t have time together in the morning or like the night before, when I am occasionally out to a board meeting or  soccer practice runs late.

That bond is also important for me. I know I’m hard on myself and the whole family because I feel like we should be able to juggle more, or do it better.  I am slowly accepting that we just aren’t like every other family. And the mess and the confusion and the uncertainty is ok if we are happy and we are able to enjoy our time together. So, when I’m frustrated with myself or Doodlebug or just life, then I’m not able to be happy or in the moment with my kiddos. I see myself from the outside and I can be critical and empathetic at the same time. It’s the oddest feeling. I catch myself laughing under my breath as my nimble daughter climbs out of the Target cart for the third time in a 30 min visit. I know people are judging and staring and no matter what I have done to prepare for entertaining her, it won’t be enough. So I laugh at my situation and I laugh at the world who can’t see what I see.

  

The truth of our happiness lies in the balance and I am working on it every day. So if I look a little frazzled one side of the pendulum or the other, I’ll take a smile and a “you’re doing fine” any day that you want to give it.

And for working more, we shall see. The kids and I are just  going to enjoy our pinwheels while they last.

All the Moms in the House say… Caayyy-ake!!!

Listen up to all my mommy friends. I’m far from perfect. Let’s get that out there first. Let’s talk about mommy time, cake and being less judgmental. 

Here’s the thing… I’ve been a workaholic, adrenalin-seeking mom for almost 8 of my 15 professional years, sheesh, and now in a round-about-way I’m a stay-at-home-lose-my-marbles-daily kind of mom, too. THEY ARE BOTH THE HARDEST THING EVER. frabz-the-face-mom-makes-when-theres-no-more-coffee-lol-20e58b

Recently, I did a wild thing. I hung out with some ladies I had never met before. It was nice. Actually, it was a blast. And I think a part of it was the freedom that I had no idea who worked and who didn’t. And they didn’t know anything about my crazy life either.

Because, let’s be real here. Some of us working moms have had those jealous thoughts toward the SAHM who has it so easy. You hear the stories and acknowledge that staying home with the little rugrats all day isn’t a piece of cake, but really, is she having cake during nap time? Well, guess what, if she is, she made it her damn self, which is more than I can say. I get so easily distracted trying to cram in one more load of laundry or one text (that turns into 10),  that I can burn anything. Truly. So if she IS having cake, she deserves it! And let’s be honest, my kick-butt working mommy friends, you get lots of cake. Birthdays, appreciation parties, customer events — you’re doing just fine on that front. I’m seriously wanting in the sweets category since I’ve been sequestered to these barren pantry walls. But don’t worry, there’s still some Valentine’s candy left I think.

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Amateur Therapy Hour

I am an experienced communicator. Not just a little bit. It’s pretty much the core of all I have ever done in my career. I’ve recently had the aha moment that it’s because of this natural tendency to understand visual cues, translate people’s wants, find middle ground and all kinds of other puzzles that come with sending and receiving messages — that I struggle so much with this challenge I live with every day.

It feels like failure to not be able to communicate with my own daughter. It hurts every time I try to guess. She makes unexpected eye contact and grabs my hand. I say something like “are you hungry? Want to play?” But she walks away. Clearly I’ve failed. It’s been a hard existence to feel your hours and days building up and the failures outweighing the successes. We’ve spent many hours together where I just stare at her thinking it will hit me. If I watch her long enough I will be able to crack the code.

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A guilty kind of thankful 

I have been stewing on this feeling for more than a week now. There is a huge guilt overshadowing this entire two weeks of spirited festivities. I haven’t been in the spirit really at all. Yes, we’re exhausted, and yes, we don’t see an end in sight so I think that Ground Hog Day feeling has set in. And yet, we are so very grateful for one thing, the only thing I asked for in all of 2013 and 2014 and now we have it.

The truth is it’s not enough. At the time it felt like it would be a miracle to go one day feeling normal. We just wanted to get through special occasions without our world being overturned in an instant. We didn’t want hospital stays to be our measure of life going by. And we have it. We officially have gone 365 days seizure free, (and a couple extra for good measure because we are somehow ridiculously superstitious about a disease we couldn’t control, predict or understand).

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Learning how to measure  time 

We live in a world of dates, deadlines and milestones. I catch myself measuring each special moment and holiday in reference to “last year” or the “last time.” The good news is we are beyond grateful for having the chance to say these words. We loved those moments like they might really be our last. But I want to push myself beyond the milestones and monthly markers and yet I find it’s much harder than I thought.

I can’t decide why and I’m not sure there is one single answer. Maybe it’s partly because we were trapped in a time warp for two years and it feels unnatural to actually move forward. But it’s also maybe because we got stuck in a safe place and staying in that rut is easier than starting fresh, even when the rut includes the scary memories always haunting us like silent ghosts.

As I have reviewed this weekend’s photos I am reminded of our pumpkin photos last year, how we felt, what we worried about and I wonder if maybe next year it will be too far away to keep up the comparison. But I also don’t want to ever forget, because this fight never stops for our little warrior nor for hundreds of thousands of others.

It’s almost November, our month to share, so I’ve decided it’s not all bad to keep reflecting on the crazy moments. It keeps us vigil and empathetic and these qualities are what I am most thankful for learning through our journey. It’s about the baby steps we keep taking and making sure we keep an open mind for the change we face.

We celebrate where we are and we want to make sure we spread the awareness so there will be many other stories like ours.

Almost Seven 

Almost six years since his little voice first started telling us what he wanted. And since then, man, there have been a lot of funny things to come out of that mouth.

So I realized I better capture the last of his cute and quirky Bubba-isms.

Handcupped – just what you might think, any time he pretends to be a cop or a bad guy he gets the string out and wraps himself up since he doesn’t have real handcuffs.

Out of balance – poor, sweet boy has been playing soccer for almost four years and still thinks when the ball rolls over the line it goes out of balance. 🙂 Some day I know he won’t find this one so cute.

Documenting the other more literal ones for posterity…Unbrella And Breafix stand out right now.