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breathe momma breathe

23 Nov

Screen Shot 2014-11-23 at 9.10.56 PMBeing a parent is THE most stressful thing. And I have it easy. One kid. No major health issues. Normal behavior. Easy peasy. Yet still THE most stressful thing. I must be a complete wuss or something.

Kiddo had a tummy bug a couple of weekends ago. She recovered in a couple of days but seems to complain of her stomach hurting on a very regular basis lately. This Friday night, more tummy issues that were not pretty and then this afternoon she started hurting again. This time actually writhing in pain in between bits of sleep. She’d say in the most pitiful voice, “Mommy, what’s wrong with me?” and “I only want my tummy to stop hurting”, and her little face was all scrunched up with hurt and I couldn’t do anything but lay next to her and stroke her hair and hold her hand. The Accountant and I debated a trip to the ER but then she’d settle down and sleep some more. At the very least, a trip to the pediatrician is in order if this keeps up.

And of course, you can’t research your kid’s illness (or anyone’s for that matter) without reading the most horrible and worst case scenarios. I know this but I Google whatever it is anyway, therefore only making the worry exponentially worse.

I don’t know how parents of children with chronic or terminal illness do it. I remember a sermon once by a man in his 30s who has a son who is disabled and wheelchair bound. He said that people say to him and his wife all the time, “I don’t know how you do it”. His response was a candid, “you don’t have a choice, you just do it”. I have no idea what the sermon was about but that anecdote sticks with me. My kid has a stomach ache and I stress eat an entire can of ranch flavored Pringles in one sitting.

Besides parents of seriously ill children, what about parents of more than one? How do you keep them all healthy at once? How do you possibly walk around wearing multiple hearts on the outside of your body and not drive yourself directly to Straightjacket Town thinking about bullies, sickness, broken bones, car accidents, food poisoning, bad grades, peer pressure, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll????????? Oh sure, its two or three or more times the love and cuddles but also that much more of the worries and stress. I’ll pass thanks, but major respect to those of you who are rockin’ the parenting of multiple offspring.

Now I need a paper bag to breathe into. And more Pringles.

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True story

2 Oct

This made me snort. Especially #s 1, 11, and 22. Heh.

http://www.chicagonow.com/baby-sideburns/2013/10/you-know-you-are-a-mom-if/

 

next stop, juvie hall

26 Aug

Kiddo was/is having some adjustment issues at school. To put it bluntly, she’s punching kids. Yes, punching. She’s gotten in trouble two days in a row for channeling Rocky Balboa. Fabulous. For the record and in my kid’s defense, she has attended day care from 8 weeks to 5 years old, and we’ve never had this issue. I’m shocked I tell you.

Each day the kiddies get a behavior assessment based on a color scale, with green meaning they were sweet angels, red meaning they are juvie hall bound, with degrees of other colors in between. The first two days we got green. Woohoo! Then the next day, a yellow mark with a note from the teacher saying that my kiddo had punched a “friend”. We had the obligatory talk with her about using her words instead of her fists, yada yada. Tears and remorse followed with the promise for a better day tomorrow.

The next day…another yellow with another note from teacher in a much more stern tone…my child had punched another kid and knows that next time it happens she will be demoted to RED. A more serious talk occurred as did more serious tears and elevated remorse and some “I don’t want to talk about it mommy”. The next day…stomach virus. Goodbye perfect attendance. It was really all we had left since the good behavior medal had already slipped by us.

Enter today, Monday…I dropped her off and that experience was a bit rocky, although at least we weren’t late this time, so I didn’t think her day got off to the greatest of beginnings. Sigh. Bad mommy. However, today….drum roll please….GREEN!!! Whew. Can we get two greens in a row by getting another one tomorrow??? Stay tuned folks. Its gonna be a nail biter.

Kindergarten is stressing me out.

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Kindergarten: And So It Begins

19 Aug

Ok I’m back y’all. And if you aren’t my parents and don’t want to read about my kid’s kindergarten adventures, move right along now.

Here are the highlights…

The most excited kid I have ever seen busted into our bedroom at 6:00 am all dressed, with backpack on. Ready to go! As spazzy as if it were Christmas morning. She’ll get over that pretty quickly I’m guessing.

No tears on the first day. Seriously. We are a family with hearts o’ steel I tell ya. We walked her in and she was a bit shy but the teacher was all smiles and perkiness and we were outta there in less than 2 minutes. Ack. I did ok during the day but just kept wondering what she was doing at that moment, if she was having fun, finding her way, did she get lunch, etc etc. Finally, time to go pick her up and hear about all the big girl adventures! Or something.

Enter a bit of a hiccup with the first afternoon pick up…to explain…I come from a TINY school…one building, K-12, 200 students TOTAL. Kiddo’s school is one building for the Elementary and there are 5 or 6 different kindergarten classes alone. Totally different world. The Elementary, Middle school and High school are all on the same campus which means 50 million different driveways and car rider lines and doors and places for me to get confused. But I managed to find the correct car rider line on her first day and was all like “oh yeah, new momma has GOT THIS yo!”…I’ve been sitting there for about 15 minutes congratulating myself and picturing the heartfelt afternoon reunion and bonding over stories of new friends and the fabulous cafeteria lunch she had, when I get a phone call from her after school program. (Yeah yeah, my kid is one of those poor souls whose parents work for a living and don’t have family in town so she has to go to an after school program. Sue us.) Said program wasn’t supposed to pick up the kindergarteners until Friday, but my kid was somehow put on the bus and was making her way across town. Enter mommy coronary.

I managed not to squeal my tires as I pull out of the beloved car rider line (did I mention it was the correct line?) and race to where my precious offspring is being taken. I’m imagining tears and panic and five year old hysteria. I actually beat the bus to the place and not so patiently wait for my poor lost child to run sobbing into my arms. Haha. So naive am I. The bus pulls up, kiddo comes be-bopping off it hand in hand with some deviant 1st grader, says “hi mommy” and proceeds to walk past me and into the building. WHAT???!!! I try to explain that this whole bus thing was a mistake today and her program doesn’t start that day. She is NOT a happy kindergartner. Kid didn’t want to go home!

Even though I was stabbed in my tender maternal heart, I’m glad that she is so independent and just fearless enough to enjoy new things and not be incapacitated by shyness. But still, geez.

Since then, she’s been two more full days and we are rockin’ this school thing. Sort of. I made her late for her 2nd day because I got caught in the wrong drop off line and had to go all the way around the entire campus. Yada yada yada. Momma needs to get with the program, I know. Day 3 was easier because the always prompt and non directionally challenged Accountant dropped her off and I picked her up at the after school place, which I can do because it’s just one building with one parking lot and one entrance. As it should be.

So far the only negative is that kid is wiped out at the end of the day and that makes her grumpy. Did you know kids no longer get naps in kindergarten? We, as a nation, have obviously gone to hell in a hand basket with this horrible decision. Today I found her cuddled up in a teacher’s lap and was informed that she had just tearfully told the teacher, “I think I want my mommy”. Ack. Tired tired girl. It is definitely mental overload for her. And me too. We have like 20 pounds of papers in folders with deadlines and dates and fundraising crap (hey, wanna buy some wrapping paper?), and agendas and parent alerts and ohmahgoodness this is NOT good for someone as disorganized as I am. But we’ll get it down soon I think.

Oh, some randomness…her school is in the top 5% for standardized test scores in the state. Not that I put much stock in those lame tests but I’d rather her school be on that side of the scale than the other. And she has been reciting the Pledge of Allegiance over and over again and has been obsessed with “good manners” (maybe we aren’t going to hell in a hand basket after all). Additional randomness…tonight she and I were in bed and she says, “Its time for cuddles”, so she gets the covers all arranged, snuggles up against me and says, “Now THIS is what I call love”…Good gracious me! ❤

Beginning of day vs. End of day….

Beginning of day

Next stop? Harvard.

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various thoughts at 3 am

14 Aug
  • Emotional rollercoaster today. It’s not something I can explain here. Its just…all the things. Bleh. Life is weird.
  • As mentioned in the title, it’s an ungodly hour and momma is up pacing, nervous as a cat. #1stdayofkindgergarten
  • Last day of daycare today for kiddo. Teary pickup. Last long commute home with her. Not so teary, for me anyway as kiddo was in a mood. Probably nervous like momma. It was a big day for her.
  • Today (Wednesday) is my Friday and it will be abbreviated. Not complaining there.
  • I feel like I am losing control of my exercise and eating. Again. My time management and organizational skills are nil and I’ve been preoccupied, by design. I’m all over the place. I’m so sick of starting and stopping and starting over a million zillion times. Why can’t I be consistent with anything? Frustrated with myself.
  • I got to take The Trekster out for an abbreviated spin after work. It was short and unsatisfying because, five year old who wants mommy like humans want air. But, I could at least tell that I made a great choice and am going to love this bike for a long time.
Trekster

Trek FX 7.4…in mah driveway

 

 

 

 

Better stock photo

Better stock photo

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Life isn’t like the movies, and how do babies get outta there

12 Jun

Frances Ha. 9 out of 10 stars.

At first I found the dialogue a bit disjointed and awkward but I don’t know if I just got used to it or it appealed to me more after it settled in my brain after sleeping on it. Shot in black and white, it was lovely to look at and Greta Gerwig made the movie work I think. Her character was awkward, clumsy, free spirited and just plain lovable. I mean, she pirouettes across the streets of New York and uses a credit card she got in the mail to go to Paris for a weekend, what’s not to love? As my fellow viewer said, you just have to root for her. She was just wacky. I like wacky. Kudos Frances, kudos.

Continuation of kiddo’s hard questions…”how do babies get outta there”? Well, I told her. Not my wisest mommy decision I’ll admit. I don’t think she’ll be scarred for life though but really, I should have said something other than that the doctor cuts the baby out of the mommy’s belly or the baby comes out the mommy’s hoo-hah. Dumb dumb dumb. True, but dumb. It didn’t occur to me that she doesn’t have the knowledge of how the baby gets in there in the first place so she was afraid that she’d just wake up one day with a baby in HER belly and have to get it out in one of the ways I’d quickly mumbled to her. Once I realized her tearful angst I quickly distracted her with Skittles. Like all mom’s do in a bind…bribe with candy. Better strategy next time mom because the truth ain’t always the way to go.

The End.

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winning at sick days

18 Feb

Kiddo has a stomach bug so today was a sick day.

I just wrote a post to go with this picture about the patience and nurturing of mothers being given out in different size containers and how I only got an 8 oz Mason jar, while others got big ol’ five gallon plastic buckets full of the stuff. And then I decided it was a dumb post so I deleted it.

It hasn’t been a bad day overall except for kiddo’s sickly episodes that came and went sporadically. And she only had two meltdowns and I only had one. I win. The day ended with a sleepy sigh and a mumbled “Mommy, I love cuddling with you.”

PicMonkey Collage

We both win.

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