Dear Princess

Dear Princess,

Thank you for the early sampling of teenage angst today. I will remember to up my Prozac dose before you officially hit your teens.

All joking aside you are a great kid.

I love watching you grow and learn. It is fun to see you explore and learn.

Chatting with you is pretty awesome, I love hearing your perspective on things and learning how you think.

I still cannot believe that you are the same 3lb little bundle that made me a mother. You were so tiny! But so determined. You never let anything stand in your way even in the NICU.

You are compassionate and loving to adults and kids. I am so thankful to be your mother. I hope you are as proud of yourself as I am of you.

xoxo

Mama

and I considered changing my name

Pixie has arrived at her two year old self with a vengeance.

She can follow me throughout the house and say "Mama? Mama what is that?"

She loves pushing every single limit she can, if I ask her to not do something it is like an open invitation to do it.

This can go one of two basic ways. I can end up hiding, locked in the bathroom or I can realize that she is 2. I am considerably older.

My solution is to not manipulate her into doing things my way, but to find away to say 'yes' more often.

Personally, I am still learning how to do this. My knee jerk reaction is to be frustrated and annoyed and make her do things my way. Which makes us both upset. So I am now looking for ways to make 'yes' a reality.

She wants to climb? Maybe we can go to the park. She wants to run? Is there anyway we can all go outside?

I am learning. I am far from perfect but I hope I can learn to respond with fun and joy rather than frustration and irritation.

for the love of wine

One of the things I miss most while pregnant is wine. I really like wine. I am already planning what kind of wine I am going to have after delivery.
Champagne seems like an obvious choice right? A special occasion requires celebration right?

What kind would be best? Dom is almost cliche at this point and Veuve Yellow Label can be purchased at Target- which hardly screams a special occasion. Any brilliant ideas?


Brought To By Wine.com, Purveyors of Fine Wine and Champagne

Why I talk about it

Several years ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance who would become a friend and somehow depression, medication, anxiety came up. I unabashedly told her that I was on xyz medication. We all lived to tell the tale.

When I told my husband later her cautioned me not to tell anyone that I had anxiety issues or was taking something for it. Because people may think I am crazy (well-- I am crazy- but in a good way I like to think).

I questioned why the secrecy, it is just adding to the stigma. I wouldn't think twice about telling someone I take Advair for my asthma. I have an issue, I am taking care of it.

Granted, I do not volunteer all the dirty little secrets of my life or about some of my darker moments, but that is more because I don't know the words to use to describe them, and my memory of the time is fuzzy at best.

Women, mothers especially seem to have this "I need to have it all" or "I need to do it all" syndrome. We have the need to at least look like we can manage the kids, the house, a career, pets, and 10 other things while dressed in fashionable clothes and wearing subtle yet pretty make-up. It is like juggling wet cats on a beach ball. Something has got to give.

Because of our (my) desire to do everything we (I) often are hiding our feelings, sometimes even from ourselves(myself).

I talk about it so that other women can see that someone can be a functional person, even with issues, that taking medication does not brand you with a letter "M".

I talk about it so that my kids will know that it is okay to admit that you need help.

I talk about it so that maybe another mom will feel safe enough to get help and see that there is a life on the other side.

I talk about it so it is not some scary secret, that is terrifying until brought to light.

13 Years

On the 13th. I was a little busy this year trying not to have a baby- but the 13th did not go by unnoticed, especially because it was a Friday.

13 years ago I went to Utah. 13 years ago my life changed. 13 years ago....

My mom wonders why I do not just let it go. Why I still think about it. Why I am still dealing with it. Why it hasn't become something mundane.

Honestly, I do not anticipate it will ever be something mundane. I do not think I will ever let it go. How can I? How can I let go- essentially being kidnapped in the middle of the night by 2 strangers to fly across the country with my parents blessing, taking only a teddy bear, my violin, and my favorite book (I have always been a book nerd).

I remember it all so clearly, but like I was watching it, in the third person. It was cold (duh), there was a lot of snow. We got to the airport and the escorts (there are actual companies who supply people to take teens to treatment centers) and I had developed a report enough so that they let me go to the bathroom alone.

When I think back to that day, I have a reaction that I cannot explain. It is a visceral gut reaction. My chest burns. My eyes water. My breath is short. I become confused and disoriented. I cannot think of words to describe it.

So yeah. 13 years.

Attitude adjustment.

We are 18 days into the new year and I have already done a bang up job of messing up my Resolution to choose joy- to chose bliss.

I have had a capitalistic attitude and I am feeling the results. I have been feeding into to the negativity, and I totally feel it. I am short, snippy, and impatient and it is stopping.

From today- I will endeavor to see the good, to feel gratitude, to see the small things, to appreciate the silly and mundane.

I may not be 100% successful especially at such a radical shift in thinking, so small victories will be embraced and celebrated.

Today I chose bliss.

My response to transgender girl scouts

I am a proud member of Girl Scouts of The United States of America.

I am even prouder that the Girl Scouts are being so courageous to welcome everyone.

Girls- especially girls who may not fit the 'norm' need to be and deserve to be supported and nurtured, not judged and ostracized.

A few parents have asked how I would feel if my daughter's troop had a transgender child in it. While obviously, I cannot tell exactly, because I am not in that situation, I have to say- that on the whole- great- I would be proud of her for welcoming and accepting another person. I would be thrilled that she would be exposed to a wide variety of people. We are not all alike. Our differences are something that should be celebrated- not shamed.

I suppose this is where, for me, at least, things get complicated. If the Girl Scouts wanted tax money/breaks/benefits then they should be held to a non-discrimination code, that welcomes everyone. If they wanted to be maintained as a private organization- then I would have to support their right to prohibit people from joining- but I would not like it.

As it stands, I am thrilled to be a part of an organization that is is courageous enough to stand up for everyone and welcome all girls.

And yes- I will be buying a ton of cookies this year. It is a darn good thing they freeze well.

What to say!

I feel like I should be brimming with post inspiration but I am not.

Maybe things just got the better of me. Maybe in all of the stress- things got lost.

Good news- no baby yet.

Yay!

Bad news- pre-term labor is stressful.

I spent the past few days up on a labor and delivery floor of a hospital- apparently coming precariously close to delivering (I did not know this).

Granted- full term is a dream in my world. 35 weeks is a dream in my world.

I guess, the OBs, MFMs, and nurses all thought that I was very close to delivering a very premature baby boy the past few days. This is not something they shared with me. As far as I knew it was run of the mill- early contractions- that needed to be monitored stopped so they did not turn into something more serious. After chatting with one of the nurses- I learned how concerned they were.

Upon learning this, I was kind of pissed- not kind of pissed- really pissed. I should have known! Someone should have told me! Why was I not told? Shouldn't me- the mother be informed of this? I mean if I am about to delivery a very premature baby- I need to prepare, at minimum emotionally, and arrange child care- among other things.

One of my major frustrations is that every time a different doctor came in they had a different plan or opinion. For me, a planner, this is a problem, what was more- was most of the plans were based on opinion and experience not necessarily hard and fast evidence or able to be supported with sound reasoning- which is a huge giant super enormous issue for me.

Added to this unbelievable stress is that my family is owed in excess of $6,000- which would really really come in handy right about now. We are stretched so thin- and yes- I should be- and am thankful for the blessings I have been given- the added stress of being genuinely scared about paying the mortgage is not helping matters.

Pre term= no fun

Greetings! I am coming to you today live from room 2513 of Labor and Delivery of Central DuPage Hospital.

Baby boy thought for a few minutes that it would be fun to be born. He, thankfully, changed his mind and is now just testing my patience.

Apparently, I gave the L/D floor a run for their money. Contracting every 2 minutes, shortening cervix, softening, dilating cervix....

Seriously, I did not have the "Oh, I am having a baby today" feeling like I have gotten every other time. Just something different about the days on which I delivered. I didn't have that then. So honestly, I never got nervous. I never had the "OH CRAP! I am scared" feeling.

Pregnancy Insanity

Pregnancy has to be defensible cause for insanity. Really.

The hormones, the fatigue, the fact that I have another person sharing my body (and it is not multiple personality disorder). It is of little wonder that pregnant women are a little 'off'.

Yesterday, I decided I wanted to wear a specific pair of pants. Only those pants would do. Of course, I couldn't find them. So I proceeded to power through the mountain of laundry that was taking over the basement- under the assumption that they would be in there. They weren't.

I was getting nervous. Upset. Distressed. Where were my pants? I needed my pants, darn it!

Yes, I looked in my dresser. They were not there. I looked in my closet- no luck. By then, I was was really annoyed. I glowered. I fussed. I snapped at the kids, the dogs, the cats. I seriously considered buying another pair of pants because I was absolutely sure that there was no way I could make it through the remainder of my pregnancy without them.

My pants were still missing.

I found them today- in my dresser- of course.

When the days drag-

I know a fair amount of pregnant women. They seem to always say that "this pregnancy is flying by!"

I think the are insane. The first five and a half months are a haze of nausea- where each moment seemed to last a week. Now I am in the fires of heartburn. I feel like I have the gestation time of an elephant.

My pregnancy is not flying by the days, weeks, and months seem to be dragging so slowly, that time is almost moving backwards.

I am not really experiencing anxiety about this birth, it is not the my first time down this road. I am preparing with relaxation cds, with a doula, with a birth plan that can double as a book, but I am impatient.

How do you deal with the impatience when you know there are at least 11 weeks left? 11 weeks may as well be 11 years from where I sit.

It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this is the last time I will be pregnant. This is the last time I will feel another person inside me. This is the last chance that I will have to grow a person. Of course, when I think about it like that, a profound sense of guilt washes over me, like how can I take this for granted? How can I not be soaking up every last kick and wriggle?

Maybe, I should set aside time every day to do nothing but focus on my son. Nothing but focus on feeling him and enjoy it.