Six really fine years

My dear sweet 6-year-old daughter,

Sometimes I am absolutely startled by how much you have grown up and how suddenly it happened.  You are, without question, a kid-- a lanky, tall, snaggletoothed kid.  No longer my pudgy little baby with short curly, goldilocks hair.  Every year I find it harder to remember what life felt like before you arrived and made me a momma.

This year has been a big one for you, and for us.  You started kindergarten and have changed in many ways since the hot days of August.  It blows my mind that when you started school those short months ago, you were sounding out words slowly and with difficulty, and now you just breeze through books and write complete sentences.  I love it when you read me your Dear Diare entries from your notebook.  The entries from the past couple days have been about your birthday---

Dear Diare-- It is almost my birtday and I am xisiteed too becose it is comeing up and my mom is going to make cupcakes. 


Dear Diry-- It is almost my birthday and my freind Layla cannot come.  


Dear Diare-- I like prezends and I like dogs but my mom cannot let me have a dog yet becuse I am not old anof so I say mom let me have a dog.

I wish I could participate more in your school activities, but with M being born in October, I simply can't right now.  I feel sad about this, but I hope you know how much I want to be involved.  This is why I ask you lots of questions about your day and what you're learning and reading.  I worry that with caring for your two younger brothers, who are at very needy stages, that I am neglecting you.  I am doing the best that I can to let you know that you are deeply loved.

You have many wonderful qualities, such as being kind to others and being comfy in your own skin (like in picking out the kookiest outfits on the planet and wearing them with great ease).  I am so proud of the little girl you are.  I hope that your kindness, comfort in yourself and kookiness will grow stronger as you mature in time.

I know you will thoroughly enjoy your big birthday party this weekend.  More and more of your school friends have been RSVPing, which makes you even more excited about your 6th birthday, and I really didn't see how that was even possible.  Every day you are counting down!

I look forward to sharing many, many more birthdays with you, Bug.

Love,
Mom

Anxiety remission....feels a little like grief?

When I began blogging, I was still early on in my recovery.  New to medication.  New to cognitive-behavioral therapy.  New to the diagnosis of OCD and GAD.  I couldn't fathom that there would come a time when I felt normal....whatever my new normal would feel like.

But as my daughter's 6th birthday approaches, I do feel normal.  (And I don't mean to imply it has taken 6 years to get here.....I've just been reflecting lately.)  I've gotten to the point where my OCD and GAD don't define me.  I don't feel compelled to share with every breathing body I come across that I deal with these issues.  I don't feel like I am constantly struggling to get a handle on my negative and catastrophic internal dialogue.

My mood-disorders are in "remission."  I have accepted that there isn't going to be a cure, and I'm ok with that.  My biggest worries early on was that due to medication I wouldn't be able to become pregnant or have a healthy pregnancy/baby, and if I didn't take my meds, I wouldn't survive another postpartum period.  I have done so twice now since 2004 with no problems for me or my sons.

So I'm at a good place now, where I don't really blog that often about my anxiety.  Which makes my blog title seem a little out of place at times.

But having gone through the experience of a nervous breakdown is like experiencing death, in a sense.  Although I have moved on and don't dwell on what happened, I cannot forget it.  At times, I am reminded of how low I got during the fall of 2004, and it scares me.  Just as grief can wash over a person years after the loss of a loved one, the same is true of a breakdown.  The edge dulls, but the scar is still there.

For a long time the autumn of the year was hard for me because it reminded me of that terrible time.  But both my sons were born in autumn (September 2007 and October 2009), so now I have happier memories that overshadow the earlier ones.  It seems that now memories of my breakdown bubble up whenever my daughter's birthday approaches.  At her first birthday, I just barely had my big toe in the waters of therapy and meds, and I nearly cried while singing Happy Birthday to her.  I was thrilled that she was a year old and so sad at the same time.  To this day, I think my relationship with my daughter on my end (internally) is filtered through the lens of my mood-disordered self (which is an entire blog post unto itself).

Which explains my reflections of late.  Her birthday is this coming Thursday.

To do, lists and no birthday goodie bags in my world

Never in a million years would I have dreamed my life would be this busy as a stay-at-home mom.  Most weeks my day-planner is chock full of activities.  

Next week, my schedule looks like this:

Monday--open

Tuesday--hosting baby shower for friend/playdate for G's little playgroup buddies.

Wednesday--visiting with friends (all of us had our babies within 3 weeks of each other).

Thursday--a.m. --taking G to the dentist. 

              --p.m. --taking N's birthday snack to school and then taking her to the       dentist.

Friday-- attending and volunteering at the Winter Festival at N's school.

Saturday--open

Sunday-- N's birthday party at My Gym.

And this is just with my oldest in school.  I can't imagine how busy things will be when all 3 of them are in school.  

It has gotten to the point where I have to make lists on top of my lists.  If I don't write it down, it don't get done.  I am nearly ready to start jotting down, "Take a piss" because I often forget and then wonder why it takes me 8 and a half minutes to empty my bladder.  

I have finally written down Toilet Seat in my dayplanner, with the hope that before the broken one completely falls off I will get around to nagging my husband to get a new one.  

This weekend, in preparation for N's birthday party, I have to buy water bottles, Rice Krispy treats for the allergic kids, and solid color dessert plates for the kids to eat on.

But one thing I will NOT be buying is shit for birthday goodie bags.  I HATE, HATE, HATE birthday goodie bags.  There are a number of reasons for this:

1. When a child invites N to his/her birthday, she is always excited to go.  We dig around in our Gift Box so she can pick out something she thinks the child will like. We wrap it, and she makes a card.  The joy of being invited is gift enough for N, so she doesn't need a physical gift from the birthday child.

2. I really don't want anymore plastic crap in my house.  No more tiny little containers of bubbles.  No more stickers or tattoos.  No more pencils or erasers.  No more plastic jewelry.  

3. N doesn't need any candy either, thank you.

Please, for the love of god, save your money and don't buy goodie bags.

At N's very first friend birthday party, when she was 4, I broke down and bought each child a fairly nice 89 cent Barbie cup as well as a Barbie hair scrunchie-type thing.  And the reason I purchased these particular items was because they are functional--a cup out of which to drink and something to put one's hair up.  They have a distinct function other than just cluttering up someone's house.

But I have decided I am not going to do gift bags.  I am breaking ranks and saying "Screw you Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading Company what-nots.  I'm not having it anymore."  

I am sure the world will take notice and shudder. 

I am not your jungle gym

Let me go ahead and ask it right now:  Does anyone else's 5-year-old expect his or her parents/grandparents to be human jungle gyms that he/she can climb on all the live-long day?  Or is it just my kid?

N is a bundle of energy, a constant whirling dervish of spazz.  She gets home from school and is on and off the couch, running around the living room, smashing her face into the recliner, chasing her brother, laying upside down with her feet over the back of the couch.

When her grandmothers visit, N hangs on them like a monkey swings on ropes.  She jumps on their backs. Dangles from their necks.  Lays on the floor, inches her legs up their legs, grabs their hands, and then flips over.

I don't know how much of this is that she is 5 (almost 6) and kids this age just act this way.  Or if it's because she behaves so splendidly at school that she has to get her funkies out when she comes home.  Or if it's that she sees her wild-ass 2-year-old brother running on the couch and jumping on things and wants to do it too.

I try to roughhouse with N the way I do with G, but it is difficult because she has legs that go on forever, and she uses said legs to kick whenever I try to tickle her.  And she is so lanky that I inevitably get some bony body part rammed into my hip or thigh or arm.  I hate to say it, but it is more fun and less dangerous to wrestle with the squishy toddler than it is the gangly kindergartener.

Plus, the toddler has never gotten used to having mom all to himself, so he is way less demanding than N, who had all of me for almost 4 years.  That much undivided attention set a precedent that she is in no way ready to let go off.  When I tell N that I need to stop whipping her around to rest, she badgers and badgers me to continue.  She might suggest a different activity, but it always involves me exerting energy that I simply don't have these days.  I guess G just doesn't know to expect much out of me to begin with.  He's happy with whatever little playtime with me that he gets.

Tonight I was spinning the kids on the hardwood floor---holding their hands while they sat on their bottoms, twirling their arms in circles.  I did it any number of times to both N and G but eventually had to stop because.....dammit, I was tired.

I know N just wants to have fun, but I seriously get tired....literally physically tired....trying to be the human playground equipment that she seems to want me to be.

Old age, here I come

I will be 37 this year, but you'd think I was 4 steps from the grave.  Ok, maybe 8 steps.  It is just becoming increasingly apparent to me that I'm not such a spry hot chick anymore (as if I ever was.)

In the summer,  I used to never have to wear sunglasses.  The rays never bothered me.  But when I was pregnant with G in 2007 I had to purchase very dark shades.  I thought it might just be pregnancy, but it didn't go away when the placenta exited.  It is to the point that now it is bothersome to not have my sunglasses on in the snow.  Yes, the reflected light from the whiteness just about does me in.

And then there's the fact that I call everyone under 30 a kid.  Because they are kids.  They look so darn young with their bright eyes and doughy skin.

I posted a new FB profile pic and was a little shocked by the lines on my face.  I'm not ready yet to call them wrinkles.

Of course there is also the fact that I am hearing "new" music via my kindergartener and her Alvin and the Chipmunks songs.  I'd never heard Beyonce's All the Single Ladies, Pink's So What or Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On, but I have now thanks to the Chipettes.  I fully expected to hear unknown music once my children were teens, but the 5-year-old??  That's just pitiful.

The bedroom experiment, the crib that broke, and it's just Saturday

On Thursday night I had a potentially brilliant idea that came to me when I was nursing M to sleep and D read books to both N and G in her bedroom.  Once I got M to sleep, I figured I'd go get G and get him into his crib, but D had already put both kids to bed.

When I came downstairs I suggested we room N and G together for about 6 months or so, until August when N goes back to school for first grade and M is 10 months old (and will hopefully be in a routine and on a schedule.)

Originally I hadn't wanted to room N and G because I didn't want to disturb N's sleep since she has  school all day.  But a number of factors made me think rooming the two older kids might be a doable option right now.  First of all, they go to bed at the same time each night.  Secondly, they wake up at about the same time each day.  Third, G seems to all of a sudden be a little more mature.  He is talking in more complete sentences.  He is kinda over board books and is much more interested in reading 32 page picture books of Clifford, Curious George and Arthur, which makes reading to them simultaneously much easier and enjoyable.

Anyway, we told N we were gonna try to room her and G together and see what happened.  Two nights now without a bit of trouble getting them down to sleep.  N did tell us she got G out of his crib this morning and read him books in her bed, and then they both fell asleep in her bed, which I cannot prove since I was asleep, but which sounds highly adorable.

So we did all this with the intention of moving M into the smaller bedroom.  I have had sinus drainage and a cough this week, so I think I have been keeping him up with my cough as much as he has been keeping me up with his baby sleep noises and nursing requirements.  This afternoon D started taking down his crib in our room to move.

And then the crib broke.  Two plastic pieces that hold the sliding side up broke in half, rendering the entire bed unsafe and useless.  I called Pottery Barn Kids for replacement parts but have been getting the run-around.  Even if I hadn't, there is no way to get replacement parts TODAY, so D went out to buy a new crib at Wal-Mart.  The cheapest he could find.

The entire evening was spent putting the new crib together.  And then moving the glider into the nursery.  And then moving the boxes that held the new crib downstairs.  And then moving the PBK crib against the wall to wait to see if we can replacement parts.

It is now 8:52 pm, and I am starting my 2nd glass of wine, which explains any run-on sentences and jumbled stream of consciousness blogging.

In addition to all this, the kids and I went to a Valentine' Party this morning, and I hit the library to get books for N and G this afternoon.

Some ice cream and then my ass is in bed.

Yeah, I don't think I'll teach elementary

For awhile I been considering getting certified to teach elementary-age students.  I am currently certified to teach grades 5-9, but I thought it might be a good idea to branch out to avoid boredom (assuming I ever get back into the classroom).

And so I purposely took my graduate classes (to renew my certificate) in elementary reading.  I really learned a lot in general about helping kids read...even middle schoolers...and was introduced to all sorts of literature that I could use in either an elementary or middle school classroom.

But lately I've been thinking that elementary is probably not for me.

Because my kindergartener drives me frackin' bonkers.
And I thought it was just her.
But after leading last night's Daisy Troop meeting, I think all 5- and 6-year-old girls would drive me bonkers.

In a recent blog, I complained about how N won't sit down at supper.  Or ever.  She is a constant ball of jumping around, saying "Mom, watch this,"  "Look at this,"  "Hey Mom, check this out."

And virtually all the other girls at the meeting were the exact same way.

My experience last night made me remember how I felt after helping out at N's Christmas party at school.  I think I blocked it out because I was so darn fatigued after the fact.  Those kindergarteners just yammered and didn't focus and got up and down and had ants in their drawers.

It makes the moodiness of middle schoolers seem like a walk on the beach.

Although I know I won't handle my own kids' middle school moodiness as easily as I handled my students, back in the day when I wasn't somebody's momma.