Tag: Parenting

Tithe

Last week was a crazy week. This week has been much more calm, and I’ve had some time to process. So, it all started two weekends ago, actually, when a car that we normally couldn’t afford showed up at my husband’s work (he works in the automotive industry) in exactly our price range. We had been discussing needing a new one in the near future – ours has the possibility of some transmission issues and our extended warranty has expired. We’ve always had issues with the air conditioning not being cool enough, and there’s no rear A/C, so it takes baby girl forever to cool down in the backseat in the summer. Plus, the paint looks awful (and I know that doesn’t affect how well the car drives, but it literally looks like I drove through an acid hail storm.) I did not think, however, we would be thinking about purchasing another one so soon. Anyway, this car turns up and it checks all the boxes on my “must-have” list for a new car: heated seats (we had these in a previous car and I miss them so much), heated mirrors, rear heating and air, and enough room for all our stuff – especially the mound of stuff we take on vacation with us. My husband inquired about the car and turns out, it was priced that low by mistake, but they’re willing to honor it. Well, that seemed too perfect. So, that night he and I discussed it, then I prayed about it before bed. I had a very clear dream that night that I asked God for a sign that we should buy this car, and He provided it. But, still clearer in my dream, God told me to give Him what was His first. We’ve been spotty tithers the last few years. At first, I blamed it on the new baby, then “mom brain” made me forget, but somewhere along the way I let it become of little importance in my mind. I’d give when I remembered, and sometimes not even then because we had extra bills that month or whatever. You don’t have to give me a tithing sermon, I know deep in my soul the importance of giving God back what He so graciously gives us. I just let it become a wedge. It kept separating me further and further from God’s plan for my life. It wasn’t good. Then a few months ago, hubby told me that our church was now doing automatic withdrawal for tithing. I know, it sounds sort of cold, but it was exactly the commitment and accountability I needed. I wanted to give, I just either let it slip my mind, or rationalized my way out of it when it came time to actually do it. I was not a “cheerful giver.” He and I both agreed that this was something we needed to do, but, again, for whatever reason, we hadn’t done it yet. So, when I had my dream, I knew exactly what we needed to do before anything else. Sunday we got the form and set up our tithes to be withdrawn from our account automatically.

Monday was incredibly warm for a February day. Our hot water had been running out pretty quickly for some time, so hubby went to Lowe’s and got an element to change out to see if that helped. Baby girl and I had already played outside, but daddy was going and she wanted to go too. I really had more work I needed to do, but I put it off until later and took her back outside (a 10 or 11 PM clock out time is pretty normal for me anymore.) Hubby got under the house and started working on the water heater. He came out a few minutes later and told me that the whole bottom of the unit had rusted out, and there was no way to fix it. My mind immediately started spinning. We had talked about, down the road that included a home improvement loan, putting in a tankless water heater. I start trying to figure out how to make something work, but my head just kept getting fuzzy. Too. Much. Big. Decision. Making. We talked about calling a plumber we know and discussing our options with him, but it was already like 5 PM, and it was supposed to rain the rest of the week. Hubby ended up finding a tank that would fit in our short crawlspace in stock at Lowe’s, so he went off to get that while I fed baby girl dinner. He got home and started working while I put baby girl to bed. I finally went out to check on him and I felt so helpless. I asked what I could do to help, and he said, “just keep me company.” There was a lot of crawling around in the dirt under the house, turning on faucets, and walking back and forth through the yard. My sweet husband was under the house on his hands and knees in the dark working so hard so that we could have hot water. He’s literally the best.

Tuesday morning baby girl woke up a few minutes earlier than usual screaming her head off. She had a stuffy nose, but other than that seemed fine. She ate a few bites of breakfast and said she was done. As the morning went on, I could tell she was congested. I called the pediatrician to find out the correct dosage for some benadryl, and we turned the shower on really hot and sat in the steamy bathroom for a while. When we got out, she really started acting pitiful. I could hear that she had some drainage in her throat, and she ended up gagging on it and throwing up. I thought that was all it was, but she ended up vomiting about 10 times throughout the day. She couldn’t keep anything down.

Wednesday she was almost more pitiful because you could tell she felt better enough to want to play, but she didn’t have the energy to. She barely ate all day, but did eat a fairly good dinner. We sat on the couch and cuddled most of the day.

Thursday she was much more like herself, with only a few pitiful moments in between. She still hardly ate anything. That morning I had so much energy. I changed the sheets and washed the dirty ones, started straightening up a spot in our bedroom that has been a mess since we moved here, did more laundry, did some proactive and productive things for work, did the dishes, and just straightened up anything else out of place along the way. I was so stinking productive. I was sitting on the couch working when baby girl woke up from her nap. I went to get up, and I noticed I was kind of sore all over. My throat had been a little scratchy that morning, but I figured it was sleeping with my mouth open. That afternoon, I could feel constant drainage running down the back of my throat, and it was getting progressively worse. By the time 3 o’clock rolled around, I was pretty miserable. That night I laid in bed and my arms and legs just ached. I could barely swallow and when I did I gagged on what was in my throat. My poor, sweet girl… no wonder she was pitiful. It was miserable. Luckily I skipped the vomiting part, but it’s now Monday night and I’m still not 100%

Sweet girl starting to feel better. Dressing up and a good book are a great remedy for the yuckies.

Baby girl and I stayed home from church yesterday so we didn’t spread our germs and I’m glad we did. She had a meltdown after she woke up from her nap that lasted an hour. I’m still not exactly sure what was wrong, but she acted like something hurt. We finally gave her some pain medicine and after it had just enough time to kick in, she finally calmed down. Even today, she’s had crying spells, she hasn’t wanted to walk much at all but instead wants to be carried everywhere, and we’ve sat and cuddled more than we’ve done anything else. I told my husband today that I’m not going to lie – I kind of like it when she starts whining [okay, I really don’t like the whining part] and says, “I need to cuddle mama.” There were months and months after she was born, maybe even a whole year, where she just did not like to cuddle. So, even though it’s not super conducive to me getting things done, it makes me happy to hear that she wants to cuddle. I do hate that it’s because she doesn’t feel good. We’re going on a week that she’s been off.

Anyway, we made a commitment to give God some of the money He has blessed us with, and look, satan immediately freaked out. He attacked us hard. Nope, I’m not taking that money back to pay for whatever you’re throwing at me. You can’t threaten me. I KNOW that when I bless God, a wonderful side effect of it is that He will bless me right back again. I have no room for your financial strains and sickness. Bye.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully… He who supplies the seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

2 Corinthians 9:6 & 10

So, obviously it’s Wednesday now…I started writing this last week and finished Monday. Word vomit. I think I write these things to process them, to kind of take a step back and see them from a different perspective than the one I have when I’m smack dab in the middle of it. Also, it’s way easier to recognize satan’s attacks when you take a step back. I think I also just want to remember these things. Broken water heaters and sickness are real life. It may not be the picture-perfect moment that I’ll remember 20 years from now, but it’s still our life right now.

Day.

It’s 11:28 PM and I just clocked out and laid down in the bed with my rice sock, because man do I ache. Today has just been a day. It’s been Monday. I’m exhausted.

I got so much done today… and still feel so very behind. Why are there not enough hours in the day to do everything? I feel like if I excel in some aspects, others get neglected. In a typical day, these are the things that I try to make time for:

• Breakfast

• Exercise

• Laundry

• Work

• Play + read with baby girl

• Lunch

• Dishes

• Bible time

• Dinner prep

• Tidying up

• Dinner

• Put baby girl to bed

• Time with hubby

I put out Avon books (which entails driving like 20 minutes out of town and putting books in paper boxes in our old neighborhood), somehow worked SEVEN hours, and did a lot of other things mentioned above. But I didn’t get to the laundry, and I neglected my bible time. The laundry can wait, I know, but not making time to spend with God is not good at all.

My husband is the best. I know I brag on him a lot, but he deserves it. He saw that I was still trying to work when he got home, so he packed up baby girl and went to the store to grab a few things we needed so I could work in peace for a while. I had also jokingly said I was craving alfredo, so he bought the necessary ingredients to make it and cooked it for me after baby girl went to bed. I don’t know what I would do without him. He sees the dishes need doing and does them. He cooks dinner almost every night. He helps me in so many ways and is just the best partner to go through life with.

I wrote this Monday night, but life hasn’t slowed down since. Last night I clocked out at 10 PM, so that’s an improvement, right? Working from home is not as glamorous as everyone might think. For me, it’s a constant battle in my mind between feeling guilty about not spending enough time with my kid and not being the best employee I can be. Ugh.

Also, can we talk about my husband some more? That night, he made linguine alfredo, last night he made hand-breaded pan-fried cod with fresh fries and mushy peas, and tonight he’s making steak frites. What in the world did I do to deserve this man and his cooking? Yum.

Um, yummy. I’ll just leave this right here.

Birthday.

Waiting at yet another doctor’s appointment… figured I could write. So, my baby girl’s birthday is coming up. She will be TWO and this mama is feeling like time has skipped ahead. I just realized that the day we are having her party was her original due date in 2018. She ended up coming a week and a day early, but the date is still in my mind.

Last year, for her first birthday, my husband’s sweet cousin kind of took over the party planning because I mentally checked out. I was super overwhelmed by all the Pinterest-perfect ideas and all the things you “must” have and do. My advice? Don’t do what I did. Don’t freak out. Getting together with friends and family who love your child is the important thing. And don’t go broke over a one year old’s birthday party – it’s not worth it.

I used things I already had and bought things I could use again.

I knew I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on a bunch of chintzy items that were single use. After all, my kid was just turning one. Yes, the world makes a huge deal about it, but the fact is she won’t remember. She will have pictures to see what it was like later, but the party was really for the adults. Because of that, and because I really can’t stand useless waste, we tried to buy things we could use again and use things we already had.

The floral fields pattern from Target. It also has gold dots incorporated into some of the pieces. These exact flowers are stickers that are over her bed.

Her room is decorated in light pink and mint with some gold, and so we went with that color scheme. Several things in her room are from the Floral Fields collection of the Cloud Island products at Target, so we used that as inspiration for her party. I ended up buying a paper “happy birthday” sign at Hobby Lobby with those colors. I saved this sign and plan on using it this year as well. I bought a couple little porcelain jars in the dollar spot at Target (I refuse to call it Bullseye’s Playground or whatever it is now…) to decorate with and hold pushpins for a cork board I got at Hobby Lobby (more on that in a minute.) We also bought at Hobby Lobby a picture frame that held twelve photos, one for each month of her first year. We paid a bit for it, but justified it by saying that we could reuse it again by changing the words on it and turning around the clips (see pics).

I made a few things more cheaply than I could have bought them.

As far as making things, I wanted everything to kind of flow, so I bought some gold paint. I couldn’t find a “1” that wasn’t an arm and a leg that I liked for her cupcake, so I bought a cheap wooden one and painted it. I got OBSESSED with that gold paint, and started painting EVERYTHING gold, haha. The corkboard that I mentioned earlier, I used a stencil and sponge and painted some gold dots on it. I LOVE how it turned out, and it’s hanging in her room right now. I also ended up painting the pushpins as well, because GOLD PAINT! At the party, we had some heart-shaped post-its and pens out for family and friends to write her a note.

Ignore the unflattering chin shot of my kid, but here is the one I painted in GOLD PAINT!
I adore this corkboard. It’s one of my favorite pieces in her room and it’s so simple. We mostly use it to display artwork.
All I had to paint with at the time was a partially dried out craft sponge, but it made a really neat effect on the pins.

I also framed a piece of wallpaper that came from her room before we renovated, and I painted the matte for it with that gold paint. [Backstory for those who don’t know, we live in what used to be my granny’s house where I spent many weekends as a child. The room baby girl is in now used to be “my room”, so it holds a lot of precious memories.] I used a dry erase marker and wrote on the glass, and used it as a sign to explain the corkboard. This also is still in her room – I use it to write different notes and sayings on it.

In all honesty, I hadn’t changed this in forever until I typed out this post. I went a little overboard with the chalk markers while changing it up… I forgot how fun they are!

I made a banner for her high chair out of a sheet of pink foam and glitter letter stickers from Hobby Lobby and some string we had at home. (I also added a touch of the gold paint!) I plan on reusing this for this year’s party as well – I have more letters and “two” is the same amount of letters, so it works!

I reused things I already had.

We reused balloons that spelled out her name from one of her baby showers (they are all still inflated, except for one letter – I really want to reuse these again this year as well!)

I spent money on the important things, got the other things as cheaply as I could, and even borrowed a few things.

Where I spent most of the money for my sweet girl’s birthday was on the cake. And actually, my wonderful momma had already sneaked and paid for the cake before we went to pick it up. We have an amazing little bakery on Main Street and I absolutely love the cakes from there. It may cost a little more than if we bought it at the grocery store, but their cakes are amazing, and I like to support local businesses when I can! I just ordered this year’s cake from there, and I’m sure it will be phenomenal.

So delicious and GORGEOUS ❤

We bought generic pink and white plates, napkins, and plastic tablecloths from Dollar Tree. We had her party in the sanctuary of our church, so we were able to use several serving trays and bowls from the church’s kitchen.

Super simple food spread. We only did sweets because it was after lunchtime.

I even used a gift as decor.

Hubby’s cousin that did a lot of the planning made a letter “E” out of artificial flowers for baby girl that we used to decorate with as well. It hangs in her room, and I plan on incorporating it into this year’s party too.

How crazy talented is hubby’s cousin?!

I really like the challenge of reusing items and repurposing decor from our house. It saves money, and there’s not as much useless junk that you don’t know what to do with laying around. I’ll do another post about this year’s party later!

Moral of the story: a first birthday is just that, a first birthday. Your kid won’t remember it. It’s nice to get loved ones together, but I got seriously bent out of shape over it for no reason. The world puts way too much pressure on us as mamas to have everything just so, and it’s really not necessary. I recall when I was ordering the cake for this first birthday, the lady asked what kind of smash cake I wanted. When I told her I wasn’t doing one, she looked a little taken aback. Why is this even a thing? No judgement whatsoever if you have done one or are doing one, but personally, that’s too much wasted cake! A cupcake was a much better size for my tiny one year old who had barely ever had sugar before, and the effect was pretty much the same, I feel. Also, why break the bank? Spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a huge, fancy party for a one year old is quite over the top if you think about it. I’m trying to keep it as cheap as possible, but still nice and put together. I feel like baby girl’s first party was nice, and I didn’t have to sell a kidney to pay for it. I’m aiming for that again this year – no kidney selling please!

Cheer.

Bear with me, guys. I’ve been working on this particular post all week when I have time, so parts of the post were written at different times.

It’s the day before Christmas eve and I’m sitting here doing something I never do – holding my daughter while she takes a nap. She will be two next month, and I’m pretty sure I can count on one hand how many times we’ve done this since she started sleeping in her own bed at around four months. I don’t know if she’s getting sick, if she’s just growing, or if it’s simply the chaos of Christmas, but this kid has been out of whack for a couple of weeks. She whines ALL THE TIME (and if you know me, you know I can’t stand whining), she’s been sleeping way longer than normal at night, waking up later than usual (I slept in until 8 AM last Saturday – I literally haven’t done that since she was born), and being extra cuddly (which is so unlike her). It could be that her sleeping schedule keeps getting messed up because of various outings, or because of all the different and not-so-great-for-you food we’ve been letting her eat (like the entire snickerdoodle cookie she ate last night.) Whatever it is, she’s out of sorts. So, here we are, sitting in the chair in her room, all cuddled up in a blanket. She is still sniffling in her sleep from crying even after at least 45 minutes of sitting here. I feel bad, because I tried so hard to comfort her and get her to sleep in her bed like she does every other day. I told her no when she said she wanted to “cuddle mama,” because it has become to her a kind of distraction from doing things she doesn’t want to do. But, after her screaming uncontrollably for a few minutes, I couldn’t take it. She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. And as much as I love cuddling this sweet girl while she sleeps, I don’t want this to become a thing. I don’t want her to learn to scream uncontrollably when something isn’t really wrong because she knows that eventually she’ll get her way. I don’t want her to think that she can’t fall asleep on her own anymore and undo all the work we did getting her to sleep as well as she does. Why is this so hard?

Cuddling my whiny baby.

Now, it’s 1:30 AM and I’m still laying here awake. I stayed up to finish wrapping presents and now I’m wired. Hubby has been complaining more than usual that he’s tired, and I can visibly see that he’s exhausted. He hasn’t slept well in years, and he’s finally got a sleep study consultation scheduled next month (after much nagging on my part.) But, I feel like his sleeping has gotten worse recently… kind of around the time baby girl’s started being noticeably out of whack. I don’t know what’s going on, but between all the busyness of the season and worrying about my people’s sleep, I’m not sleeping either. I keep hearing baby girl talk in her sleep or cry out, and, bless his heart, hubby’s snoring isn’t super conducive to either of us getting much sleep. We’re a family of zombies lately.

I write all this to say that even though sometimes we think people’s holiday season looks picture-perfect, it’s more than likely not really. If you look at the December album on my Facebook, it looks like we have it all together. In reality we’re all so tired, I have about fifty of the same picture on my phone from trying to get that one perfect shot, we’re doing the third load of dishes today and somehow the sink is still full, the laundry is piled high, I still have people to buy Christmas gifts for, I’m worried about us getting sick (there are SO MANY germs out there right now), and I’m trying to find the balance of handling all this and just living in and enjoying the moment. Those are usually the only parts anyone ever sees. But, if you’ve been struggling, you’re not alone. No one’s holiday season is actually perfect; we just have to choose to see our own chaos, whatever it looks like, as perfect to us.

My kid was SUPER over opening Christmas gifts.

I’ve been super guilty in the past of building up my expectations (especially holiday expectations) so high that they can’t possibly be met, and then getting so disappointed when my “plans” didn’t turn out. I think I did better this year. I’ve been trying to live more intentionally. I’ve been trying to enjoy each moment for what it is instead of what I think it should be. God has shown me a lot lately that my plans are not His plans, and that’s perfectly fine because His plan is better. He keeps reminding me, and I’ve been trying to do better about just going with the flow and appreciating the ride. Movie nights with hot chocolate and matching pajama photos are fine, but do you know what else is great? Reading the same book with my daughter over and over again because she wants “mama read again,” taking a different way home than you normally would so your daughter can see the giant blow up Santa on top of the government building downtown, late-night dinner and grocery store runs with your husband to get a few last-minute gifts, staying up late to make biscuit dough for a Christmas brunch with your family, and sitting in the quiet room with the Christmas tree all lit up.

The everyday, unplanned, and messy moments are the moments. They make up the majority of our whole lives. If we just keep waiting and wishing for those fleeting picture-perfect moments, we will end up disappointed. Our lives will pass us by without us even realizing it.

Making goodies with my girl. Glad her daddy caught this “picture-perfect” moment because it lasted about two seconds.

Christmas and Easter.

Y’all, this is why I say that my kid doesn’t really play with toys. She does, but most don’t hold her attention for very long. She would rather play with random items that she can move from one place to another. When I looked down and saw this scene today, I thought it was a little ironic.

Ever since Easter, this basket of plastic eggs has been one of her favorite things to play with. She carries it around, takes the eggs out and puts them somewhere else, sometimes opening them and then shutting them again on the way, and then carries them one by one back to the basket. It could entertain her for hours.

Sometimes our kids don’t act like we think they “should.” They don’t play with the expensive toys they have, they don’t like the things we want them to. They are their own people. Life is like this is as well. Often times, we have very specific plans for our lives because the world tells us we should. But, God has much bigger, better plans, and life rarely looks like we think it should. Sometimes, living in the moment looks like a bunny basket of Easter eggs under the Christmas tree. And that’s okay.

Full disclosure, this started out as an Instagram post, but I got a little long-winded. I keep feeling uninspired to write, but apparently all I have to do is start, and the words come. I see you, satan, trying to keep me from my calling. Not cool.

Balance.

I think I blame my blood pressure medicine (?), but I just have, like, zero will to write at the moment. I have no motherly wisdoms. I have no funny, relatable story to share. I’m just here, trying to soak up every minute of every day while also being productive. And every day I wind up disappointed because, once again, I couldn’t find the balance. For the last couple of weeks, this means that I’ve gotten so many hours in for work, but my kid is constantly in a mood from lack of enough attention (at least she thinks so, anyway), and my dishes and laundry are piled high. As I’m writing this out, I should be in the kitchen putting away the clean dishes and filling the dishwasher back up, but, I finally just clocked out of work like 20 minutes ago (it’s TEN THIRTY PM) and I really just wanted to lay down. I’m tired. And I feel like I say that a lot, but it’s the truth. I was getting so good about taking a walk every morning… I had even added some running into those walks and was just getting to the point where I didn’t feel like I was absolutely dying when I came inside. But, now, I’m pretty sure it’s been about a week since I did any sort of physical activity, and I’m feeling it. Starting all over again sounds awful. Being out of shape is awful. Ah, the conundrum of life.

Baby girl is going to be two NEXT MONTH, and this mama is having a hard time dealing. When I worked at the daycare, the one year olds were always my favorite – they could interact with you and do activities, but they didn’t sass back much yet. I hated when the kids in my class had to move up, but there were always more kids coming right behind them. A whole new set of kiddos that were the perfect age. The fact that reality is not that way… that my baby will be two, and there’s nothing I can do about it and there’s not another little baby waiting patiently behind her and I have to keep moving and growing with her and she WON’T STOP GETTING OLDER. I’m a mess. I can (just a little bit) understand why some people just keep having babies… mostly, I just want her to be a baby again. Like I said, I’m a mess.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this stage she’s in… except for when I don’t, haha. She’s so smart and understands so much. We haven’t actually seen Santa yet this year. She’s seen him portrayed on TV, and we’ve read The Night Before Christmas about a thousand times, and we’ve talked about who he is and what he does. This afternoon, I went to get her out of bed after her nap. She usually lays there and talks until I go in, so I didn’t think much of it when I went in there today and she was talking. She jerked around and smiled at me and said, “I was talking to Santa!” I laughed and asked her if she told Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She got so excited and said, “Santa’s awesome! He bringing me books!” So, I guess “Santa” needs to find some books to bring. This makes my heart happy. I love the fact that books make her so happy.

This same sweet kid also yells, “no” at me or, “I ‘note’ want to!” about fifty times a day now… so there’s that. I’m not feeling that part of this lovely stage at all. Asking her to turn her “listening ears” on, complete with pretending to turn knobs on our ears, before I ask her to do something is working wonders for getting her to listen at the moment, but I’m sure that won’t last too long. She’s so emotional about everything, but she can’t convey those emotions properly yet… it just comes out in flops and tears, sometimes the dramatic throwing of her body onto the nearest piece of furniture like she’s a Disney princess, or, my favorite one so far – she put her hand up to her head, fell back into my arms, and said, “I tan’t go on!” Good grief.

Baby girl sitting in her great grandmother’s rocking chair on one of our Thanksgiving stops.

Thanksgiving was good, but busy. We had three places to go and baby girl stayed up way past bedtime two nights in a row… yeah, not pretty. We are so very blessed that we both have so much family close by, but man does it make for busy holidays. When I was pregnant, hubby and I agreed that we would tell people that they could come to our house to see us on holidays, that we weren’t going to drag our kid all over creation. For one, our mid-renovation-for-two-years house just isn’t equipped to handle a bunch of people. For two, it’s just really not fair or feasible to ask everyone else to work around our one small family. So, we trudge from one house to the next, trying not to eat too much and save room for the next stop but failing miserably, and worrying that we’re not giving each stop enough time. As I said, all our family is local, so it’s just a drive across town from one stop to the next, but there’s only so much food and fun you can squeeze in before you have to move on. If we ever get our house together and we have Thanksgiving here, I might change my tune. I might prefer the trudging to having a house full of people. But, I don’t know… I’ll let you know if it ever happens. As far as traditions go, I feel like on both sides of our family, they have changed immensely over the last few years, mostly as grandparents have passed away. The only steady thing is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, I have to watch it every year. I was so excited to share it with baby girl this year… she was not really having it. She kept begging us to go to her room with her and play. It was like we were torturing her making her watch TV. Poor baby. As I’ve said before, the house we live in was the only house I knew for my granny. This was her house. And this was where we came for holidays, family dinners, birthday parties, everything. It feels so weird for it to be empty on special occasions. That’s why I’m hoping someday, it can be that house again. As introverted as my husband and I both are, we’re also both family people, and having a house full of family just seems right. Now, if someone could win the lottery and share a little with us so we could finish our renovations, that would be great! All kidding aside, I love how life has come full circle and we call this house home.

Guilt.

I’m still having trouble writing. I think I’m a little worried about my health, and I’m feeling SO MUCH guilt over balancing work and spending time with baby girl. She’s to the point where she asks me not to work, to stay with her, to play with her. And yes, I get that I’m at least home with her. And yes, I know she will be fine entertaining herself for a while. She doesn’t understand those things, though. All she knows is that she’s trying to talk to me and I’m not responding. All she knows is that she wants me in her room with her while she plays. All she knows is that she’d rather be running around the house than stuck in a pack and play. And honestly, I’d rather be playing with her. I’d rather spend my time planning neat activities to do with her. I’d rather be reading her even more books. But then when I do that, when I spend the extra time with her and do minimal just-enough-to-squeak-by work, I feel awful as well. Then, I’m barely getting any hours, which means hardly any extra money for my family, and I feel like a sub-par employee. Someone please tell me where the balance is. Any activities for an almost two year old that can be done mostly unsupervised would be great too. Most days I’m at a loss anymore.

I’m trying so incredibly hard to hold onto each precious moment of this life we all have together, no matter how small. The other day, we spent a few minutes outside together in the November snow. Baby girl loved it so much, and it made my heart so, so happy. She loved walking in it, she tried to catch it as it fell from the sky, she brushed some off of her swing set and wanted to play on it. We had to almost drag her back inside. Before we went out, she and I had prepared dinner, and she helped me make a piecrust from scratch. I hope cooking together is something that she enjoys in the years to come. As much as her daddy and I love food, she’s probably kind of destined to be in the kitchen. At least, I hope anyway, haha. As much as I enjoyed the special moments we had, I literally worked an hour that day. AN HOUR. Great, now I can buy a fast food lunch out somewhere. Ugh.

My literal snow bunny.

The next day, I managed to get in a whole two hours of work, and only made a small dent in my to-do list. But, I read about a million books, rearranged baby girl’s stuff because we got her a bigger bookshelf, and cuddled a little girl who doesn’t usually like to cuddle. Did the laundry get done? Nope. Well, sort of. It was washed and dried… it just chilled in the dryer for the next few days. Did I get much of anything else done? Nope. I know I need to learn to be okay with these kinds of things, but man, do I get bent out of shape. Like I said, I need to figure out this balance thing. I also need to remember to give myself some grace.

Speaking of that… I wrote the above last week, and just let it sit in my phone. For the life of me I don’t know why I’m struggling with this whole blogging thing all the sudden. But, the other night I was reading through some notes in my phone, trying to remember my inspiration, and came across something I had written for myself and had already decided when I wrote it that I wasn’t going to share it. It was raw, it showed my flaws, and it honestly just made me look like a bad mother (I felt like, anyway.) But today, I was working and baby girl was in the pack and play and we had a moment. She was stubborn and defiant, and I lost my temper. It wasn’t great. I was doing my daily bible and prayer time after she laid down for a nap, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that other people needed to see what we go through. Other people need to see that my child is far from perfect, but more importantly, so am I. So… here’s an account from July that, up until now, I haven’t shared out of fear of judgement.

I stayed home from church with baby girl today because I’m not feeling well and didn’t want to spread my germs. I kid you not, I just spent OVER AN HOUR trying to get my tired, cranky toddler to clean up the blocks she got out.

After a lot of me asking nicely and active avoidance on her part, it got ugly. I used my firm mom voice, then raised my firm mom voice, then just plain raised my voice because I really didn’t feel good and my patience was wearing thin. All of that was met with her attempts to distract me by going to get other toys and trying to give me cuddles. After telling her I wouldn’t ask her again, and her responding by giving me a coy smile and toddling away, I swatted her bottom – not hard, but hard enough to get her attention. She cried for about 5 seconds, and then went back to trying to “distract” me. Whew.

At this point, I’m mentally exhausted and we’re only about 20 minutes into this. I went and stood her in the corner and told her she had to stay there until she was ready to clean up her blocks. She didn’t mind, and started inspecting the tiny bumps on the wall. Only when she tried to move out of the corner did she get upset. I stood in her way and reminded her she couldn’t get out until she was ready to clean up her blocks. She started fussing and I asked her if she was ready to clean up. She said, “yes,” so I took her by the hand over to where her blocks were and told her to clean up. She did a couple, I praised her for good listening, she looked at me, got up and ran across the room to her bookshelf. She’s been obsessed with reading this box set of Disney books lately, so I tried to use that to my advantage. “Do you want to read books?” “Yeah, read!” “Okay, you have to clean up your blocks and then mama will read to you, okay?” She just stares blankly at me. (And before anyone says she didn’t understand, she did. We do this bargaining thing all the time. Ex. If she wants a bite of something we have, we tell her to eat a bite of meat or whatever we’re trying to get her to eat first, and she does it. I frequently give her two step instructions, and she carries them out perfectly. SHE UNDERSTANDS.) So, at this point, I’m quickly losing my cool, and I literally have to leave the room. I look her in the eye and tell her that mama is going across the hall, and that I will come back when she’s picked up her blocks. I leave and shut the door. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best decision to just walk out on an already emotionally unstable toddler and leave her alone with her big feelings, but this mama was about to be emotionally unstable as well if I didn’t take a step back from the situation for a second. She stood at the door and hysterically screamed her head off until I went back in there a few minutes later. Realizing that that probably wasn’t the best way to handle that, I scooped her up, wiped her face, and told her I was sorry. I sat in the chair in her room and just held her for a few minutes. I couldn’t see her face because it was buried in my shoulder, but I noticed her breathing had changed. I kind of shift her to see her face, and she’s sound asleep. Then I feel really bad. She’s just tired. I get grumpy when I’m tired too. So, I just hold her for a few minutes and let her nap in my arms. I shift again and she doesn’t wake up, so I’m thinking she’s super sleepy. I get up, close the curtains, turn on her sound and go to lay her down. I get her halfway into the bed and she starts whining, “mama.” I’m mentally and physically exhausted (she probably was too) so I’m like, okay, but I’ve got to lay down. So I carry her into my bedroom and lay down with her in my bed (which we never do.) She immediately pops up and says, “eat!” [Now, before anyone decides to judge me for what I did next, please keep in mind that she had already eaten a good breakfast, and then, just like an hour and a half before all this started, ate an ENTIRE pumpkin muffie from Panera. She wasn’t starving.]

It was lunchtime, but I told her she had to go pick up her blocks so we could go get lunch. We go back in her room, I sit her on the floor next to the blocks… here comes the screaming banshee again. I literally just sit there and stare at her while she screams. It was just an angry, frustrated cry that I had tried to soothe repeatedly. I wasn’t sure what to do. After several minutes of that, I figured she really might be getting hungry, because it was like thirty minutes past normal lunchtime at that point. I tried one more time getting down on her level, asking her nicely to please pick up her blocks. I got nothing but blood curdling screams. So, I put her hand in my hand and we picked up every single block together. I even had to use my hand to close her fingers around each block, because if I didn’t, she would let it fall back to the floor.

After that was finally over, I picked her up and let her lay on my shoulder and just hugged her. I explained that she had to listen to her mama. Whew. She usually always sits in the high chair to eat, but that almost led to another meltdown, so I chose not to fight that battle. She sat in my lap and ate a baby food squeeze pouch and part of a slice of cheese. A gourmet meal it was not, but it satisfied her enough.

We both were so ready for nap time. I’m hoping this does a world of good. Otherwise, it might be daddy’s turn to deal with the attitude for a while.

So, there’s that. We’ve only had one other huge blowup like this since then, because I’ve tried to not let it get to the point that I did that day. My girl is usually good. She’s usually pretty agreeable, or can be persuaded to do something pretty easily by offering something else. There was A LOT going on in our lives in July to begin with, and I ended up being sick for two weeks after I wrote this, so I really have tried to cut myself some slack. But, I felt awful about it. I literally agonized over how I handled it for days. At the time I wrote it, I was just trying to process it because every time I thought about it my thoughts got jumbled from all the guilt (I know, I’m so very weird). I couldn’t even put it into words enough to really explain it to my husband out loud, so I ended up letting him read what I wrote above. Motherhood is hard, guys. I’m just going to come right out and say it. The sweet moments are worth every second of worry and agony, but it’s still hard.

Me.

I haven’t written anything (besides my bible journal) in a while. I guess my recent anxiety is trying to hold on, because I just haven’t really felt like writing. I started typing out something similar to this the other night and got distracted. I just looked for it, and it was nowhere to be found – my phone deleted it. In talking with the husband, he pointed out that someone (ahem, satan) doesn’t want me writing. I’ve had an excuse why I shouldn’t or don’t want to the last several times I have sat down to do it. I was talking to him just now about it, waved my arms around (as I often do while talking… what can I say? I’m animated) and completely tossed my phone across the room as a loud, thunderous echo resounded through the house and down the hall to where I’m sure my sleeping toddler could hear. I literally started crying. A) because that proved right what he had just said… there have been so many distractions and emotional setbacks over the past few weeks that have prevented me from writing, and B) because I was stinking embarrassed. I’m a spaz, and I’ll be the first to admit it, but GOOD GRIEF. So, I guess I’ll just write. Whether I know what I’m going to say or not, whether I think it’s good or not. I’ve got to start again somewhere.

For those of you following my health, some new things have happened. Keep in mind: I am thirty one years old. I finally visited a primary care physician for the first time in my adult life. My blood pressure during my visit was through the roof, and the nurse practitioner I saw didn’t like it at all. We discussed a few options, and landed on a low dose of beta blockers. She said that not only would it help my blood pressure, but also my anxiety and migraines. So, I’ve been taking those for about a week and a half, and I have been checking my own blood pressure at home at least once a day. I’ve been told that I have white coat syndrome before, and I know that is a lot of why my blood pressure is high when I go to the doctor. I get so worked up about it… I even freak out using the machine at the grocery store. I don’t know what my problem is… I told my mom the other day that it hurts my arm, and I think that is part of the reason I get so upset – because I’m anticipating the pain. She said that it doesn’t hurt her, but that my granny used to always say the same thing – that it hurt. So, I’ve been taking it a lot lately, trying to desensitize myself to the cuff. The other day, I took it five times in a row because it was a little higher than it had been at first. I got it down substantially just by doing it over and over again – it literally went down a little every time. So, that’s where I am… constantly being aware of my heart rate and taking a “grandma dose” of blood pressure medication, as my nurse practitioner called it. I’m going to get labs done to recheck my cholesterol (fasting this time) and some other things this week. Then I will go back for a more comprehensive physical at the end of the month. It’s been so long since I have seen a doctor, I have a huge list of concerns… she’ll probably think I’m a hypochondriac. And she’ll probably be right. Everytime I have a random pain in my arms or legs, I pretty much convince myself that it’s a blood clot or that I’m getting ready to have a stroke. Yeah, that definitely helps my anxiety… The other night, I had sharp pains from my rib cage, up into my chest, and down my arm. I was pretty convinced I was having a heart attack. Then the husband pushed on my stomach, I let out a huge belch, everything shifted a little, and I realized it was probably just a gas bubble pressing on a nerve or something. Ugh.

Some other random thoughts:

Baby girl’s favorite word is “no” at the moment and she will disagree with whatever you say, it doesn’t matter what it is. She liked Halloween, but a boy in one of those blow-up dinosaur costumes really made her day. She keeps talking about it whenever anybody asks her about Halloween, and the last two nights, we’ve thanked God for dinosaurs in our prayers. She kills me. She’s also been very clingy the last few days. And as much as l love to hear her say, “cuddle mama,” I do have a job that I sort of have to do some of the time. It killed me this past week when I was working, and she kept coming over to my desk and saying, “mama play with you [me]?” How can I say no to that? How do work at home parents get work done? My job is only part time, and my new normal the last few weeks has been finishing up my work after she goes to bed (which, by the way, annoyingly cuts into husband time). Balance is hard. I feel guilty when I’m actually productive for work, because that usually means that baby girl has been left to entertain herself for hours, or has been dragged all over creation with me in the car. I also feel guilty when I spend the day with her, because I feel like I’m not contributing enough financially to our family. Mom guilt is rough.

A screen shot of a typical time sheet for me. Clocked in 12 hours, only worked less than five. A lot of times, it’s even less.

Baby girl and I have gotten back to taking morning walks. I love getting to spend the time with her, starting our day exploring outside, and getting in a small workout for me. Twice around our neighborhood is about a mile, and I know that’s not much. But, out of shape me works up a sweat and gets a couple thousand steps in. I figure that’s better than nothing.

Love our morning walks, even if we have to bundle up quite a bit now that the weather is chillier.

Well, now that I’ve broken the ice again, maybe I’ll get back to writing more regularly. I don’t know what kind of writing funk I’m in, but it can go away now. I’ll probably post a bible journal entry or two next time. I have several earmarked that I felt were important to share.

Anxious.

You guys, I haven’t been okay lately. Last weekend in particular was straight up awful. My anxiety has been through the roof. I’m feeling a lot better now, but I still keep having feelings popping up that I have to squash quickly, otherwise, I’m feeling like I could quickly fall into that hole again. I haven’t felt anxiety like this in a LONG TIME. It’s so funny, because I had literally just written about the verse in Matthew that starts “do not be anxious…” on Thursday, and by Saturday I was a mess. The context of that verse was a bit different, but it was still that word, anxious. This past Wednesday I wrote this:

Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, He will come and save you.”

Isaiah 35:4

This past weekend was terrible. Friday afternoon, the husband went with me to get an EKG. The whole thing only took about thirty minutes, and the nurse said that she didn’t see any irregularities (which was why I was sent there in the first place), just some palpitations (which I’ve been able to feel for years.) We went to eat afterwards, and the waitress recognized us from our high school. I felt really bad, because she didn’t look familiar to me at all. I also had a conversation in the bathroom with a lady about allergies. Friday night, as I thought about the day, I was thankful for the extra time I got to spend with my husband. I was even a little proud of myself for not freaking out too badly over my test, and even for the social interactions I had (I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but social interaction STRESSES ME OUT. Especially with people I don’t know.)

Saturday, baby girl woke up earlier than usual. I COULD NOT seem to wake up. I was so frustrated with the fact that it was so early, and I was frustrated with her whining. We walked into the kitchen and there were dishes all over the counter. I lost it; I started crying. Later that morning, we were at Lowe’s and after a series of ridiculously minuscule stressors I started crying again. The rest of the day I felt awful – stupid, useless, and unimportant.

I had hoped that Sunday would be better, but those feelings crept up again after church. Both Saturday and Sunday, I just sat on the couch for hours, feeling lost. To top it all off, I left my bible at church.

Monday, I felt terrible physically, then my head started hurting and continually got worse throughout the day. My gynecologist called and didn’t like my labs – my cholesterol was high, and my blood pressure had been high the day I went too. I was stressed about that. I ended up getting so very sick that night. It was the worst migraine I have had in a while. The husband offered to go get me ginger ale while I was sobbing in the bathroom floor, but I told him no. Later I admitted that I was terrified that he was going to get in a car wreck and die because he was running out for me, and that’s why I told him no. Yeah.. I told you, I was in a bad place.

Yesterday was MUCH better, but that anxious/depressive episode I had scared me. I haven’t felt that down in a long time. So, I finally have my bible back and I’m glad I found this verse. I forgot for a few days that I was worthy of rescuing.

I also wrote a detailed account of how I was feeling on Saturday, and I feel it’s important for you all to see that too – it’s just a small glimpse of what was going through my head. I often get stressed about little things, but I keep my anxiety in check most of the time. It doesn’t usually cripple me to the point where I literally just sit there not knowing how to process what I’m feeling.

Today was awful. I woke up around 5 AM, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep thinking that I had about 1.5 to 2 hours more to sleep. Baby girl fell asleep late last night, so I figured she would sleep in… I don’t know why, she never does. Just after 6 I heard her whining a bit, then she started crying. Last night, I had seriously contemplated waking up the husband this morning so I could sleep in, but when I heard her so early, I decided not to. She switched from crying for her daddy to mama, so I finally got up and went in there. She was trying to get out of the bed, so I picked her up and tried to cuddle her. She said she needed a diaper, so I changed it. The whole time she was on the changing table, she repeated, “eat,” over and over. I was so sleepy and couldn’t seem to wake up. After her diaper change, I took her and sat in the chair in her room. She had a small meltdown, and just kept saying, “up,” over and over and over again. I started whining like a child, telling her I just wanted to sit… not my proudest moment. She stopped fussing for a second, examined my face and then kind of tapped my chin, and said, “you need coffee.” If I hadn’t been so tired and if that hadn’t been such an incredibly true statement, I probably would have busted out laughing. Yes, yes I did need coffee. She went back to fussing, then finally added a desperate “please” onto one of her “up”s. I got up and carried her down the hallway (she has to be carried in the mornings, it’s just one of those things we do.) We walked into the kitchen, she’s saying “eat” on repeat again, and I look around and there is not a single spot of counter space open- there are literally dishes everywhere because we didn’t do the dishes last night. I lost it, I cried. Baby girl agreed to eggs for breakfast, with the promise of a doughnut after she finished them. I made her some, and while she was eating, I worked on the dishes that were causing me such anxiety. I was emptying the dishwasher and went to put one of my favorite mugs on the drying rack. I dropped it in the sink, it made an awful racket, and the handle broke off. I was trying so very hard to stay calm, but I was pretty upset.

Fast forward to later this morning, we were at Lowe’s. We got there at baby girl’s normal lunchtime, so I was a little stressed out over that. But, she was amazed at all the Halloween and Christmas decorations, we looked at countertops and kitchen cabinets, I thought I was fine. At one point she got in trouble for not holding my hand while walking through the store, and had to sit in the buggy. I diffused that situation with a squeeze pouch I found in my purse. We actually went to Lowe’s so the husband could buy some trim for baby girl’s room. There were no big carts in sight, and he went off to find one. All the sudden, I felt so alone. I was holding baby girl, who kept asking to go, “that way.” I finally let her walk around a bit, hoping it would tire her out because it was quickly creeping up on her nap time. The husband had to walk back out into the parking lot to find a cart, so he was taking forever. Our buggy didn’t have anything in it, and we walked down the aisle away from it. A man carrying several items passed us, browsed the same aisle for a minute, then slung all of his stuff into our empty buggy and kept looking. For some ridiculous reason, that upset me. It was our buggy, even though we didn’t need it. When the husband came back and started loading the wood for the trim, he asked if I still liked it (it has been a while since we decided on a look we liked.) I said that now that I was looking at it, I was a little worried that it might be too tall. He joked about it being a little late to change things, since he had already done the door casings. I felt so stupid for some reason, and started crying again.

When we got home, we put baby girl to bed, and I just sat on the couch. The husband played a game on the computer, and I just sat there. I finally turned on Fixer Upper, but I wasn’t really watching it. Not even that could cheer me up. I just had these awful feelings of uselessness, self-loathing, emptiness. I felt completely lost. Baby girl slept for over two and half hours and I just sat there the whole time. When she got up, we went outside to play, her daddy was working on the trim, and her granny came to visit. All that improved my mood quite a bit. The husband had brought in the totes with the fall clothes in them, and mom entertained baby girl while I worked on that some. I felt productive and a little better.

I don’t know where this sadness has come from – seemingly nowhere. I’m not quite sure really what I’m even sad about, but this is anxious depression like I’ve never felt. I’m quadruple guessing my every decision, I regret every word that comes out of my mouth, and I feel physically awful. This can go away now please.

I feel really exposed putting all that out there, but if it can help one person feel that they aren’t alone, then it’s so worth it. It has taken me over a week to gather all these words and articulate what I’ve been feeling, and I feel like I still haven’t hit it on the head. And, honestly, I’m really REALLY bad at articulating myself. I haven’t even told my husband all this yet, because the words in my head are all jumbled and don’t make any sense. If I had tried to explain it, I can guarentee you that I would have left feeling dumb again. I’ll let him read this first, before you all, haha.

I realized after I wrote all this out, that this was just one more thing in my life that I had a choice about. I could let my feelings overtake me and just get lost in my awful thoughts, or I could cling to God’s promise that He will rescue me and praise Him in the midst of it. I could feel sorry for myself, or I can use it to help others. I choose to do the latter.

Rollercoaster.

This week. This week has been a week. Last night, I contemplated on this week, trying to look back and see my blessings. Monday started like this:

I’m trying to decompress from this day, and I’m just not sure how to do it. Besides the two loads of dishes I ran in the dishwasher, I got absolutely nothing done. I’m completely exhausted. This kid of mine is going through something, and I pray to God it’s just a phase. I think she’s testing her free will, but I wish she would just stop. Every other thing I ask her to do is answered with, “no,” the last few days, and I’m not handling it well. This morning, me asking her to clean up her blocks turned into a huge fight, and I ended up screaming at my child. The worst part, to me, is that none of it phased her. Speaking sternly did nothing. Physically picking her up and putting her in front of the blocks was apparently hysterical. Me raising my voice was also funny. Me swatting her bottom was a game. I finally just screamed. I was so mean. She jumped and finally started crying. I immediately felt terrible and started sobbing as well. It was awful. I left the room for a minute to compose myself, and left her just standing there crying. When I came back, I was more sad than mad, and just scooped her up and hugged her. I tried to explain to her that it makes mama sad when she says, “no,” to me and doesn’t listen. We cuddled a bit, I was trying to defuse the situation. After I thought we had both calmed down, I tried again to get her to put the blocks away. She started doing everything but that again, and I did not want a repeat of what had just happened. I tried telling her that it was almost lunchtime; that didn’t really matter to her. I finally gave up and just let her roam around her room for a few minutes, stalling. It really was lunchtime now, and I was wondering how stubborn she was really going to be about it all. She finally looked at me and said, “eat?” I asked her if she was hungry and she said yes. So, she picked up all her blocks and put them away… it had to be her idea, not something I was telling her to do. Ugh.

Is it because she is a mini version of me and I know exactly what she’s thinking when she acts like this that I get so very angry? She’s pushing limits, resisting authority. I get it, I do it too, just most of the time it’s in a much more passive (sometimes passive-aggressive) way. I understand the desire to do the exact opposite of what someone tells me to do, simply because they told me to do it. I understand getting defensive when someone tries to tell me they know what’s best for me. But for goodness sakes, she’s ONE AND A HALF. Should she even feel like this yet? Or does she simply just not want to clean up her toys. Maybe I’m projecting.

We tried on this bathing suit for vacation Tuesday night, and she was very adamant about wearing it the rest of the night… I think she was perfecting her Fancy Nancy look with those socks.

Then yesterday, I was just anxious all day. Like heart racing, body trembling, feeling of dread, edge of a full-blown anxiety attack kind of anxious, and I don’t even know why. I told my hubby last night – usually when I get like that, I have an idea (even if it’s somewhat vague) of what is stressing me out; I usually kind of know what exactly has me feeling that way. Not yesterday. I was seemingly having a physiological response to nothing. I still don’t know what had me so upset.

Today was pretty good. We all slept in a few extra minutes, baby girl woke up in a very good mood and stayed that way all day, and I’ve just generally felt better. It’s really been a pretty good day.

We’ll see about Saturday. In baby girl’s babbling earlier, I clearly heard her say, “doughnut ‘morrow,” so we’ll see how thoroughly disappointed she is in the morning that there aren’t any doughnuts… I know I’m already pretty disappointed about it.

Even after this week, I’m so very thankful that the “mundane, everyday” stuff is all we have to worry about. Life could be, and has been before, much more complicated. Work hasn’t been very demanding this week, and I’m so very grateful for that. With that being said, I am still mentally exhausted. I need a vacation.