In a Nutshell

I opened up this browser many a time last week to write something, anything, but then time would pass and I wouldn’t get anything down on virtual paper and so I would close it up. Spencer’s birthday was last week; I should probably dedicate a separate post to that.

Otherwise, time passes. We are good, things are (mostly) good. I was on the outs with my meds and that did not put me in a very good head space. My anxiety was blessedly doing okay which is why I was waffling on getting back on them, but the anger was rising. My fuse shortened, I wasn’t laughing or smiling much, so this weekend I put myself back on them. It’s not that I care if I’m on meds for all of my life, I actually don’t. I just sometimes forget to take them, and then I forget again the next day, and then I stop thinking I need them and they aren’t a habit anymore. So. Back on the meds.

 Baseball is all consuming, have I said this before? It currently takes all out money and all our time, but S loves it and that’s really all that matters. We’ve been taking two cars there a lot so H doesn’t have to spend his life there too, but we also bring him books and his soccer ball and he’s not resenting it yet, so I think we’re okay. S’s position is right field, which makes sense since he’s new and can’t throw as well as some of the other kids. Some of those other kids are GOOD. The first game is Saturday, and we’ll be there with bells on, supporting those kids. 

I’m on week 2 of the 21-day fix. I think I’m doing okay; there have been many moments of weakness where I’ve had candy but mostly I’m making good decisions. Packing my lunch and dinner for work every day has helped. The first week I made myself strict full day plans of meals – Monday would be this for breakfast, this for lunch, this for dinner, etc etc etc. This week I’ve made a looser plan that I think will work a little better. I did my meal plan for dinner and made sure I had everything I need for other meals, and I’m otherwise winging it. Tonight I’m making steak stir fry and I had leftover sausage and veggie lentils for lunch, so I made sure I brought fruit and cottage cheese for breakfast for balance.

I am going out for dinner twice this week though, and I’m poring over the menus to see what the best decision is; ideally I’ll find a few options and then pick what makes me happy when I’m there. I’m not being super militant though; I still think it’s about reminding yourself of the smarter, healthier options, but if something else will make you happy, moderation is okay too. This probably will mean I’m not as successful at the Fix, but I’m also thinking more long term. My biggest need is to cut cravings, which I’m still bad at. Candy. This week I’m working harder at that. Portion control is my second need, and I’m doing pretty well with that. Henry has been doing my workouts with me; he actually gets really upset if I start without him or do it while he’s not there. He skips his show to work out with me or help count down or check my form. He was super helpful at yoga because he laid on my back and helped my stretch farther.

A video posted by @aprilbapryll on Feb 16, 2015 at 3:09pm PST

(Henry does burpies)

My life is not mine.

Every time I sit down to update this blog, I think about what I could write about ME. What is going on in MY life?

And the truth is, right now there’s nothing. I don’t do anything for me; I get up, I work, I go home. I’ve been watching Bones back from the beginning – I was in a conversation with a friend about the some of the characters who have died or left the show and how we miss them, and so now I’m watching the series again. I thought about starting a new series (Alias, Pretty Little Liars, Parenthood, ad nauseum)  but I just don’t have the brain power to dedicate to new shows. So now that I’ve finished Gilmore Girls, it’s on to Bones. Again.

So right now my life is completely full of my kids. Baseball is consuming – C took Spencer to practice last night and they didn’t get home until after bedtime, but then he was hungry so he still didn’t get to bed for 45 minutes. I stayed home with Henry but we had errands to get done and video games to play. S lost a tooth last night and there was a moment where the tooth fairy nearly forgot to show up again because she was stuffed up with a post-nasal drip sore throat and had taken some Nyquil, but she got there. Thankfully.

Today is the day they are celebrating 101 days at school, and they are supposed to wear a white shirt with black spots and black pants. Last night while Spencer was at baseball I made him a very nice black spotted shirt, but this morning he cried for a solid 45 minutes about wearing said shirt. It was insane. I probably should have backed down but I was just so irritated that I made him wear the darn shirt. It wasn’t pretty. I hope he dealt with it.

Today is also kindergarten Round-up, so I’m taking Henry to the elementary school. He’s also not going to be happy, but I figure with his severe shyness and issues with change we need to go to anything related to kindergarten at all so he can get used to the idea for the next six months.

So there you have it. Things are okay right now. Not over the moon, but not down and out either. I’m getting there. I just need to find something of my own and I’ll be set.

Books I read January 2015

It took me most of the month to get into reading in the least, but finally I found something silly and compelling and enjoyable. 

reread:

none

new: 

1. This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper very well written, but slightly depressing and I just couldn't get through it. I actually started this before Christmas, but I felt that the 42 pages I read in December did not justify putting it on that list.

2. Coffee at Luke's - Jennifer Cruisie et al Cute, forgettable. Not my style but I do love Gilmore Girls.

3. Where She Went - Gayle Forman I liked this better than the first, and I've found that people (like myself) that thought the first was too melodramatic liked this one better, and those who loved the first found this too answer-y and explain-y. Good though.

4. Death of Bees - Lisa O'Donnell Oh my, I didn't want to finish this AT ALL but I did, and I was glad I did. It was hard to read, hard to get into and hard to care. I actually surprised myself by caring at the end - I really enjoyed the ending, the pace of it and the abruptness. 

5. Catalyst - Laurie Halse Anderson I'm still trudging through this, but because of the amount of time I spent listening to the audiobook I'm keeping it here. I'm still waiting for SOMETHING to happen, and I'm going to find where I left off on audio and flash through it in print. Sidenote - Samantha Mathis is the narrator of the audio and I really enjoyed that although mostly I just wanted to go back and watch The Thing Called Love for the millionth time.

6. Poison Princess - Kresley Cole I am friends with the daughter of a friend of a friend on facebook for the express reason that we share the same taste in books. This is her very favorite series, so I decided to check it out. I wasn't sure about the beginning - lots of cliche imagery about the blonde/blue-eyed bombshell protagonist, blah blah ... but it turned out excellent. I really enjoyed it, and the second one (below) and now I'm waiting impatiently for the third to be available from Overdrive.

7. Endless Knight - Kresley Cole same.

Attitude adjusted

Lately I feel like I complain about Spencer’s attitude a lot. And while it leaves a lot to be desired, as apparently is par for the course with almost-seven year olds, I only mention it in this post to tell you how wonderful Sunday was.

We go to Disney a lot. A LOT. We love it, and I don’t think we plan on not renewing our passes any time soon, but lately the attitude problem makes us feel like we’re raising ungrateful children who are taking a lot for granted. I know, it’s the age. But I don’t want to raise ungrateful children.

Sunday we had a hard early morning again, and after starting the drive there was more whining and I turned around and spoke sharply to him. Do you want to go home? Do you want to stop going? Etc, etc, etc. I told him that if he wanted to keep with this, he would smile any time I wanted him to smile. He would let me take pictures of him any time I wanted to take pictures of him.

Dude. The attitude difference was amazing. There was smiling. There was laughter. I never got angry or irritable or frustrated. We rode rides. We had fun. We really had a blast.

I hope we have more days like this.

Needing a break on a Friday

It’s been one of those weeks where everything in life exhausts you. For no reason! Just a lot of things building up to a whole lot of wanting to crawl under the covers for a very long time.

S is having some trouble at school again. I toyed with how much to write about it here because he is getting to the age where I don’t want to embarrass him, but I feel like I need the support here. He’s having some trouble with a couple kids in his class, and it’s spilled over to where he’s the one getting into trouble and I can’t leave it to them to fix anymore. There’s been a lot of name calling back and forth and Spencer told the other boy he was going to do something mean to him (for a first grader, he was going to flush him in the toilet) as a response to the other boy threatening him with a wedgie and a wet willie. Hardcore stuff here, right? S was the one who got in trouble though, because it was his part of the exchange that got overheard by the teacher. On one hand, I appreciate my child standing up for himself. He’s always been a people-pleaser and a follower and I always worried that would get him into trouble when he started following his friends instead of adults (and I was right) but I’m glad he’s not just taking it. On the other hand though, his teacher needs to be aware of the situation in case it escalates, and in the event she hears part of what’s going on she can explore the rest of it.

So last night I wrote a long letter to her explaining what was going on, and how I was not excusing S’s behavior (because I’m not, he also needs to learn what is acceptable and what’s not) but that I wasn’t sure she knew the full extent. I had to use some first grade name calling in serious sentences – “professor poopsberg” and “fartman”. Now I’m second-guessing the letter because I don’t want to land him in one of those “hug out your feelings” meetings with the principal. They are in first grade. They aren’t all going to like each other. They NEED to figure out how to deal with each other without adults getting involved all the time. But. But.

I’m constantly second guessing my parenting. I can only do my best, right?

Anyhow. We had the funeral yesterday which was long and exhausting but nice. Lots of family. Long long day. Tomorrow we have baseball tryouts and a birthday party and ugh. I’m tired. So tired.

Miscellany

Meal planning has gone to crap again two weeks in, although I’m not going to take this week as a representative week for how things will go, I just don’t know how it was so much easier. It’s not this time around – so much else happening. We were over at my in-laws’ Monday night planning what was needed for the gathering post-funeral (what is that called?) and by the time we left there was no cooking – we stopped for sandwiches on the way home. Last night I managed what was on the list (spaghetti), but today was supposed to be pot roast and I completely forgot to put it in the slow cooker and it’s currently sitting rock solid in my freezer. So … Saturday, it is! Tomorrow we have the funeral so we won’t be home and look at that – the week is already pretty much done. Where does that time go?

I’ve written more, but I’m boring myself, so *DA-lete*. What’s up with you?

I’m participating in #100happydays on Instagram, trying to remind myself of one good thing every day. It’s hard. I’m not necessarily pessimistic, but some days do go by with my thinking it was a terrible day. And not all of the day was hard. I didn’t fight with the kids the whole time I was with them (just when they came home to dinner on the table while stuffing their faces with doughnuts from next door), I got a new phone; I smiled. So I’m trying to remind myself of that.

I’m still on the outs with books around here – I have some but I haven’t been reading them and have been pretty apathetic, really. I’m not sure what it is – nothing catching my attention? But I haven’t cracked them, so I’m not sure how they should GET my attention. If my books start talking to me, I’m going to have to check myself in somewhere. I have been playing a lot of video games with C and watching Gilmore Girls and you know, that’s fine. Books will be there for me when I get back to them, I know that.

Quick things meant to post Fri, Sat, Sun but now here’s Monday!

Dude. Unexpected sickness can really blindside you, did you know that? Wednesday I woke up with a burning throat and by lunchtime I was down for the count. 2.5 solid days in bed, left really only for the doctor on Friday and occasional trips to the bathroom and/or kitchen. I thought it was strep but it turned out to just be a nasty case of bronchitis. I’m not fully over it, but I’d say 85-90% better.

1.       So my meal plan didn’t go exactly as planned, being derailed by sickness.  I was honestly not as bad as expected though – I made my husband get me soup Wednesday but I sucked it up and made dinner Thursday and Friday and both weekend nights, which never happens. I don’t put anything on Sundays because we so often go to Disney that I leave it up in the air. Since we didn’t go anywhere this weekend, I just slid over my meals. So Saturday night we had Wednesday’s meal, and Sunday we had Saturday’s.

2.       I’m hesitant to mention this due to the issue of internet jinxing, but Henry has been back in underwear for sleeping since the new year with no accidents. He’s excited; we still have half a pack of pull-ups in case something goes awry but so far so good. I think it was a developmental issue – he was going through something there for a couple months that he just couldn’t stay dry at night. Hopefully we have moved past that.

3.       We had another death in the family this weekend, this time in my husband’s family. I know we’re just at that age, but when I think back on the past three years, there have been so many funerals. So many goodbyes. I don’t want to say any more goodbyes.

4.       Hey, I finally finished a book! Two, actually! However, I spent those 2.5 days watching Gilmore Girls or sleeping, so there was still very little reading. It’s okay. I’m okay with it. I’ll get there.

5.       Even though I’m feeling better, my head is still a dead weight from the sinus pressure and I have that funny tickle in my ears that you can’t reach no matter what you do. I took Mucinex, but I think I may have taken something I shouldn’t in the daytime or something because I’m feeling a little loopy. At least I have 5 hours before I can go anywhere because I’m at work. It’s also possible it’s just the sinus pressure that is making me loopy in which case, ugh. I have officially used my brain more today than I have in five days and maybe it’s ready for a break.

6.       After I started feeling a little better, I took the kids out to Chuck E Cheese – did you know they got rid of the nasty hamster tubes, and now they have bumper cars? It’s new, yours might not have it yet, but it was a big hit with the boys. The only issue I have with this is that the hamster tubes were free whereas the bumper cars cost 4 tokens for each kid for each ride. But they loved it and that was worth it. We got there near opening and I bought $20 worth of tokens and that was it, they played until they were gone. It was a good (and exhausting time), and afterward I bought myself a Starbucks coffee and sat while they played in the mall play place and yes, I think I’ve won Saturday morning mom of the year. Then we went home and I needed to be back in bed for a bit.

7.       The other thing of note this weekend needs a little backstory. Henry is shy. Super, overwhelmed even by people he knows well, shy. So since neighbor boy moved in a couple months ago now, he loves playing with him but he won’t go over there because although he *knows* F’s parents, he isn’t comfortable with them and just won’t go. Saturday afternoon, after I had a little rest, the boys all wanted to play so I went over too. I sat and talked to the mom for a bit and was Henry’s security blanket for almost an hour while he played crazy with the other boys, and then he let me go home to start dinner while he stayed over for awhile longer. Sunday morning when he woke up the first thing he said was “remember yesterday when I went over [F]’s house?” with a broad grin. He was proud too. Sunday he went back over BY HIMSELF (not even with his brother, bc he wanted to play video games a little before going out) and then went over again later with the other boys and I realized that dad was the only one home. So even though he got used to being there with mom, he was okay with dad too. You don’t know how proud I am of him – this is really big for him, and it also means more for school. It means we might be able to do this. He’s going to be okay.