Smile

I’m not Catholic. I’m only really on the fringe of Christianity, truth be told. I have very specific beliefs that do not line up with traditional churches and I’m as square in my beliefs as you are in yours, so I’m good with how I believe and think.

I do, however, observe the age ol’ tradition of “giving up” something for Lent, I always have. In high school it’s giving up chocolate, in college it’s giving up alcohol (and chocolate), As an adult it’s giving up cursing (and alcohol, and chocolate).

This year, much like the new thought to how New Year’s resolutions should be made to enhance your life, I thought I’d do things differently. I like my life, I don’t curse much, I don’t drink much, I’m already working on my candy intake. Do I really need to remove something from my life as a “sacrifice”? What would really make my life better?

I think I’ve mentioned my stress level here, my anxiety, my short fuse. All of these things – that’s what I need to remove from my life. So for Lent, this is my decision:

I am going to make a solid effort to smile more, to laugh more, to let go of bad feelings, to snark less and to believe the best in people.

The past couple months have been rough for me, socially. I really would rather not get into it much here, but I have felt badly about a lot of interactions, and often very hurt. I’m going to work on letting those feelings go.

Remember that Disney day where I told Spencer that he had to smile any time I asked him to? I have asked the boys to do the same for me. Anytime I am not smiling, I want to be reminded to smile. I hope to feel like I did that day, as often as possible.

Seven. SEVEN. Holy crud, seven.

SO. Spencer is now seven. What do I say about that? I feel like this has been a challenging year, but also a learning experience for all of us. Parenting is hard, yo. And being a kid is hard too. I’m really trying to recognize that, although I’m sure I seldom show it. He’s my first born, my love, my sweet boy.

Because of baseball, I didn’t know what to set up for his birthday. Last year we took the weekend and stayed in a Disney resort and lived it up, but I assumed there was practice and no one was sure when it was (the scheduling of baseball leaves something to be desired) so I was limited in what I could schedule. Finally mid-week we found out when Saturday practice was and decided to invite a couple boys over for a sleepover. Just two boys, which doubled the children in my house, and we had pizza and ice cream cake and movies and it was a pretty good time. There was some arguing over the WiiU at the beginning which made me seriously question my sanity for setting this up, but ultimately everyone had a good time. There was, of course, very little sleep which made Sunday morning and early afternoon difficult, but we persevered.

A photo posted by @aprilbapryll on Feb 7, 2015 at 5:26pm PST

A video posted by @aprilbapryll on Feb 8, 2015 at 5:16pm PST

A photo posted by @aprilbapryll on Feb 8, 2015 at 4:57pm PST

For Sunday, Spencer’s actual birthday, we got tickets to the Lightning game and took the boys to their first hockey game, which they LOVED. We were a little concerned because the tickets were more than expected and they had so little sleep we thought it would end up being a waste but it was a super good time.

And that was that! I love you, kid.

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.