Things that make me smile...and sometimes even laugh out loud!...From my old blog "They Grow Like Weeds"

August 11, 2011

1.  Watching Roseanne Roseannadanna clips on YouTube
2.  Reruns of the Modern Family episode where Mitchell does the flash mob
3.  Riley carrying the basket for me while we grocery shop together
4.  Watching old Little House on the Prairie episodes with Harley that I remember watching as a little girl at my grandma's house
5.  Being invited to a pinning website because I always need one more mindless things to occupy my time when I should be doing something more productive that I'm avoiding
6.  Re-reading my favorite books and still crying at the sappy parts even though I know what's going to happen
7.  Listening to my kids play "little kid games" in the basement even though they aren't so little anymore
8.  Whirlpool baths without interruptions
9.  A surprise "just because" card sitting on my pillow
10.  My baby nephew Austin
11.  A magazine in the mail
12.  A former student going out of his or her way to speak to me
13.  Watching Wipeout with Rob and the kids (though I've never admitted that to them)
14. Playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii with my kids and remembering all the times I played the original version with my brother so many years ago
15.  Teaching my son how to cook
16.  Cooking with my daughter
17.  Playing old Eminem songs really loud in my car
18.  Having friends over on weekend evenings for drinks, snacks, and catching up
19.  Surprising my mother-in-law with cake that she loves
20.  Being with my family, doing absolutely nothing other than just "hanging out" together
21.  Watching Riley skateboard
22.  Watching Harley cheer
23.  Writing and reminding myself of my goal of one day being a published author
24.  When the number on the scale goes down
25.  Weatherman Phil

Change is Good...Right...From my old blog "They Grow Like Weeds"

August 10, 2011

So, I find myself once again at a point in my life where I'm having difficulty adjusting to the changes that continue to go on around me.  I don't like change.  I'm a creature of habit.  I like security in knowing that things are going to remain constant in my life.  Maybe it's because of things that weren't always constant growing up.  Maybe it's because of difficulties I've faced as an adult.  But regardless, I don't like change, I am not typically excited about change.  Change scares me.

I had the pleasure of being on an interview committee recently.  It was a great opportunity for me both professionally and personally.  That question that always gets asked was asked, that "What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?" question that we get on any type of application we fill out and any kind of interview we attend.  I thought about that after the interviews were over and reflected on how it pertained to me, and I realized that my greatest strength and my greatest weakness are one in the same.  It sounds like a clique, but it really is true.   My biggest strength is my sensitivity.  This is what makes me a nurturing mother, a loving wife, a supportive friend, and a caring teacher.  But, this is also what causes me to have hurt feelings, to feel almost paranoid at times, to feel unloved, unwanted, and unappreciated.  It's what makes me second guess myself, my actions, and even my feelings.  I wish I could change this about myself, but there's that word again...change...and some things just aren't that easy to change.  Some things can't be changed...

I have entered a phase in my life where I have to let one of my birds out from under my wing and let him fly out of the nest.  It's so hard to watch him hit the ground and flap his wings and try to fly on his own.  It's terrifying to watch him start up that car and drive away and know that I have absolutely no control over what he does, that he has reached a point in his life where he is making his own decisions and I can offer all the guidance and support possible, but it's a time when he's going to fly solo and I can only watch and pray and hope.  This change is the hardest change I've ever had to deal with.

Losing my grandma was a change in my life that took me years to adjust to.  I don't know that I am adjusted to it even now.  It's been 5 1/2 years and I still get the urge to call her, to ask her advice, to chat.  I miss her every day.  The absence of her in my daily life changed my very existence.  She was my best friend, my soul mate in a sense.  People say grief dulls with time, but every day that passes is just one day further away from the last time we spoke.  This was another bad change...

There are good changes too.  I know that.  In my field of work, education, change is all around us and it's a good thing!  In order to teach students who are constantly growing and changing, we have to grow and change with them.  That kind of change I can handle.  Anything that will benefit my students is all right with me.  I'm passionate about my job, my "career".  I care for my students almost as my own children for the 9 months they are "mine".  I get attached, I'm protective, I fight for them, I work hard for them every single day.  And then May rolls around and I have to watch them go and it's hard, but I feel good, knowing I've done all I could for them to prepare them for what lies ahead.  And then in August a new batch comes along and I start all over again...In this respect, change is good...

Summer break is coming to an end.  I have to say, this has been one of the worst summer breaks I've had.  It wasn't the relaxing, mental and emotional rest I needed so very badly.  Instead it was stressful, went by too fast, was unproductive, and just wasn't at all what I'd planned or expected.  This makes me sad.  I try to see the good in it though.  Rob did an amazing job building us a new bathroom.  The kids spent a lot of quality time together.  I feel like we have grown closer together as a family...though the daily stress of being home with a teenage son and a "tween" daughter sometimes makes me forget that...In this case maybe change is good...Maybe we all need a change.  Maybe I need to get back to work, to dive into my new batch of students.  Maybe Harley needs to be in a new classroom with new classmates and teacher.  Maybe Riley needs to have a fresh start this year, trying out new sports, taking new and different classes.  Maybe Rob will feel better knowing that we are all up and out in the world and not at home waiting for him to get off work each day, making him wish he could be home sharing summer break with us...

Maybe I'm just tired, stressed, overwhelmed...Maybe I need someone to step in and take care of me the way I try to take care of everyone else...Now THAT would be a change I wouldn't mind trying out! Maybe I'm just tired of trying to always be strong, be the rock, the nurturing one...After all, change is good...right? ; )

Being the Mother of a Daughter (In Honor of Harley's 10th Birthday)...From my old blog "They Grow Like Weeds"

August 7, 2011

The birth of Harley was one of the happiest days of my life, and for a lot of reasons.  She was planned and wanted so badly.  My pregnancy with Harley followed a terrible heartache of losing a baby due to an ectopic pregnancy.  Getting pregnant with Harley so soon afterwards, and finding out just 3 days before Christmas was an amazing gift.  Rob and I were newly married, so excited to have a baby to seal our family together, and to share in our love for each other.  With 3 boys between the two of us already, we desperately wanted a baby girl. Rob was sure she was a girl from the moment I got pregnant.  I wanted her to be a girl so badly, but was scared to get my hopes up. 

She'd been named long before I was ever pregnant.  When watching "Pure Country" (that movie with George Strait about him leaving the music business to lead a simple life and falling for a girl named "Harley") before we were ever even married Rob said, "When we get married and have a baby girl, we're naming her Harley."  I said, "OK..." not even knowing if that would ever happen, if we would get married OR have a baby girl!  But, when she was born, and actually as soon as the ultrasound tech told us it was a girl, her name was "Harley" and that was that!

While I was rewarded for 9 months of being sick with Riley by an easy labor and delivery, Harley was different.  Instead of being rewarded for once again being sick for 9 months of pregnancy, I was further tortured.  After being due on August 3rd with both babies (so ironic to me!), Harley had no intention of coming out anytime soon, so it was decided that I would be induced the morning of August 7th.  That was pure torture!  After going in at 6:00 A.M., being speared with IV's, and strapped to the bed with a fetal monitor, I was in agony for 11 1/2 hours before Harley entered the world. She couldn't do it easily either.  High-maintenance from the beginning, that girl was!  Her heart rate dropped with every contraction, and each contraction I had "piggy-backed" which meant I had 2 contractions between each "break".  They inserted an internal monitor which they screwed into the top of her head, and I had to lay on my side or up on all fours for about the last 3 hours of the labor in order to keep her heart rate where it should be.  When she was born, her cord was around her neck, which explains the heart rate issues.  Luckily, she was perfect in every way, despite the grueling labor, and the second I asked, "What is it?" and the doctor said, "I told you it was a girl!" I cannot even begin to describe the joy that surged through me. 

The first phone call I made was to Riley, the proud big brother waiting anxiously at Grandma Shirley's house.  He was the first person outside the delivery room to know that Harley had been born, 2 days after his 6th birthday, and a great birthday present! 

Harley was the perfect baby from day one.  She slept through the night her very first night at home.  When I woke up the next morning I was hysterical, thinking she'd died of SIDS her first night out of the hospital!  She was fine though, just obviously as exhausted as I was and so glad to be home!  She only cried when she was wet or hungry.  She was happy, pudgy, and perfect.  Until she hit the toddler years...

Harley was the kind of toddler who ran across the parking lot the second you released her hand.  She ran away in the store and was never where she should be.  She was into everything, climbed out of her crib on her own at 15 months, walked her My Little Pony horses through the landlord's fresh concrete, refused to be potty-trained until SHE wanted to, despite knowing how to do it, made messes she didn't want to clean up, and would take her clothes off as fast as I put them on, almost making late for work many mornings.  But boy was she SMART! 

I often tell Harley I realize she has the highest IQ in the house, and I'm not kidding when I say that!  The girl was drawing stick figures of the family at 2, writing her name at 3, and reading books aloud, not by memory, but by actually reading the words at 3 1/2!  She absolutely amazed me every day with her knowledge and intelligence.  She still does today.

The last 10 years have gone by so fast!  After looking back at Riley's childhood and vowing to appreciate Harley's more, to savor it more, I realize that it's not that I didn't appreciate or savor the time with either of them.  Time just goes REALLY fast when you're raising babies and watching them grow.  So here we are, 10 years later, and I can remember every single second of the day of Harley's birth like it was only a few months ago.  I don't know where the time goes!

She will be a 5th grader this year, and it's so hard to see her growing up and not still a "baby".  I love that she still sleeps with stuffed animals, plays with her Little People and her dolls and colors and watches cartoons because I know these days are going to soon come to an end.  I want to enjoy every bit of the "little girl" stage while I can.

Having a daughter is an amazing gift, and one I'm so grateful to have.  Harley continues to amaze me every single day, and I could not love her more.  She challenges me every day.  She's willful, moody, and a complete and total drama queen.  But she's also smart, beautiful, sweet, and sensitive.  I cannot imagine my life without my baby girl.  Happy 10th birthday, Harley Brooke!  I love you!

The Day I First Became "Mom" (In Honor of Riley's 16th Birthday)...From my old blog "They Grow Like Weeds"

 August 5, 2011

The day I found out I was pregnant was a surprise to say the least.  On an old episode of "Roseanne" D.J. asks Roseanne what the difference between an accident and a surprise are and she says, "An accident is something if you had to do over you wouldn't; but a surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it."  That's what Riley was:  A SURPRISE!  Angie was the first person to know I was pregnant, waiting outside the bathroom door while I took the test.  But, for anyone who knows either of us, that was probably a given! ; )

From that moment on, I was Riley's mom.  Now, of course, throughout those next 8 months I was absolutely sure he was a girl, and I wanted a girl desperately, and being Riley, he kept us guessing and didn't reveal himself at the ultrasound so we'd know for sure.  However, the second Dr. Weldon said, "It's a boy!" I was thrilled beyond a belief.  The first words out of my mouth were, "Well, my other babies will have a big brother."  I later told my mom, "I don't know why I ever wanted a stupid girl in the first place!"  I was THRILLED with this absolutely beautiful, smooth-skinned, perfect baby boy with his wavy brown hair and gorgeous eyes staring up at me.

While the labor was absolutely the easiest first baby labor I'd ever heard of, starting with my water breaking around 9:00 A.M. and having him 4 1/2 hours later with no meds until the very end when the doctor instructed the nurse to give them to me when he realized I hadn't had anything.  Even then I didn't feel like I needed any and he was born within 15 minutes of that shot being administered anyway.  However, he was cranky and colicky from day one.  He spit up constantly, stained every shirt I owned, and would not let me put him down for even a minute for about the first 3 months of his life.  He was going to attach himself to me and there was no choice in the matter for me!  But, from then on, Riley and I had that bond, that attachment that only a mother and son can share.  

Over the next 3 years Riley was with me through a lot of highs and lows, but the one constant was my absolute adoration for him.  I took pictures of him sleeping, awake, smiling, laughing, crying, frowning, in the bathtub, in his crib, everywhere, wanting to capture him on film to have forever.  He was an absolutely delightful toddler, making up for his cranky infant stage.  He didn't have the typical "terrible two's" and I could take him anywhere.  He talked to absolutely anyone he could and told them his whole life story, but he was delightful to listen to!  He was well-behaved, stood beside me while I put groceries in the car, never ran away, never threw random items in the shopping cart, ate his dinner, went to bed like a good boy, was the most perfect, funny, cute little boy I could have dreamed of.

Now, it hasn't always been easy.  Yes, he was absolutely in love with his new baby sister, was an adorable big brother to her, and made me smile every day as he went through his elementary years.  But he was talkative, ornery, and a little mischievous as he got older.  Though I was certain he must have ADHD, I was assured that he was just an outgoing child and would learn to "channel his energy" as he got older.  And he did...eventually.  About midway through 7th grade, after a conference with his teachers, he turned things around, showed the amazing person he could be, and took on the role of a leader in his class. 

I had the absolute pleasure of starting my teaching career as an 8th grade teacher the same year Riley was an 8th grader.  While some 13 year-olds would dread that, Riley relished in it.  We became closer than ever, sharing each day together, laughing at the same jokes, and seeing each other on such a different level. It was one of the happiest times of my life both professionally and personally.  Then high school came...

High school is a scary place to send your babies!  At least for me it is!  As a high school student Riley has spread his wings and become more independent.  He has made some wonderful choices and he's made some horrible choices.  I know this is all part of the growing and learning process.  And though it is so difficult to watch your baby fail, to get hurt, to make poor choices, to suffer consequences, to learn things the hard way, that's also part of being a parent.  But this has also been a time to swell with pride while watching him play soccer, play football, train for Cross Country, put on a tie for school dances, laugh with his friends, do things on a skateboard I didn't think were possible, grow into an amazing young man who isn't perfect, who isn't faultless, but who is my baby.  Today's blog is for Riley, in honor of his 16th birthday, to say how much I love him, and to celebrate the day I first became "mom".