Making the Most of Mothers' Day

 

I've been missing from my blog for the last couple of weeks. That being said...I've been missing from a lot of things these days. I'm not exactly depressed, but I find myself feeling tired. Feeling useless. Feeling hopeless. Feeling lost in the monotony of housework and homework. Wondering what good am I for besides cleaning up messes and making sure my children are doing what they need to be doing. Wishing that my life was not one of single-married-hood. Wanting things that I simply cannot have.

It came to a head yesterday when I found myself snapping at my children and melting into tears of frustration. Frustration with my life. With the size of my bum and belly. With stupid, expensive mistakes. With goals that aren't coming to fruition. With mountains of laundry. With the thought of my husband leaving me alone again for weeks on end. With the never ending demands of motherhood.

I grappled to understand why it was so hard for me to be content right now. Typically, I find a great deal of joy in taking care of my home and family. What had changed? Why was I feeling so gloomy about everything?

Right before bed, it dawned on me. Mothers' Day is right around the corner.

Ahh Mothers' Day. The day I feel like the most worthless piece of humanity.

That would be greatly thanks to the traditional few weeks of failed parenting leading up to this day of maternal tribute. Yep, it's an annual thing. The days before that second Sunday in May, I find myself wading through heightened chaos with a decreased amount of patience.

The spilled milk. The bedtime balking. The fights over toys. The complaints about what's for dinner. The incessant demands to be fed. The sleepless nights. The seat belt struggle.

Molehills become mountains. Happy Mommy mutates into Grouchy Mommy. There is not much "love at home".

And by Mothers' Day I can hardly bear the cards and gifts and church service with all the sappy mother stories. Why? Because I sit there feeling like one big hypocrite.

Mothers are supposed to be sweet and kind and gentle and patient and whisper loving, confidence-building things into their children's eagerly listening ears. Regardless of how wonderful a mother I was the other eleven months of the year, it's those few prior weeks of particular bad behavior that stands so starkly in my mind on Sunday. And the spirit of Mothers' Day is destroyed.

Hmm...Now who do you think would love to sabotage such a beautiful occasion that celebrates one of the most important parts of a happy family??? Hmm.

Here's to ignoring The Adversary, to looking past faults, to letting go, to always trying to find happiness in the smallest things, to indulging in a cupcake in your closet, to turning a blind eye to the sticky finger prints on the walls, to being patient and kind and gentle, to enjoying Mothers' Day guilt-free every year!

Wish me luck.

Debbie Downer Meets "Happiness Is..."

It's been a rough week.

I'm not really sure what sparked it.

Unless...it was this really glorious moment on Monday night when during our family scripture study, one of my prayers was answered, the Spirit filled our home, we grew closer as a family, and love abounded from every corner.

And then the Adversary decided to move in and set up camp and declared,

"There will be no happiness here."

Because he likes to do that when he's losing.

He's pretty smart because the last couple of days, he's winning. He knows exactly what pressure points to squeeze to defeat us. In our family, it's sleep, or the lack of. It's Mommy. It's food. It's irritability and over-sensitivity. It's making mountains out of molehills.

I keep trying to dig my way out of it with all the usual tactics.

Praying.

Working.

Exercise.

Service.

Giving up and just giving in to the bad mood for a day.

But prayers get constantly interrupted by little voices with big needs.

But the work is never ending and undone as soon as I turn around.
But there just hasn't been time for exercise. Or energy. Or desire. Or something.
But I feel so empty that I feel like I have nothing to give someone else.
But a day wriggles into two. Then stretches into three. And before you know it you haven't showered in a few days, and eaten a bag of Cadbury eggs and watched the entire third season of Modern Family while your kids get way too comfortable with Netflix on the iPad.

It's a downward spiral. A sharp and severe free fall. And it's over.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

Time for a "Happiness is..." post.

Happiness is...

...a secret bag of Cadbury eggs.

...seeing more and more brown grass every day as the snow disappears.

...having hope that brown will magically brighten into green.

...little baby Chiclet teeth.

...your son earning his first Scout award.

...little sisters cuddling.



...a warm shower dance and song.

...figuring out that extra chores is the answer to motivating the kids to do all kinds of things.

...finally, after literally years of talking about it, learning how to make charts on the computer.

...running 14 miles.

...popcorn and Icees with my favorite blond.

...children dragging the scriptures over to you each night instead of you having to drag the children to the scriptures.

..."no root canal necessary".

...sticking to your budget.

...watching your 4 year old change right before your eyes.

...getting your library books turned in before the due date.

...duct tape on diapers preserving your sanity.

There is a lot to be happy about. Time to shut up, get up, straighten up, and look up and onward.

A Dark Shade of Grey

For the most part I am a positive person.

At least I try to be.

At least I hope I am.

(A-ha! "Hope"! See? Positive!)

But today I'm having a very hard time finding the positive in anything. Wait. No. That's not true. I can see the positive. I just don't want to have much to do with it. In fact, I'd kind of like to gag it, shove it in a closet, and pretend it doesn't exist.

I blog about the great days. Why not the rough ones too?

My husband is out of town again.
I slept on my back funny and can hardly move without being in lots of pain.
When I weighed myself in this morning, I discovered the See's chocolate had found it's final resting place.
Cee has decided she's ready to potty train.
After cleaning up multiple pee accidents, I've decided I'm not.
For some asinine reason we decided it was time to take down the crib. This means Cee isn't sleeping which means no one else is either.
I'm trying to rededicate myself to eating healthy and avoiding sugar. My mood and behavior could be likened to a smoker who's trying to quit. Not pretty.
The house is trashed and despite my efforts to clean and get the kids to clean, it doesn't appear to be getting any better.
Everything is getting on my nerves, which seem to be a little closer to the surface than normal.

And it goes on and on and on.

And what makes it worse is that today is President's Day which means my kiddos are off of school. It's not worse because they're home. I actually really love having my children home. What's worse is that I can't seem to rally myself enough to be a good, fun mom on their day off of school. And that just makes my dark shade of grey mood even blacker.

We could have gone for a drive or out for a treat or played at McDonald's or played with cousins or baked cookies or gone swimming or watched movies together or pulled out board games or danced in the living room or had a cleaning party or walked around the neighborhood or had friends over or gone to the movies or to the Dollar Store or on a scavenger hunt or...or...or...

But for every fun thing, I had an excuse.

I don't want to spend any money. I'm trying to eat healthy: no treats for anybody since I can't avoid the temptation. No swimming; it's that time of the month. My back hurts. My head hurts. My patience is worn thin. The house is a mess. The kids aren't dressed. Cousins are sick. It's too cold. It's too wet. It takes too much energy.

Ugh. Today was a failure. A missed opportunity. And it's all my fault. Blah.

I keep considering putting a positive spin on this blog post (there's always something that can be gleaned even from rotten days such as these) but I'm just going to let it lie. You can't know the good, if you don't know the bad. Here's to better days in the future...as they will inevitably come.

(Dang that positivity sneaking in there!)

Crushed

Miracles do exist. I'm here blogging two days in a row, aren't I? Miracle.

I wish it was about something more positive though. I'm finding myself in such a funk today. It all began last Thursday night...

That evening, I had the opportunity to donate blood for the first time in ten years. The Red Cross still had my maiden name on file, that's how long it has been.

I used to work as a phlebotomist and emergency department technician among other medical professions so I tend to get a little giddy around needles and blood. (You don't even have to tell me I'm twisted. I know.) My mental faculties were not what they should be. Blame it on the aforementioned twisted giddiness and loss of blood. I walked through the door upon my return home and there was my husband, brother-in-law, and a smattering of children sitting at the dinner table. A fantastic opportunity for random goofiness if there ever was one.

I fainted.

And it was a glorious production. I was committed. I fell and fell hard. Full body meets carpet. Right on my bag. Which had my phone in it.

Good grief. I may have lost 90 plus pounds, but nothing will call out your inner fat girl quicker than totally demolishing your phone simply by falling on it.

Several days later, I have a new phone (Thank you, Insurance Plan), but let me tell you what I don't have. I don't have $100 (No thank you, Insurance Plan Deductible). I don't have months upon months of calender notes. And I don't have five months worth of pictures and video. (I had been using my phone as my primary source of photography.) The guy at the Verizon store tried, but he just couldn't revive my phone. Death...by fat girl fake fainting. The dumbest reason ever for having to replace your phone.

A girl (fat or not) could cry.

Which I have to keep fighting the urge to do. That stupid little thing was my brain. I have no idea what commitments I have made over the next few months. I have no record of what happened over the summer. I have no pictures of my children from the entire summer. I don't even know when to expect my next period. (Judging by the unreasonable feelings of hostility and desperation I am experiencing about this whole thing...probably any day now.) 

?@%&*?!!@#FS*&>+!&^!@#$#%#$$@*&?!?! UGH!!!!!!!

I've got to stop writing about it or I may combust.

Note to self and note to you: STOP LEARNING THINGS THE HARD WAY!!! BACK UP EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

Of Separation Anxiety

We just finished up a very lovely Spring Break week. I pulled out all my best "fun mommy" tricks. We went to the park, to the zoo, to the grandparents, to the kids' favorite restaurant. We watched movies and ate bowls of popcorn. We played and read books and stayed up late and slept in and traveled and ate junk food and played some more. It was a glorious week, but it had to end sometime.

I was dreading Monday with its return to schedule and school more than my kids were.

Well, maybe not more than the kids.

Monday morning, as I pulled up in front of the school to drop Dee and Jeigh off, it was revealed to me just how much my son wasn't ready for the new week to start. Both the kids had complained of phantom stomach aches during the morning's preparation hoping to delay the end of Spring Break just a little longer, but Jeigh spotted her friends near the school and happily hopped out of the van to greet them along with the new week.

In contrast, Dee shriveled even farther into the back of the van. He whined, "I don't wanna go, Mama. I don't wanna!"

And then he began to cry.

He sobbed as he told me he didn't have any friends. That he was scared. That kids teased him.

His tears thickened as he begged to go back home.

It was terrible. What was I to do? I remember grade school. Kids do tease. It is scary. There were times I felt like I didn't have a friend in the entire place.

I wanted to shut the van door and glide off into the sunset, sheltering him from the big bad school and world. It was what I wanted to do, but that didn't seem right. If I let him go home today what was going to happen tomorrow? And the day after that??

I knew this was something my little son had to do. But try telling him that.

As I did try his crying only increased. He refused to get out of the van. I got out and walked around, afraid that I would have to physically remove him from the vehicle. Afraid of being manhandled he jumped out himself, but then stood on the sidewalk with huge, slushy, wet tears rolling off his red cheeks.

This was tragic. There couldn't be anything harder to parenting than this, could there?

I tried to lovingly talk to him and convince him that he needed to be in school, that it was the law, that it would be okay, that he could call me if it wasn't. But love and logic and talk were not cutting it.

Eventually I had to get tough. Woodenly, I pried his clinging arms off of my legs, firmly told him to go to his class, and walked away. He cried out after me but I kept walking. I got in the van and drove out of the school parking lot. As I watched him from my rear view mirror, standing there, falling apart on the public school sidewalk, I felt my heart shattering.

Did I just do the right thing? This can't be right. If it was "right", would it hurt this much?

I had abandoned my little son to the world and to himself. I am his Mommy. I am his protector. His big person. His guardian. And I just left him.

What have I done?

I circled around and parked in front of the school where he couldn't see me, but I could watch him. He stood by his line, but hiding behind a tree around the corner from his classroom door. He was still crying, intermittently peeking to see what his class line was doing. I imagined him pondering what to do, whether to obey his mom and follow his peers to class, or to make a break for it.

I admit, I sat in the van, watching him, pondering myself. Do I let him be a big boy and learn a life lesson or do I sweep in and rescue him?

He made the decision for both of us as he followed his class into the building, but I drove away reeling from the entire plight.

Nothing felt "right".

The entire morning I fretted about him. Was he crying in class? Were the kids really being mean to him? Was my happy little son as friendless as he claimed to be? Or was this just a case of too much fun during Spring Break and the difficulty of his dad leaving town again?

It was so difficult to know. And I thought labor and delivery was the hard part of parenting. Nobody warned me about how insanely grievous it would be to drive away from your distraught first grader.

In an effort to make his day a little brighter and more positive, as well as to allay my own worries by seeing how he was faring, I picked up some McDonald's Happy Meals (one of his favorite treats) and surprised him at lunch time. He ran to me with a huge smile and an even bigger hug.

For all his tears, for all my heart break...he was perfectly fine.

He was so fine that he could hardly acknowledge my presence in the lunchroom as he happily chatted with his buddies (no friends, huh?). After about 5 or 10 minutes he asked if he could go to recess, leaving behind half of a Happy Meal and a mother who was wondering if she had wasted the energy, money, and gray hair on him.

But then I saw a grandmother who had the same idea I had. She munched quietly on her McDonald's while her granddaughter jabbered at her friends.

Oh. So my son is normal then? Oh good.

One day I want to speak with him about this day. I want him to understand how traumatic it was to see my little son so sick with worry and fear. How agonizing it was to do something so opposite and repulsive to my motherhood as physically pry his arms off of me. How it took all my might not to cry my own tears as I denied my own desires and abandoned him there.

I want to ask his forgiveness for walking away in his apparent moment of need, but I also want him to know that I did it hoping to make him a stronger man. I can only imagine that this experience is a small stepping stone to other moments that will be like it. Maybe even more grievous and grey than this "trivial" one. In hindsight it is rather trivial, even though it felt so monstrous yesterday morning. But as I replay the image of my small son standing on the sidewalk all alone in my rear view mirror, I can't imagine anything being as difficult in this life as being a parent.

There's a Silver Lining Here Somewhere...I Think.

When I woke up this morning I did so with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I was happy. Truly happy. I got busy with the hustle and bustle of the morning routine, but added "Put 'I love my little life!' on Facebook status" to my mental TO DO list.

Before I could get to it, I checked my email.

I should have gone to Facebook first.

My email contained some truly rotten news that rocked my world today. While I can't discuss it publicly, it's hard to leave the hurt alone. In true Evelyn-fashion I cried. A lot. As I cried I tried to figure out how to approach this new trial in our lives. Do I lay down and die? Do I run for the nearest chocolate store? Do I get angry? Do I burn a few bridges? Do I give up?

Yes...

No...

Maybe a little...

I can't quite decide. It's been a roller coaster day. A humbling day. I keep flitting between "MY LIFE IS OVER!" to "Maybe this could be a good thing" and back again. I can't quite decide how to feel about it.

A few things are certain though.

Life is going to be a little rocky for our family over the next several months.

And life will go on.

Back in April 2003 I recall a memory where I felt the same. I had just broken up with Joe (for the dozenth time and what I thought was "for good"). I had recently dropped out of college as I had been doing terribly in my classes. I had resigned myself to taking a break and working for a bit to save money. The next day I was fired from my job, a job I had had for a year and a half and one that I actually kind of enjoyed.

I thought my life was over. No job. No school. No boyfriend. No future.

Anyone care for a second serving of Humble Pie?

A week later (the future) I had a new dream job at the local Emergency Department and I was engaged to Joe. The opportunity to go back to school came later. Despite what I had thought a week before life did indeed go on and even get better. Better than what it had been only a mere week before.

You know that whole saying about "God closing doors and opening windows"? I'm hoping that still holds true like it did in April 2003. 

So yes, I'm crying a lot today, but I'm also holding on to a shred of hope. My blog name is "Hanging by a Silver Lining" after all.

All Mixed Up and No Where to Go

The OCD in me just can't let this one slide.

We were out of town last weekend to see my newly returned missionary brother (yay!!). I had tried to schedule a few posts since I'm claiming to be back into my blogging groove and all, but my computer and Google are not on friendly terms these days. Therefore scheduled posts did not post.

I think I finally have all my ducks in a row. Or is that posts in their places?

However it is, I can't stand to not have them time stamped in their proper little places. *twitch, twitch*

So if you are feeling particularly playful and want to play hide and go seek with my blog today...

April 15th - Joe popped the big question.

April 17th- I got all high and mighty about my twenties.

April 18th- Happy birthday to me! To celebrate I made all sorts of crazy plans for the next decade.

And today...

Well, today I am trying to clean up...the house since we will have some company tonight and my mentality since it seems to be all sorts of murky and cluttered lately.

To be honest, I'm not doing so well at either so far.

We all have those days weeks, right? This isn't just a normal part of being thirty is it?

Help a girl out would ya'? What do YOU do to shake off a funk?

On a more serious note...

I keep finding myself wandering back to this site. Maybe I'm hoping a miracle has happened and that little Preslee did not actually pass away. It is just too sad.

Last Friday when I discovered she had passed away, I grabbed my girls, held them tightly, and sobbed and sobbed. They were very confused by their weeping mama, but I tried to explain why I was so sad and how important they are to me.

Throughout the week I have found myself just watching them playing and thinking about the Sullengers who returned to an empty and silent house full of toys with no one to play with them. Even when my children have shown less than desirable behavior I have thought about those who would take the sound of screaming or whining over the silence that fills the air. When I have started to get frustrated with their mid-night wakings or milk spills or sibling arguments, I can't help but feel grateful to take the bad along with all the good.

It has been a somber and pensive week.

I am incredibly saddened for the Sullenger family as well as other families who deal with sickness, loss, death, or whatever trials may come. Sometimes this world is such a heavy, tragic place.

But I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who is master of it all. Who knows far more than we ever will in this lifetime. Who gives us hope of life after death. I know that families can be together forever. I know that death does not destroy. It's just that wait to be reunited that is so painful.

I want to remember how I felt this week. Maybe tying blankets around little super hero shoulders is more important than neatly-made beds. Maybe that blog post can wait until we've read stories together. Maybe a family walk is more necessary than keeping up with my favorite TV show. Maybe having little helpers in the kitchen is more of a priority than a sparkling clean kitchen floor. Maybe it would be better for me to listen while snuggling rather than yell while sending them to their room.

Not "maybe". Definitely.