Fear

Being at Disneyland again this week reminds me that Saffron and Willa don't have any of the typical fears of other kids their age. There is not one single roller coaster, or scary ride, or scary movie, or even unfamiliar, pitch-black motel room that could ever scare either of them. These things don't phase them one bit.

On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago Saffron couldn't find me for a few minutes at Target and was truly petrified. She cried, she was so shaken up by it.

Still many things . . .

The Runaway Mothers Club--Epilogue

Two years ago I wrote a post about a dear friend who was my inspiration for a "runaway mother's club." That precious friend, Kim Walton, no longer needs to run away. Yesterday she left us for another place. Huntington's Disease won't have Kim to kick around anymore. I am happy she is released--but there is a whole in my heart. I will miss her terribly.

I will not say Rest in Peace to someone who so longed to move again. Instead I say, "Kim, walk, and run and play and do a back handspring in peace! And be you again--the whole, amazing you." I love you.

The Second Week of January, 2012

As far as I'm concerned, this week can just be erased from the history books.

3 different situations with 3 different kids = 1 no good, very bad week.

Parenting is agony sometimes. We went to see We Bought A Zoo tonight and I could hardly handle it--cried hard through much of it. That is, when I wasn't outside with the baby.

Ah, gees. Tomorrow is another day, and another week. Thank goodness.

Sent from my iPhone

Reflecting on our Second Year

A couple of nights ago I was looking back through my journal entries of the past couple of years. It hit me that, unlike what I would have expected, the second year of our adoption was much harder than the first. In fact, I think that's probably why I blogged so much less. The first was plenty hard, as you all know. But it was a different hard, and somehow one that was easier talk about and in many ways easier to bear. It was a hard full of giardia, poop samples, medical frustrations, language frustrations, legendary tantrums, and constant adjustment. But I felt like a superhuman mom-archaeologist on the dig of a lifetime, who just had to keep pushing through to discover something wonderful.

This second year, it was like I was still on the same dig, swollen with bug bites, tired, slogging through mud, mud and more mud, and still not reaching the buried treasure. And I was no longer high on the excitement of my big dig. I needed results to keep my going--and I wasn't getting them. Last year the hard wasn't about intestinal bugs. The hard was feeling frustrated all the time--losing patience, losing hope some days, and losing my cool a lot. It was about feeling like a bad mom--feeling guilty all the time--and wondering why the good feelings weren't coming along to balance out the bad as fast as they needed to.

This is something hard to talk about, or blog about. It's something, frankly, that most people don't want to hear about. They don't want to believe it.

But now that we've begun year three, I'm optimistic. I feel like we're close to discovering the good stuff. It's just hard to hang in there for so long. But we are hanging in, and we will keep hanging in.

Look at Me, So You Can Feel Better About Your Post-Holiday Self

I think it's safe to say my house is as messy tonight as it's ever been in its entire life--or at least in it's entire life under my jurisdiction. These are the rooms I see ranking an absolute 10 on the disaster scale: KITCHEN, FAMILY ROOM, MY BEDROOM, LAUNDRY ROOM, and HALL. The rest may only rank as messy, but if those key rooms are that bad who can cheer themselves up about the rest, right? Having lived in many apartments in my life, I call the kitchen, family room, and my bedroom "the apartment." I've learned that if the apartment--where I spend the bulk of my time--is messy, I feel pretty bummed about the whole house. SOOOO, do you think I spent the day cleaning my house? NOPE! Steve and I spent the last day of the holiday cleaning out the shop on our back patio. Why? Because that's what we do. Projects. Too Many Projects!

BUT,

Tomorrow I'll have everything I need: kids back in school, a new book to listen to from the audible.com account I got for Christmas, and I am off to the races. I am a cleaning machine! I will clean, the whole world will look brighter, and I might even let you in this time if you ring my doorbell.

So please take this opportunity to feel better about yourself by comparing you to me: today you were a better housekeeper than Emily. I know, they say not to compare yourself to others to build yourself up--but I'm giving you my permission to step on me on your way up the ladder to self-contentment. But just this once, please. :)