Mind Over Matter

I took the weekend to calm my brain and get reacquainted with a schedule.  A schedule that includes the words, "no".  I have to say, I do feel a lot better.  I have been reminding myself daily that I am not perfect.  That I don't have to "do it all" and that I CAN let things go.  What is it in me that makes me crazy if a bed isn't made or the laundry isn't done?  It helped to have a somewhat calm week to muttle around in.  I just keep reminding myself that life is too short to sweat the small stuff.. blue skies in, gray skies out.  I have been spending time with the kids this week.  Not sort of spending time.. like the half ass time that I usually try and spend with them while I fold laundry, work or make dinner.  Time like, getting in the sand box with them and letting them help make dinner.  Stepping away from my desk at work to turn a cardboard box into a house.. complete with doors and windows.  It has helped. 

Most days I feel like being a mommy is the best medicine a girl could have.  Yes, my kids run me ragged and can raise my stress level to an unchartable amount but these children can also give me an enormous amount of love and affection.  To see their little minds work and hear how they talk, how they learn, how they love.. is quite possibly for me, the biggest reward, heart filler, I will ever get.  I sat down at Layla's preschool this week to have a Mother's Day breakfast with her.  She couldn't do enough for me and got the biggest kick out of waiting on me.  I think we gave each other a million hugs and kisses that morning and I left that school with my heart full. 

I've also been trying to have a little more patience with Cameron.  Oh.. he is tough..  lol.. but I have been taking a step back and watching his little mind work and appreciating it.  Appreciating the fact that he is a wild man because one day that little wild man is going to do great things with all his bountiful of energy!

Hannah has had a great week and has only bared her grizzly attitude a few times.  She has been a lot of help this week and takes such good care of Layla and Cam.  She'll step right in and help out with them whenever they need tending too.  She also shocked me by giving me a kiss this morning before she left the car to walk into the play yard.  I have been asking her for two weeks and today, she did it without me asking.  All the other times she would roll her eyes and say "no" while she quickly exited the car... but today.. KISS!  I hope someday when she reads this she'll realize just how much that one kiss meant to her mommy!

I have been having a lot of flashbacks of the girls in their younger years.  I dont know if it is the fact that the birthdays are just around the corner.. but Hannah especially.. I have these pictures of them that I had taken stuck in my head.  One when Hannah was 2 or 3 and we went to Gallilee.  She was prancing on the beach in her gray Block Island sweatshirt... with a pink bow practically taped to her scalp with no hair.  Layla, when she fell asleep sitting in the high chair with Pastena all over her face.  And then I get scared when I really try to remember what they were like at certain ages and it gets harder and harder for me to recall.  I'm trying to remember when it was just Hannah.. what were bath times like?  I do remember that was the time I would take with her to teach her new things.  Like her letters, her name, songs, etc.. You Are My Sunshine.. lol   But what were our conversations?  Did she tell me she loved me all the time?   It's even harder to remember the times when it was just me and the girls.  I remember the beginnings of it.. but that's really all.  sigh... is it the exhaustion?   I feel like I could nod off at any point throughout the day.  I really don't get a good night's sleep.. maybe that's why I function in Zombie mode most days?  I can't imagine how comatose I would be if it weren't for caffeine.. my SwingJuice.  etc..

My Layla baby (yes she is 5 and I will always call her my baby-lol)  has also been having some more GI issues.  I didnt think it was much before and kind of just let it go, however, the issues have been more and more frequent and I am starting to think that her Eosinophilic Esophagitis is having a flare up.  She had been doing so well that I almost forgot she was diagnosed with it a few years back.  She started gaining weight, came off the million dollar formula and started growing.  Billy and I started connecting the dots and counting the times she has had issues and have written down what she ate prior.  Something is up.  Be it the seasonal allergies (which are horrific this year and I am ready to scratch my eyeballs out despite taking meds) or the fact that there may be a new food allergy present....  We head up to Boston Childrens in 2 weeks to figure it all out.  I am dreading the endoscopy.. dreading it.  But we will do what we have to in order to get my girl feeling her best! 


Alright.. Im off to go enjoy my time... xo

Living Life

It seems that at one time I was turning to this blog to write about all the wonderful moments experienced with my kiddos.  I wanted a way to preserve them and be able to reread them one day and smile upon them.  The last year or so, I have been turning to writing these posts because I am longing for the times when I had a clear head and COULD write about the fun, exciting moments with the kids.  Now, instead, I am finding it more of a therapy or the smack in the face that I need to get back on track.

I guess I never realized how crazy life can get, or better said, how crazy I have allowed it to get.  It seems as though I am having a really tough time balancing the things in my life and sometimes, coming here, and spewing out my thoughts, helps me through it so I can get a grip back on the way I want to live this life.  When I sit here and think about how life was 3 or 4 years ago, there isn't much I wouldn't do to go back to that time.  Lately, it seems like I am on a roller coaster and I want to get off the ride.  Like now.

I've been working alot.  A LOT.  From being at the office (and dragging Cam in every day) to my photography really starting to take off.  Don't get me wrong.  I am THRILLED to have this step happen.  I really do want to make photography my career one day in the near future.  I am just stating, photography, office, taking care of three kiddos and a sick mom, is really giving me a full plate.  I am also trying my best to keep the kids active in things that are good for them.  While hockey has ended, we are in dance recital  mode for the girls and Hannah is also involved in two after school programs.  Photography falls in after being at the office all day or during the weekends.  My head is spinning and I feel as though I am dragging kids everywhere, or dropping them off so I can work, work, work.  Adding to this is my mother's steady decline.  (Sigh) 

Things have gotten considerably worse with Mom, which has been a huge weight on all of us.  We are trying to help Dad as best we can but things are just beginning to completely overwhelming us.  We are taking a new direction with her care and I am praying (fingers crossed) that this is going to be a step in the right direction because right now we are all drowning in this dreadful disease.  The hardest part is that you try and prepare yourself for losing someone you love, but I never realized that this disease was going to take down my whole family and how much it would affect us.  From my father, to my siblings to my children.  While most days, I am able to put the emotional aspect of dealing with the disease to the back of my brain, lately, as Mom begins to worsen dramatically, it is getting more difficult.

My kids are getting older.  They are aware more.  They have been exposed to more with watching their grandmother with this disease.  They may not be able to wrap their minds around what is going on, but they know something is wrong.  Except Hannah.  My Hannah knows what's up.  She knows.  She's so smart.  Layla and Cam just see Nonnie as being sad all the time.  What hurts the most, is that my kids will never remember the wonderful, caring, talented, loving, intelligent woman my mother was.  Their grandmother.  Instead they are reminded daily of all the things that Nonnie cant do.   They get nervous around her, which kills me.  We took out some summer pajamas last week for Cam.  They were Camden's hand me downs (which we love) and there were a pair of Batman Pj's in the box.  Cam is starting to get into all of this super hero stuff so he was excited to wear them.  Hannah got a big kick out of them because of his chunky little legs in the shorts.  It flooded me back to when Hannah was probably the same age as Cam is now and Nonnie watched her for me because I had somewhere to go.  That thought right there alone.. that my mom was once able to watch my child..   Anyway, she had put Han in the tub and wet a facecloth and put it on her back like a cape.  Then she proceeded to teach her the Batman Song... na na na na na na BATMAN!  For two months straight, Hannah made me put the facecloth cape on her in the tub and we would have to sing the Batman song.  Retelling this story put a smile on Han's face and it made me happy and sad all at the same time.  It was like I could hear Hannah's thoughts... Nonnie was fun loving and carefree at one time.. teaching me Batman songs.. and here we are now.  I just want so badly for them to remember the way she was but unfortunately the only thing we can do now is tell the memories of those days and try and keep the woman my mother once was, alive. 

So it seems as though I'm back to that thing in life that is the most valuable thing that cant be bought.  Time.  There just doesn't seem to be enough time to do it all.  My balancing isn't working.  I haven't yet learned the word, "No".  You think I would have by this point.  It seems as though I am in a constant battle of rushing, rushing, rushing, running frantically around to and fro.  Rushing the kids in the car and out of the car.  I don't want to do this anymore.  I want to get off this ride.  I want to stop, breath, exhale and relax.  I want to enjoy every single second that I have with these kids, with my Mom.. with my family.  This time is just going by so quickly that I really need to get a grip, stop and enjoy it.  So I am guessing a lot of soul searching has to be done for me right now in order to figure this all out.  I am going to need to learn to prioritize, say no and breathe.