Failures and Successes

          We’ve been managing(ish) the school morning craziness for just over three weeks now and, let me tell you, the struggle is real. This is especially true for our kindergartner who sleeps like the dead and eats almost as slowly. I’ve been trying out some new things to help us all get through the morning and get my kids onto the school bus on time. Number five, in particular, has been a major time-saver. Check them out below:

1. We have the kids lay out all of their clothes before bed each night, shoes too! They waste a lot of time deciding on shoes and then, of course, searching for those shoes that they just have to wear.
2. We put the kids resource schedule on the fridge. Maybe by mid-year I’ll remember who has library and PE on which days, but not today. Until then, this visual will remind me who needs tennis shoes, books, etc. each day.
3. The kids and I worked together to create the responsibilities chart below. They earn one star in the morning and one in the afternoon if they complete all of their morning and afternoon responsibilities. They can use these stars to earn rewards. Two stars will get them a lot less than twenty stars, but they will have the choice between instant gratification or saving to earn something larger.  They only earn the stars when I don’t have to remind them of what they need to do.
4. My kids choose and pack their school snacks when they get home from school each day. They get off the bus ravenous so, while they’re picking out a snack to eat at home, I have them choose another one for school the next day and pack it in their bags.
5. I created a simple poster where the kids can pick their breakfast and lunch choices the night before. I know this sounds a bit like I’m running a restaurant, but we wasted so much time every morning asking the kids what they wanted for breakfast and in their lunches. When you only have 45 minutes to get everything done in the morning, every minute you save is a big deal. My kindergartner isn’t reading yet, so I also drew pictures of about five different choices for each meal. Before we go up to bed each night, the kids make their choices by adding their initials in pencil next to the items they’d like. This is one of their daily responsibilities. This has been a game-changer!! My husband or I can get up a few minutes before the kids to get meals made, and we don’t have to listen to tantrums about how we didn’t make what they wanted. There is a lot less yelling in our house these days.

These tips give my kids the power of choice, but the choices are all things that my husband and I can live with because we were the ones that set them up. I like that my kids are learning to be more responsible through this and to see that their actions have consequences.

Good luck with the morning hustle! As the school year goes on, it does get better. Until it does, keep on keeping on, my exhausted friends!

♥ Erin

On the afternoon of the very first day of school, my kids’ beloved bus driver passed away suddenly. He dropped them off earlier that day, and then, just over an hour later, he was gone. I found myself struggling with grief for this man who was so kind and patient with our kids, who I’d only just spoken to, who was younger than my parents. What was I going to say to my kids? I wanted to be as honest with them as I could, but not traumatize them. This was the first time either of us had lost someone they’d known well, someone who they saw almost daily.

When the school sent out an email to let us know of his passing, they were thoughtful and kind enough to include information from Full Circle Grief Center on how to talk to our kids about death. This info really helped me to put my thoughts into words and to know what to look out for. I thought I’d share what I learned here.

1. Be Honest and Use Clear Language- Use the words dying or dead, instead of confusing terms like, He passed away, We lost him, etc.
2. Encourage Them To Ask Questions- Answer as honestly and clearly as you can. I gently asked my son if he had questions several times throughout the course of the day before he opened up.
3. Share Your Feelings- I usually try not to cry in front of my kids, but they recommend letting your kids see that you’re sad and not trying to hide your tears. It can make them feel less alone when they know you’re hurting too.
4. All Feelings Should Be Welcomed- Kids may feel anger, fear, or even seem like they feel nothing at all, instead of feeling grief. They may be feeling multiple feelings at once or experience different feelings as time passes. Let them know that it’s ok to express whatever feelings they’re having, good or bad.
5. Be Patient and Observant- Give your child time to process the news. They may want to talk, but it may take them hours or days to feel ready to put their feelings into words. My son is not very verbal about his feelings, but I noticed that he’d been acting oddly all day, kind of goofy, jumpy, etc. I finally just told him to come sit on my lap and gently asked him what was going on and that’s when he opened up and started to ask questions.
6. Talk To Them About Safety- Death, especially a sudden death like this one, can make kids feel unsafe. That’s one of the things my son said to me. He had lots of questions about bad guys and even guns. It’s important to remind kids of everything in their lives that is keeping them safe: loving parents, a house with locks, seat belts, etc.
7. Create A Way to Honor The Person Who Died-Brainstorm with your kids to find a special way to remember the person you’ve lost. My kids decided to plant some seeds in our garden and rename our garden gnome after their bus driver.

The sudden death of this special man has shaken us all this week. The silver lining (Sometimes you have to look really hard.) is that it’s also taught us to remember that life is fragile and precious. We all need to remember how much we love each other every day and act accordingly. This had been said many times before, but please hug your family close tonight, call your grandmother, send a text to your  step-brother, pass on the loving legacy of this man taken from the world too soon. Thank you.

Erin

My big kids are back at school. Not one to stay idle, I’ve been distracting myself by attempting to get Baby N potty trained. We’ve been at it for a few months now, sort of lackadaisically, but now it’s time to get serious. No more diapers or pull-ups, with the exception of nap and bedtimes because I like sleeping and don’t have a desire to add to my already immense laundry mountain.

It amazes me that every time I’ve tried to help N with something new like eating solids, learning shapes/colors, potty training, my mom brain completely forgets what I did with my other kids. You’d think by now I’d have this potty training thing down, having done it twice before, but I got nothing. While I can’t give you my tried and true, fool-proof potty training tips, because I have none, I can share with you what not to do.

I’ve already done this twice, and yet…

My Potty Training Must NOT Dos

1. DO NOT let your child sit on the couch without laying down several towels. Urine-scented couches are not classy! If you have plastic coverings for your furniture, this is the time to break it out.

2. DO NOT leave the house without a dozen pairs of clean underwear or you’ll find yourself wrapping your child up in a old 5T t-shirt, turned makeshift diaper.

3. DO NOT give your child a large bottle full of water before you get in the car for a 45 minute drive. Oh, that’s common sense, you say? Well, I don’t think I asked for your opinion!

4. DO NOT leave your potty training child alone in their room with the door closed. There is a chance they will need to poop. If they need to poop, they won’t be able to open their door, and, when they can’t open their door, they will use that giant plastic school bus full of legos as a toilet. (“Wow, Erin,” you’re thinking, “that’s pretty specific.” Nope, this is a completely hypothetical situation, of course. Yep, uh-huh.)

5. DO NOT give your child chocolate as a reward for pooping in the potty. You will have to guess which smudges are chocolate and which are poop, and you will most likely be wrong.

If you can avoid my, uh, I mean, these potty training pitfalls, you’ll be fine! Despite my mistakes, Baby N will be potty-trained soon, or at least by the time she starts kindergarten!

🙂 Erin

Hey guys, so tomorrow is the big day around this house. Last week I wrote a post about all the things I was planning to do this week to get the kids ready. Here is what actually went down.

1.) We made it to bed by 8:00 pm approximately twice this week. Fail. My hopes are high though for tonight, which makes 3 nights out of 7, guys, that’s almost 50%, winning!

2.) Though my kids were definitely awake by 7:00 am every day, hell, it was more like 6:30, I couldn’t get them out of my bed before 8. Morning snuggles with the kids are one of my favorite things, but next week is going to be a wreck!

3.) We haven’t gotten to write our letters to our teacher, and I haven’t written my letters to the kids either. I’m not sure when I thought that was going to happen. I may change the letter idea to an I love you post-it. Still counts, right?

4.) As for our dates: V and I went on a long walk together and chatted about what’s making her nervous about starting kindergarten. It was really nice to get time alone with my middle child who craves attention like it’s the air she breathes. However, when B and I got Starbucks, I had a really hard time getting him to open up about anything. I asked lots of open-ended questions like all those smug parenting books tell us. No dice. I’m going to try again at bedtime tonight.

5.) We did brainstorm some great snack and lunch ideas, as you’ll see in my next post. However, after a week of dealing with very whiny, grouchy kids, I came to my senses and decided to shop alone. Hallelujah!

I wanted to keep it real in case you read my last post, filled with all of my hopes and “pipe”dreams for the week, and you thought that I was one of those Pinterest moms. Can you relate to having these grandiose plans and the best intentions turn to dust when faced with the realities of life? I figured you could. So it didn’t happen the way I’d imagined it, but everything that needed to get done got done, my kids had some much-needed one on one attention and everyone will still get on the bus and head to school in the morning. I’m still calling this a win.

Happy Labor Day!

🙂 Erin

This post has been the hardest to write, not to mention the most personal. I really want to make it clear to readers just how hard this pregnancy was, while also conveying how lucky I feel that it ended up happening the way it did. When I was at my worst, I spent lots of time googling and searching on pregnancy forums for stories of women who’d had unplanned pregnancies and were feeling the way I was feeling about them. I really didn’t find much. I think a lot of people find talking about pregnancy and feelings of sadness/disappointment/anger in the same sentence to be kind of a taboo. I can understand that. Some things are really difficult to talk about. However, I think it’s important for parents to be honest with each other. If you share your feelings, your raw, honest feelings, chances are you’ll feel less alone, and you’ll probably make someone else feel less alone, too. Parenthood isn’t a game. You don’t get more points for suffering in silence. With that being said, let me take you on a little journey into the land of the unplanned pregnancy.

My husband and I had always talked about having three kids, but that was before we knew what the hell we were actually talking about. In the late summer of 2014, I was struggling. My first two kids were born two years and two weeks apart, and with my son’s motor and social development delays, that age difference felt more like 12 months. My husband was working very long hours and often had to work all weekend. We hardly ever saw each other, and when we did we just weren’t communicating or connecting in the way either of us needed. I felt so alone. I was both physically and mentally exhausted and just barely keeping it together.

Flashback to a [slightly intoxicated] night one year earlier. We were hanging out with a friend who’d just had a vasectomy, and just like that, I realized that I was done having kids. My second child was almost 18 months old and had just started finally sleeping through the night, and the thought of having a third child was just too overwhelming. Later that night, I told this to my husband and said that maybe it was time for us to start thinking about a more permanent form of birth control. He’s always been a very easy-going guy and he took this in stride. However, knowing my proclivity for changing my mind, he asked me to give it a year. If I still felt the same in one year, he’d have the procedure.

Well shit, wouldn’t you know it, but almost a year to the day later, during the mental breakdown period I mentioned above, I was sitting on the toilet with a positive pregnancy test in my hand. I immediately sent the below text to my husband.

I had problems conceiving our first child because I’d stopped ovulating. I had to try really hard to get pregnant the second time as well. In the past year, I’d been tracking my cycles to avoid pregnancy and, not to toot my own horn, but I had become something of an an expert on cervical mucus (WTF science? That stuff is kind of gross.) My husband and I barely even saw each other, let alone had sex. The chances of conception were seriously slim to none. But then, all it takes is that ONE TIME-something I’d been told since middle school health class but didn’t believe until that moment sitting on the toilet. One night I went to a friend’s DoTerra party and drank 2/3 of a growler that I didn’t know was 9% ABV. I walked home feeling quite amorous, and that was all it took.

Over the next 6 months I felt such a mixture of emotions: anger, depression, fear, and most of all, guilt. The guilt damn near ate me alive. Didn’t I know how many women were struggling to get pregnant? Didn’t I understand that every baby is a miracle, and this wasn’t something bad that happened to me? Every day people are going through the anguish of losing their children, and I’m complaining about being blessed with another one? Damn, no one can tear me down like I can. I was kind of a mess. My husband tried to be supportive, but he didn’t feel the same sense of loss that I felt. He wasn’t going to be up all night, every night, nursing a newborn. His body wasn’t going to change and go through the pain of childbirth. I think, at the end of the day, my biggest issue was feeling like a fraud and a failure. I was having enough trouble just taking care of the two kids I had. Great, here comes another child for me to screw up. I was in a real negative space. I had problems connecting with the baby this time around, and I felt a lot more tired and run down, too. The transition period during my last birth had been so fast and furious compared to my first that it had been a bit scary. Honestly, I was afraid of giving birth again.

Finally, around the third trimester, things started to change. My amazing midwife, Nancy, who’d helped me give birth to my second child, and I were brainstorming different ways to make this birth feel special. My husband and I started attending a home birth support group where I could speak honestly about my negative feelings. I listened to other mothers talk about their unplanned pregnancies and how those babies changed their lives, and I felt hope.

At 36 weeks, finally embracing being pregnant! My beautiful henna belly was done by one of my best friends!

I gave birth to my baby in a birthing tub at home (Yes, I am one of THOSE people.) surrounded by twinkle lights and beautiful music with my husband and my midwife on either side. I pulled her onto my chest, and it was like something out of a dream. All of the negativity and the doubt I’d been feeling for nine months was replaced by love and light. It might sound crazy or trite, but that was truly my experience.

I was calm and smiling here at 9 cm. This was such a change from last time!

I’m not going to tell you it’s been all sunshine and unicorns shitting rainbows every moment since, but I can tell you that this baby was supposed to be here. Against all odds, I got pregnant and gave birth to this amazing soul who has helped me to finally trust myself as a mother and who helped strengthen the bond between me and my husband. She is a constant source of joy and our family wouldn’t feel like an “us” without her.

In the past, I’ve been scared to tell this story out loud to anyone who wasn’t a trusted friend. I never want Baby N to think of herself as a mistake or feel less loved than the children we planned for. However, I realized that the overall moral of this story is: Sometimes things happen to you that you don’t think you want, and they turn out to actually change your life for the better. What better lesson to teach our children, and what better way to show our girl just how special she is? She made a woman who swore she wanted no more children feel whole and strong again. She will always be our favorite surprise and our overwhelming light in this world.

This little monster adds so much love to our lives!

If any of you out there are struggling with unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, take heart. This thing that feels like a weight around your neck today may be the thing that is exactly what you need to change your life, teach you something new about yourself or, like me, it may even complete you.

I’ve never been able to completely get behind the whole “everything happens for a reason” mentality, but I do believe that there is a hidden agenda and purpose behind every unplanned pregnancy. Yes, your life is going to change, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

My advice to you is this:

1. Allow yourself time to feel those negative feelings, and don’t leave room for guilt to creep in. It is your body and your baby, and you are allowed to feel any way you want.

2. Prepare a script you can live with when well-meaning people tell you how excited you must be or how blessed you are. You’ll feel less like a fraud if you have a plan in place for what you want to say.

3. Take care of yourself. Go see a movie alone. Buy yourself your favorite food. You’re going through the worst of it right now, and you deserve to be treated well. If you don’t have someone in your life to pamper you, you should pamper yourself. Don’t let your pride get in the way.

4. Remember that these bad feelings won’t last forever. As temporary as this pregnancy is, sadness, grief and guilt are just as temporary. You’ll feel like yourself again soon.

During tough times, this SATC moment always speaks to me.

Parenthood is no joke. Sometimes things happen that feel like more than you can handle, but those moments that take you way out of your comfort zone are important. Those are the opportunities for growth or for learning who you really are. Just keep going, keep showing up and keep loving yourself. You’ve got this!

🙂 Erin

After generally being lazy all of last week while we were in the mountains, my big kids were back at summer camp yesterday morning from a gorgeous 9 am to 4 pm (what?!! oh yeah!). As awesome, and oh so peaceful, as this has been for me and Baby N, this means that they come home tired, hungry and whinier than I thought humanly possible. It also means I spend most of my time with them yelling: Eat your breakfast! Put on your shoes! Hurry up! For God’s sake, put the Pokemon cards down!

As they whined and complained for the duration of our twenty minute drive home from camp yesterday, mostly about how hungry they were, I became increasingly frustrated, ok, I was straight up pissed off. What did they expect me to do? My husband had just cleaned out the van, so there were no snacks to be had, and I was in the middle of the highway. I started to realize that my kids are almost always ravenous at the worst possible moments.

This is what a HANGRY boy looks like.

My Kids Are Always Hungry:

At 5:00 am on a Saturday-Didn’t I just spend the entire week dragging you out of bed at 6:45? GAH, WHY??

At the start of every grocery trip-Can I get this sugary crap, Mom?? Please! Please! Please!

1 minute after leaving the house-But Mom, why didn’t you just know that I wanted a banana?

Any time we pass a Five Guys-This one I have to give to them. I get it.

2 minutes before needing to catch the school bus-Mom, I need one more piece of chocolate bread or I will die!

When returning home from a potluck at 9:00 pm-Hello, you just left a house full of food!

After hearing only the first bar of the ice cream truck’s jingle-It’s completely Pavlovian.

15 minutes after bedtime-Last night, my son NEEDED a pickle with his entire being at 9 pm. WTF?

And my personal favorite, When I’ve just sat down to eat my own (insert any and all meals here)-EVERY DAMN TIME!

And they’re so dramatic about it. I live here. I know that they’re fed three solid meals, plus snacks, every day. Most of the time I have to get on them to eat these meals, only for them to complain of their overwhelming huger two hours later. I have a feeling I’m not alone in this. Please share your kids’ most annoying hungry times or food habits in the comments. Some day we’ll be able to sit down and eat a meal again, uninterrupted, and we’ll probably even miss those punks, but not today. Good luck with your little monsters and keep on keeping on!

🙂 Erin

Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by your to do lists? Do you feel that when you accomplish one thing, three more things come up to take its place? Good lord, I feel like this often. Especially when my kids are at home with me ALL. WEEK. LONG.

Here’s the way I see it going in my head: We have no where to be and nothing to do this week! I’m going to get so much done! Today, I’ll clean and organize the kids’ rooms and declutter the playroom. Then, I’ll weed and fertilize my garden and cook a healthy well-balanced meal for my family. There will be plenty of time for baths and we’ll end the day reading and snuggling together.

Brutal Reality: It’s 6 o’clock and my only accomplishments are that I’ve managed to feed my children and no one has died….yet. Baby N won’t let me put her down, so organizing and decluttering will have to wait. I did spend a few minutes in the garden, but only to hide in it when my children wouldn’t stop whining. I just fed them bowls of peanut butter and pretzels for dinner and my plan is to let them sit in front of the TV until it’s time for bed.

When B was a newborn and I was crying to my mom about feeling like a failure for never getting anything done, she gave me some really helpful advice. She told me to write down all of the things I had done that day, no matter how small. If that day the list read: kept the baby fed and drank wine, that was enough. It’s easy to get hung up on all the things we haven’t done. You can feel the stress building to a point where you almost don’t know where to start. When I started turning my focus to the things I had accomplished each day, I could feel a major shift in my stress level. Yes, I still had a ton of things to do, but it helped me to note that I wasn’t the total slacker doofus I’d thought I was.

Nobody’s perfect and we just can’t do it all. I know there are images everywhere trying to tell us that it’s possible. We’ve all seen those parents that just make it look so easy, whether in real life, on Facebook or on television. The truth is: They’re all full of shit. I’m just going to keep doing the best I can day after day and you should too! Keep in mind that some days our best won’t be that great, and that’s ok. Now I’m going to go give myself a hug, and I suggest you do the same!

🙂 Erin

This afternoon, B, my seven year old, was in a play to end his two week theater camp. It was adorably hilarious, as only a play starring six and seven year olds can be! During the play, he said all of his lines on cue. He even did all of the dance moves to the opening song. He danced a bit like Elaine Benes, but that’s not the point!

Six years ago, when he was still a toddler, I wouldn’t have imagined anything like this afternoon was possible. As a baby, B was the one that I had to put in a pack and play during baby playdates at our house because the stimulation of multiple moms and babies was just too much for him. When he was a toddler, I took him to music class and story time at the library, as most of us do with our first borns, and he would just sit there, wander off, cry, etc. He would never do what all the other toddlers were doing. By the time he was three, he was also severely anxious and pathologically cautious of being sick, of falling down, of spiders, of loud noises, of mascots in costume. I could go on for a while.

By the time he started preschool, it was clear that he had some auditory processing issues. that made it hard for him to communicate with other kids his age. He was still mostly playing alone or possibly with one friend who was awesomely quirky in her own way.  He marched to the beat of his own drummer. As his mother, I loved his creativity and his different way of being in the world. I loved his big heart and his sincerity and innocence. However, I constantly worried about what the future would hold for my quirky boy. Would he be accepted? Would he ever make friends? Would he be happy? As a serious rule-follower and social butterfly, it was hard for me to see that, though he was very different from his father and me, he was going to be just fine. More than fine, he is perfect and amazing. He is one of a kind.

Savor your quirky babes! Before you know it they’ll be getting off the school bus, already done with the first grade!

Today B is an almost second grader. When he walks into his camp, all of his friends and counselors yell, “Hey, Ben!”, and his face lights up. He is still thoughtful and quiet, but he is thriving in school, and he is a friend to everyone. He walks onto a stage to perform in front of a room full of adults, climbs up to the top of a rock climbing wall or says hello to a new person with the same sweet intensity and admirable bravery. He has a strong sense of social justice and wisdom in his big blue eyes. I am so proud to get to call him my son. I wish I wouldn’t have spent all those years so worried, wishing he was like everyone else, wishing he was less than what he is. If your child is a little different, If they keep you up at night worrying, just keep loving them and showing up every day. You are what they need, and it’s going to be ok.

Love,

Erin

Side note: If you think your child has sensory or auditory processing difficulties that are interfering with their daily life and yours, I have some great local resources and book recommendations for you. Feel free to contact me.

Let me start by saying, I love astronaut ice cream hard! I’ve been obsessed with it since early childhood and, now that I’m an adult, (debatable) I buy it whenever I see it somewhere. When I was newly pregnant with my third kid, I craved it pretty consistently.  I’m not proud to admit that I dragged my then two and four year old to visit the Virginia Aviation Museum more than three times that summer simply because they sold that liquid gold! Why I didn’t just order it on Amazon, you ask? God knows what was going on in that pregnant brain of mine. The kids did get to sit in an awesome antique plane, so it wasn’t a total loss for them.

Anyway, fast forward to three years later where I continue to shame my family. Today, I have not only decided to eat the 6 month old astronaut ice cream that I bought for my kids for Hanukkah as part of an ice cream themed night, I have just actively hid it from my son’s view when he went to look for a dessert after dinner. Yes, that’s right. If you’re feeling bad about your abilities as a parent tonight, at least you’re not hiding and later stealing a present from your kids that you bought! I may not be mother of the year today, but I gets my astronaut ice cream! My precious……

🙂 Erin

Side Note: The Virginia Aviation Museum closed in June 2016. You’ll have to have your astronaut ice cream needs fulfilled elsewhere.

1. “Hurry up! We’re late for camp pick-up again!”
2. “When can I be done with learning time?”
3. “Penis is just a body part. It’s not that funny!”
4. “Can I have a playdate/sleepover? Please, please, please, please!!”
5. “What would you like for breakfast?” followed by V, the five year old saying, “What do we have?” every damn day! BTW, the answer is, the same things we’ve had every day for the last five years!!
6. “Everyone go watch The Magic School Bus and don’t talk to me for ten minutes!”
7. “Close the screen door! You’re letting in all the flies!”
8. “You guys are killing me!” followed by B, the 7 year old saying, “No we’re not literally killing you, mom.” Pipe down, smart ass!
9. “You have to at least put on some underwear!”
10. “Why must you wake up at 5:00 am every summer day, but struggle to get up by 6:30 every school day??! GO BACK TO BED!

Can anyone relate to these? What are your most commonly heard phrases right now? I feel like my kids have been home for months, not just weeks. This is why we need a schedule! As I type this, the big two are actually playing school peacefully! B is giving V a spelling test. He just had her spell the word penis. I’m picking my battles.

🙂 Erin