End of the longest summer ever

My kiddos are home!!! After 10 weeks (77 days) apart, I FINALLY have my oldest two back home. Ever since we moved across the country, my ex-husband's summer visitation jumped from alternate weeks to 10 weeks straight. This was INCREDIBLY difficult for me. Prior to this, I had never been apart from my kids for longer than the 1.5 weeks he usually got after Christmas. So it was a rough summer. A lonely and quiet summer. I mean, I still had the little girls of course but they're so young still and they don't do much. And with their alternating nap schedules, it's not worth the hassle. But now my big kids are home!

In June, I flew them from Virginia to California and we flew out a few days early. I get the first week after school lets out and the last week before school resumes so I took a few of my days and we spent them with my side of the family in California. He picked up the kids from my mom's house and they were excited to see him but he (as usual) showed little emotion and gave them the same sort of hello he might offer to a cashier at 7-11. My oldest, Adrianna (who was 6 at the time) clung to me and cried, whispering that she didn't want to go. My son (who is 5) was less affected by his dad's monotone hello. I encouraged her to go to him and reminded her of all the family she would see soon and how much fun she would have. Outside I was smiling. Inside, my heart was breaking. I wanted to wrap them in my arms and refuse to let them go. He looked like he could care less of he saw them and I was fighting all my maternal instinct to hold them close. But, I said a quick prayer and asked for strength and ushered them out to his mom's car. I helped them into the car, made sure they had their lovies and backpacks. Again, Adrianna begged me not to make her go and I felt terrible that she felt like I was forcing her but I had no choice. Luke started to break down when he realized it was really time to go and as usual, my ex left me to do the comforting and parenting as he sat in the car.  I kept my game face on until they got in and were buckled and walked back into my parents house and bawled my eyes out.

Fast forward 77 days and I had them back in my arms. My sweet angels. I love them so much!

I have a hard time coming up with catchy headlines

Since there's no theme to this blog (I'm not a photographer so I can't use my my recent subject matter, nor do I only write about one topic i.e. politics, or music so I can't use the names of bills or albums, etc.), I have a hard time coming up with "titles" for each blog. So forgive me for that. 

We all have someone who we look up to, admire, strive to be like and who we can spend hours with. As you can guess from my last post, that is a short list for me (not counting kids or my husband). A list consisting of one person: My grandma, Florence. She's amazing. She's kind, compassionate, intelligent, wise, loving, faithful, God-fearing, dedicated, and she's the only person in my family and my whole life really, who has been there for me since the day I came into this world. She held me before my own father did. He felt a cigarette was more demanding at the time. She has always told me that when she held me she looked at me and said "Well, it's you and me kid" since there wasn't a whole lot to be said for my meth addicted mom who didn't want to have a child in the first place. She stuck around until I was 4 but her friends felt like I was interfering with her life and I suppose peer pressure can still be highly effective at 29 if you let it. So when my dad took over for my mom, my grandma (who is his mother) had me a lot. She is the reason I know how to love my own kids. Because my parents certainly didn't teach me that. 

I ended up going into foster care at 6 and she took me for a year when I was 6/7 but to be honest, between the ADD and my general angry-at-the-world attitude (what foster kid isn't to some degree?) I was a bit of a handful for my grandfather (who is actually my step grandfather and doesn't really like young kids) and my great-grandma Louise. So she reluctantly put me back into the system but she never left me. She visited me often, no matter what part of San Diego county I bounced around to, took me for weekends and holidays and my birthday, wrote me letters and sent me gifts and called a few times a week. Then she moved to a rinky-dink island in the south Pacific due to my grandfathers job and letters and phone calls became all we had.That didn't stop her though. She wrote me letters and told me the ways of life living on an island 1 mile wide and 2 miles long. No cars. Just bikes. Then eventually, they moved back. Then they moved to Yuma. And back again. Through it all, she made sure I knew I wasn't alone. 

My grandma is the reason I am a Christian. She has followed Christ and gone to church since before I was born. She started taking me when I was 3 and she had me on a weekend. Growing up, I wasn't really into "the God thing" and while I always believed in God, I had no desire to live a life full of rules, can-nots and judgement (in that I didn't want to be judged every time I did something "un-Christian). Funny thing is, it doesn't have to be that way and my grandma showed me that.  The only "rule" she lives by is to follow Christ and the rest sorts itself out. She does what she wants, when she wants and she's quite stubborn. But with Christ as the center of her life, obviously she's not out getting smashed or writing bad checks. She attends church and home fellowship weekly. She makes BEAUTIFUL quilts for people for gifts. She reads the Bible every morning and all the way through each year. She serves on mission trips and used to do a lot of outreach. And she's certainly loved me unconditionally over the years, no matter what. I have done some stupid things in my life and she never stopped loving me, though I did get a few lectures. She has always loved me, for me. People just LOVE her. She makes friends everywhere she goes, she is quite the social butterfly at church and she's had some of the same friends for YEARS. Longer than my 29. Our family loves her. She's very close to all of us in her own way. She has a designated room at my cousin's house in Las Vegas. She has a special relationship with my cousin, her "shell". She adores my kids, her great grand kids. She is an amazing person and one day, I hope people love, respect and care for me the way they do for her. 

We used to just sit around and talk. She would tell me about my childhood. Or her childhood. Or where she was when JFK was shot or how she used to curl her hair back in the 1960's. She taught me how to sew and the only quilt I've ever made was with her. She instilled in me good habits. Like drinking a lot of water, not turning on a car until all the seat belts are buckled, reading my Bible, the love of books. I LOVE to read. Which I credit her for. She started reading to me as an infant and my very first trip to a library was when I was 4 and she took me. She taught me how to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches, which I have passed on to all my kids and I still eat regularly. She taught me how to flip pancakes, that it's ok to cry over "Land Before Time" when you're 8 and that you're never too old for Winnie-the-Pooh. She taught me how to paint my nails, and do puzzles. And she taught me that it's ok to be upset with God when tragedy happens, because she had suffered through her own fair share. 

Well, it wasn't a tragedy in that it was final but when my loving grandma had a debilitating stroke on her flight back from Scotland in September of 2012, it was tragic.  Without going into all the details (because frankly, I don't want to relive them) my grandma suffered a stroke that had her in ICU for 3 weeks under heavy sedation to alleviate swelling in her brain, then in a rehab center and finally home but left her paralyzed on her right side, in a wheelchair, and unable to speak. As of this writing, she has regained the strength to stand and take a few steps with assistance and her speech improves daily, though 80% is still incoherent and she is still paralyzed on the right side. So it's a good thing she's left handed. 

This tore me up. I was scared and angry. SO ANGRY with God, and the pilot who didn't land the plane right away (she had the stroke roughly 2 hours outside of San Diego but there were other air ports), whoever it was on the ground that decided this wasn't a big enough emergency to warrant an emergency landing, her doctor who allowed her to go off her blood thinners (as a result of a previous mild stroke a year earlier), and basically anyone who I could be angry at. For a moment, I was even angry with her for requesting to be taken off the blood thinners (she didn't like that she bruised so easily). But that only lasted a second. 

So I turned on God. I ranted and raved. I was mad and angry. And I had never had much of a prayer life before this and now I had one, an angry one. There wasn't a lot of thanks in those prayers. I didn't feel like I had much to thank him for. I was wrong obviously, but didn't see it at the time and was struggling to see outside the little box of anger I was drowning in. It took me a while but I came around and turned to the one person that my grandma had taught me to turn to in times of need: Jesus. 

Today, I am a Christian and I live my live to please God. I am happier than I've ever been. My grandma has raised me to love Jesus and for years I rebelled against that. I felt like by living a "goody two shoes" life, I would miss out on something. Nope. So after her stroke, I did the typical thing and prayed the standard "If you save my grandma, I promise to go to church and read my bible more" prayer. I bargained, even though I knew that was NOT the way The Lord worked. BUT He did save my grandma! She is not quite the same, but she is still here. She knows who we are, she gives us hugs and kisses and still understands everything we say. And as her speech gradually comes back, she tells us she loves us. 

My grandma passed on the greatest gift to me and that is the love of Jesus. I have a happier life and marriage because when The Lord saved my grandma, I kept my word. I started going to church regularly and reading the Bible. In the beginning it felt like a chore with a side of bio homework. But soon, I began to look forward to Sundays and I started reading beyond my schedule reading plan each day. And I enjoyed reading the Bible to my grandma when she was in the hospital and rehab. 

The greatest gift my grandma gave me was unconditional love. She loved me the way Jesus loves us. The second greatest gift she gave me was the knowledge of Christ from a young age. And in 2 days, I get to see her! 

 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

-Proverbs 22:6

Day 1

There's nothing fancy here. I am not starting this blog as a means to financially contribute to our household income (thought I'd feel quite talented if I could) nor to express my thoughts to a wide audience. What is here is not that interesting (though Anne Frank felt the same way and we all know how that book turned out!). I am a mom. A Stay-At-Home-Mom. Which I love dearly most days. And other days, like the last two, I am quite jealous of my husband that gets to leave this house for 9 hours a day. 

I used to write in high school to relieve stress and just to get my thoughts out because there were so many jumbled up in my head. But that was back when I had plenty of time to myself and I didn't own a laptop of my own. While I considered keeping an "old school" pen and paper journal, I figured this was a more realistic option. Less clutter. Anyone with one kid (let alone 4) knows I have enough of that to go around and then some so I don't need any more. And I have a whole box in our shed of journals from my youth. I started at 13 and stopped at 22. It's a full box. Some I like to reread. Others I've considered burning in the hopes that my kids will never read them. So all this will be is my thoughts, vents and whatever else tumbles out. I don't know how often I'll get to it but I figure it will be at least somewhat therapeutic when I do.

Stargazer lilies and Yoga are two of my favorite things. Hence the title. Sorry, I'm not all that creative. 

In one week my whole family will be back together again. My older two now spend 10 weeks each summer in California, with my ex-husband and his wife and family. As a result of my husband's naval career, we moved to Norfolk, Virginia in April 2013. 2700 miles away from home (San Diego, CA) and their dad. The courts felt this was best. I disagree with such a huge chunk right away but not my choice so between prayer and patience, I've made it through the summer. But not without feeling like part of me was missing. But my husband was deployed for 7 months between June '12-January '13 so I suppose it's not the longest separation I've been through. However, being apart from my adult, self-sufficient (mostly) husband is a tad different than my 6 and 5 year old. But I don't have a choice and moping won't change it so I'm learning to cope. I also have a 22 month old and a 6 month old to keep me busy. And boy, do they. Allison is my 22 month old and she's a hoot. She gets into everything and is pretty advanced everywhere except speech. Which, while I'm a tad concerned, is kind of nice because she has yet to hit the nonstop chatter part of toddler-hood. Buuuuut she makes up for it in other ways. McKenna is my 6 month old. Who is teething. And refuses to self soothe. Or sleep a normal amount. And can most accurately be described a stage 5 clinger with a cute grin and red hair. From those fragmented sentences, I can see this blog may not be my best exhibit of my honors English grades in high school and college. Oh well. I'm not here to impress anyone, or earn a grade. :) 

I have ADD. As a result, I switch topics often, with no warning. I ramble. I don't always make sense and if you know me in person, I talk a lot and tend to dominate the conversation. I don't do it on purpose. My brain just goes a mile a minute and I can't get it to shut up. Which is what I like about yoga. I really have to focus on my breathing (I'm a really impatient person) which takes all of my brain power so it can't focus on much else. I'm kind of a crappy listener but each day I strive to be better at it. I'm organized and disorganized at the same time. I forget everything if it's not written down, WHERE I can see it. The old adage "out of sight, out of mind" is me to a T. I often put things away and then can't find them again because whatever thought process I had at the time I stored it, doesn't make sense to me when I go to find it so I can't remember where I put it and since it's not visible, I'm really up a tree. I'm also a perfectionist with a terrible temper. These are my least favorite qualities about myself. Daily struggles. I function a lot better with medicine but as a mom who is still nursing a baby, that's not an option right now. But as soon as it is, I'll get back on them. 

I'm in burn out mode. McKenna is cutting her first tooth and either has been for 3 weeks now OR has decided that she is a special kind of infant that doesn't need much sleep to function. We co-sleep/bedshare which works for me as far as night time goes. I like having her all snuggled up next to me. Plus, I'm a big fan of not getting out of bed for nighttime feedings. In fact, I'm not even fully awake for them. I feel her wiggle, I latch her on, I go back to sleep and wake up the next time she wiggles. But during the day I NEED her to nap. I NEED her to overlap with Allison at least for a short time. I NEED time to breathe and total silence. 
That has NOT happened more than 1-2 times in the last 3 weeks. Mostly, I'm an AP (attachment parenting) mom. And "crunchy" by loose definition. I cloth diaper. I co-sleep. I babywear to a limited degree. I breastfeed exclusively and won't stop just because we celebrate a first birthday. I try to make as much as I can from scratch (which started out as a budget friendly endeavor before it became a health conscious process), and I enjoy all of it-most days. Today, is NOT one of those days. 

For many years, I thought I was an extrovert. 
Dictionary.com defines an extrovet as: an outgoing, gregarious person. Basically, someone who thrives off being around others and finds feeds off the energy of others.

Definitely, NOT me. Turns out, I was wrong. I read an article about attachment parenting and why it didn't work for this particular mom.  I was trying to figure out why as much as I love it and the theory of AP, I hate it at the same time and find it very draining. She stated because she's an introvert. Which got me thinking. Because the way she described herself sounded just like me. Read the article here if you'd like. I CRAVE time to myself. I like solitary activities like reading, yoga, crocheting, cooking. Granted the last two can be done in a social setting, I prefer to do them alone or with only 1-2 other people. I don't like big parties, I like small get togethers. Bars, clubs, concerts, parties, command picnics (since the Navy dictates our lives) and big churches overwhelm me and usually leaving me looking for an excuse to bail out. I just always figured because I was a social person (I'll talk to anyone with a pulse, anywhere) that automatically meant I was an extrovert. Nope. Just means I'm an introvert who has a social side. Even at a party, I like to stand in the corner and talk to 1-2 people rather than a whole crowd or have everyone stare at me. I don't like like attention, or everyone staring at me. I DESPISE public speaking and almost took a failing grade in college because I didn't want to do the final project which entailed standing in front of 30+ people discussing a challenge I had overcome in my life. I don't like talking on the phone. I will text or email anytime I can. I have a select few people I can gab with for hours but not many. I'm very open and outspoken on Facebook but that's because it's online. I choose who I want to interact with and anytime I'm overwhelmed, I simply log out and go back when I feel like it. In fact,  IF you take my ADD out of the equation, I'd be a total introvert. The ADD causes the constant stream of chatter, lack of thinking before speaking, temper and inability to listen verses speaking. This was my AH-HA moment. So then I figured, I'd google and see if my theory was correct. I looked up the qualities of both. This first search confirmed my theory, definitely an introvert. While I was googling, (spell check has a red line under 'googling' but they need to get with the times. Googling should be a word! We all do it!) some articles linked to simple 10-15 question quizzes that would tell me on which side of the social fence I fell. I took a few out of curiosity. They all said roughly the same thing: I'm an introvert with a limited social side (in that I am social and do well in the environment but in limited doses and locations). HUH. THAT made me sit and mull over it for a while. I felt like I had been pounding at a wall for hours and finally knocked a hole in it. It's not all the way down as I have yet to figure out a solution for my problem but at least I now know what my problem is. 

In a way, I feel like an idiot though. I was just ranting to my husband yesterday afternoon about the other issue that's been weighing me down and that is the lack of friends I have since we moved across the country. I kept going on and on about how it's hard for me to be home with the kids all day because I need social interaction and yet I kept saying, I just wanted ONE friend. ONE person that had enough in common with me that I didn't have to feel like part of me wasn't accepted. I often fall in an awkward space between my Christian friends (where the girl in me who loves a good NASCAR race, a few ice cold beers, a wild Luke Bryan concert, occasionally slips up and says a curse word when angry and likes a crude Larry the Cable Guy set) is mildly offensive and my redneck friends (who think the part of me that reads the Bible almost daily, attends church weekly, prays every day and posts Bible verses on my Facebook)  is too goody-goody. I have a friend like that somewhat local (if you count 1.5 hours as local) and we try to get together once a month, or more. We send our gun-loving husbands off to blow stuff up on an widespread ranch and we hang out and mind the kids and talk about our similar lives. I LOVE those days. They don't happen enough. But As I replay yesterdays conversation (read: hormonally charged rant-fest that my loving husband endured willingly) in my head, I realize I kept repeating the same phrase over and over: I just need time to myself and time to breathe! I need ME time more than I need social time. That should have been my big light bulb moment. But sometimes, I'm a little late to the party. Which in real life, I hate doing because then everyone stares at me and I get incredibly self-conscious. 

I forgot to add that my ah-ha moment came to me this morning when I deactivated my Facebook. I tend to open my big mouth and vent in that little status box a little too often. And not because I have nowhere else to put my thoughts, but because sometimes, on a BAD DAY, it's just nice for someone else to say "Hey, I've been there". But last week, it was brought to my attention (in a not-so-nice way) that it comes off as complaining to some and lately, I do it a little too often. So this morning, I decided (after posting my whiny status unfortunately) that I was going to take a break. I have a few friends on my list that complain incessantly and it can be a downer at times. In my case, some days it's my only outlet because I'm with the kids all day and I don't have anyone that I can talk to face to face. But an effort to NOT burden my friends with a constant whine session, I decided to take a break and not log back in until I had figured out my problem and possibly a solution. 

The "problem" is I am an introvert who needs time and space to herself to breathe but I am also a SAHM with an infant who feels like she just can't function unless she is attached to me. 

 

While taking one of the aforementioned quizzes, one of the questions was something along the lines of "Do you enjoy writing to express your feelings?" My first inclination was to check No. But I thought about it and remembered all the times I've written letters to a person when I have something I need to say that I feel is important.  And I don't want it to come off as a jumbled, scrambled mess. While my impulsivity hinders my ability to think before speaking, writing allows me to edit and refine it before delivering it to it's intended recipient. But in recent years (the last 7 or so) I've had little time to myself to shower and pee alone, much less write. But it's so soothing to me. I'm already about much calmer now, than I was when I started this. When I opened my laptop I had just snuck out of my bedroom after nursing McKenna down AGAIN and I was stressed, hungry and felt like ripping my hair out and had no desire to be near her for a while. Yet, she just woke up and I can her babbling and squealing over the monitor and I want to go snuggle her and cover her with kisses. Quite a 180 from how I felt an hour ago. Perhaps it was just having the time to myself. Maybe it was the writing. Maybe it was both? I'm not sleep deprived, which is usually cause for mommies turning into monsters. I'm silence deprived? ME deprived? Does that even make sense. It does but the wording sounds funny. lol.

Either way, I know that writing out all these thoughts definitely helped in some way. So, twelve paragraphs later, the reason for this blog and what sparked it have finally come out. See what I mean about rambling and tangents? I suppose God will always open our eyes in his own ways. I sure have been praying for peace and strength a lot lately. Not that those desires wouldn't be aligned with His will, but clearly he had plans to open my eyes first. So now, I just need to pray for guidance for a solution. Or, even just a coping method for the time being. 

My perfectionism tends to throw a kink in that though. I'll explain that connection another day. There are cute little baby cheeks to be devoured. <3