I'm baack...

Hi y'all. I'm back. Not that I really went away; I had a self-imposed blog-break. Why, Melanie? Why have you not been writing your fabulous blog posts for us? Listen, I am not that self-important enough to think that any of you are thinking this. I write because writers have to write. It is just kind of how it is. Artists gotta do their art thing. Athletes have to move and be active. Writers gotta write. I cannot have this self-imposed silence any longer. So I am just going to come out with it and say it and then we can move on to bigger, better, more exciting topics.  Okay? Okay.

Over the past year I had come to the realization that the changes that needed to happen in order for my marriage to be successful were not going to happen. I stayed until I could no longer stay. In April, I moved with my daughter to my parent's house just a few miles down the road. I am currently in the process of a divorce. I was waiting for it to be final to share this information, but I have no idea how long that is going to take and as I said before, I have to write!

I do not intend on writing about the ins and outs of my situation here, as it is not appropriate. However, you may find a post or two about parenting through divorce, or being newly-single at the age of 39.

Know that I am doing well. I am strong and so is Lilly. In fact, I am realizing just how strong we both are. This does not mean that I do not have meltdowns and "wtf happened to my life" moments. I have amazing family and friends who immediately stepped up to the plate to help however and whenever I needed. I have had some really, really difficult moments. I have cried more in the past few months than I have in years. At the same time, my daily stress levels are lower. Lilly is doing extremely well, especially given the circumstances. She has outbursts and moments, but she has a fast recovery time and I am using them as teaching moments about managing her emotions and self-regulation.

So. Thanks for your patience, understanding, and support. I hope to be writing with some degree of regularity now. I will leave you with a few pictures so you can see that Lilly and I? We are doing just fine, my friends.

Happiness Selfie with Lilly

Springtime Sprinkler Fun

Moving Day Motivation, "This is Strong."

How to take a relaxing bath...or not!

Last Friday night I decided that I wanted to take a hot bath.  I was feeling a bit stressed and just needed to feel that hot water sooth and relax my muscles.  I have always loved baths but somehow it is hard to find the time these days.  What transpired after the decision to take a bath was made was either going to make me laugh or cry.  I decided on a good laugh (more stress relief) and thought you might like it, too.  Enjoy!

How to Take A Bath
Decide to take a bath and walk into the bathroom. 
Hear 5 year-old crying for Momma.
Calm her down and put her back to sleep.  Realize that running the water in the tub will keep her awake.
Go to sleep instead.
Wake up to aforementioned child crying again.  Bring her into your bed.

Next evening decide to take a bath, again.
Make sure the cat is in the bathroom so he doesn't meow outside the door and wake the child.
Put a moisturizing fascial mask on to soak in while you are bathing. Smart multitasking!
Get into bath and allow the hot water to envelope you and relax your muscles.
Close your eyes and lean back. 
Feel the furry tail of the cat pull all the way across your face, leaving cat hair in the moisturizing mask.
Sigh and take mask off with warm washcloth.
Close eyes and lean back again.  Remember that bathtub is barely long enough for 5 year-old, let alone 5'11" grown woman.  Attempt to relax anyway.
Get scared out of your mind when the door bursts open.  Wish your bathroom door locked.
Try to shoo dog out.  Be satisfied that she stops whining so she doesn't wake 5 year-old.
Diffuse potentially tricky situation between cat and dog in small bathroom space while still in the tub.
Realize bathroom door is now wide open.  
Feel freezing cold air coming in.  Give up on relaxing hot bath.
Get out of bath and immediately get rubbed on by cat on the left leg and the dog on the right, leaving long orange and white hairs and short gray hairs on each respective leg.  
sigh....

Increase my qi?

I had acupuncture today.  I know some people have mixed feelings about it, but I just love it.  It has helped me with asthma, gastro/digestive issues, and stress relief. I am going now for pain relief, namely that damn plantar fasciitis that won't seem to go away.  In both feet.

Today I went for the 2nd time to a different practice/practitioner.  My insurance covers them, so that's a bonus.  I also had the most stressful days today at work.  I can't even tell you why it was more stressful than most days.  I realized afterward that I had an anxiety attack and then the rest of the day I was feeling tense and on the verge of tears.

I went home and changed my clothes and went to acupuncture.  Roye, my practitioner, could tell that my qi was low, especially compared to last week.  As she started to needle me I felt an overwhelming sense of energy surging through me.  And then the emotions, and tears, released.  It felt never ending but was probably only about 5 minutes.   She kept her hands on me and talked me through some deep breathing.  The rest of the acupuncture session proceeded and I walked out with a little less pain and hopefully increased qi.

It occurred to me that I need to really start some kind of something to help me manage stress and just for me.  I keep saying I am going to start meditating and I begin for a few days.  It always fizzles out.  I think it is time again to incorporate meditation into my life. I have been doing a little yoga, but I think I need to do both...regular yoga and meditation.

I am open to hearing from you about your yoga and meditation practice.  Or maybe your acupuncture experience?  How do you handle stress?  Talk to me...what works for you?

It's (not) my party and I'll cry if I want to...

Sometimes I have a lot on my mind about which I would love to blog.  But then I remember that I can be an over-sharer.  (ahem, last Friday evening....sorry girls.)  I also remember that people actually read this sometimes, for which I am grateful, but makes writing everything that pops into my head a bad idea.

Here is a subject that I tossed around in my head for a bit, wondering if I should write about it or not.  By default (too many other taboo topics) it won.  Hooray!  Let's talk about birthday parties.  I love a good birthday party.  Growing up we had great birthday parties.  Epic even.  They were at home, the food and cake was homemade and we gave out goody bags containing hard tootsie rolls and impossible to do plastic maze things in which the tiny metal ball could not get into the only partially punched out hole.  And by we, I mean my generation, not necessarily my family, though we had some great ones.

We are in a season of birthdays right now and I have never felt more inferior than I have about these darn parties.  Seriously, they are beautiful and fun and I wish I could throw one for Lilly.  She was in heaven at the last one at Parteaz.  They make me a little sad and a little upset that I cannot do something similar.

Or am I?  I have had 3 birthday parties for Lilly, all at home, but all much bigger than originally conceptualized. Truthfully, we cannot afford an expensive birthday party this year.  Also, throwing birthday parties at my house make me super stressed out.  I spend more money than planned, boss everyone around and I sweat like crazy.  Not an attractive look, let me tell you.  And, for instance, if I threw a tea party at this place, I would still have to host a family birthday party.

And in case you did not know, Lilly's birthday is May 7th, mine is May 9th and Mother's Day generally falls somewhere around there too.  Yeah, crazy.  In fact for the first two years/birthday parties, they were held on my birthday and then Mother's Day was the next day.  At first I didn't really mind, who needs birthdays anyway.  But the older I get the more I think I should celebrate my birthday.  I am going to be 37 dammit! Get me a freaking buttercream cake!  Or any other cake from Natale's Bakery.

Here is my plan for this year:  See the in-laws in PA at their house to celebrate Lilly's birthday and Mother's Day at some point on some weekend.  (After my father-in-law's recent illness, I think it is easiest for him.)  See my family, most of who live much closer, on another day and have pizza and cake.  Bring cupcakes and maybe goodie bags to school - always fun times.  And the weekend before her birthday we are going to spend some time with her 2 BFFs who happen to be brother and sister.  We will do a playdate thing together, dads included, and have a great time.  Less money, less stress, but more good times.  We have many years of birthdays ahead of us when I will be able to spend lots of money that I will then have. And we will thoroughly enjoy the beautiful parties to which we are invited! But oh, what a beautiful fairy princess my Lilly makes...

Lilly and the birthday princess

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Inner Strength

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living

Sometimes in our lives we need to have inner strength beyond what we believe possible.  I realized today just how strong I am.  I have an inner strength that will get me through this phase of my life, no matter what happens.  I know it.  I am owning it.

I cannot take credit for this all by myself.  I have a great support system of women helping me keep up that inner strength: the women with whom I work, my friends (my besties!), and the strongest of all, my mom.

My dad and brothers have also been an incredible source of strength for me.  My in-laws have been wonderful.

Warning: Philosophy major ahead...

What is happiness, exactly?   How do we know we are happy?   Do people in other countries have happiness as a goal in life?  And what does their happiness look like?  Sometimes I wonder if we think too hard about being happy, attach too much importance to it. I don't mean that we can't be happy or even strive to have happiness in our life, whatever that means.  Nobody wants to be unhappy.  But maybe it should not be a goal in life.

I know that I have said at different times in my life that, "I just want want to be happy."  But let's look at that.  What that really means is that something in my life is not working for me at this point.  It could be a job, a family situation, a relationship, a money situation.   Say I change that situation.  Will I be happy then?  I don't believe so.  We have to be "happy" or at peace within ourselves or nothing else will seem good.  Everything will be problematic if we do not have inner peace.

Very recently I have been made aware of a few situations in which someone died suddenly.  I am reminded to live life and don't hold back.  Love fully and completely.  Have no regrets.  This to me is more meaningful than being happy.  One of my recent decisions is to live my life in spite of the crappy stuff that might be going on.  I am making another goal to strive for inner peace in the midst of life-chaos.

In the past I have started to learn the practice of meditation but failed to make the time for it after the first few weeks.  It is time to make the time.  Can I have inner peace without acceptance?  Can I have acceptance without self-awareness?  Meditation can lead to self-awareness.  Ergo, I need to make the time for meditation.

Plus, studies have shown that meditation can help lower blood pressure and reduce stress.  Win-win?  i think so...

Okay, enough rambling from me for one night.   Do you meditate?  Tell me about it...comment below!


*There are obvious situations like abusive relationships in which inner peace should not be attained just to stay with the abusive person.  I know that and do not include situations such as those in my contemplations.

tiredness

I am really tired.  Like bone-tired, can't think of how I will survive without good, solid sleep tired.  I am not sure what happened.  I think part of it, a good part, is that I am emotionally tired.  Another large part is that I think the last time I got several consecutive nights of good, solid sleep was about, um, 2.5 years ago.  Basically from the beginning of pregnancy onward it has been a struggle to get great sleep.  Now, I survive pretty well on less sleep than most people.  However I believe my limit has been reached.  I need Lilly to sleep tonight and I need to go to bed NOW!

the working mom dilemma?

I thought that being at work all day would give me the patience with Lilly when I was with her. Meaning, that since I was spending significantly less time with her, I would not lose my patience when she has a tantrum or gets overtired and cranky. This was a great thing I heard happens from other working moms. LIARS!!! Okay, not really, but I am not finding that to be true. I find that the more time I am away from her the less I am able to put up the tantrums and crankiness. Also, in the little time that I have with her each day I am also: getting ready for work in the morning, cooking dinner, packing lunches, doing laundry, trying to keep the house in order, doing homework, and oh, spending time with my precious little one.

I also think that I was more in touch with what is typical behavior when I was a SAHM. Kind of like I was conditioned to expect it.

Another thing that is MUCH harder to handle as a working mom is night-time waking. It was hard enough when I was a SAHM. Now, it is terrible. Even if I can get her back to sleep in bed with me, the rest of my night's sleep is not as good. My average bedtime is midnight, waking at 6ish. If she wakes up at 4, I only get 4 hours of good sleep and then 2 hours of mediocre sleep.

I won't even touch right now the stress between Vin and I. I knew working would make things stressful. That I have heard from friends. The money situation gets better, but not great. And every other stress factor sky rockets. I think it was surprise to him, though. I have a feeling he thought we would be on easy street once I started working. Life is never that simple.

The good news is that Lilly is really loving her daycare now. I am really getting into my position now at work. I (think) I am doing a good job and am hopefully impressing the powers to be so that I can hopefully obtain a permanent position.

I think the bottom line is that there are difficult things to handle whether you are a working mom or a SAHM. Maybe that is why there is often a battle between the two. It is really our own internal battles coming out to play. I could very easily say to a SAHM that her job is so much easier, based on my own experiences and wants and needs. But when I was a SAHM it was not easy. Money was tight to the point of being non-existent. And lets face it, it can be lonely. Thank God for social media like facebook and MOL and Mothers & More.

Anyway, if you have not guessed, I am writing this at 2am because Lilly has been awake for over an hour. After losing my patience, Vin stepped in and I needed to write to release some of this stress. Writing has always been good for my soul. I think my blood pressure has come back down to normal so wish me luck as I try to get some sleep tonight.

my life = stress

do you ever just hate your life?? life sucks right now.

Mondays

I am very overwhelmed today.  Lilly cried a lot.  She was not comforted by nursing or by being held.  I started thinking it was me.  I raised my voice when I was speaking to her.  Then I was so mad at myself for doing that.  For goodness sake she is only a baby!  The guilt!!  

I realized that I have been feeling more overwhelmed than usual.  I have gained weight.  I am just not so happy.  I am freaking exhausted.  I think that starting school, the baptism and Lilly teething all kind of combined to make it a very stressful time for me.

The question is, now what do I do?  Do I call my midwives to see if they can test my thyroid levels?  A common complaint about this time postpartum is hypothroidism.  I know "they" say to not feel alone and that you did not cause it.  But gosh darn it, it sure feels lonely over here, and like I get the award for Bad New Mom of the Year.

update:  I actually felt better only a few days later.  I cried on the shoulder of one of my great friends and veteran mom, Nicole.  She assured my that I was completely normal.  I got some sleep, somehow.  I prioritized a bit.  I let go of my need for that "A".  I realized that I probably gained weight for a few reasons, one of which is that I am actually eating.  I did not eat properly almost all summer!  I forgot to eat half the time.  No matter I was so thin!  Now I just have to work on losing it again...healthily.  Oh, and I had my thyroid checked and it was normal.