My Favorite (Latest) Julia-isms

Nuffing (nothing)
Traffic likes (traffic lights)
Sunscream (sunscreen)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Anna is 10 weeks old today!

Anna hit double digits in weeks today.

This is our last week home together.

And, Anna ROLLED OVER today!  Multiple times.  From front to back.  It was awesome!  She did it multiple times, with intention, and she even showed her daddy when he got home tonight.

What we wear to shovel rocks…

What we wear to watch movies…

Quick Trip

Adam called me at 3:30 pm to ask if I was up for a quick trip into the mountains tonight... we didn't have any plans, anything sounded better than dishes and cleaning the house, and we had hopes of it being cooler.

We originally planned to head to Granby, but due to the weather and cloud cover, we decided to head to Breckenridge instead, as we were hoping for good view in Granby and knew we wouldn't be able to see much.

I have more pictures to post from our short trip, but they are on the camera, so that will be later.  However, these were a few quick ones from Adam's iPhone. 

Due to the weather, we experienced a huge drop in temperature - we were expecting about 20 degrees difference, but were blessed with 42 degrees difference (we saw temps down to 50, but at the time, it was 51 outside in the mountains while 93 at home... this picture shows 52, but it dropped right after taking this picture).

We did go to Breckenridge.  Adam got some great shots of the girls by a little stream right before it started raining good there.  We went to Motherloaded Tavern, where we had some very tasy (and slightly expensive) "home cooking".  Fun little place, good food, and kid friendly.

On the way home we stopped in Frisco at Backcountry Brewing for a beer (I had a Coke). 

As we headed down the mountains in the van again, Adam and I saw some neat clouds right in the hills.

It seemed like you could just reach out and touch them.

Both Adam and I said that neither of us felt like we were "used to" the landscape and mountains yet.  Even after a year and a half we both still marvel at the beauty around us as we drive within an hour of where we live.  We hope we never get used to it.

Erin

Sooooo happy she is not shoveling rocks right now...

Star Spangled Lassos

Adam taught the girls The Star Spangled Banner. It's pretty impressive. And they know most of the words. But we sure had a good laugh this morning when we heard from the back seat, "o'er the lassos we watched" and "danged proof through the night".

Kids say the... *grin*


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Today

Today I received a number of emails and FB posts from friends regarding my “Math” post from last night.  I even received a phone call.  I don’t know how to say thank you to all of the people who supported what I wrote through email, FB, voicemail.  It makes being vulnerable easier, that is for sure.

Tonight, while I feel like I should respond to a number of those messages, I’m choosing to tell you about my day instead – to talk about what I did or tried today that filled me.  Hopefully in some way, this post will be a little bit of a start of a response to all of those wonderful messages. 

Before I talk about today, though, I wanted to share some key things today from different messages I received because they further explain that which I was trying to express yesterday.

“now I know it's not just me... “ – So true.  It’s hard not to feel alone sometimes when dealing with these feelings, because having a baby is a “normal” part of life and what we feel after we have a baby should be normal too, right?  But for how long?  And what really is normal?  And it’s hard to accept that maybe what we’re feeling isn’t normal.  And that we need help.  I read a statistic in the doctor’s office on Monday about the number of mothers that are suspected to have post partum depression or anxiety versus the actual number that seeks help.  I don’t remember the number, but it wasn’t good.

Another thought… I won’t copy the exact sentence, but it was akin to the fact that the more other people tell me how together I am or whatever, the harder I am on myself and the harder it is to keep it all together.

“And so what if one of them [all of the balls you’re juggling] falls once in a while ~ life won't stop as you know it.” – This is almost exactly what my therapist said yesterday.  What absolutely needs to happen today and what doesn’t.  How can you focus on taking care of yourself instead of constantly working to make everyone happy and everything perfect.  What can you let drop off your plate… maybe just for today or maybe indefinitely.  The world isn’t suddenly going to implode because you chose not to do the laundry tonight.  (Did you know that?  Because I sure didn’t.

“My answer was, 'I beat myself up for not doing something right.'” – This is me.  “Not doing something right” can be as simple as wondering whether I did enough for today and then beating myself up if I don’t think that I did.

“I need to cut myself some slack...I just don't know how” – this is exactly how I feel – I don’t know how to cut myself some slack.  Not in the least.  Today I realized just how profound yesterday’s assignment was – do something that fills you.  Focus on being nicer / less negative to myself.  Cutting myself slack.  Not focusing on being superwoman but instead focusing on finding that little bit of joy.

Which leads a bit into today.  A few weeks ago I signed up to be a chaperone for Raven’s class at daycare to go to the zoo today.  I am still on maternity leave and won’t have these sorts of opportunities going forward without using PTO, so it seemed liked a win for Raven and I to spend some quality time together.  Yes, I was going to have to bring Anna with, but at least the focus would be on Raven.

As we were rushing around this morning to not be late to daycare and Anna screamed her bum head off because one of her big sisters woke her up before she was ready to be awake, I kept saying to myself over and over again, “Let this be what fills you today, let this be what fills you today.” 

Arriving at daycare and helping prep for the trip suddenly led to Anna being left at daycare (on purpose) – the infant room ladies offered to watch her so that I could go and enjoy the day with Raven by myself.  I only had about 5 minutes to decide and had everything I needed with me for Anna as she was supposed to be along for the ride anyway, and I took the opportunity.  She’ll be going there to daycare anyway.  (She did great, by the way, and I was too busy being a chaperone with other women to a bunch of 2 year olds to worry about her!)  And suddenly I was free to enjoy a solid four hours with only my middle child – something I don’t think we’ve done for… a very long time.

And this is where my “issues” take over.  I had to choose repeatedly to enjoy today.  I constantly found myself comparing myself to the other mothers in the group – was I a good mom?  Maybe not.  Does my daughter have a mean streak right now because I’m not a good enough mom?  Maybe.  I started to berate myself… and then would catch myself.  Refocus on the day.  Refocus on the opportunity I had.  I wish I could say this only happened once but it didn’t.  It happened repeatedly.  I constantly had to bring myself back to center and remember to enjoy the time and not nit pick it.

My favorite memory of today… the lions.  Raven saw the large male lion and screamed, “Simba!”  My heart caught in my throat.  I don’t know if you read my post about the Lion King and the stuffed animals we have, but she instantly saw the lions and recalled the movie.  It filled my heart with joy.  Suddenly the other children started screaming, “The simbas!  Simbas!”  Some of the other adults looked puzzled – I explained why Raven said that.  It was a connection… a bright spot… my vessel filling… to experience that with her today.

And despite the fact that Raven weighs close to 30 pounds, I also really enjoyed that last 20 minutes of the zoo trip where I carried her.  We don’t get to cuddle/snuggle as much anymore as we used to, and it was a blessing to hold her close to me, breathe in her sunscreen-skin smell, feel her sweaty hair on my face.  I felt close to her.  So very close to her.  And my vessel filled a bit more.

So, what is something today that I did for me that filled me up?  I chose to enjoy the zoo with Raven.  I chose.  I chose.  I chose.

Why is that choosing so hard?  Why is it hard to choose joy at times? 

Looking forward to working through that and figuring that out.

I am thankful for all of my friends who are lifting me up in prayer right now as well – as another friend put it today, “my family and friends picked up "the 4 corners of my mat" and carried me until I could stand up again”.  Thanks to all of you who are carrying the corners of my mat.  You mean the world to me.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  I’m looking forward to whatever it is I decide tomorrow is that thing that fills me.  It’s interesting – approaching each day with that attitude.  To choose to have something fill you instead of letting the negativity and anxiety and outside world take over.  This will be an interesting journey.  I can’t say that I didn’t experience my fair share of complete anxiety and negativity today because I sure did – but for those few hours today I understood what it really meant to enjoy life.

erin

The Car

I wanted to wait to write this post until we had some closure… so some of you may know about this already and some may not.

On July 6, Adam was in an accident.  My mom was here visiting.  Mom and I had just gotten home from a super fun day of shopping, and Adam called to tell me that he was in a bad wreck with the Escape.  He was fine and the other guy was fine but the Escape is not.

I know I shouldn’t be materialistic, but I was a little upset about my Escape being damaged.  The Escape was the first really big purchase I made out of college in December 2001, and the car had done us SO well over the years.  Until we bought the van in January, the Escape was our family’s main mode of transportation.  We had 168,000 miles on it and we were planning to drive it into the ground.  I loved that vehicle.  Loved.

And, is this irony?  In March we spent a good chunk of change on new tires.  Not two weeks before the accident we had the brakes fixed and some other work done.  THREE DAYS BEFORE the accident I renewed the registration.  We had dropped a good bit of money on the Escape in the last few months in hopes that it would last us a good bit longer.

We didn’t want to buy another car right now.  We just bought the van in January; we were hoping to pay the van off before we would have to succumb to purchasing another vehicle.

However, the accident changed all of that.

Adam was going slow.  The air bags didn’t even trigger.  He hit the bed of a pickup truck.  Thanks to the design of vehicles these days, the engine dropped a bit and the front end crumpled and Adam wasn’t hurt.  The most that could have hurt him was the rear view mirror flying off and hitting the windshield and cracking it, but he wasn’t even touched but that.  Not a bruise.  Not a scrape.  WHAT a blessing.

Insurance has been good to us.  They were willing to fix the vehicle and gave us the money to do so, but gave us the option to sign the vehicle over to them and keep the money to put down on a new car.  We opted for the latter.  After all, it would be weeks before the Escape would be fixed, and here we would be sinking close to $5,000 into the Escape only to have it in the shape it was in before the wreck.  And it wasn’t in bad shape, but it’s 10 years old.  And it’s not getting any younger and we thought maybe we’d get another five years out of it at best.

So we opted to look for a different vehicle.  I’m not sure if I blogged about it then, but our van buying experience in January, while resulting in a beautiful van, was extremely painful.  We wanted to avoid that if at all possible and, more irony?  We joked in January after that was over that whew, we only have to do this every 10 years or so.  Ha.  WRONG.

Thankfully I told my friend Ellen about the wreck and she suggested going through her auto searcher.  I talked with Adam about it and we decided that considering the time frame (I go back to work in less than two weeks and we really need two vehicles) and the experience, we would give Debi a try.  I called Debi on Thursday, we talked, we talked more on Friday, and on Monday (yesterday), she had four vehicles – but would have had more had we requested it – for us to test drive.  She even picked out a vehicle we hadn’t thought to test drive for us to take a spin in – the Volkswagen Tiguan.

After test driving vehicles yesterday, we discussed our favorite and our options.  We settled on a 3 year lease, as lease rates are super duper low right now (0.2%) and we would have the option to buy in a few years or look for a different car.  Considering that we weren’t planning on another vehicle at this point in time, wanted something newer with a good warranty, but also wanted a low payment, we settled on a lease.  Debi took care of ALL of the paper work for us yesterday and this morning – without us there – and called us today to let us know that the color vehicle we wanted – dark gray – had arrived and was ready for us to pick it up.  Yep, that’s right.  She called and found what all colors were available, we picked one, and after a dealer trade, it was there.

No fuss.  No muss.

We arrived at Auto Search today at 3:45 pm and she promised to have us out the door by 4:30 pm.  With another test drive.  And helping us get our insurance changes taken are of.  And all the paperwork.  And she wasn’t joking – we left at 4:25 pm in our new Volkswagen Tiguan.

Now we have a super reliable vehicle with a full warranty that I can drive to and from work every day and that Adam will use occasionally as well, and while the path to this purchase was less than desirable, it as a blessing in disguise.  Maybe we didn’t want a new vehicle already, but the accident forced us to look at our finances again, what we could afford, and also think about the amount of money we were sinking each year into the Escape versus the amount of money we could put towards a new vehicle.  Turns out that with the low lease payments, it’s pretty much a wash.  And that’s a very positive thing.

I won’t divulge the details of the accident and we’re still not “done” yet with everything involving it, but we are so very thankful that everyone involved was safe and fine and that everything worked out okay in the end.

erin

Math

It reads: “Dear Math, I am not a psychiatrist.  Please solve your own problems.”

I saw this notebook at Target tonight… I kind of wish I had bought it, except that I don’t hate math, not even a little bit, so while it was funny to me, it’s not as funny as it could have been.  But still, it is pretty funny, no?

Another reason it’s funny (to me) is that I started seeing a psychotherapist today.  Her name is Kate.  She was recommended to me by my nurse practitioner after a rather teary 6-week post partum visit.

This is where I talked about the stuff I don’t want to talk about, because *gasp* you might actually learn that I *gasp* don’t have it all together all the time and *gasp* I have a really hard time admitting that I don’t have it altogether.

Why the teary visit?  What’s going on?  Well, for various reasons, I’ve developed post partum anxiety… the other side of the coin of post partum depression.  I didn’t own up to it then, but I had post partum depression after Raven was born and was treated for it through therapy sessions for a number of months.  The depression was triggered by a number of events, but even more so as I learned today, much of my now anxiety… then depression… is simply because I’m too hard on myself.

That’s right.  I’m not a nice person.  To myself.  I expect too much, push myself, and then berate myself when I don’t mean my own expectations.  Who knew?  Well, really, I know that already about myself, but talking about it with someone else who is unbiased puts a lot of that into perspective and reminds me that I need to be nicer to myself and allow myself to be filled instead of constantly pushing, giving, emptying myself only to end up in the state I’m in right now.

I don’t know why it’s anxiety this time instead of depression.  Maybe it’s because I have more responsibility, more kids, more life going on around me and I know that I can’t completely shut down so I keep moving forward and I continue to function, but only to have this crazy suffocating tingly feeling in my chest most of the day.  That anxious feeling. 

What am I anxious about?  What am I NOT anxious about.  Examples just from today… I was anxious about Adam having Anna on his own in the car because I don’t think he ever has and I thought for a half a minute that he might accidentally leave her in there and she would die and he would come back to pick me up and she would be dead… so I was anxious until he came back.  We bought a new car today and Adam was the one to drive it home and I was anxious that he might get into an accident before he even got home, since he was just in an accident not two weeks ago.  I get anxious about whether or not the door is locked at night, whether I’ve locked enough windows, whether the noise I heard at 3 am was someone trying to kidnap my kids.  I manage to become anxious about everything.  Everything.

I’m really anxious about returning to work.  Really. Anxious.  Am I good enough?  Can I pick it back up?  Can I handle it?  Will I burn out now that I have three kids instead of two?  Will I be able to find a good balance between work and home life? 

I’m anxious about Anna going to daycare.  Will she be loved enough?  Will she take a bottle?  Will they swaddle her for naps?  Will she still love me after I’ve left her there for hours on end?

I’m anxious about Julia’s food allergies.  I’m anxious about Raven’s increasing mean streak. 

I am Anxious. About. Everything.

A lot of people would say to just stop being so anxious.  Stop being so hard on yourself.  Stop expecting so much of yourself, stop worrying about everything.  If you’re a Christian you might tell me that I need to go to God more and pray more and everything will work itself out.  A health nut?  Maybe if I ate better and exercised more my body would balance itself out.

And.  I don’t disagree with you.

But that’s where post partum depression/anxiety and I think depression and anxiety in general are weird balls to play with.  A person can know these things – can know the techniques for being able to return from this bad place – but not be able to put them into practice.  Pray more?  Go to God?  I try.  I do.  Eat better?  Exercise more?  The sheer thought of trying to put exercise into my day right now gets me into a tizzy about my schedule which sends me into a tizzy about what life will be like when I go back to work and I either spaz out or I shut down.  It’s not as simply as just overcoming the feeling and putting techniques into practice.  I’ve tried.

And so, when my nurse practitioner suggested therapy, I agreed to it.  It worked before with Raven and I know working through it again will work this time.  It will just take time.  And each time I go, I will be given a tool I can take home and focus on and practice.  This weeks?  Do one thing a day that fills me – that fills me up – and only do the things absolutely necessary for our family to survive.  This is that attempt to stop trying to be everything to everyone at all times and putting effort into things that have little meaning and missing all of the little things that DO have meaning.

Julia ate ALL of her supper tonight.  No questions asked.  Not even a whimper.  A time out actually WORKED with Raven tonight.  Actually worked.  And, after leaving my kids with my husband for a couple of hours so I could get out by myself and decompress, my baby was still awake when I got home so I could take cute 9 week pictures of her to post on our blog.  I forget these little things and how really truly awesome and important they are and that these are the things that have meaning.  Not making sure the dishes are done or the laundry is put away or that I’m making everyone happy at work every minute of the day while I’m on maternity leave.

I hope I can learn to be nicer to myself.  I hope I can learn to enjoy life a little bit more than I do right now.  I’m sharing this with you all – I’m sharing this with myself – because I don’t want to forget
being here.  I don’t want to lose sight of what I’m working towards because there will come a time again when I reach this place and have lost focus, and I’m hoping that next time I can find my way back on my own.

erin