Getting my Fall on

I was asked by two different wards to come up with some easy, cheap, and fun decoration ideas for the fall season Super Saturday event. A trip to the grocery store for candy and some dry beans was on tap, but the rest of the vases, candles, ribbon, and basic supplies were all already in my house….except for the crab apples and seed pods….those I picked up off the sidewalk 20 feet from my front door.

Sadly, one of the wards completely changed their program and they cancelled everything I had prepared for them. Everyone at the meeting thanked me for my ideas, but in the end I carried it all through the rain for naught. Oh well….now I have a fantastic centerpiece for another week before they will be used at another Saturday that I’m told is set in stone.

I think it will be pretty entertaining!

Darth is Back

Whew! Update from last time…Jon’s dad was EXTREMELY generous and after a couple of hours of research, phone calls and coordinating, dad drove to a dealership where they had cut us two new keys to our van and he then took those keys up to Jon in Park City. We now have an extra key in the house, not on the key ring in case of some future emergency. The keys only cost $30 too. I’m also extremely glad that I had filled up the gas tank in dads’ truck just the night before. Our black van, Darth Vander has returned, is working like a top, and was priceless to us in our work and deliveries over the last week.

I never did post this picture of the day we traded in our Kia, Stella for the black van. He earned the name Darth Vander during the test drive, and he’s been perfect. We LOVE the room an versatility of a minivan. Little as Jon wanted to be one of THOSE owners, he’s got to hand it to Darth for being everything we need (except light on gas).  Hannah wouldn’t smile in the picture because although she understood the need for a bigger car, she gets so attached to things and didn’t like having to leave Stella behind.

More insanity this weekend with double weddings for both Jon and myself…the coordinating of photos, flower delivery, and child coverage is exhausting. Luckily, our beautiful Erin was here on Saturday and graciously helped watch the girls while I placed flowers in vases and on a cake that was late. Sunday was a smaller affair and more casual. There were several kids the same age as ours and they were very welcoming and relaxed so the girls played and danced and we enjoyed the canyon. Having Darth allowed us to take all our gear as well as the kids and Jon’s assistant. An official goodbye to Stella. She was also well-loved and served us so well. We’ll miss her and hope she goes to a great home. And, welcome to the family, Darth! You’ve had some struggles already, and we’ve dinged you up too soon, but we love you and are grateful that you’re here. Here’s to being a van family.

Highs and lows…they say things come in threes, but I’m looking at #5 already.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks with many many things happening, so we’ll keep things short.

First was Hannah falling off the slide at her cousins house. She screamed for a couple of hours, and though we think of her as a tad dramatic it did worry us a bit. We wrapped her arm up, gave her some Tylenol and let her sleep on the couch. The next day she felt better, but the day after that she was still favoring her arm and wincing when she turned it, so we took her next door to have an x-ray taken.

She actually did great with the office, the doctor feeling her arm, and even the x-rays only made her slightly nervous, and she swore that it was fine…just a bruise. When the doctor showed us the x-ray with the little bump that meant she had a Buckle Fracture, she burst into tears. We realized that when toys get broken they most times can’t be fixed and get thrown away. The idea that she was broken broke her heart and she didn’t want to be thrown away. Poor thing. More medication for swelling and pain and some quiet time on the couch for a couple of days and she’s been right as rain. A purple cast and lots of attention has eased her pain.

Upside? Olivia has been potty-training and doing really well.

That weekend sweet Aunt Melissa took both the girls to stay with her at her house because mommy and daddy had a LOT to do. Saturday was a huge event at The Grand America hotel for a charity that we have been invited to help, the Global Poverty Project. I had spent months coordinating imported artwork and crafts to replace the normal flower centerpieces as a way to highlight the talent in African villages and to give attendees at the event a way to purchase smaller items that directly help those in need. Rich people can bid on $15,000 guitars, but this was for the every-man. $40 for something beautiful and lasting that would actually go back to the village and do some good? I thought it was a pretty good idea. Luckily, people agreed with me, and the director of the charity in Utah said that everyone loved the tables and that my idea would now become the standard for design in charity functions for the project. Whoah! Go me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did, however, have my picture taken with the $15,000 guitar that was signed by the likes of the Foo Fighters and Neil Young.

 

 

 

After cleanup and helping people load their gear into their cars, Jon and I dragged ourselves home and to bed around 2 a.m. We were up and out the door before noon (Jon even had a 6 a.m. meeting in there too) and tried to head up the canyon for a huge wedding that Jon was slated to photograph. The car wouldn’t start. After several attempts and getting to the point of asking a neighbor to jump start our car it started on its own again. We made it up the canyon and worked for 10 ten hours straight with some fantastic people. I tested the car several times and it still wouldn’t start. I got to take some great leftover flowers to take home and some wonderful friends from the event gave us a ride all the way to Jon’s parents house where we borrowed a car. Yup…had to leave ours up at the Sundance Resort and call a tow truck the next morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silver lining? Hannah took some of the flowers to her teacher the next day for her first day of school. SO much better than an apple.

Hannah’s first day went well. She liked her teacher, her broken arm was the left and didn’t stop her from writing, she got to see her new classroom, classmates and ran around the school seeing how things played out. She’s excited to be so grown up and I bawled like a boob. My baby is so grown up!  I learned where to pick her up after class and then we went for Panda Express for lunch. Hannah’s officially a Kindergartener. It was awesome fun. The next day she had a 10 minute assessment with the teacher and we confirmed how things go. She got a box of supplies and a take-home folder with info from teacher to parent. Done and done. Now the teacher knows she’s smart, communicative, and not a trouble-maker or problem kid. I did notice one of the other girls writing her full name with better than average penmanship which was a bit of a letdown when we were thinking Hannah would be the sharpest crayon in the Kindergarten box. But, I also saw one kid break down in tears and another stare at his paper without knowing what to write, so she’s still quite far to the top of the scale. She’s going to be great.

She’s already been a great sister all week. She has helped continue the potty-training of Olivia and is her biggest cheerleader. She’s gotten just as excited over every successful flush as either of the parents in the house or the toddler herself. There was even an incident with more solid forms of waste where Hannah brought soiled clothes down to the laundry and informed me of the trouble. She helped clean it up too, so yeah, she’s an AWESOME kid. Upside to a mess on the floor? Livvy’s learning and knock on wood, we’re out of diapers.

Unfortunately, all the cheering and changing for Olivia has brought about a bit of jealousy in Hannah, which leads us to today’s fiasco. We finally got the word that our van was fixed and we could come pick it up. We got things coordinated and while Jon went to a noon meeting I used his office to finish some work. When I came back out, I heard a quick snipping sound and then silence. I looked over to see Hannah hiding a pair of scissors, Olivia standing mildly in the middle of the floor, and a pile of hair. I was so shocked at first I couldn’t process what they’d done…soon enough I proceeded to scold, cry, and raise my voice. Both girls burst into tears and ran for different parts of the house. All I could get out of either of them was that they’d decided that Olivia’s hair was getting ‘too long’ and Hannah was helping her to cut it. I messaged Jon and told him to get home because I was too upset (over that as well as some other things) and he needed to be here. He rushed home and after snapping a shot of the mess on Livvy’s head and chatting with then both he said that the idea that Livvy’s hair was TOO long meant that Hannah’s hair was too long too and would also need to be cut…which sent Hannah into tears again. On the way home between other stops and errands, we visited Great Clips and got a couple of new dos for the girls. Sweet Livvy kept telling me that Hannah didn’t have to get her hair cut if she didn’t want to…that it was okay. I told her SEVERAL times that Hannah was getting a haircut whether she wanted it or not.

Silver lining? Despite a crappy phone photo before bed, the bouncy cuteness in real life cannot be stopped, and Livvy enjoys her new hair. She’s never been one to care much about her appearance, and yet she’s still so stinkin’ cute! Hannah, however, is just so happy that I didn’t make her cut her hair as short as Olivia’s required that she hasn’t complained once since we left the salon. I kept one of the longer strands of Livvy’s hair from the pile left on the floor and we used that as the measure for how much the barber was to remove from Hannah length. Eight inches. She’s just lucky her hair was so long to begin with. The barber was very sweet, and they both got great haircuts. Now it’s just mommy that’s going to have to learn to move on and be happy again despite shorter hair. Actually…sort of makes me want to take some scissors to my own hair again.

It took some time, but they finally settled down to bed when I got a call from Jon. I had dropped him off at the repair shop to get our van that was now repaired after a couple of days at Sundance and the shop. He drove that up to photograph a house in Park City, but because we’d removed the key from the normal keyring, he somehow got to the house, shot it, and then couldn’t find the key to drive home again. He says that he’s combed the house itself, the car, his equipment and pockets, but nothing. His only explanation is that it must have fallen out of his pocket in the overgrown weedy lawn that he went through on the way to the door. It’s well beyond dark now though and even with a small lantern he can’t locate that darned key after hours of searching. As luck would have it, it’s also the ONLY key to the car so even if I did have a way to drive up there, I have no second key to take him. He’s sleeping for a bit and said he’d look again when he wakes.

Silver lining? I got a check today from the very company that sent Jon to Park City. We loves us some paychecks. Here’s hoping my hubby finds the key and comes home soon to make it even more silver.

I’m sewing again…

It’s been a while. I’ve gotten so caught up in work and kids and trips and more work and potty training kids, that sewing fell far and away to the bottom of my to-do list. The mending pile continues to grow and the tear in the couch cover continues to widen* and yet, I’m not at my machine regularly to fix these issues. Every time I look into the sewing corner it’s with longing and feelings of inadequacy. And an acknowledgement of bad housekeeping. There’s lots of dust over there.

*See “kids” and “potty training kids” who like to jump, poke and tear said couch cover.

I really do enjoy sewing when it is on my terms. Sewing gives me a sense of connection. I’m connected to my mother who sewed so beautifully throughout my childhood. I’m connected to creative and crafting women who attempt to build beauty out of scraps of colored fabric. I’m connected to times past when sewing was a staple in education for young women and a mark of achievement. I’m also filled when I sew. I’m filled with calm. There’s a soothing calm to regular stitches and simple math that comes together in the 90 degree angles of a quilt and the curves in the construction of a garment. I enjoy the back and forth. I enjoy clean rows and flat seams. I’m filled with a sense of accomplishment when I can fix something, create something, or check a project off the gargantuan list of ideas that brew in my delusional little head.

(Minus the French chalk {keeps the oils from  your hands from getting on the fabric}, and the lipstick which I rarely wear even on fancy days, this is pretty spot on for me! …and you have to love an advice page that uses the word ‘lackadaisically’!)

A couple of  months ago one of my gorgeous nieces got engaged and we hooked her up with flowers and photos. She chose one of her cousins to be a bridesmaid and showed her the dress on Etsy that all the maids would be wearing. Lovely. Fashionable. Simple and elegant. $100. That’s $100 that said cousin didn’t have, being newly home from a mission and working full time to try and make ends meet to get out on her own and possibly get married herself.  There were some words, back and forth, a squabble about money and worth, and in the end the deadline for the dress to be made was missed. Enter Aunt Lori.

Of course I can help. I printed out the picture from Etsy, trips to JoAnn’s happened quickly, measurements were taken, and there was even talk of teaching her how to sew so that she could make the dress herself, but none of us at this point have time for that. Leave it to me. I’ll get it together. Thank you, thank you! Don’t mention it. My pleasure. And it was my pleasure…I was happy to help. The bride was even appeased because she too has faith in Aunt Lori’s sewing skills. The fabric may not be exact, but everyone felt better knowing that Lori would make it as close as possible to the other dresses.

Travel for work, other events, charity commitments and children all took their toll and now the wedding is less than a week away. The dress was cut out last week, but I didn’t get another stretch of time to sit down to my sewing machine and work until tonight. But, tonight, I did not experience the regular soothing calming joy of my normal sewing memories. Tonight fabrics slipped, seams bunched, thread garbled it all up. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the darned thing to work right. Tension, bobbin, thread direction and brand. I changed it all and still couldn’t get the machine to sew a straight clean line. I unpicked the same zipper three times. Happily, these issues were happening on minor mending projects that I told myself I’d finish before starting on the dress because they’d take twenty minutes, they’d been waiting for weeks, and the black thread was already in the machine. Finishing these little things would mentally prepare me for a bigger project and would make me feel more accomplished for checking multiple items off my list. Twenty minutes of minor repairs had turned into two hours and I was NOT happy.

My lovely, fancy, and fairly expensive Huskuvarna sewing machine. I bought it only a few years ago when my old machine was in the shop and I had a job to do that I was being paid to finish. As soon as I’d dropped my other machine off at the repair place I ran to JoAnn’s and bought the best machine I could afford, and loved pulling it out of the box, setting it up, plugging it in and lighting it up. It was brand new and it was all mine! It caused me fits, and my paid project suffered. I meant to take Husky back to the store, but when my other machine was repaired she just ended up in a closet in the hopes that I’d figure her out one day and utilize her. Since she was sitting in the closet I didn’t have a problem lending Husky to a friend for a year or so and when I got her back recently, she was actually working just fine! Go figure! I started using her exclusively and was enjoying it. I got used to the different positions of the presser foot, and that little blade on the side to cut end-strings was handy. I even used a couple of the decorative stitches on some baby blankets for my church. I was being won over by flash and accessories…even if once again it was only pretty plastic posing as posh. Just like a woman!

For whatever reason, tonight the drama began again and my Husky wouldn’t function. After so many attempts to make even the minor repairs work right I got too frustrated and switched machines. Husky was shoved to the back and Ken came back to the front.

Meet Ken. Ken is my circa 1973 (yes, that’s actually the year I was born!) hernia-inducing heavy metal machine. Solid metal parts made back in the day when machines were meant to last. My parents gave me this beast when I graduated high school in 1991. Before I’d even started using Ken, he was nearly 20 years old and had been found at a Deseret Industries where he’d been sent after years of service to other lovely ladies. Ken was old, used, slightly green in tint, had no abilities beyond straight lines and a zig-zag stitch…and I loved him totally. I was in love and exclusively committed. I took Ken with me everywhere I roamed and he has made everything from pillows and quilts to princess costumes and wedding dresses. Ken is King. Ken is the bomb. And Ken can do it all even WITH only two stitches.

After Husky frustrated me beyond the point of no return I pulled Ken to the front of my table, transferred the black thread to him and THEN finished replacing that zipper, closing a tear in Jon’s shirt, and fixing a canvas bag for my mother in law. I did those things in twenty minutes. Thank you. Next, I switched thread again and got started on the pretty bridesmaids dress. 40 minutes later I have a basic dress ready to fit and when I pull the iron out tomorrow it’s going to start looking sharp!

Ken and I turned 40 this year. We’re both old, heavy, slightly green in hue, and have limited functions…but it’s still nice to know that we can make beautiful things, work steadily, help people, and find that inner calm that a lot of chickies half my age can’t even imagine. We don’t have or need all the bells and whistles, but we’re pretty rocktastic. Thanks, Ken! Here’s to 40 more.

Root Canal

Curse the Lindsay bad teeth. I think everyone in my family has bad teeth. If I’m wrong about someone they can argue, but out of my 8 brothers and sisters I know that two of them already have dentures, one has all implants and another has mostly caps and a few implants as well…and I know one or two of them are just missing a tooth here or there. I’m sure there’s more that I’m just not aware of, but that gives you a good start. My dad is just flat out missing a bunch of teeth too, but because he eats mostly soft things and every single breakfast is his infamous smoothy, he hardly needs teeth. Yes, he’s 90 in a month, so he’s allowed, but the rest of us? Yikes.

My teeth are horrid. Awful. Evilly bad and scary. In my life I’ve had root canals, cavities, crowns, extractions, and more. Being self-employed means not being able to afford lots of preventative work, but then again, we can’t afford a lot of post work either, so I really just end up with half the teeth I’m supposed to have, and payments towards the ones that are left. We were lucky enough to find a dentist last year that took some trade-out for his work in photography and that helped quite a bit. I hope he needs new pictures though because today was a doozy and I’m not done yet.

When I got in the car when Jon came to pick me up I started to explain what I’d gone through, and then said, “I don’t need to say it, right?…you’ve had one before?” No. Jon’s never even had a cavity. (Lord bless that our kids get his teeth, not mine.) Still, that means he needed to know how they screw a tiny post up into the decay and rip it out so that they are scraping out as much of the bad stuff deep in a pointy root as they can without losing the tooth itself…over and over and over again…scrape after scrape after scrape…hollowing out what feels like your soul…but then when I started to wince because I could feel it, the dentist gave me more numbing agent. That’s good, right? Yes, but because my mouth was all covered up and specially prepared for the one tooth he was working on, the needle needed to go somewhere…where?…normal entry through the gums is blocked…oh, that’s right…let’s just shoot straight into the nerve in the middle of the tooth he’s scraping! Numbness followed quickly, but that was quite a shock for a moment. Ahh. The needle sharpness abated, yes, but then the scraping began again, and again and again and continued for over an hour.

 “That sounds awful!”

I thought about it, agreed with Jon, and bawled.

To add insult to injury it cost me more than $600.

…and that wasn’t even the tooth I’d hoped they were going to work on today. Did I mention that a tooth right next to the front cracked and fell out? Yes, I now look like a yokel from the Ozark region. That happened two weeks ago. Front tooth, gone. The other tooth, the molar, yes, also cracked and partially broken two weeks ago. An old filling had started to go bad and when I ate a particularly crunchy bit of food up at camp, the molar chipped off a good portion and started poking me in the cheek. Ouch. The DDS did a temp fill and shaved off the pointy parts, which worked just fine for me, but then they told me they’d look at the front tooth a little later. (Yeah, the temp fix cost me $175 too.) Well, I had a trip to L.A. for work so I spent a week doing Mona Lisa smiles anticipating a quick solution to my front tooth issue when I got back because the molar was feeling fine. While sitting in the chair today, the doc started work on the temp fix on the molar and I thought, okay, he’s just getting that done right and checking it off his list and THEN he’ll get to the front bit. And, maybe he would have, but once the work got started he found that things were worse in the molar than they’d assumed and the rooting began. Ugh. I guess he had no choice. Part of me wishes I’d stopped him and told him to focus on the front tooth instead. A big part of me. A big BIG part of me.

They did take an impression of my top teeth at the end there, and as of next week I will have a sort of retainer with a fake front tooth until I can get things squared away for an implant option in a couple of years (apparently it takes that long for the root area to heal after removing the broken tooth before they can do a clean implant). Yeah…cost for all of that to come together? Nearly $4000. Ugh, again. I was hoping they’d do a crown or some sort of temp option in the front, but, apparently I’m a victim to what was once considered great dentistry but which only recently they’ve realized was actually damaging. Braces. Braces forcing teeth to move too quickly causes the teeth to sort of pull in on themselves and shorten their roots. Did you know that? I didn’t. I had braces. Apparently, the four top front teeth in my face now have roots half the length of a normal adult because the orthodontist moved too quickly when I was 10. Hence, basic construction rules apply. For the sake of stability the rules state that a post needs to be as long on the outside as it is on the inside. So, the size of my posts would leave me with creepy little baby teeth. Nope. Implant it is.

I’m exhausted.

And broke again.

One piece of comforting info the dentist offered was to explain that I have extremely aggressive plague. Acids and corrosion are part of the genetic makeup apparently. I finally had a small piece of reassurance as to why my brushing and flossing did so little compared to others who rinse with Mt. Dew. “It’s not my fault” is small consolation though.

When is someone in my family going to marry a dentist?

 

Oh, and I think I had a random sighting of Russell M. Nelson leaving the same dentist. At least I’m in good company.

I love this…

My dad turns 90 in a few weeks and he is going strong despite his age. He has health problems, yes, but more often than you’d think, some of his trips to the V.A. are due to his attempting things that he shouldn’t (moving a tv on his own and dropping it on his foot, etc.) because he really is such a stud. I think it surprises him when it just doesn’t work the way he expects it should. Believe me, I know THAT feeling all too well. Health varies, schedules shift, but the one thing that is constant through any other change is the utter joy and entertainment he gets from my kids. He isn’t the one babysitting, really, but he ALWAYS offers and actually asks if there are places we need to go or when the girls will be back to play. He just loves to see them running around, he loves to listen to them talk, he’s always bribing them with Cheerios or chocolate from his private stash, and you can see the unmistakable love he has for them any time they run up to hug him, dance for him, or kiss him to wake the prince up. He loves feigning surprise or fear when they play monster or wolves and the thrilled giggles he gets in return is payment in full. Everyone loves to go for rides on Grandpas scooter. I can’t count how many times he’s roared with laughter and then shaken his head at me to warn that their teachers won’t know what hit them. I know. He knows exactly which channels have cartoons at any given moment that they show up, and he absolutely revels in getting to snuggle. There are days he’s hurting and can’t hold them, or they’re too squirmy and make him hurt, but when it works out that everyone is calm and healthy, this is my favorite thing in the world to see.

Grandpa loves his girls and the girls sure love their grandpa! I do too for that matter.

We finally got her to say it.

Olivia has such a cute way of speaking and as she is growing up and correcting some of her speech patterns, we wanted to capture some of them on video before they are no more. Here is an example of a couple of the funnier ones that we caught a few months ago. She’s already fixed these, so I’m sure glad that we got them when we did.

<a href=”http://www.jonwoodburyphoto.com/PersonalBackup/Winter-2013/28403642_Fkqb4f#!i=2406055753&k=mZMGw5H&lb=1&s=A” title=””><img src=”http://www.jonwoodburyphoto.com/photos/i-mZMGw5H/0/L/MVI_0624-L.jpg” title=”” alt=””></a>

Artist Ego vs. Self Doubt

People tell me sometimes that I’m good at what I do. They tell me I’m a good florist. I think I’m okay. I enjoy the work most days. I can make things balanced and pretty. Most clients are nice and tell me when I deliver the flowers that they’re beautiful and they love them. Boom. Job well done. Cool. Still…I usually attribute such reactions to the excitement and overall feeling of love on the day of the wedding, so, take that with a grain of salt.

Sometimes the people aren’t there when you deliver the flowers so you never know how they reacted when they saw them. Some don’t talk to you again because they just forget it when it’s over…you were paid…relationship done. Others have a bad experience for some reason or other…usually because of circumstances beyond my control…flowers aren’t their anal retentive exacting shade, a monsoon wipes out the daisy crop, or they rub a red rose on a white dress and are schooled in the fact that flowers have oils….and those are the clients that scream.

Things like that make my job hard sometimes. When someone complains, I take it personally and it shakes my sensitive little soul. I’m wracked by guilt (deserved or no) and I feel like I’m the worst at what I do and should never build bouquets again. The next job after one that’s gone bad is a minefield of self-doubt and questioning whether or not they’re going to like what I’ve created. When I hear raves the clouds part a little bit and I feel more prepared and competent. The bad math of it all though is that it takes dozens of good jobs to make up for one bad one.

Today I got a note in the mail from a bride. She married here and moved away. While working with her I was nervous because I never actually met her and all her requests were via email…and they were all VERY specific. She sent me pictures of the vases she had already bought and wanted me to use. She said that she wanted white Vendela roses or nothing. She send me photos of arrangements that she wanted me to mimic and then also told me to do my own thing. (“Do your own thing but do it like this.”…yeah…that’s always a fun one.) I was really nervous! I finally met her when I went to pick up the vases one day and while I was there she calmly added some jewels for her bouquet and informed me of a couple last minute changes to the vases. Uh-oh. That’s questionable. Minefield. Danger. Still, she hugged me goodbye, told me she knew it would be great, and then I never saw her again.

I got everything put together and then had to just leave all the flowers at the reception location. Flowers on all the tables, and extra boutonniere laid out for the groom, a little note on the tossing bouquet. Jon even shot some video of me during the delivery explaining some of what I was doing and how I go about my job. I’ll look for that and post it. I thought it looked lovely, but what if?….. She wasn’t due to arrive for a while and we had to leave, so that was that. I left not knowing if she was the type to rave, feign indifference, or scream. I hated answering my phone for the following week.

That was the first of March.

So that letter…are you dying to know what it said? Well. I got all teary because this bride gushed in a very sweet way when she had no ulterior motives. It’s one of the sweetest things that’s ever happened to me and I’m copying it here for posterity and so I can check back sometimes and remind myself that I do make it right!

“Ms. Lori,

Thank you, thank you for creating such exquisite cream vendela rose and lemon leaf masterpieces for our wedding months ago – March 1st. You are amazing! All guests were in awe of your creations. XO”

Addiction

Hello, my name is Lori and I’m an addict.

I just read a fascinating article about how motherhood…or Motherlove, as she called it…is like an addiction. It’s not that as a mother you can’t take time away from your kids or even dislike them some days. But, she points out that what she hadn’t expected was to be so overcome with the love of that child, to have such a baby-shaped hole in not only her body, but also in her head, that she couldn’t NOT think about her son. Constantly.

I’ve tried to explain this…how being a mom completely changes your mindset. That you can predict their actions, interpret their babble, and know just what they’re flushing down the toilet when you’re not even in the same room. You can look like a magician for knowing these things. That’s what mothers do. It’s our superpower. What unhinges us though, our Kryptonite, is not being able to predict the rest of the world and how it will touch that child. Knowing that there are bad people out there lurking, accidents waiting to happen, and choking hazards printed right on the box, it’s such a distraction to the reality of everyone else that you lose your former SELF to the personae of MOTHER. As much time as you spend doing other things, as good as you are at reclaiming your pre-baby body and lifestyle, as ‘together’ as you can appear despite the insanity of caring for another human being, you are fundamentally changed and it is weird!

You become addicted to the person you have created…the child as well as your mother-self…you are addicted. You become overly aware of every move they make while trying to make moves of your own. It’s like performing a finely choreographed dance with a wildly spastic partner. You give pat answers to questions depending on who is asking and which personae they are familiar with because it’s faster and easier than taking the time out to think of a sincere response, and then your attention is right back where it belongs…on the kid. You are distracted, fidgety, and your attention is always wandering because you are physically addicted to the wellbeing of that child. The DT’s don’t stop until you’ve locked all the doors, tucked them in, snuggled them close and assured yourself that it’s safe for another night.

A quote in the article hit me closely.
“To be an addict is to be something of a cognitive acrobat. You spread versions of yourself around, giving each person the truth he or she needs—you need, actually—to keep them at a remove.” – David Carr

As a mother, you are all of these layers in one while performing those acrobatics for outside eyes of keeping someone else alive, fed, relatively clean, sometimes dressed, and hopefully happy. All of that while also keeping yourself passably sane, somewhat fed, relatively clean, sometimes dressed and usually at the expense of your own happiness. It’s amazing and depressing at the same time, just like your layers of personality can be amazingly together and hanging on by a thread depending on who’s looking. The highs and lows of addiction.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my children and find a great deal of joy in every single joke they tell and each new word they read and I pat myself on the back for raising happy, funny, beautiful, smart, and loving girls. I know. I know. I’m doing a good job. But, I also admit that it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and the percentages of my frustration may not be what you’d assume. About 35% yes, comes from daily smart-ass red-headed princess-entitlement issues. “Get your water bottle out of the fridge yourself and don’t roll your eyes at me again!” Another 35% comes partly in relation to the first 35% and that’s my own fears and anxieties that my world isn’t a reflection of other homes I admire or other women I respect. “I’m not doing enough, I’m doing too much, I’m not teaching them enough or I’m teaching them the wrong things, they’re being raised by Public Broadcasting and my own pursuits are pushing them away and is turning them into disrespectful disobedient punks and, oh yeah, my carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in weeks.” The final 30% though is feeling like I’m alone in all this in my head and the one person sharing it all with me…literally…his office is down the hall and he hears it all loud and clear…doesn’t get why I’m such a freak. “Just relax, stop stressing about the kids, and let’s jump in the car and take a vacation.” And when I explain that although those words are completely adorable and that I appreciate how sincere and truly loving he thinks they are when he says them to me, each one is an impossibility for a Mother. You see those two extensions of me over there?…as long as they’re around, I physically CANNOT relax (the exception being snuggle time on the couch when nothing else is pending), I cannot NOT stress, and Vacation?…I do not think it means what you think it means. Take all of my normal drama, wrap it up in a car with bags filling every space and containing supplies that have to cover every contingency I can conceive of and displace it to a land beyond my home turf? Not my idea of a relaxing stress-free vacation.

Okay, so he says that he can grant me the semantics of a trip vs. vacation, and I think he chalks my uber-awareness up to being a good mom. Points for me in grammar and caretaking. Still, when I tell him some of the nightmares I have, or when my actions are dictated by some of my anxieties (No, we can’t walk the babysitter home and then stroll back while the baby sleeps! What if we get mugged and the baby wakes up all alone or chokes on something and we’re not there to give mouth-to-mouth?), he gets that look halfway between frustration and disbelief (the questioning whether I’m crazy look) and I know he wonders what happened to the woman he married. I know he still loves me deeply. We talk about it a lot and that removes a HUGE layer of stress that could be bubbling over the top of everything else. I have friends and family who’ve dealt with divorce and infidelity and having those lines of communication open are highly rewarding and comforting. But my addiction still changes the dynamic in the home and that’s the part he doesn’t ‘get’. He tries so hard though! Boy, I love him for trying!

I think we’ve finally found an understanding, and there are a couple of unspoken rules that are helping. When we go on a trip (and we take many of them) there are lots of positive comments about how well I pack, how grateful he is for how hard I work, how prepared I am, how good the girls are in the car, and how much fun we are having. When we get home, I get time to clean and unpack while the girls watch guilt-free Netflix because mommy needs shifted focus to feel organized and back in the groove. He doesn’t necessarily harbor my illness, but he allows it to run its course with good grace. We also have a spoke agreement that there will be vacations in my future. True vacations! A cruise without the children. Days on end, physically apart, while knowing they are well-placed and cared for, and all without jam-packed scheduling. THEN I would be able to lessen the worry and actually relax. A cruise. I’ve seen others do it. That is the goal. If a day gets tougher than expected, he has been known to step in and send me to the store alone, or up to take a nap, and knowing that he is such a good father allows me to do those things. I know my addiction is safe in his hands.

Truly, my addiction is a constant struggle, but I really wouldn’t change it. I guess what it boils down to is the fact that today I found something somewhere that made sense in my puzzle. I read something that shed a little light and made me think. Now, maybe by sharing part of that insight and expanding on it in my own way I can make my own brand of crazy seem a little less certifiable to the people around me that love me…spreading the light to them. I certainly love them for being patient with me, I hope I can make them understand me too. A dear friend said the other day that a woman had yelled at her in a parking lot for how my friend was dealing with an unruly child. It made my friend question everything about herself and started her crying. Once she mentioned the word Autism though, the strange woman apologized and walked away. How did the state of the child alter my friends parenting skills?…not that it was any of that woman’s business in the first place. But, I realized that knowing more makes how we deal with people softer. Judging before you know the whole story is harsh. Softer is better. I would hope that if I were doing something outside of what you think is appropriate, if my percentages of frustration spike, that you might mention it to me. But, knowing me, knowing my addiction as I’ve explained it here, now maybe you’ll think to couch it in a nice way…maybe just offer to babysit for a day and hand me a bag of chocolate to take out the door? If you do that I promise to come back more relaxed, renewed, and ready to shoulder my layers in more balanced percentages.

I really do love being a mom. Admitted Mother Addict here. I promise to work on my addiction and leave some of the fear and anxiety at the doors of heaven. That helps along with the naps and breaks and love and support. I know that I can manage my addiction and be a happy healthy person. Sharing that with you here is proof of that. And, now, I think this ends our group session for the evening. Thank you for listening. See you next week. Sodas and donuts in the back.

It’s all because I was fat…

It’s true. I own it. I used to be a fat girl. I’m not so thin anymore either, but I’m working on that. I used to weigh 242 pounds at my heaviest. Weight like that on a little five foot four inch frame has to go somewhere, and unfortunately for me, it didn’t just show up on hips and thighs, it went to my calves. Yup, my calves. I know that’s not a location that most people would bemoan, but for someone who idolized Ginger Rogers and wished she could dance like Vera Ellen, a good set of gams was the dream! Lugging around extra weight built up some pretty impressive calf muscles that have never diminished no matter how thin I was able to get. Okay, okay. Not such a horrible fate…I grant. But at this time of year when every pretty girl and cute little old lady that I know is wearing a pair of knee-high boots to combat the weather and highlight their fashion? I’m left out in the cold. Standard boots don’t fit. It doesn’t help that I have tiny little size 6 feet that SHOULD lead right into a slim little leg, right? Ugh. I wish I could wear boots! I’m always cold. Jon mocks me for always being cold. Even in summer I sleep under covers, but now in winter it worsens and I dread going outside. Period. That air just seeps up through my pant legs to my unprotected and overgrown calves and chills me to the bone. Well, this year, I decided to do something about it! I’m a seamstress, for crying out loud! A poor seamstress, but a seamstress. I found a great pair of Anne Taylor boots on ebay for $10 in my size and jumped on them.

Once they arrived, I slipped them on and put a sort of dickie piece of suede I had left over from a very old project in the gap left between the teeth of the zipper.

I cut that out with some buffer for seams and made a copy for the other leg. I cut a line straight down the boot from the top to the ankle an inch or so back from the zipper and then stitched in my patch pieces. Granted, they’re not the same color, but it’s neutral, the same tone, and if I felt like jazzing them up I could add embroidery, pins, or bling to that very section and it wouldn’t seem out of place.

And, for the most part, I wear them now under jeans, so no one sees the patch anyway!

YAY for warm legs! YAY for getting to wear socks to church without looking lame! YAY for a pair of boots that I can finally wear!