Taking Time for Me

One of my "areas for improvement" as a mother is taking time for myself. I know this is good for me, and therefore, good for Anna, Blake and our family as a whole. As obsessed as I am with balance (note: I believe that balance is not a constant state that can be achieved, but rather a feeling that we move closer to or farther from at any given time), it's not a feeling I've had much in the last two years, because I've tended to neglect the me time. But, I've been making strides in this department lately, and I can see more changes on the horizon.

While I've been squeezing in 2-3 days per week of exercise, I'm hoping for another day soon. We are so excited that we'll have a remarkable woman coming to watch Anna one afternoon (or morning) each week this fall. I still can't believe we've found Katie - she is beyond ideal, and I'm sure there'll be a post about this new relationship soon. I'm intending to give myself time when she's here to take a regular yoga class or do something I wouldn't have done otherwise - and NOT use it to clean up the house or run errands.

I've also really enjoyed spending one night per week over the last month with girlfriends. I've gone out for drinks, to book club, and to a movie. While this doesn't help the sleep part of the balance equation, it certainly reenergizes me in a different way.

And, thanks to one of my girlfriends at book club, I've been OVER indulging in reading. I've been reading our book club books, of course, and I was encouraged to start the Twilight series - I have to admit that I can't seem to put them down. Teen vampire romance novels? Yes, I'm reading them - taking a few minutes during Anna's nap time, squeezing in pages when she's in the bath or staying up way too late when I should be sleeping. It might not be philosophical or thought-provoking, but the time spent relaxing with a book is tremendously therapeutic.

I still have hopes of fitting in a photography class sometime soon and maybe some more sewing, but for now, I'm happy with my progress. I'm moving in the direction of balance, with a little more time for me finding its way into each day.

Weekend Update

Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jason's wedding was this Saturday, so we spent the weekend in Midland at Mo and Papa D's house. We visited Great Mo in the morning, and it's evident from the photos, that she had a great time with Anna. She was thrilled to see her. And, Anna enjoyed seeing her again, too.

I don't remember what they were doing here (maybe Grandma was trying to make her smile), but it's a priceless photo of Great Mo.

The wedding and the bride were beautiful that evening. We all had a great time...Anna, especially, enjoyed playing with cousin Grace after the ceremony. Sadly, I somehow had the settings all wrong on my camera, so nearly EVERY picture I took (all 40-something of them) were blurry. One of them wasn't...

Dancing with Anna near the end of our night. She was exhausted, eyes drooping and snuggly on my shoulder. I loved it.

Fortunately, Krysha was there, too. She took some amazing photos of Anna and Grace as well as some great ones of our little family. Thanks so much, Krysh, for capturing the precious moments.

Potty Talk

I think "It" is happening, but I'm not sure. I'm referring to potty training, of course. Anna has been wearing "big girl panties" on and off for the last few days, with just a couple of accidents. It happened on Sunday, when I left her diaper off due to a rashy spot on her back. She'd already been telling me she needed to use the potty in the brief naked moments between changing from pajamas to clothes and vice versa, so I wondered what might happen if she ran around naked all morning. I didn't expect this though. She happily donned her underwear, went potty, and even managed an outing without her diaper on Sunday. Since then we've been wearing diapers for sleeping and for pooping (despite an entire week of going number 2 on the potty a few months ago, she doesn't like it now), but otherwise, she's been wearing pink, yellow, and smiley faced undies most of this week.

As expected, this has my mind racing with questions. I'm trying not to get too attached to the outcome, thinking it's probably better to let her go back to diapers for now if this is just another little (but bigger than last time) experiment. But, I also want to be consistent. I feel like I kinda need to be on the potty train or not. Which means, pushing a little bit when she doesn't want to go, but I know she needs to (the accidents, of course, were times when she was happily playing and didn't want to stop). We were using a sticker chart for each time she was going on the potty, but we've exhausted that. I may need to make a new one, and make it more exciting for those times when it's hard to break away from playing. Any suggestions (that don't involve food...I don't want to reward with snacks) from you pros out there?

And, pooping is another issue. Today we pooped in our panties. She likes to stand up to poop. I don't blame her...she's blessed with genetic bowel issues and she needs all the help from gravity that she can muster. This may sound silly, but I'm trying to encourage her to try that over her potty (other cultures squat over holes in the ground, which is actually much easier for pushing - it might not be so cool at preschool though)! I'm cognizant of NOT making this my thing, of giving her her space to make this HER task to master, but I do want to help her to be successful. So, do we keep putting on the diaper to poop until she seems more willing or able, or will that create problems for the future?

Then there is the nap time and night time questions. Does being potty trained necessitate a big girl bed so she can get out to go potty at night? Her diapers are SO full in the morning, I can't imagine how she can hold it that long. Does that just happen sometime down the road - they just stop peeing in their sleep?

This is what my mind has resorted to the last few days. I guess it's not so different. It seems talk in our family often turned to poop even before kids were around, didn't it?

Tool Time

We really enjoyed our evening outside after dinner tonight. Daddy pulled out the screwdriver to fix a broken board on our fence. Anna was quick to snatch it from him and go to work on the patio furniture. For no less than 20 minutes she walked from chair to chair "tightening" all the screws in each one. When she wasn't super-focused on the task, she was grinning from ear to ear, exclaiming proudly that she was having "a very busy day." I couldn't get enough pictures of our very hard working girl and her tools. I know what I'm getting her for Christmas!

Focus...

Focus...

And, more focus (with the tongue out this time).

This one cracks me up. She is creeping, being very careful not to break into a run. I had to tell her numerous times to walk with the screwdriver, so she crouched down low and crept.

The Best Days

At the end of a very good day.

Sometimes rainy days are the best days. While we had to forgo our summer-weather-plans due to today's rain, we found much to do and had a really good time doing it.

Anna was in particularly high spirits today. Maybe because she started her day with PBS cartoons in our bed, something she'd been asking for all week (we had to declare it a special weekend treat). Daddy whipped up our favorite pancakes. I postponed my usual Saturday run until Sunday. We decided to take a drive and look at a couple of houses, stopping at Whole Foods on the way home to buy lunch and the ingredients for homemade ice cream, something we've been meaning to make all summer long.

The infamous first-anniversary-present ice-cream maker finally got some use. Blake cooked up a rich, but not-too-sweet, vanilla ice cream from our Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, and we enjoyed it with the blueberry crisp I made earlier in the week.

Scraping the precious vanilla bean.

Heavy cream, whole milk, vanilla, and sugar (cooking before the 10 egg yolks were added).

Into the ice cream maker.

While Anna napped we did a bit of clean up. Blake watched Giada (slept on the couch) while I read. Then we decided to brave the rain to visit the Heritage Festival in Depot Town with Alicia, Kevin an Aidan. We made the mistake of telling Anna they had a jumping castle. No amount of goat-feeding or bird petting or butterfly holding could take away her sadness when the jumping castles were closed from being too wet.

I loved this picture at first glance, but...butt...I can't stop looking at the butt that found its way into the background.

In the butterfly house.

Feeding the butterflies (they apparently like Gatorade on a Q-tip).

Anna quickly forgot about the jumping castle when we returned home to finish the ice cream and play before dinner. Her new favorite thing: a long piece (about 3 yards) of t-shirt tubing fabric from Jo-Ann's. The occupational therapist had this in her office, and Anna loved crawling through it. It creates a very cozy, narrow tunnel. And, if you put two people lifting on either end while she's in the middle, it turns into a swing.

This is one of my favorite expressions. Whenever Anna gets excited she clenches her fists and her jaws tightly, smiles, and almost shakes with enthusiasm as she exclaims that she's "so excited!" She was so excited to swing tonight.

In the tunnel.

After spaghetti, Anna was full of giggles. I couldn't get enough of her throaty laughter. So many times today Blake and I just watched her, in awe, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude and love and appreciation. So many times today, I thought how much I was enjoying this rainy, somewhat-spontaneous, time-together day. If it weren't for the rain, we may not have made ice cream. We may not have lazed around during Anna's nap. Yes, we might have bounced in the jumping castle if it were sunny, but there was something adventurous and invigorating about braving the rain to do something fun. Sometimes rainy days are the best.

It's OK

It's OK. Somewhere along the line, Anna picked up this little phrase, and she exclaims it regularly when she is feeling worried or scared or anxious. It's sort of like a positive affirmation I suppose. This is one of Those Things that's been on my mind a lot lately, because we've been hearing it a lot.

For some time now, Anna has been experiencing, what seems like, greater-than-normal levels of anxiety around other children. I was hoping it was a phase that might pass. But, despite multiple play dates per week, daily visits to kid-filled parks and pools and venues, and weekly music classes, her reactions seemed to be getting more intense. While she's often been a little slow to warm up to strangers, especially men, or anyone that comes at her without giving her adequate space, the discomfort she feels in the company of kids has alarmed me. Nonetheless, she surprises us daily, persisting in the face of her fears, asking to go to the park or play with her friends. It's just that when we're in these situations, she may be absolutely shaking, crying and terrified by the kid who isn't going to wait for her to go down the slide. She may be clinging to my leg, scared when they come too close. She may be reluctantly not taking her turn with a toy, because she's afraid of what might happen if she does. And, it's heartbreaking. Plain and simple. It's hard to watch your child feel so scared and worried, and despite having some background in psychology, it was just getting too much for me to try to manage on my own.

So, now, weeks and months later, we are working with a child psychologist. I'm simplifying, but in general, we've projected (without REALLY knowing what is going on in Anna's very busy little brain) that kids are somewhat scary because they are unpredictable. And, she isn't naturally assertive around them, which leaves her feeling vulnerable and unsure. AND, she Never Forgets A Thing, so all those times when a kid has pushed another kid or gotten mad when it was her turn are right in the front of her mind. In addition, we were referred to an occupational therapist who confirmed something I'd been wondering about. Anna has some minor gross motor delays, which leave her a bit unsteady on her feet and more likely to lose her balance, which can be pretty intimidating around aggressive, rambunctious kids. The other piece of the puzzle is whether or not the social and motor pieces relate to sensory processing issues (we've known all along that Anna is very sensitive, but we're learning now that it may impact more than just her sleep). The sensory processing piece deserves its own post entirely. Finally, it's possible that food sensitivities/allergies play a role, too (we declined more testing at her last allergist appointment, but after a few rash outbreaks, we're thinking it's time to go back to get some answers). We have further work to do with the OT as well as an evaluation with the state's Early On program to help us understand all of this. I think, I feel, like we're going to find out that, with a little work, Anna and Blake and Me will learn and grow through all of this and be stronger because of it.

For now, we are doing puppet shows to demonstrate assertiveness. We're balancing validating her scared and worried feelings (I can see you're worried or scared right now) with reassuring her "It's OK. You're safe." We're practicing how to say "No!" and reminding her each time we play that she can use her strong voice and that she IS strong, because I can't honestly tell her that kid won't hurt her or snatch the toy out of her hand and knock her over. And, while I wish I could give her that reassurance, it's just not true. We're also building a "sensory diet" to help with motor skills and sensitivities.

While this feels like a heavy, overwhelming weight right now, Anna reminds me that "it's OK." It's hard to remember that sometimes, when there are so many questions left unanswered, when you just want your child to feel comfortable in the world and in her skin, and when you just for one minute want this not to feel like so much work all the time. I do know inside that Anna is a happy, kind, perceptive, bright, communicative girl who is going to be OK. She dazzles me with her compassion every day, bringing me to happy tears with her gentle forehead kisses and tender "I love you's." She tries new things, bravely climbing through a dark t-shirt tubing tunnel in a strange woman's office, reminding me that she is determined to overcome her fears. It Is OK.

I have so much more to say...later.

Books We Love, August 2010

Somehow I missed our July installment of Books We Love. We've still been reading everyday, although I do suppose with so much outside time, we haven't been reading AS much. Here are a couple of our new favorites as of late.

It's Okay to Be Different is just a cute book that teaches kids about accepting our uniqueness and our differences. Anna is loving it, and I'm loving that she's loving it. Anna's favorite page, I think, is "It's OK to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub." I'm hoping it doesn't give her any ideas.

The Sleep Sheep is a great story about Sylvie who is exasperating her mother because she just can't sleep (hmm, sounds familiar). Her mother tells her to count sheep, but the sheep have their own plans. Anna virtually reads this one herself now!

Daddy-Daughter Time

Anna and Daddy enjoyed some quality time together this weekend, and I took a little quality time for myself.

They went to the hardware store together on Saturday morning, and I ran. We all went to the mall in the afternoon, and while I shopped for leggings, Anna and Daddy rode up and down the escalator 6 times. This may have been Anna's favorite part of the weekend. She was, in her own words, "so excited!"

Today, we all enjoyed our morning together, wandering around downtown Ann Arbor after breakfast out. We discovered a new park, and Anna reminded me tonight as we got ready for bed that "it even had a sand box." There also happens to be numerous movie trucks and trailers parked there, because they are filming Scream 4 just down the street (which was of particular interest to me, of course). Then Alicia and I enjoyed some girl time, shopping downtown and sipping sangria in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Daddy and Anna enjoyed the cool pool with Aidan and Kevin on this insanely hot summer day.

And then there was our favorite Daddy-Anna moment of the weekend. On one side of the family room was this:

On the other side was this:

Blake was catching a few minutes of the PGA Championship on Saturday, and Anna climbed up to snuggle next to him to watch golf. She even clapped and told the golfers "Good job!" I suspect he'd have frozen that moment in time if he could have. The funny things is, she actually watched it, multiple times over the course of the weekend, once entirely by herself while she snacked on a few homemade potato chips. I think she likes it.

For the Record, Part 1

I haven't been posting much in the last month or so. The reasons are many. Sure, we've been busy, filling our summer days with play dates, popsicles, park visits and afternoons at the pool. There are more than enough fun times to write about, but I haven't been particularly motivated to post the goings-on I guess. Lately, my mind is racing and it's tired, and the things occupying my mental space, the things I really want to write about, are difficult for me to put into words.

I've been re-reading this recent post from one of my favorite blogs, because the words mean so much to me right now. Stephanie always writes so eloquently and with such candor about her experience of motherhood. In this post, she talks about her "monkey mind," a term I've often identified with; it's the space I'm in right now. Of course, I live in my head so much of the time, so it's not new to have thoughts jumping and racing and wearing me out. I'm a thinker, an analyzer, an over-analyzer.

Lately, I've been thinking about motherhood and me as a mother. And, I've been thinking about Anna and some of the challenges we are facing with her right now. While I've been wanting to write about it all, I stop myself because I fear that I may just sound like I'm complaining or that I won't accurately describe what I'm trying to say, or that I will sound ungrateful. My thoughts aren't worries about where our next paycheck will come from or whether we have clean water to drink or if my husband will come home at the end of the day. My thoughts are concerns about my daughter's development and growth and happiness. They're questions about the quality of my parenting. They're frustrations of every day stay-at-home mom life. They're examinations of my, and my husband's, sense of peace. They are things I want Anna to know, about life, about her Self, about Blake and Me, about parenting (because I surely won't remember this time clearly when she's going through it someday). By not writing about these things, about the challenges as well as the joys of motherhood for me, I wonder if I'm doing Anna, or other mother's, a disservice by not painting a real picture. As Stephanie puts it, I want Anna to "know that it's just fine to sometimes feel that parenting is 'All Joy and No Fun.'" (This is the title of a NY Magazine article I also read a while back that gives parents a lot to think about).

At any rate, Stephanie put down what's been jumping around in her monkey mind, and it's poignant. I want to copy and paste some of her thoughts right here, for the record, for Anna to see when she's becoming a mom, for me to read when I need reminders. I feel like her post could be a response to my thoughts. I think I need to write these thoughts, in list form, that are occupying my mind, without worrying about my delivery, so I can just free up the space (thank you for the inspiration, Stephanie). But, it's late now. Anna will be up before 6:00am for the second or third week in a row. So, it will have to wait for another day.

Summer Vacation, 2010

vacation: a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday.

We arrived home last night from our week-long vacation up north on Lake Charlevoix. In many ways, this trip felt like a real vacation - we spent hours building castles in the sand, fishing, and throwing rocks in the water. We snacked on ice cream, ate out more than we cooked, and sat by the campfire with a drink and a book. Blake (kind of) golfed one afternoon, and I spent a few hours at the spa. In other ways, our week away felt like the same stuff in a different location. While Anna actually slept through the night a couple of nights, the remainder were restless for various reasons, and of course, we were up at 6:15 or earlier every morning. The weather was beautiful most days, cool and rainy others. And, then there was Anna's whiiiinnning, about sand and rocks in her shoes, about dropped cereals, about whatever. Fortunately, the whining was sandwiched between absolute blissful giggles and exclamations of happiness.

In this way, I might call our vacation one of extremes; there were ups and downs just like every week, but on vacation the highs seemed higher and the lows seemed a little bit lower. There were times when I felt so utterly happy, like when I watched Anna and Daddy fishing together at the end of the dock, or when Anna skipped down the main street of Charlevoix pointing out all the "big, big, big, big boats" or the "big, big, big, big trees," her swinging arms emphasizing every syllable. There were times when I cried, feeling so tired, impatient, and flustered, with all of us. But, I wouldn't change it. I'm so grateful for the family time away from distractions and responsibilities. It'll be Anna's first row boat ride, her first Petosky stone, her first swim in Lake Michigan that we'll remember 20 years from now. While I'm tired and happy to be home, I'm already missing vacation and the lazy days together, too.

Speaking of extremes, here are some of the 261 photos...in no particular order. It was tough to narrow them down.

Goggles.

Kisses on the beach at the State Park.

Throwing more rocks.

Taking a break from our morning bike ride.

One of many treats.

Peaceful moments at a secluded beach after a hike through the nature preserve...this peaceful moment was followed by much whining and a poopy swim diaper (the worst invention ever).

And, more rocks.

The water trampoline, or the "big, big, big floatie."

The first of many rock throwing experiences.

So happy!

And, me...so happy by the campfire.

A surprise find in the middle of downtown.

Out to dinner, happily snuggling Daddy and watching the bridge go up to let the big boats through.

An afternoon walk to see the boats.

A kid in a candy store.

Anna's first boat ride, with Daddy as Captain.

The poles...Anna's got more use than Daddy's.

Fishing is serious business!

Some of my favorite moments.