Where’s Mummy?

So tired I forgot to take off my lashes! This week has been a blur.  There was the snoringly awful Oscars that I stayed up entirely too late for and a late night with a friend and a few missed workouts because I was too tired to move.  By Thursday I was useless and feeling queasy.  This seems to be a pattern I'm developing where I go and go and then despite my best efforts I crash.  I'm going for a physical next Monday and hopefully we can figure out what I can do with all this extra estrogen that is making me weepy, acne-prone and generally a malcontent 15 year-old who feels like crying one minute and blowing up the world the next.  I do have a new talent though.  I can now heat the house with my brand new set of hot flashes.  Aren't those fabulous?!  Mmmhmmm...  … [Read more...]

Seven Years In

  It is the night of your seventh birthday.  The house is quiet.  You and your sisters lay exhausted and asleep in your beds.  The last 24 hours a whirlwind of birthday streamers, balloons, sugar-frosted cakey dreams punctuated with laughter, fun friends and good wishes from family.  The only noise I hear right now is that of the Oscars droning on in the background.  I sit surrounded by a tiny golden light lost in the thoughts of the day as glittering stars smile their toothy grins.  … [Read more...]

I Am Learning

  I haven’t been around here much lately.  I’ve been too busy living life.  Good or bad and it has felt like there is less good and more of the painful and bad but I am making sure that the t’s and I’s are being crossed with my family and those I hold dear.  I’m continuing to learn what is important as we are never too old or young to learn this lesson.  I am seeing what the real blessings are in my life.  And I am trying to live life in the present and not always jumping forward to figure out what I should be doing next.  … [Read more...]

Remembering Susan

Today is a testament to how fast time flies and how little things can change.  One year ago today we lost Susan.  WhyMommy.  One of our own here in the DC Moms community. She was more than an inspiration.  She made me want to be a better mother.  She was a good friend to many, a mother, a wife, a scientist, a writer.  A pioneer.  … [Read more...]

And I Thought I Was Losing My Mind

How many times can you hear, "Now is the winter of our discontent." without laughing maniacally at the irony of this statement.  Lately it just seems like the hits just keep on coming. It's a friend who is sick and coming to the end of her time with us. It's a toilet that breaks and then breaks again. … [Read more...]

Create Your LEGO® YouTube Channel Playlist with Your Child

There are three kids in my house under the age of seven and they all want to watch videos on the computer. YouTube is one of the first places my oldest will go to get her "sweet-making baking" fix but there is a tendency to skip around and end up on a totally different sort of video. The various ages of the girls and their likes and dislikes to can complicate things but LEGO® has created their own channel on YouTube that allows parents to create their own playlists and you can do it per kid. … [Read more...]

Me Marginalizing Me

It was just an everyday conversation between H and I that had us relaying the events of the day. When I said it, I didn't think about it more than just filling H in with what was going on in our world. "Next Friday I'm seeing the breast surgeon. I FINALLY got in (it has only been about a month and a totally different doctor but you know...) and Beth is going to go with me." I said. … [Read more...]

Diagnosis: Over Stimulated Parent

It was the email titled, "Pizza, Pizza!" that just shoved me right over the edge.  The day already felt long.  The weekend had felt that way too.  In fact, every day lately has been a bit of a slog with me feeling ever closer to that "edge" that parents all talk about. As I sat in preschool car line waiting for The Comedian to come out of school I checked my email and found the 'pizza' one from her teacher.  An impromptu field trip, "what fun!"  My brain seized.  All at once I felt angry, defeated and yes, I will admit to a little bit whiney. It's just. I just. I can't. I felt frozen as I searched my swirling, over-crowded brain for what that day might contain on the schedule.  Did we have Occupational therapy or speech that day?  Was it the one day all week that I had a … [Read more...]

My New Mantra. It Ain’t ‘Om’.

Somewhere in the last few months it would be easy to categorize my emotions as saying that I just stopped caring.  I stopped caring what other people thought, I stopped caring what I thought about other people and I stopped getting so spun out about work and our schedule. I lump it all together as if it was all so easy but that's never the case.  It is as if I turned 36 and much like the year I turned 30 it was a fabulous year in so many ways and in other aspects truly awful.  The big girl panties I thought I was wearing no longer fit and I had to go up a size.  God, that is awful. I think the death of someone you love dearly, sudden or not, will do that to you.  The realization that your child isn't quite like all the others is another.  The added bonus and realization that … [Read more...]