Well, I've been in a funk and a little lax in my blogs. I've let some details overwhelm me. Wah. Poor me. Moving on.
In the meantime, nothing has slowed down because time does not wait for mommies to meltdown. What's a mommy to do? Well, jump to week three of Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30 (seriously, it's $10 and will change your body), buy a hot pink snowboard because if I am going to suck I might as well look cute, and lastly get a little botox for the first time. Yep. It was worth the money and the six injections. I know my mental health is not fixed by such trivial things, but why should I look bad just because I'm feeling bad? Exactly. Besides, I feel slightly better and I'm a huge fan of all three of the above since they all work. It's not frivolous if it works, right?
I am conscious that little eyes are watching. Since Natalia has an allowace with an account balance that sometimes exceeds that of Jeremy and I, she has to buy gifts for her friends and teacher. Mrs. Penney just had a birthday, so Natalia and I were brainstorming a thoughtful gift that would be both creative and original. I asked Natalia what she was into and there was the stuff like frogs, teacher crap and then she told me how Mrs. Penney had started exercising and had lost weight. Natalia told me that she was so proud of Mrs. Penney because she looked good and had been telling the class about her progress. Well, Natalia is on that Jillian Michaels bandwagon with me and wanted Mrs. Penney to have the Ripped in 30 dvd.
Now, this is definately an original and thoughtful gift, but it's also a touchy one and there is no way I am explaining the weight psyche issue to Natalia now. I figure I have another six years before I have to deal with that drama, maybe less since Madame Puberty decided to visit early. So, like a dutiful mom, I went to Target, bought the dvd and wrapped it all pretty like. I also wrapped it with the gift receipt and an explanation Happy Birthday card. It all worked out because Natalia says she loves it (it's seriously amazing) and is still updating the class about her progress.
Since we are on the subject of fitness I'm going to wrap this one up with some uber big news. Natalia made her first point EVER in basketball last Saturday, well that would be if they kept score. Let me tell it all "Shauna Style": Natalia was in charge of beginning the play by passing the ball into play. She ran down the court while some other kid was dribbling or something, I don't know. Over the deafening din of little girl yelling and squeaking sneakers I hear my sweet angel yell "I'm open! I'm open!" A miracle similar to Moses parting the Red Sea, the other player actually passed my little Lebron the ball. She dribbled two steps into her shot zone we had practiced and shot the ball. There was a tense moment as the ball circled the rim and then like manna from heaven it dropped into the basket. I rose to my feet like my chair was suddenly on fire and yelled like the village idiot. On my behalf even the coaches were astounded and shouted. Later at our celebratory mommy/daughter breakfast Natalia said she was in such awe that she almost started crying on the court, she was so happy. That made me tear up a little with happiness.
I guess there have been a lot of waterworks from me lately. I still partially blame the mess up with my Nuvaring. This time it wasn't a double up thing, I found it at the foot of our bed under the covers. No, I'm not pregnant, but I am looking into an IUD at this point. Happy tears, sad tears, tears because Natalia has happy tears. Oh my gosh. Poor Jeremy. I'm so glad he isn't one of those guys who gets uncomfortable around female tears. He wouldn't stand a chance.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
You don't Gnome Me, but....
One of the people I work with says he writes a letter to his daughter on her birthday every year for her to read when she is older. His driving force behind this is for her to really know him should anything every happen to him. It sounds a bit macabre, but remember we are ER people who see lives change in seconds. This has been rolling around in my mind for a while and I realized that I really don't know anything about my parents as children at all. I know that my childhood has shaped me into the woman I am and I want Natalia to know me as a person, not just as a "parent". I won't allow her to read this blog until she is much, much older - like ready to move out older. Maybe this will explain some of my intensity, quirks and fierceness, if she ever goes into therapy over my mothering. Above all else, I don't want my human-ness to ever catch her by surprise. So.... Hello Natalia, my name is Shauna.
I want you to know that my childhood was very different from yours. A lot of times when I mess up as a mom, apologize and tell you "Sorry, I just don't know because I've never been a mom before." it's because I also don't really have a lot to draw from. Most of my childhood I cannot remember because there was some very unpleasantness going on and my smart little brain has blocked it out for me. That being said, it wasn't very specific with just the unpleasantries, so the good stuff took off with the bad. Now when I try and conjure up memories of my childhood when I was little I'll get these flashes of ugliness and then just as quickly everything is a blank, I feel horrible, and I move on with my day. Remember all the talks we have had about good touch/bad touch? I will drill that into you forever and a day. My dad was so shady and ambiguous about it that not only did I think it was normal for a while, but when I outed him he called me a liar and said I was misconstruing a normal father/daughter relationship. I doubted myself until you were born and I saw how your daddy treats you. My dad was wrong and inappropriate and that is why you have never met him. He does not get the honour of your presence. You are a gift that he will not spoil.
Because of this past, you can be sure that I will be constantly on guard with the people around you. I will also be on guard with the way you dress, which is why you have always worn shorts or jeans under dresses. I'm sure the disagreements between you and daddy and I will become more intense as you get older, but just know that I am older and wiser than you. No, seriously. I totally am. For every hot guy that is checking you out in that "outfit" there is some old raunchy icky man checking you out too. Yuck. I'll move on because I'm creeping myself out here.
Just so you know, you come from a family of crazy on my side. I'll regale you with details when you are older, but just trust me on this one. Since I'm writing this at 35 and feel that I have made some pretty sound judgements so far, I think I have dodged that genetic crazy bullet. When I was ten, my mom had to be hospitalized because she had a mental breakdown. To this day I don't even really know what that means, but before that she was telling me that my My Little Ponys had to be thrown away because they were satanic and that she could hear angels talking through the TV. I came home from school one day and she was gone. I don't even know what precipitated that hospitalization, but knowing what I do now, it was something big. That was pretty much the day that I lost my mom. She never fully recovered after that.
She had to be shipped off to Georgia to be with her parents and Aunt Amanda was less than a year old and went with her. A couple of months later I was sent out there to visit, told that my parents were getting a divorce and that I wasn't going back. I have to admit that I was happy and ended up trying to tell my mom about my dad and what had been going on. I ended up chickening out when she tried to talk about it later because I was too embarrassed. Anyway, that is how I ended up in Georgia. Grandma Eddins was very sick then and I ended up helping her in a way that children shouldn't help adults. A child should never have to sit outside their parent's bathroom to ask them to come out and not hurt themselves. I never should have had to help raise my sisters because the man she chose to be with and stay with (second husband) was an abusive alcoholic/heroin addict. He was a real charmer and would spontaneously freak out for no reason by screaming and throwing things. Once he threw an entire pot of rice that I had made for dinner against the wall because I didn't fluff it with a fork before placing it on the table. I don't like him at all. I would try not to giggle because as he was yelling at me and calling me names his dentures were popping out of his mouth and he was pushing them back in. That's right - dentures and he was 32 years old. If you like your teeth, don't do drugs. Okay, back to the story....It's around this time that Grandma Eddins started relying on me to be her support system when she felt like she was crumbling emotionally. This is why I can be your friend, but you cannot be mine. I will never burden you with troubles that I have not already solved in my own mind. I may tell you what is troubling me, but I will never lay my woes at your feet. My feet are ready for your woes, your feet should be ready for your kids, and so on.
Ahhh money. I guess when I was small, money was fine. Like I said before, my memory has been swiss cheesed so I really wouldn't know about then. I'll tell you what money was like after my parent's divorce - it was scary. Like, I don't know if we are going to have a place to live scary. How did I know this? Ah, woes at my feet from my mom because her husband at the time was a total tool. By the way; I had begged her not to marry him because I saw right through him. We will talk about men in a minute. My clothing came from hand me down church donations and our food came from the church food pantry. How embarrassing for a teenager to pull around to the back of the church every Sunday to load up on groceries for the week. Not only that, but since my mom met her husband at church, everyone knew that the reason we had no money was because he decided to by a horse that week. Aren't addicts hilarious? It was pretty much a decade before I could eat rotisserie chicken again after that era. When college stuff came around I actually had a scholarship to any school in Georgia, but I was in such a hurry to escape that I wanted to go out of state. That was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. I ended up costing myself $40,000 in student loan debt by the time I was done and daddy has had to share that burden with me. I can tell you that I would make the same mistake all over again if it was my only way to crawl out of poverty. It's because of this that I will hound you like an apocolyptic horseman to get an education and a real job with insurance. Never live a life that you cannot afford on your own. My theory on men is this: they are like a pair of diamond earrings. They are beautiful and should make you feel special, but your life should be just fine if you don't have them.
That brings me to my last thoughts which are on men. Please, please, please find someone like daddy. Seriously. Take a good long look and study how he treats me because that is what it should be like. Is it perfect? No. Do we always get along and treat each other like we should? No. Is it a miracle that I snagged him? Oh, yeah and I'll tell you why. So I guess by the time you read this you are going to see girls around you who constantly gravitate to garbage men. Not the occupation, the inner personality. Statistically I am supposed to be a poverty level single mother with multiple children by multiple fathers who is uneducated and has addiction problems. Obviously I chose another path for myself. I'll get to that at the end too. Thankfully, through all that insane growing up I payed attention and was able to decipher what I didn't want. In true mommy form I actually made a list. Daddy hit all of them but one. I was hoping I would marry a Christian man, but he's working on it and He's working on it, so I'll stay out of it. Some of the stuff was silly, like how I wanted someone who could physically pick me up (I dated some short guys) and the guy had to have more that four letters to his name, but most of it was real. I didn't want someone who called me names, or yelled at me. I didn't want someone who hit or intimidated me. I didn't want someone who made me cry. I wanted someone who was a good kisser and told me how much he loves me. These men are out there, you just have to be aware of the garbage men. If you aren't sure, ask daddy. He'll tell you if this one is a good guy or not. The toughest part is will you trust us. Remember, we will always be wiser than you until our dementia sets in.
Alright, I'll wrap this up because the rest you can just ask me about I guess. What I really want you to know is that I have never let my past be an excuse for my present. What that means is that I made a decision that I wanted what I thought was a cookie cutter life and I went out and got it. That cookie cutter is going to be a different shape for everyone, but you have to work hard for it. No one bought SAT books for me to study so I could get into a good college. No one researched colleges with me or filled out applications with me. No one told me how to get financial aid, but I figured it out. I decided I wanted to be a nurse, so I jumped schools, navigated downtown Atlanta (which I had been petrified of doing) and did what I needed to do to get where I needed to go. Once I graduated I had you and I have been heart set on being a ferociously good and conscientious mother to you. I have a lot of junk stored up inside that I will have to rake through from time to time. Daddy knows all about me and loves me inside and out. Even the yucky parts. Because he is the real deal Holyfield, I will put my relationship with him first because I want to teach you about marriage too. My hope is that you won't have to find your guy blindly like I did. You will know what true love looks and feels like because you have known it all your life. My hope is that by reading this you will get me and love me that much deeper because you know me that much more. You are a wonderful and loving girl who I cherish and will always protect because you are my gracious gift. I hope that you someday understand that I worked hard to give you a happy childhood full of silly memories and a loving family. I think of my life before as early payment for my joy that I have now.
I want you to know that my childhood was very different from yours. A lot of times when I mess up as a mom, apologize and tell you "Sorry, I just don't know because I've never been a mom before." it's because I also don't really have a lot to draw from. Most of my childhood I cannot remember because there was some very unpleasantness going on and my smart little brain has blocked it out for me. That being said, it wasn't very specific with just the unpleasantries, so the good stuff took off with the bad. Now when I try and conjure up memories of my childhood when I was little I'll get these flashes of ugliness and then just as quickly everything is a blank, I feel horrible, and I move on with my day. Remember all the talks we have had about good touch/bad touch? I will drill that into you forever and a day. My dad was so shady and ambiguous about it that not only did I think it was normal for a while, but when I outed him he called me a liar and said I was misconstruing a normal father/daughter relationship. I doubted myself until you were born and I saw how your daddy treats you. My dad was wrong and inappropriate and that is why you have never met him. He does not get the honour of your presence. You are a gift that he will not spoil.
Because of this past, you can be sure that I will be constantly on guard with the people around you. I will also be on guard with the way you dress, which is why you have always worn shorts or jeans under dresses. I'm sure the disagreements between you and daddy and I will become more intense as you get older, but just know that I am older and wiser than you. No, seriously. I totally am. For every hot guy that is checking you out in that "outfit" there is some old raunchy icky man checking you out too. Yuck. I'll move on because I'm creeping myself out here.
Just so you know, you come from a family of crazy on my side. I'll regale you with details when you are older, but just trust me on this one. Since I'm writing this at 35 and feel that I have made some pretty sound judgements so far, I think I have dodged that genetic crazy bullet. When I was ten, my mom had to be hospitalized because she had a mental breakdown. To this day I don't even really know what that means, but before that she was telling me that my My Little Ponys had to be thrown away because they were satanic and that she could hear angels talking through the TV. I came home from school one day and she was gone. I don't even know what precipitated that hospitalization, but knowing what I do now, it was something big. That was pretty much the day that I lost my mom. She never fully recovered after that.
She had to be shipped off to Georgia to be with her parents and Aunt Amanda was less than a year old and went with her. A couple of months later I was sent out there to visit, told that my parents were getting a divorce and that I wasn't going back. I have to admit that I was happy and ended up trying to tell my mom about my dad and what had been going on. I ended up chickening out when she tried to talk about it later because I was too embarrassed. Anyway, that is how I ended up in Georgia. Grandma Eddins was very sick then and I ended up helping her in a way that children shouldn't help adults. A child should never have to sit outside their parent's bathroom to ask them to come out and not hurt themselves. I never should have had to help raise my sisters because the man she chose to be with and stay with (second husband) was an abusive alcoholic/heroin addict. He was a real charmer and would spontaneously freak out for no reason by screaming and throwing things. Once he threw an entire pot of rice that I had made for dinner against the wall because I didn't fluff it with a fork before placing it on the table. I don't like him at all. I would try not to giggle because as he was yelling at me and calling me names his dentures were popping out of his mouth and he was pushing them back in. That's right - dentures and he was 32 years old. If you like your teeth, don't do drugs. Okay, back to the story....It's around this time that Grandma Eddins started relying on me to be her support system when she felt like she was crumbling emotionally. This is why I can be your friend, but you cannot be mine. I will never burden you with troubles that I have not already solved in my own mind. I may tell you what is troubling me, but I will never lay my woes at your feet. My feet are ready for your woes, your feet should be ready for your kids, and so on.
Ahhh money. I guess when I was small, money was fine. Like I said before, my memory has been swiss cheesed so I really wouldn't know about then. I'll tell you what money was like after my parent's divorce - it was scary. Like, I don't know if we are going to have a place to live scary. How did I know this? Ah, woes at my feet from my mom because her husband at the time was a total tool. By the way; I had begged her not to marry him because I saw right through him. We will talk about men in a minute. My clothing came from hand me down church donations and our food came from the church food pantry. How embarrassing for a teenager to pull around to the back of the church every Sunday to load up on groceries for the week. Not only that, but since my mom met her husband at church, everyone knew that the reason we had no money was because he decided to by a horse that week. Aren't addicts hilarious? It was pretty much a decade before I could eat rotisserie chicken again after that era. When college stuff came around I actually had a scholarship to any school in Georgia, but I was in such a hurry to escape that I wanted to go out of state. That was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. I ended up costing myself $40,000 in student loan debt by the time I was done and daddy has had to share that burden with me. I can tell you that I would make the same mistake all over again if it was my only way to crawl out of poverty. It's because of this that I will hound you like an apocolyptic horseman to get an education and a real job with insurance. Never live a life that you cannot afford on your own. My theory on men is this: they are like a pair of diamond earrings. They are beautiful and should make you feel special, but your life should be just fine if you don't have them.
That brings me to my last thoughts which are on men. Please, please, please find someone like daddy. Seriously. Take a good long look and study how he treats me because that is what it should be like. Is it perfect? No. Do we always get along and treat each other like we should? No. Is it a miracle that I snagged him? Oh, yeah and I'll tell you why. So I guess by the time you read this you are going to see girls around you who constantly gravitate to garbage men. Not the occupation, the inner personality. Statistically I am supposed to be a poverty level single mother with multiple children by multiple fathers who is uneducated and has addiction problems. Obviously I chose another path for myself. I'll get to that at the end too. Thankfully, through all that insane growing up I payed attention and was able to decipher what I didn't want. In true mommy form I actually made a list. Daddy hit all of them but one. I was hoping I would marry a Christian man, but he's working on it and He's working on it, so I'll stay out of it. Some of the stuff was silly, like how I wanted someone who could physically pick me up (I dated some short guys) and the guy had to have more that four letters to his name, but most of it was real. I didn't want someone who called me names, or yelled at me. I didn't want someone who hit or intimidated me. I didn't want someone who made me cry. I wanted someone who was a good kisser and told me how much he loves me. These men are out there, you just have to be aware of the garbage men. If you aren't sure, ask daddy. He'll tell you if this one is a good guy or not. The toughest part is will you trust us. Remember, we will always be wiser than you until our dementia sets in.
Alright, I'll wrap this up because the rest you can just ask me about I guess. What I really want you to know is that I have never let my past be an excuse for my present. What that means is that I made a decision that I wanted what I thought was a cookie cutter life and I went out and got it. That cookie cutter is going to be a different shape for everyone, but you have to work hard for it. No one bought SAT books for me to study so I could get into a good college. No one researched colleges with me or filled out applications with me. No one told me how to get financial aid, but I figured it out. I decided I wanted to be a nurse, so I jumped schools, navigated downtown Atlanta (which I had been petrified of doing) and did what I needed to do to get where I needed to go. Once I graduated I had you and I have been heart set on being a ferociously good and conscientious mother to you. I have a lot of junk stored up inside that I will have to rake through from time to time. Daddy knows all about me and loves me inside and out. Even the yucky parts. Because he is the real deal Holyfield, I will put my relationship with him first because I want to teach you about marriage too. My hope is that you won't have to find your guy blindly like I did. You will know what true love looks and feels like because you have known it all your life. My hope is that by reading this you will get me and love me that much deeper because you know me that much more. You are a wonderful and loving girl who I cherish and will always protect because you are my gracious gift. I hope that you someday understand that I worked hard to give you a happy childhood full of silly memories and a loving family. I think of my life before as early payment for my joy that I have now.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wait a Minute, Please, While I Freak Out.
So, my shocking parenting moment came last week when I noticed Natalia was throwing out a few first signs of puberty. Yes, I will spare you details, but trust me. These are objective, not subjective in nature and of course inner mommy panic has set in just a tad. So what did I do? Well of course I am not going down this road alone, so I tell Jeremy. He just gives me that deer in headlights look as Natalia is running naked across the house because she left her pajamas in her room and bath time took place in our wing of the house. Later that night he lets me know that all things biologically girly in nature are my responsibility, then he cleaned the house from top to bottom that week. That's a pretty fair trade off.
Natalia's first question was if she was going to get her menstrual cycle now. Good Lord. I told her that puberty is something that slowly evolves, but that I was hoping she had a few years before that evolution would start up. Now did she use the word "menstrual"? Of course not, she used the word "period" and the only reason she is privy to such info is from an unfortunate mother/daughter bathroom experience when she thought I needed to go to the ER for exsanguination due to an untimely start. It will always be a creepy and taboo discussion, no matter what age, so I try and keep it as "normal" as possible. It's still horrible, but I won't tell her that. She'll deduce that on her own. By the way, God puts babies in mother's bellies if she asks. She is seven, after all.
I have been looking at other girls with a hawk like diligence lately. I'm trying to see if Natalia looks any different than other girls her age, or I guess if she looks any different than she did two weeks ago when I was blissfully ignorant. Although I know better, I did some Googling and read up on some dreadful diagnosis regarding early puberty, brain tumors, premature closure of growth plates and other such downers. Then I relayed that to Jeremy because he is my partner in worry and "we" decided to just call her pediatrician and set down the Google.
Natalia told me that she doesn't want to grow up because she likes being a kid. That made me really happy in that "fill your soul" kind of way. How amazing to have a childhood that you love being in and a part of. At basketball tonight I saw Natalia make this funny face and instantly I recognized that face from a picture we took when she was a day old. How funny that I can still see my baby in that little girl. We were sitting in the mommy chair tonight because she had a particularly bad day. I was explaining to her that we are God's children and she told me that I was more like God's teenager. She's too funny. That's when I explained to her that I can still see the baby I first met in the face of my little girl. She teared up and said "That makes me sad because I am so happy. Thank you mommy for saying that." That is her way of saying she was crying tears of joy. I never would have thought that when I looked at her face at a day old that I would see the face of my daughter. At the time I only saw "a baby". Now I realize she has been there all along because she is who she is.
I know myself enough to say that I will continue to freak out as she grows because that's just me. By God, I will bring Jeremy along for the ride on this crazy train. In my heart I know that every milestone brings on another fun parenting adventure, but, honestly, I was just getting settled into this one and I wanted to hang here for a while. As much as I would like the universe to revolve around me, I'm pretty sure it just doesn't. I will say that it is a comfort to get a glimpse of my baby from time to time and know that she is and has always been my daughter.
Natalia's first question was if she was going to get her menstrual cycle now. Good Lord. I told her that puberty is something that slowly evolves, but that I was hoping she had a few years before that evolution would start up. Now did she use the word "menstrual"? Of course not, she used the word "period" and the only reason she is privy to such info is from an unfortunate mother/daughter bathroom experience when she thought I needed to go to the ER for exsanguination due to an untimely start. It will always be a creepy and taboo discussion, no matter what age, so I try and keep it as "normal" as possible. It's still horrible, but I won't tell her that. She'll deduce that on her own. By the way, God puts babies in mother's bellies if she asks. She is seven, after all.
I have been looking at other girls with a hawk like diligence lately. I'm trying to see if Natalia looks any different than other girls her age, or I guess if she looks any different than she did two weeks ago when I was blissfully ignorant. Although I know better, I did some Googling and read up on some dreadful diagnosis regarding early puberty, brain tumors, premature closure of growth plates and other such downers. Then I relayed that to Jeremy because he is my partner in worry and "we" decided to just call her pediatrician and set down the Google.
Natalia told me that she doesn't want to grow up because she likes being a kid. That made me really happy in that "fill your soul" kind of way. How amazing to have a childhood that you love being in and a part of. At basketball tonight I saw Natalia make this funny face and instantly I recognized that face from a picture we took when she was a day old. How funny that I can still see my baby in that little girl. We were sitting in the mommy chair tonight because she had a particularly bad day. I was explaining to her that we are God's children and she told me that I was more like God's teenager. She's too funny. That's when I explained to her that I can still see the baby I first met in the face of my little girl. She teared up and said "That makes me sad because I am so happy. Thank you mommy for saying that." That is her way of saying she was crying tears of joy. I never would have thought that when I looked at her face at a day old that I would see the face of my daughter. At the time I only saw "a baby". Now I realize she has been there all along because she is who she is.
I know myself enough to say that I will continue to freak out as she grows because that's just me. By God, I will bring Jeremy along for the ride on this crazy train. In my heart I know that every milestone brings on another fun parenting adventure, but, honestly, I was just getting settled into this one and I wanted to hang here for a while. As much as I would like the universe to revolve around me, I'm pretty sure it just doesn't. I will say that it is a comfort to get a glimpse of my baby from time to time and know that she is and has always been my daughter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)