My Zen List

After the New Year it always seems time for housekeeping, whether it be literal or not. It might be time for reflection over eating and spending choices over the last three weeks or just reflection in general. Recently I read a list out of Mother Earth Living titled Be Happier at Home (not that I’m not happy at home), but I think the list is thoughtful and needed to be shared. 1. Get Enough Sleep – Gain energy and feel calm by going to bed early enough for a full night’s sleep. 2. Embrace Good Smells – No cost, no calories, no energy, no time – a quick hit of pleasure. 3. Accept Yourself – Don’t waste time wishing you were different. 4. Give Warm Greetings and Farewells – what a thought? I’ll have to try it. And the last one, 5. Remember this Truth – The only person you can change is yourself. Avoid power struggles at home by realizing you can work on your own outlook, but you cannot change others. I think this last one hit home. I need to look above the field of lavender and smell it, enjoy it and stop worrying about the unkindnesses of my in-laws to our family.  I have added this to my zen list which includes things like ‘take vitamins and floss’ and ‘arrange for help when it gets too hard’ (aargh…wish I had done this sooner with the business taxes). 

Christmas and Children

I have to say that my favorite part of our Christmas celebration this year was watching my kids open their presents. Even the little one at 9 months was so excited about his new cat tractor. It was really priceless. However, I have decided Christmas is a lot of work when I have to send out the cards, prepare all the Christmas meals, bake the cookies, desserts, and fruitcake, decorate the house, and on top of that wrap ALL the presents including my own! I don't think I have ever known exactly what was in every present before. My special present was a new set of Henkel forged knives that I won at my husband's office party!

Head Lice, Sleep, and Skinny Kids

This week started off with an email from the teacher that makes you scratch your head. It was a notice that a child in preschool had head lice and that we were to check our children for lice before returning to school. The notice included a long list of precautions including that we were to notify them if our child had been diagnosed with head lice. How do you get diagnosed with head lice? Don't we all know what they look like from our childhood? I certainly did, but I wasn't going to tell the teacher. Unfortunately I did find a couple nits on W's head and treated him with a natural lice treatment of coconut oil, tea tree oil soaking on his head for two hours and then a rinse with apple cider vinegar. Apparently the oils kill the bugs and the vinegar loosens the nits from the hair. After a late night long procedure, I dried his hair and combed out any remaining nits. It appeared to work since I was able to comb a few more nits out with the nit comb. The next morning there were no nits in his hear from my close inspection, so I have complied with the school's "No Nit Policy"! On Wednesday, the next preschool day, all the mothers milled around like nothing had happened. No one mentioned the lice. No one asked, "Did you guys have it?" "Did you have to do a treatment?" The teachers didn't mention it. It was hilarious! It was almost like the email never went out.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this in the morning! This week O has been sleeping about 7 hours at a stretch at night, and I have been enjoying the benefits. Last week I was at my wits end after he woke up to eat every 2-3 hours. He is 8 months old and he was waking up like a newborn.

W hasn't been eating much lately and you actually see his back ribs! It worried me so much I sent him to bed with a big cup of milk and a promise to get up in the morning and make him a big pile of eggs.

Can you actually grind espresso bean so small that it turns into powder? It tastes like I'm drinking coffee beans. Yuk! Why is it so hard to make a simple cup of coffee? Why can't I make something as simple as a decent mocha every morning? I hate paying $5 for a cup of espresso. Oh well, I guess I will be really wide awake after my coffee bean puree.

Above the Fog?

Sometimes I wonder if the occasional glimpse above the fog can pull me through. Last week the literal fog was so heavy during the morning and it wouldn't start burning off until early afternoon if we were lucky. I drove to a trailhead where I was to meet some other mothers walking with their kids, and as I was winding up the mountain road, suddenly the sun started shining through. It was so bright that I had to stop and dig out my sunglasses and readjust my eyes to the brightness. We hiked or walked at a snail's pass as most mother's were carrying infants or dragging two-year-olds along. The kids loved the frozen puddles and had to stomp on every one of them. I had a nice conversation with one mother who had recently moved to town as the sun warmed my face.

A couple nights ago I saw the strongest aurora or northern lights that I have ever seen. It was so bright that I could sit at my dining room table and watch the lights dance across the sky over the mountains. It was so mesmerizing and the only thing that tore me away from it was my pounding headache from lack of sleep!

Lately it feels like I'm pulled in so many directions, sometimes it is self-inflicted and sometimes it comes from my mother or other family member. My mother keeps telling me that I need to get the crib adjusted or the baby is going to fall out. I tell her that my husband has to do it to make sure that it is assembled correctly and she tells me that I need to tell him to do it. I feel like telling her to butt-out. Anyway, my parents have been here for four weeks and I think my husband is very worn from visitors. I understand since the same thing happened to me when his parents came for several weeks.

My four-year old has been becoming more and more frustrating. Nobody tells you about the terrible fours...it makes the terrible twos seem like a walk in the park. I know that a lot of his bad behavior is a result of life events this spring and summer, but at the same time he seems tired and I can't get him to nap anymore. If I try to get him to nap he always wakes the baby up with upteen questions.

Occasionally I bask in the glow above the fog but more often than not I'm doggedly struggling through sleepless nights. I feel sad about the loss of our family in the east and the struggles with our four-year old.

Messy, Messy, Messy!

Do I need to explain? This is what happened when K's daughter got into the board games! They were all mixed up and strewn all over the floor.

Seasons

I love the changing seasons! We have two seasons, snow and no snow (what we call summer) and then little squigets of fall and spring in between. Fall has its own quick burst of color. The bushes in the front yard have turned a fiery orange, the trees are yellow, and the grass is still very green. To us it is also firewood chopping time...and visions of toasty warm fires come to mind.

Expectations

The nine months leading up to the first year of motherhood were filled with great expectations, lots of excitement, planning, purchases...such was the way are backpacking/hunting trip went. We thought we had everything planned perfectly, but we didn't expect to walk at a pace of 1 mile per hour much like the first year of motherhood! The hike in was 10 miles long and yes it took 10 hours with the last four hours struggling through rain, wind and a muddy trail. Our four-year old was beyond pooped. We had taken a stroller in order to carry the caribou in and it turned out to be a nightmare to push on the trail. If it hadn't been for our sherpa friend we would not have made it. With a crying baby and a tired four-year old we finally made it to the cabin by 8:30 that night! The next day we hiked again in the rain another four and half hours to the beautiful lake in the next photo. By the third day we had figured out that it was pretty hard to hike with our little ones, but we greatly enjoyed the views and the nature around us. A black bear appeared to have visited our second cabin at the lake at night, but we never saw him. We saw lots of animal tracks, but since our little ones are so noisy, the animals seemed to stay clear of us. By the fifth day we knew what to expect and this is much like my fifth year of motherhood. Expectations have been lowered...I don't tackle big projects or try to put up with very little sleep. Last night I got up three times and then they both woke up at 7AM! I'm in a fog this morning...