Monthly Archives: July 2008

A summer update

Posted on by
Reply

Another hot day in Boston. This summer is proving to be quite the warm one. I am surprised by how many days are very warm and how sticky the nights are.

Despite my journeys into depression, this summer has been good. I am seeing the transition of little kid to kid in Soleil. I am seeing that Luna, who has always been Daddy’s girl, is now falling in love with mommy. It’s kind of nice. Luna is definately growing up and I like to see it. I know that there will be a day when the girls will want to be with their friends more than with mom and dad, but for now, it is good.

We have new neighbors moving in soon. The old guard neighborhood is moving to a place of kids. We’ll have a full house at the bus stop in the fall.

Our tomato plants are growing well thanks to Grandpa who transplanted them when we were gone in France. Lots of green tomatoes are growing. I don’t know when they will ripen. I think this means we should try this again next year!

Saturday will be Soleil’s birthday party. I made a bunch of bean bags (okay-rice bags) for a bean bag game for the party last night. I have about 4 games to get together. And to run a buy some prizes for people.

Then Jay leaves for Scotland that night. We leave for NC a few days later to visit my parents. Jay and I arrive back in Boston about 1 hour apart, so I’ll drive him home. This means I still need to pack for NC. Take two girls on the plane alone. I hope they don’t fight! :)

And YES, Johnny, I have a house sitter (to water the tomatoes!) so someone will make sure the house is safe! :)

Fall is coming up quickly! I can’t believe it! I plan on getting school stuff LATE AUGUST because I don’t want to think about it! 

Ah- Summer! 

 

Summer time blues

Posted on by
1

It seemed easy at the time. Sign Soleil up for the same group that does her after school care. Let her enjoy the summer easy and relaxed. Not as relaxed as I did as a kid (my mom was a teacher, so I was just home during the summer), but relaxed.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the group that is GREAT with afterschool care, is not so great with summer care. They aren’t bad, and Soleil loves it, but I think next year will be different.

So, in the heat of July 2008, I am already looking into June 2009 options. One option I love, a camp that Soleil’s friend R goes to. It takes kids going into Kindergarten, which means Luna could go there too! It would actually be cheaper for her to go to a day camp than to go to daycare. Go figure.

We are looking into options now, because in Boston, everything fills up quickly! And I mean EVERYTHING. Crazy but true.

Sigh…

What is your craze of summer? Mine is next year’s camp schedule. 

Pulling oneself out of the Pit of Dispair

Posted on by
4

So I have been working on pulling myself up. And I think it is working. I got a nice night out with Jay on Friday. Saturday was "Crazy kids r us" day, but Sunday turned around into a nicer day. Today was downright pleasant to be with the girls. We had fun. It was nice. We even had one crying jag (Soleil, not me) and I didn’t lose it with her.

Tomorrow, my baby enters pre-kindergarten, the last stage of daycare. Our daycare has levels; infant, toddler, preschool and finally, pre-K. Luna enters pre-K tomorrow. Her favorite teacher is leaving in a week, so they are moving the kids up a little early. Pre-K is more structured like a kindergarten day and the kids start to work more on a kindergarten curricumlum. Soleil went through pre-K here and I felt it was a great transition between preschool and kindergarten.

It really hit me this weekend, that my Soleil will a) be 6 next week (six! When did this happen??) and b) will be a first grader in 2 months. Wow! This is really the heart of parenting. To see your child really start to grow. To watch relationships start to grow. 

We decided to ask Soleil if she wanted another round of Girl Scout camp. She did, even though her best friend evah won’t be there. So I checked and signed her up for the science week. I am sure she will love it.

I am coming back. It is getting easier and easier each month once I realize what is happening. But I still hate it.
 

Kicking one’s butt

Posted on by

I am tired. So tired. Fatigued might be the word, but exhausted filled me more.

Soleil has been catching the bus for Girl Scout camp this week. Early. 7:20-7:30 early. To get the girls ready and out the door is a battle. This has left me tired and exhausted. I haven’t worked out since Sunday. I am going to work out today.

I am so fucking tired of the cycle of depression. It has switched to be the days shortly after my period starts. So I am bleeding and depressed. Lovely. My self-confidence goes to hell, I suffer anxiety attacks, but without any cause. I just get the physical symptoms. Pathetic, I know.

Guys, this is kicking my butt. I hate this. I want to cry. Why did I have to be depressive? Seriously? Why me? Wa wa wa, all me, I know. There are worse things in the world. WhyMommy is beating cancer, Beagle has her son, Ted Kennedy is voting for health care and I am whining about being depressed.

This sucks.

I have two wonderful girls. Luna’s turned into a mommy monster. She loves me suddenly. She wants mommy all of the time. Soleil is jealous of the attention for mommy. She wants mommy to herself.

Jay is wonderful. He will rub my head at night when I just want to cry.

So why does everything suck?
 

My very first book

Posted on by
5

I’ve decided to write books. They will be parenting books. "What to expect from your psychotic hell-bent offspring" I think that’s a great title. The chapters will have cover such subjects as "Why are babies nocturnal?" "How to baby proof your house"(move and buy cheap furniture and NO rugs. Buy rugs when they stop vomiting over everything.) "The non-verbal child: how to say "use your words" without losing your mind" and so on. I think I am ready for the chapter on almost 6 year olds. Because I am living with one.

This chapter will be "Living with a pre-pre-pre teen, your 6 year old daughter".In it, I’ll discuss the typical behaviors of a six year old. This included eye-rolling, sighing, stamping one’s foot with a gusto while saying "I know" in a sing-song voice. Other behaviors include demands for privacy, the refusal of eating anything green or grown outside, the need to be hugged AND not be touched at the same time.

The current pop star of the day will be enshrined by your 6 year old daughter. She will insist she can do everything herself, even if it involves a ginzu knife, two tomatoes and an acrobat. She will whine that she can’t do it when she can’t and it is all your fault for making her try (see above on insistence to do everything). She will refuse to bathe under the logic that she is just going to get dirty again. Same with teeth brushing and hair.

And at bedtime, she will do everything she can to tell you that she is not tired. That it’s not fair. That she should stay up later than her sister even though that sister is snoring in the bed below.

And as she falls asleep…she will say quietly, "I love you, mom"
 

Cure? Or not?

Posted on by
1

In 1992, I got to meet one of the strongest women I have ever met. She had turned 90 in May of that year, and was peering at me through her coke bottle glasses. We were out at a local Jewish deli in the Cleveland area and she was quizzing me about the appropriateness of my dating her grandson.
After we finished lunch and took her back to her home, an assisted living center, Jay and I talked about his grandmother. 

"she’s on medicine for depression. I sometimes wonder which person she really is, the one on the medication? or the person without it?"

I think of this all of the time.

I’ve fought depression for a long time. It’s clear that it has been here even before I knew it. My body makes even less serotonin now than it did before the girls were born. I’ve been on three different medications for this. Right now, cymbalta is my little blue and white pill of happiness. But not really.

I wonder sometimes who I am.

Not in the sense of "where is my place in the universe", but "if I lived with out this medicine, is that the "REAL" me?"

I don’t know. I hope not. Because that person fails to see anything good. That person is afraid to come out and see the world. That person sees failure and disappointment when she looks in the mirror.

The person with the medicine is more balanced. She sees the good, and the bad. She looks for areas of improvement, without areas of self-scorn. She projects an aura of confidence, and mostly feels that way.

Who am I? Really? Am I the person who thinks the world would be better off without me? Who feels that darkness closes in often and is prepared to swallow me? Or the person who watches the pinpoints of light in the dark and sees beauty within the sparkles. The person who doesn’t care if the world doesn’t know my name, but cares that those who love me can be there with me?

Who am I? 

Living on kid time

Posted on by
Reply

Lately, I have been swamped. This week is a total kid time week. We have Girl Scout camp this week. The bus for girl scout camp picks up at 7:30ish and leaves at 7:35. Yesterday it was there at 7:20! (we are used to the school bus coming at 8:35). In addition, we need to pick up Soleil at 4pm. This makes for an early and shorter than normal work day. The truth is, you work on kid time sometimes. This week is definetely kid time.

I know that as the kids get older, kid time will be more (being the mom car service) and less (Sorry mom, gotta be with my friends). Right now, I try to go with it. It’s hard, but I do try. I get nervous that I am not putting in enough at work, that I am not putting in enough mom, and not putting in enough lover. I worry that the house is going to hell in a handbasket. That I need to fix the hole in the bathroom wall, get the living room ceiling painted and get a lighting person in to assess adding recessed lighting in the living room.

But yesterday, while Soleil spent a Monday at camp, Luna and I spent the day together and it was nice just being on kid time.

Hungry Soul

Posted on by
2

Julie Pippert of  "Using my Words" has asked "what do you do to feed your soul? What renews you? How does that fit in with the cultural protocol?"

I would step into my trusty 1990 Ford Escort. Sticking with my need to have alliteration, I named her Emma. She and I went everywhere. Even though it was dark and almost 12:30am, I knew where I was going. With the radio blasting, I would turn out of the SUNY Stony Brook parking and ease onto Nichols Road. Sure, it had a route number, but I called it Nichols Road. Making my way to 25A, I would stumble through the rocky coastline of Eastern Long Island. Little towns with bungalows and illegal in-laws and student apartments dotted the way. Eventually, I would live in one of these summer cottages, surviving the spiders that loved the moist sea air.

I drove with the turns of the road. By Wading River, past the William Floyd Parkway (AKA the Pink Floyd parkway) 25A merged with 25,  Along the fences for Grumman, "no photos allowed". The landscape flattened out a bit, eventually leading towards  the city of Riverhead.  Then I turned towards the North Fork of Long Island.

The radio, or a tape would be blaring. I would sing along, pretending to be someone I was not. On the road there was no one to hear me sing. In the night, few people were out here to be bothered with. I continued on through small towns. Mattituck, Cutchogue, Southhold, Greenport. I was nearing my destination. A small land bridge told me  I was almost there. When I reached Orient Point, I would park the car and smell the sea air. On the other side of the land was Long Island Sound, but in front of me was Pecconic Bay. I loved to listen to Billy Joel on these trips. He was Long Island. A different part of Long Island than the hair and cars….

After enjoying the end of the world, I would drive back to my sheltered College life. But for a few hours, I could feed my hungry soul

 

Getting life back in order

Posted on by
Reply

There was the day in Marseille when all went wrong. The alarm wet off, but the sound was muted. We missed the two important talks I wanted to see. We caught a ferry on time, but forgot to load the camera with a compact flash. I forgot to reload on sun lotion after lunch and fried.

But, I was calm. I even climbed rocky cliffs with sandals during all of this.

Now that I am back home, the stress is seeping in. I need the world to slow. I need the three hour dinners where someone else did laundry and dishes. I need to have a chauffer for the girls, my work to fix itself and friendships to not be on the rocks.

But that is a fantasy. So in the mean time, I will get back to work and do what I can…when I can…and try to relax my shoulders more often.