Spinning Yellow

I'm Done

The last day of NaBloPoMo!  Yay!  I am made it!  I was planning on doing a recap, or a what I learned this year, or a reader appreciation thing, but, guess what?  I'm tired.

There's the theme for this year's NaBloPoMo: I'm tired.

The latest?  Jane is sick.  She's been sick for awhile now but it got worse on Wednesday when she spiked a fever and lay around in her pajamas all day (and just for the record, I checked with Grammar Girl's lay/lie rules for the correct form to use and even though it doesn't sound right, "lay" is right in that sentence).  We've been giving her Motrin and nebulizer treatments since then.  Today she would not stop coughing so I took her to the on-call doctor.  

I was hoping to avoid a trip to the ER by taking her to the doctor during the daylight.  But she was fine at the doctor's and didn't get really bad until she was trying to go to sleep.  Calls to the doctor, multiple medicines, and a big fight about trying to have her sleep propped up on pillows later and she is finally sleeping.  This does not guarantee she will stay asleep.

Also?  Scott freaks out when Jane is sick or throwing a fit.  He keeps asking, "what's going on? will she be alright? am I going to get sick? are you going to the ER?"  Last spring, when Jane went through a horrible phase where she pitched a huge fit every night before going to sleep, Scott had a breakdown.  He curled up in a ball and rocked back and forth muttering, "please make her stop".  Yeah, that was helpful.  Now we had two out of control kids.

So, I am going to bed, in case I spend some time up with the little one.  Or the big one.

Thanks so much for reading along this year.  I truly appreciate anyone who stops by, reads, or comments here.  It means the world to me.

NaBlo..Po....Mo.....zzzzzzzz

Wow, this November seems endless.  Could it be partly due to my not getting enough sleep?  Yeah, I think so, too.  I feel like the election was months ago.  Today I was busy with the kids and rearranging my dining room to accommodate fifteen Thanksgiving Day guests.  I went to Scott's conference with his so-so teacher.  Then he freaked out when I told him we are seeing a therapist tomorrow for his anxiety issues.  Can this day be over?

Of course it can.

'Night.

Half Way There

Today is my 16th post in as many days.  One half of the way through NaBloPoMo.  I am seriously tired from staying up so late.  It is difficult to find time to write during the day so I have to wait until the kids are asleep.  Tonight I was going to write about how much I dislike kid birthday parties or perhaps my road back to running.  Or maybe about my neighbor's child who stared me down yesterday when I demanded she answer me or go home.  Or how about the family party I just attended to celebrate my sister's birthday along with two of her kids, my nephew who just turned 14 and my niece who is 7 today. 

Yeah, I could write about any of those things.  Or the hundreds of other partially written, or intend to be written, posts of mine.  Or I could get some sleep.

I think you can guess what I decided to do.

Technical Difficulties

Last night, when the kids were finally in bed, I brought my laptop into the kitchen to write my post for the day.  I knew what I wanted to write about and was ready to bang it out and then go to sleep.  I planned to let my DVR record the Daily Show, knowing I'd want to hear what Jon Stewart had to say about the election.

But, alas, it was not going to happen.  My internet connection kept dropping and soon my husband was downstairs complaining that our FIOS service wasn't working.  I resorted to watching some TV, hoping the internet would be back up soon. I forgot that the FIOS controls the TV signal as well and quickly grew tired of watching the screen freeze or go black.

I started nodding off and decided to give up.  I'd have to wait until the next day when we'd, hopefully, get the services working again.  So much for NaBloPoMo.

This morning, Matt had to reset the control box and was then able to get the internet connection back.  But my day was already under way and there wasn't any time to catch up on tweets or blog reading, let alone write the post I meant to finish the night before. 

At some point I decided to watch what the DVR had recorded, knowing it was probably a mess. Talk about frustrating.  As Jon would be just about to say the punchline of his joke, the screen would freeze.  It would come back to life at a point 20 or so seconds later where everyone was laughing.  I had to turn it off (I have since watched it online, good stuff, I especially liked the part where he makes fun of New Yorkers for being so happy he feels like they might offer him pie).

So I didn't get to post yesterday and it was only the fifth day of NaBloPoMo.  But instead of getting all upset about that and giving up, I decided to post what I was going to write yesterday and timestamp it as if I did it on the 5th.  It seems a little dishonest, but the point here is to write (at least post) something  each day for the 30 days of November.  If I end up winning a prize I will out myself and make sure I am still eligible before accepting it.  Last year I had an internet connection problem one day during NaBloPoMo as well and I still muddled through.

Here's one more Election Day Good and Bad to add to my post from the 4th:

Bad
Scott reported that while in line to submit his ballot for Kids Voting, one of his classmates said she didn't want to vote for the Black Guy.  He said she said it in a mean way and I believe him.  As if that's not bad enough, some other kids, on the bus (of course) told him that if Obama won he'd outlaw all the fighting type of video games.  The misinformation and negative propaganda slinging sure start early.

Good
I've eaten so much Halloween candy that I am completely over it.  Good thing because it is almost all gone anyway.  Time to make pumpkin cookies.

Phinally

Wait. I forgot to tell you I wasn't going to post until the Phillies were done playing for the season?  And then they went on to win the World Series so it ended up being a longer hiatus than expected?  Oh, that wasn't it?  What I said was that I couldn't post until after Scott's football season was over, because between the practices and the games I was exhausted and overwhelmed.  No?

You're right.  I didn't say those things because, of course, I never actually intended to take an almost two month break from blogging.

But here I am.  Guess what finally got me to write?  Now you know.  It's that time of the year again:  NaBloPoMo. National Blog Posting Month.  Last year I decided to take the plunge and post something every day for the month of November.  It wasn't easy.  And I wrote several not-so-great posts just to complete the assignment.

The good thing, though, was that it made me write.  Every day.  For someone without a background in writing this is key to keeping momentum and improving skills.  Even if the content might leave something to be desired on occasion, I did manage to get in 30 days straight.

The other thing was that writing all month helped me work through the issues I was having.

I do like a goal.  Really, without one, I rarely get anything done.  If you don't believe me, just ask my husband.

When I don't write I feel a back up of ideas and information drowning me.  And I feel sick about not keeping up with my end of the deal.  To share my life, stories, opinions.  To help me process things.  To record events. 

And then there's the community.  Oh, the support of the blogosphere.  I've been able to get some of it through Twitter in the last few months where I post things like the day my dog couldn't get up and how my shower broke and flooded the family room.

But I miss this.  The guilt is unbearable.  It makes me angry with myself.  And what about the blogs I haven't been visiting?  Or those that I have but do not comment?  This makes me, literally, sick to my stomach.

So how do I, once again, jump back in when so much has happened?  I hate when I have to do posts where I list a bunch of events or I try to sum up large periods of time.  Those aren't all that accurate and lose what is the essence of blogging: the intimacy and immediacy of being privy to the details, in the moment, of someone's life.

So I am not going to backtrack that way, at least not for tonight.  I have lists all over the place with things I didn't want to forget to add to posts and of general themes.  There is always so much to say.

But for today, I will quote myself (oh, how I've always wanted to do that!), with this, from my very first post a year and a half ago, to remind myself of why I decided to blog in the first place:

I am starting this journal to talk about my life.  As a mom, as a thinker, to tell about my amazing son and my delightful daughter and to talk about what’s happened and what I want to happen. And to share ideas and learn from others. And most of all, to fight my urge not to do it.  Because I don’t want to be the person who never does what they could have done. So I am starting here and now.

I hope you'll come along for the ride again this year.  And if you have something you'd like me to post about, please let me know in the comments.  Thanks.

I Knew It Was Just a Matter of Time

I was upstairs putting things away this morning when I heard Matt's voice from behind the closed door to his office.

"Lori?  Could you come in here?"

"Sure," I said as I stopped making Jane's bed.

I opened the door and saw Matt working at his computer.  My eyes landed on the coffee mug next to him and I knew what he was going to say before the words came out.

I beat him to it.  "You want me to get you more coffee, right?"

"Would you?  With a little skim milk and Splenda, please."

"Sure, honey."

I figure it is the least I could do since I completely ignored his birthday.

I am not sure I want him to make a habit out of it, though!!

And that, my friends, is my last post of NaBloPoMo.  Yea!!  I should do a month in review, but for right now, I will be happy not to feel any more pressure to get something out by the end of the day.  I won't take any big break because I am in a routine now (and I have a long list of things I want to post), but I will relax a bit.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming along for this ride.  For reading, commenting, e-mailing, sympathizing, laughing, supporting. 

NoMoNaBloPoMo (No More National Blog Posting Month)!!

Stick a Fork In Me

I'm done.  Toast.  But I am not willing to give up on NaBloPoMo. 

You know when you haven't been feeling well and then you start to feel a little bit better and since you've gotten so far behind while you were down and out, you decide to do way too many things at once, like make many phone calls, including one to a financial guy that makes your head swim and the doctor, again, and the dentist who will be filling your son's cavity tomorrow, and then because you have entirely too many things to do like return the damn dots and you know you can't possibly take your 3 year old along with you, you beg your mom to come over so you can go out alone, and she does because she lives near by and feels sufficiently sorry for you especially since she will be leaving for a two week long vacation right through Thanksgiving, so you head to Bed Bath and Beyond first to get the belated birthday present for your sister, then go to Target to return said dots which takes way too long to do, so you need to get a drink and a snack and then you try to find replacement presents and start to feel kind of weak but know that it is too much trouble to abandon your mission when you have a free babysitter so you press on to Lowes to get a needed light bulb which requires asking 2 different people to help you and then you move on to Michaels to return more dots and secure new birthday presents and some stuff for your daughter who is now out the dots which was a present for her successful potty training and then realize that it is dangerously close to 4pm which is when the bus drops off your son so you call your mother and once again beg her to make dinner because your husband won't be home until after the kids are in bed since it is his first day at a new job and he is attending some kind of training and dinner and then you rush into Wegmans feeling really ill but can't find a cart so you just lug around the plates and napkins you need to get for your daughter's school function and a gallon of milk and checkout just in time to get home for the bus and your over-worked mom and then rush through homework and putting the things away so you can go to your mom's for dinner and then get home in time to do baths and put the kids to bed without stories and then pay some bills and finally get a chance to sit down to read e-mail and blogs which you want to respond to but can't even think straight and, oh, yeah, post something yourself?

That's what I'm talking about.  Done.

'Night.

Debrief

Thank-you.  Thank-you.  Thank-you.  A million thank yous for listening, commenting, e-mailing.  For your support and encouragement.  For getting it.

Writing and now re-visiting and posting that story has been a cathartic experience for me.  While I do hope that it helps people, it has also been an enormous deal for me.  Blogging is the perfect venue for me.  I get to post what I want to talk about and people can choose to read or not.  I already had a person search on "Sensory Processing Disorder constipation" yesterday and find my story here (oh, the things we are proud of).  But more than that, I get this sense of community, these friends that I know in real life and those that I only know as internet buddies.  And it is all good.

So while I was posting that saga, a whole bunch of things happened in the here and now.  I will give you more updates tomorrow, first I have to tell you the most significant things:

It is now day 10 of NaBloPoMo.  My tenth post in as many days.  I made it one third of the way through the month!  Yea!

Writing that story reminded Matt and I of many little incidents along the way.  Like the first school friend birthday party that Scott went to at a rock gym when he was 3 and a half.  He was terrified of climbing the wall and he was uncomfortable, as he often became later in the day, because he had to go to the bathroom (sometimes he'd even ask to go to bed early knowing that once he was asleep his misery would end).  We left the party before cake was served and had to make an excuse that he didn't feel well.  I was embarrassed that the birthday boy's parents had paid for Scott to participate when he didn't at all.  And Scott sobbed the whole way home knowing that he missed the cake and fearing that his friends would find out about his problem.  Good times.

Another stand out moment was when a friend of mine, in response to my telling a group of moms from the neighborhood about Scott's problem, remarked, "Well I wouldn't be able to take that if it was my kid!"

I stared at her and said, "We don't have a choice.  Would you kick your kid out if this was their problem?"

It took me a long time to feel comfortable around her again. 

Anyway, the other thing that has happened is that reading your comments and thinking about the story have helped keep my mind off the fact that I am having a miscarriage.

While I knew this was an inevitable outcome of the news from last week, I guess I chose not to think about how it would all go down.  I know that it is incredibly common, in fact almost all of my friends have had at least one failed pregnancy.  But in case you are not familiar (or have blocked it out of your memory as I am thinking I might), let's just say that having a miscarriage sucks.  I have felt like crap all week, headaches and exhausted from the drop in hormones.  And now, well, without going into too much detail, it is a crampy, bloody, scary mess with no sweet infant at the end to look forward to.  I've been ill all day and wondering whether it will get worse before it gets better and I will end up in the hospital. 

And I have stuff to do!  Dammit!

I am sick of feeling lousy.  I am looking forward to running again.  To drinking wine.  To staying up past 10 pm.  To getting something done.

Now I will publish post number 10, kiss my sleeping kids and go to bed knowing that tomorrow will be a better day.

Well, I might go read your comments again, just to make myself feel a little better first.

It's a Brand New Day

I was going to title this:  No Heartbeat.  But I didn't want to make everyone immediately feel sorry for me.  That is NOT how I feel.  It is true, however, that the tiny baby in my belly does not have a heartbeat.  This was confirmed this morning at my 8.5 week ultrasound.  I say "confirmed" because I knew this was the case.  What I haven't been writing about here is that although I was tired and I had some general pregnancy symptoms, I was not sick.  And I just knew that this wasn't right.

When I was pregnant with Scott I was so ill by week 6 that I could barely get around.  Same thing with Jane.  And then this time, well, some funky appetite stuff, and initially I felt pretty awful, but then it stopped.  I never felt nauseous like I had in the past.

When I went in today, I told the ultrasound technician that I was concerned so she right away told me that the sack and embryo were there but that the fetus wasn't big enough for its age.  Then she searched and looked closer and tried to find a heartbeat, to no avail.

I am sad.

But I am not devastated.

In the waiting room there were very pregnant women, waiting for one test or another.  I could feel their anxiety.  I remembered coming to this same prenatal testing site every other day toward the end of my pregnancy with Scott.  The stress was unbelievable.  I absolutely hate being pregnant.  Not only because I feel like crap, but because there are so many unknowns, so many things you have no control over.

So I looked at those ladies and I reminded myself that I have two wonderful children already.  A boy who has stolen my heart and a girl who has reminded me how joyful life can be.

And I felt lucky.  So very fortunate for what I have.

Matt is on a train to Connecticut, hoping to find a job that will not require us to move.  His last day of work at his own company was yesterday.  He feels a little lost without a job.

I think we are finding our way, though.  Right back to where we were all along.

And in the spirit of moving forward, I am accepting the National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) challenge.  I know!  Me, who can barely post once a week is committing to posting every. day. this month.

Goals are good, though, so check back here daily.  I will be putting out some things I've been afraid to post.  Stuff I've already written and things I've been meaning to do.  By the end of the month you will be so sick of reading cute stories about my kids and about what I think about everything that you will probably never want to come back here again.

But I hope you do because I am grateful for your friendship.  This is what will help me.  The writing.  The community.  Like a ball rolling down hill, I will be gaining strength with each post.  If you have any ideas or suggestions for what to write about, tell me here or e-mail me.

Thanks for helping me and coming along.

I really am OK.  I promise.  I would never lie here.