Let me preface this post by saying that I cannot thank my ex enough for all his help with setting up this blog.  I have no idea what I am doing so his help is much needed and appreciated.  Having said that, this next conversation almost made the “Daily LOL” page on this site.  

We were chatting this afternoon about the blog and he suggested that I now need to get away from writing about “my personal life” and start doing book reviews or something to that effect.

Hmmmmmmm…..let me think on this one for a minute……

“Not sure that is really the purpose of the blog” I tell him, but he insists that I need to move away from the personal stuff.

Now, I might be way off the mark here, but isn’t “personal stuff” the point of this particular blog? Am I not here to give intimate details of my daily life in an effort to reach out to other moms? Do I not want to chronicle my life in order to find out if any other women out there struggle with the same issues I come across with being a mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, second grade psychologist and short-order cook???

While I do enjoy  a good book like the next guy, and I even go so far as to make certain book links available on the “Resources” page, I am not sure that people really care about my opinion enough to listen to me ramble on in a book review.  

So, with all do respect to his advice (and  huge chuckle), I think I am going to stick to what I have been writing about and hope someone out there enjoys reading it enough to come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day to see what more I have to say.  

And if I am wrong and my audience wants me to start doing “book reviews”…well, let me know and I will see what I can do! ;o)

Why is it that my beautiful little angel, Miss Natalie, turns into a sucking machine every night, lately?

 Tonight alone, I nursed her to sleep at 6:30pm.  She woke up hysterical at 9:30pm, so I nursed her back to sleep AGAIN.  And we just played the same game minutes ago at 10:30pm.  Oh, and let me be clear that  I have no doubt  we will be spending more “quality” time together well into the night.

 I have somehow managed to turn my boobs into the world’s first human pacifier, and I don’t like it…not one bit!  At this point in the evening, and surly at 12:30am, 2:30am, and 4:30am when Natalie and I have our little rendezvous again, I will be asking myself why?  

Why do I do this to by body?   I know rationally and logically right now that breast milk is the best form of nutrition for our babies, and I am blessed to be able to nurse my infant.  However, let’s face facts here ladies…this is not a nutritional issue.  She only wants to use me to sooth herself back to sleep.  And while comforting her and watching her drift into a peaceful sleep at my breast during nap time  and bedtime brings me immeasurable  joy, doing it EIGHTEEN more times throughout the night….well, let’s just say it loses its luster for me at that point!  

I know…I know….

“Sara, you need to stop spoiling her and giving in.” 

“Sara, just let her cry it out.”

“Sara, put her to bed awake and then she won’t keep waking up needing you to get back to sleep.”

I know all of the advice and the “right” things to do in this situation.  I just can’t seem to articulate how hard it is to act on at 2:00am with a screaming child.  During these moments, I just want the madness to end before she wakes up the rest of the house. 

So, as I sit here complaining, I realize that I can either go through the next several months sleepless and resentful of the 24 hour human pacifier gig, or I can buck up and get through the inevitable 3 night detox. 

I’ll let you know when I’m rested enough to take on such a task…..for now….I need to go nurse Natalie back to sleep….  ;o)

I had been having a pity party for myself yesterday like no other.  I was totally and utterly exhausted.  My 10 month old has decided over the past month that she is going to wake up 2-3 times between the hours of midnight and 4am and scream bloody murder until I get up and nurse her back to sleep.  I’m not exactly sure why she has decided to torture me like this, but I think it may be karma working its way back around to bite me in the butt.  She wasn’t this high maintenance when we brought her home from the hospital.  She started sleeping through the night at 2 months old, and I bragged to all my friends about what a great sleeper my angel was….boy, is karma a bi#ch!!  (Needless to say, every little detail seems overwhelming when you are sleep deprived so please keep that in mind as you read on.)

 Regardless of being so tired I couldn’t see straight, my girlfriend called in the morning and asked me if I wanted to go walking with her.  Now, my original plan was to come back home after dropping the kids off at school and joining Miss Natalie for her morning nap!  However, I have been whining and complaining about needing to lose weight to this particular friend for months now, so when she called and offered to exercise with me, I couldn’t really say no.  So, we headed out to do our 3 mile walk with the kids in the stroller…mistake # 1….I really should have stuck to my original for-mentioned plan for nap time! 

To make a very long story as short as possible, we were caught in the rain with the kids.  My husband called and had experienced two separate flat tires and needed me to drive 50 minutes to rescue him.  In the mean time, my dashboard console stopped working so I had no gas gauge, no speedometer, and no idea whether or not I was in reverse, drive, or third gear.  The garage door would not open because the spring broke in half so I couldn’t get into my garage, and along with the dashboard issue, my van’s back breaks had decided to go out virtually instantaneously. 

When all was said and done, by 11am yesterday morning, my husband was on his THIRD flat tire…yes, three separate flat tires…my van was in need of major repairs, the garage door was broken, I had been caught in the rain with my 10 month old….and we were out roughly $1,800!

By the time I got home from rescuing my husband, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

 I decided to cry.

 I threw in the towel for the day and made the decision that nothing was going to turn this day around for us.  It was ruined and I could only hope for a better day tomorrow. 

That is when God stepped in and worked His mercy into my life as He always does.  Through my children, God chose to wake me up to what I was really missing yesterday.  Right in the middle of my extremely pathetic pity party, my 6 year old came home from school.

 We were in the midst of our normal after school chaos when he jumps up and excitedly says, “Oh mom, I forgot to give you something.” 

He dug his little hand into his pocket and pulled out two of the most beautiful, shriveled up, dead dandelions and held them out in his tiny hand for me to take.

 “I picked these flowers for you at school today,” he said. ”They were alive, but they must have died in my pocket.”

And with tears in my eyes, I snatched up both the dead dandelions and my son and thanked God for such an awful…beautiful day!

PS  The real proof of God’s presence in my day….dandelions are not even in bloom yet here in Wisconsin!

My life story is incredibly personal.  It is hard for me to put into words the emotion that comes along with becoming a mother and a wife.  It is even harder to express the pain of becoming a single mother and living with divorce.  However, I am willing to put it out there for the world to see in an effort to reach just one woman who may have had to make the same tough choices I had to make.  Perhaps there is someone else out there who can relate to my issues and with that in mind; I am willing to chronicle my life. 

 I decided in 2003, to end my 5 year marriage, 8 year relationship, to the father of my four children.  It was a decision I did not take lightly, and it was by far the most difficult personal struggle I have ever encountered.  Please allow me to disclaim that I am in no way promoting divorce, but simply stating what going through the process was like for me.        

Let me preface the situation with our history together.  I had been dating Jeremy since I was a senior in high school.  After graduating high school, we went on to college together at Marquette University.  I was working towards my degree in secondary education that I intended on using to become an English teacher.  I was also minoring in Psychology because I thought I might want to move onto counseling later in life.  

 My world came to a screeching halt one day when I became pregnant right before the second semester of my sophomore year.   Now, many may think simply being pregnant brought forth some sort of moral dilemma or inner turmoil for me.  Was I going to have the child or have an abortion?  I know many woman, especially at the age of 19, choose to terminate the pregnancy and move on, but that was a thought I never entertained, not even for a second.  I have been adamantly pro-life since I was old enough to know what an abortion was, so it was time to back up all the preaching I had done over the years with action.

 Instead, I chose to drop out of school and become a stay-at-home mom while Jeremy continued with his education and graduated with an engineering degree.  I had always said I was never going to let someone else raise my children, so the decision for me to stay home with my daughter seemed to be compulsory.  We got married shortly after I had Kylie because it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.  We had already sinned in the eyes of the Lord by having a child out of wedlock, we were certainly not going to “push our luck” any further in the eyes of the church, the Lord, or our parents! 

This is where the real problems developed.  I lived a very miserable existence in my marriage because I had grown up with a religion that taught me divorce was a sin not easily forgiven. I was determined to obey the church.  I was so unhappy.  My husband was unhappy.  We fought all the time and neither of us showed the other nearly the respect we deserved.   We had periods of good times, but the fighting far outweighed the times of peace.  

 We went on to have 3 more children.  Many people that were viewing the situation from the outside kept asking why we continued to have more children if the relationship was so rough from the beginning.   Looking back, as hindsight is always 20/20, I see now that we thought sharing another pregnancy and another baby would bring us closer together.  The relationship was so empty that I just kept filling the void with another baby that helped absorb my pain.   And again, it wasn’t all bad, all the time.  We had periods of time together when things really were good.  I would venture a guess that those periods would be around the time of my children’s conception!

  I take accountability for my part in the mess we had created.  I came into the marriage with having zero knowledge of what a healthy relationship looked like.  I was way too young to even comprehend the vastness of my decision to get married.  I had also walked into the marriage from the start with such a strong resentment built up towards my husband because of the situation we were in.  When we got pregnant in college, I had to drop out of school and he continued with his education.  I can see clearly now that the choice for me to leave school and get married was just as much my decision as his, but throughout the marriage, I couldn’t see past the hostility that decision filled my heart with.  It was a recipe for disaster from the beginning. 

 The anger, resentment, hostility, lack of respect and so forth had taken its toll on our children as well.  They were the real stakeholders in my life.  They were the primary shareholders of this marriage and I was so determined to “do right” that I didn’t even see the hurt we were creating in their lives.

  On one evening in particular, that became blindingly clear.  The children were attending a Catholic elementary school, and Jeremy and I were at an open house the school was hosting.  Outside of my son’s preschool classroom was a paper quilt that each of the kids had made.  They were to draw a picture of what they prayed to God about.  My son’s quilt had a sweet picture of his mommy on one side and his daddy on the other side with him placed so perfectly in the middle of our “happy family.”  It was the ideal image that I held so dear to my heart, and I was so pleased that is was out there for everyone to admire.  Written below this model picture, captioned in my son’s own words read, “I pray that God will help my mommy and daddy stop fighting so much.”  

GASP!!!  

There, hanging in the hallway of our Catholic school, attached to the church that I was so eagerly appeasing with my “happy family”, was the truth articulated by our four year old for all to see.  

It was one of the lowest moments of my life.  What had I done?  What had we done to this child and our other children at home?  What happened to my perfect, ideal life?  Where was the integrity and honesty behind all of my fake smiles throughout the years?  Most importantly, how was I going to fix it?

  I was determined at this point to make the marriage work.  I had to for the sake of all I believed in.  My personal code of ethics was at stake here along with the stability of my children’s lives.  I couldn’t possibly let my children grow up in a “broken” home.  I couldn’t fathom the thought of going to school functions as a divorcee.  It was an embarrassment.  I was not going to break up my family and disgrace my children or myself in the eyes of the church, or for that matter, anyone else who may be watching.  I was not going to be a hypocrite to my own code of conduct.  I had an obligation to uphold an image, the right image. 

Over the course of the next year and a half, my husband and I put forth what I believe to be our best efforts at saving the marriage.  As ironic as it may seem, things actually got worse instead of better.  All the therapy we were attending managed to do was make me realize how unhappy I really was.  I felt trapped.  I wanted out, but I felt it was at such a high cost; my children’s wellbeing.  I was trying to adhere to the utilitarian belief that staying in this marriage was the greatest good for the greatest number.

 In my mind, there was no way I could possibly be happy and make my children happy at the same time.  I couldn’t possibly have “the best of both worlds.”  Either I stayed in my miserable life for the kids’ sake, or I leave and become the most selfish, horrible mother in this world.  It soon dawned on me though that staying in my unhappy marriage for the sake of my children was at my children’s expense.

  What kind of a mother was I really being when I was depressed, angry and hostile each and every day?  The stress of it all even took a toll on my health.  I was in and out of the hospital all the time for migraine headaches and severe asthma problems.  I finally made the call to take control of my life and alter the code of ethics I was so desperate to uphold.

 I have since divorced and remarried the man of my dreams.  Unbelievably, my ex and I are great friends and get along so well it’s almost scary.  He is involved in the children’s lives on a daily basis.  I have found that doing what is best for me, ends up reflecting on every aspect of my life, including my children.  I have a new sense of self worth and a much healthier quality of life to sustain.  I am stronger than ever and setting an even better example for my children than fulfilling the cliché.

 I still have my crosses to bear in the eyes of the church and many others for that matter, but I face those demons with prayer and faith that I am doing the best I can.   I cannot lie; the guilt of the divorce still haunts me to this day; it probably always will.  Guilt can be as deadly to the soul as cancer.  At times, when I forget to put it in its place, it starts to control my life again.  During these moments, I try to accept the mercy that God has given all of us…even a divorcee like me.  I would say that the second-guessing and inner turmoil are the daily, negative consequences of the way I ultimately chose to run my “family business.”   Each time one of my children acts up or seems to be struggling with an emotional issue, I question whether that would be happening had I stayed married to their dad. 

 I can honestly say that on most days, my children are happy and well adjusted to our situation.  They get to see a happy, strong, self-aware mother who does what she needs to do for her family and not what others think she should be doing.  That in turn, has created strong, happy, healthy children and an environment that is a joy to live in and be a part of.  

 Would they be more secure or happier had I stayed in a loveless marriage for their sake?  I’m sure many would say yes, however I feel that only our good Lord knows that.  For now, I take comfort in the hugs I receive each morning, the smiling faces I put to bed at night.

 I take comfort in knowing that although my personal story has taken some unexpected turns, and perhaps not always the path of least resistance, it is still my story to write and my road to navigate.

Children have to be the greatest gifts God can bestow upon us.  Neither health nor wealth can hold a flame to the joy of having children in our lives.  My children show me every day how precious, sincere and perfect life can be if only viewed through the eyes of a child. I know that being a “domestic engineer”, my paychecks are in the form of hugs and kisses and dandelions picked from the yard.  However, as priceless as these gifts are, I am really talking about the unconventional blessings our children give us.  Over the past 12 years, with all five of my children, I have been secretly blessed with countless sleepless nights, more stomach flu’s than you can shake a fist at, and endless wars-of-will over bedtime.  Not until recently though, did I ever appreciate them quite as I do now.  It never occurred to me that even in these less than perfect times with my children, a blessing was among us.

 A couple of years ago I had the humbling honor of hearing one family’s tragic story which has forever changed me.  I do not even know this family, but their experience opened my eyes forever.  This family had a 3-year-old little girl who came crawling into her mommy and daddy’s bed one night and died within 15 minutes of snuggling in-between them.  No cause of death was ever determined, and she passed away quietly in the comfort of her parent’s bed.  Ever since the moment I heard about that family’s tragedy, I have not stopped thinking about them and the depths of the sorrow that they must live with every day since the loss of their little girl.   

 While I cannot even begin to understand the good Lord’s reasons for such tragedies, I do know that we should all be taking lessons away from them.   I now see very clearly that I am so fortunate that my children are even alive to fight with me about bedtime or color all over the walls with a sharpie.  I am so privileged that that the severity of the illness that strikes our home is the flu and asthma.  Now, events that used to be a test of my patience are some of my most cherished moments.

  In my world, the fact that last night I laid in a rock hard bed for three hours so my 6 year old could fall asleep after a bad dream is one of the most precious gifts this life has to offer.  We laid there together in the still of the night, restless and anxious.  He held my thumb, as he always does, until it was pruned from the moisture of his tiny little hand.  My back was killing me, I was exhausted, and yet I truly believe it was a gift from God. 

 I may not know much, but I can assure you that there is nothing those parents would not give to have a sleepless night with their little girl because of the flu or an unscheduled, three hour snuggle session because their little one had a bad dream.  I once thought of nights like this as the dreaded, never ending, battle of bedtime, but I now see it for what it is really worth; a fleeting moment I may not be able to capture again and an opportunity I am not guaranteed to experience again. 

 For that, I am eternally grateful.  

So, I’m guessing there is nothing that can make a mom feel worse about her parenting ability quite like finding your 9 month old eating dog poop! That’s right…let me restate that: EATING DOG POOP!

Regardless of how great I thought I was doing as a mother yesterday, I was instantly snapped back into reality when I found Miss Natalie eating dog poop. I had left her playing in the living room while I went to aid the boys in their homework. I thought I heard her make a gagging noise so I asked Kylie what was going on.

Yes, I wrote that correctly….  Kylie was actually sitting in the same room with her and did not notice the dog poop or the fact that Natalie was about to try some! Kylie reassured me that she was not gagging, just making a funny noise. However, after a brief pause and hearing her do it again, I ran into the room to find out exactly what was going on.

To my horror, Natalie was gagging on the dog poop she came across on the living room carpet.

So, there we were…she was gagging, I was gagging, the boys were laughing hysterically, and Kylie was freaking out! It was a display like no other!

Just another day in the life of the three ring circus I like to call “home”!

I stumbled across this entry in my journal from a couple of years ago. While my situation has changed dramatically since that day (thank God for Natalie), I thought the sentiment was worth publishing. As summer approaches, the message is a good reminder to all of us moms that our time with our children is precious and limited, so cling to it like super glue! I’m sure that many of you can relate to the feelings tied up in YOUR first day of Kindergarten…and Avery, this one is for you!

             ***********************************************************

Today may quite possibly be one of the most difficult and gut retching days of my life. In my 31 years, I have never dreaded the first day of kindergarten quite like I have today. For the past eleven years, since the day my first daughter was born, I have been a stay-at-home mom. Granted, I have picked up part-time jobs here and there, but my heart has always been at home.

Summer has always been my favorite season, and it actually has very little to do with the weather. You see, each school year I send my babies off to school, but each summer my children came back to me. Summer is all ours. Beach days, swimming at the local pool, parks, picnics, cookouts, little league; it doesn’t matter. It is summer and it is all ours.

But today….wow…..today is the first day of school. My baby, my youngest, went off to his first full day of kindergarten today. Today is the first day in 11 years that my proud title of “stay-at-home mom” doesn’t apply any longer. There are no more babies to care for this morning. There is no toddler running around; there is no lunch to make; there are no naps to take; there is no more snuggling on the couch in our PJ’s to watch morning cartoons. That phase in our time together is gone, and I can never get it back.

Today is much more monumental for me than it is for my 5 year old. He is blissfully off and running, starting a new and exciting phase in his life, while I am forced into “early retirement”. I need to find a new title; a new job description; a new purpose for my days and quite frankly, I don’t want to. I love my job. It fulfills me. It is my calling in life, and it’s passing by at break-neck speed.

I left my baby on the playground today and along with him, a huge chunk of my heart. I pray that my children will keep my heart close to them throughout their days at school, and I know that in approximately 270 days, I will get it back. We can start all over again for those few brief, but cherished months of summer where I can be gainfully “employed” again. A time when I can proudly announce my title ounce again to the world: I am a “stay-at-home mom”!

But until then, I guess I must go and find a new job; a new title that better suites who I must reluctantly become. And in the mean time, I pray that our time together was enough.

I pray that I was enough.

I received an email from a friend today that commented on yesterday’s post.  She was so sweet and heart-felt in her concern for my current “situation”.  She ended her email by stating that she would keep my family and me in her prayers.  My first thought was, “Oh that is so nice.  We can always use prayers.”  My second thought was, “What in the world did I write that makes her think we need the prayers?!”  So, I went back and read yesterday’s post and several other posts, and boy did my eyes widen.  I cannot believe what a “doom and gloom” kind of person I am.  The overall theme of every post appears to carry a “the sky is falling” tone!  Had I not looked back with an objective eye, I w0uld never peg myself as such a pessimist!  

So I feel it’s important that I start following up with certain topics to make sure that my friends and family are not concerned that my marriage is over, I’m ready to jump off a cliff, and to reassure everyone that my children really are safe, happy, and healthy!  I truly love my life (on most days) and feel that I am the most blessed woman on this earth (every day).  I have an amazing husband whom I love to the depths of my soul.  My children are my greatest gift from God and my most prized achievement.  I just tend to write about the less that terrific feelings I have as a way of coping.  I just want to know if any other women out there grapples with the same issues.  That being said, I do not want this blog to become some depressing drivel that makes everyone suicidal after reading it!

Therefore, after reading yesterday’s post, I feel I was too harsh on the reality of our situation.  In haste, I stated that the children have not “taken” to my husband.  What I should have written was that my husband feels the kids have not taken to him.  It is his perception and my fear, but not necessarily the truth.  

After the kids came home from school yesterday, I sat them down to have a candid discussion regarding exactly how they feel about their step-dad.  I asked them a few direct questions, and they answered without reservation and as children always do, with purity in their hearts.  

My questions were “Do you love Corey and do you feel your life is better with him a part of it?”  Perhaps too deep for them to truly grasp, but they got the jest of what I was trying to get at.  To summarize their responses:  ”What do you think, mom?  Of course, we love him.  He is part of our family.”  Simply stated and well put!  I would be remiss if I did not add that the 6 year old stated, “He is a great ‘fixer’ of our stuff”.  Thank you Avery!  

Crisis averted.  Peace and harmony restored.  Now, what’s for dinner? 

After the kids were all tucked in for the night, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Corey (my husband) about my chit-chat with the kids.  I told him what they had to say.  All I can tell you is that with tears in his eyes,  a weight was lifted off his shoulders right then and there…as was the same weight lifted from mine.  I realized that while life may not be grand and perfect in a blended family, sometimes we as adults over think and psychoanalyze too much.  It is my humble theory that we do this out of guilt and fear rather than from a place of rational, objective observation. 

Lesson learned:  while the sky may be falling in my mind some days, it is not necessarily falling for the rest of the world.  

P.S.  to my kind and wonderful friend, keep the prayers coming…they certainly can’t hurt!

Weave your own hierarchy of needs and live by it.

Create choices.

Make decisions.

Set goals.

Start plans.

Celebrate victories.

Acknowledge setbacks.

We only get one shot at this life…one take. There are no mulligans once it is all said and done. So what are we waiting for?

Tomorrow…next week?

When we have more money?

When we have more time?

When things settle down…once things get easier…once the dust settles….once the New Year arrives?

Once he changes or she commits to it?

The list of excuses is immeasurable but our time on Earth is not. So what do you want to leave behind?

  A list of to dos…a list of excuses…a list of regrets…a neatly organized plan that you failed to act on…

What will be your legacy?

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to have a “blended” family.  I have four beautiful children from my first marriage, and my husband and I just had a baby girl 10 months ago.  To be completely blatant, it has been a very difficult ride.  It has been 5 long years of ups and downs.  My children love their dad.  They miss their dad when they are not with him, and I can see that when they allow themselves to get close to their step-dad, they feel they are betraying their father.  

My husband loves my children to death, but relationships as a whole are not his specialty.  He struggles with intimacy, so making a connection with my kids has been difficult to say the least.  They resent his presence at times because they subconsciously feel that if he were not here, perhaps their dad would be.  Obviously, that is not the truth, but try explaining that to a 6 year old….or a 9 year old…or an 11 year old…or a 13 year old!  They don’t understand that even without my husband in the picture, their dad and I would still be apart. 

The kicker here is that I get along great with my ex husband.  We are really good friends and my children see that…so does my husband.  I thought that is how it needed to be.  I thought I was doing my kids a favor by staying close to their father and allowing them to see that we are still a team when it comes to raising them.  However, our friendship has in some ways given them the impression that we should still be together.  They cannot possibly understand that no matter how great mommy and daddy get along now, it wasn’t always like that.  They don’t understand that we can only be great friends because we are not trying to be married to each other.  For that matter, I’m not even sure if my husband realizes that anymore.  I think he has doubts too.  I honestly think that at times, my husband believes if he were out of the picture, my original “family” would be together again.  So he carries around unsubstantiated guilt over something he had nothing to do with.  Again, with or without him, my ex and I don’t work as a married couple. 

So what do I do?  How do I bridge the gap between my children and husband?  Who wrote the manual on divorce and blended families because I need a copy ASAP? 

Bottom line, I cannot sit back and watch my kids feel guilty over their love for two men any more, and I cannot handle watching the devastation in my husband’s eyes when he reaches out to one of my kids and they turn their back on him.  I am the tie that binds these two camps together, and I’m slowly losing my grip.