increasing the manageable

on saturday i took my kids out for the day and we had a pleasant outing. we spent a lot of time in the art supply store, bookstore, and toy store in what would probably be considered our favorite shopping center.

while in line at the art store, the lady in front of me said she was proud of how i'd handled some major sass coming from six year old pea. he was purposely being contrary and then asked for candy. i told him i really couldn't reward his behavior. when he started to get insistent i told him that approach would not work in his favor. matter of fact.

later, at the bookstore, i ran into an old friend who i met at the bookstore for the first time when i was pregnant with pea. she used to wear fairy wings in public and by opening herself up in such a small way she has helped many people in this area in the last seven or so years. it's no surprise then that we had one of our famous, serendipitous talks. she told me she sensed a new kind of confidence and peace about me { she is especially flattering } and that she liked how i was with my kids. because, you know, i was talking to someone else so they started acting like circus clowns. i assured her it wasn't always the case but that it was getting easier to be the pillar of patience and understanding.

yesterday i took them grocery shopping, attempting to replicate our experience the day before. we had to make three stops and the entire outing took about three times as long as it should have and the attempt was not successful.

our first stop was sam's. three year old sprout didn't want to sit in the stroller but didn't want to walk next to me, either. pea started behaving in an atypical (or newly typical?) fashion and started climbing up on the clothing displays and not just the shelves but the actual stacks of clothing. i had to repeat every request more than three times and on the way out he said he wouldn't enjoy the rest of the day because i didn't buy him a game for the wii. i was just like, wha? don't even, child.

the next stop was a natural grocery store. the kids were fed and our expectations for behavior had been set prior to entering the store. sprout was tired but refused to sit in the cart and i honestly thought we could get in and out, quickly and peacefully.

i was wrong. the place is pretty small and everyone that shops/works there is way mellow and even-tempered. my kids seemed like bulls in the china shop, they were talking too loudly, whining, touching all the things. i tried to maintain calm communication with them but the youngest was being a little wild and the middlest was bargaining with me, saying he'd behave if i bought him a treat. at one point i told my three year old he was embarrassing me. as the words were coming out of my mouth i was thinking 1. he doesn't even know what that means and 2. why am i blaming him for his behavior? he's three!

that trip ended up being kind of pointless. i bought four things and decided that we had to brave a larger grocery store with a better produce selection, chia seeds, and the homeopathic eye drops i so desperately needed. the next place had donuts, though. and saltwater taffy. and other crap i could bribe my kids with (i know bribing doesn't really work. it's no good. see above? it makes kids think they can bargain which makes moms a little nuts but then we get desperate and do shit like bribe).

so. i set expectations again. promise sweets. and go into a larger grocery store only to experience much of the same. this time sprout is confined to the stroller and i don't really care if people are looking at us. it's a bigger, louder, brighter grocery store and my kids' shuffles and complaints just sort of filter through the air of much the same.

until pea starts running through the liquor department while i'm in the health and beauty section looking for the elusive eye drops i so desperately need. damn it. let's go, i say. i'm sort of done.

later that night, when everyone was asleep, i had wanted to paint but instead spent the time stretching and releasing my painful hips/legs. i'd been feeling great for a couple of months and bam! this past week i am experiencing a level of pain that reminds me that i probably really don't ever want to be pregnant again. during the stretches, some wonderful things came to light and one of the most profound things was i don't like and haven't liked taking my kids "shopping" when i actually have things to accomplish, when my brain is required to compute things like what fits into our budget or even simpler things like not losing my shopping list, and that doesn't make me a bad mom. it makes me a smart mom. they don't like it, either. it's not fun, i don't give them time to lollygag and i don't want to hear them call me out when i stop at look at something not on my list because i'm not giving them the same luxury every 8 seconds.

i started thinking about the last couple of months. sprout has outgrown his daily, epic tantrums, we took a few mini road trips, and have experienced more things recently simply for the sake of experiencing them. it's actually been fun. i discovered that i like hanging out with my kids. even though the other day at the art, book, and toy stores, there were minor episodes of conflict or whatever, it was an overall a pleasant experience for everyone. i even let the boys play in the big power wheels on display, like my parents used to let me, and that's when it occurred to me...the difference is that day we had no agenda, no plans, no time-constraints. i didn't buy anything except lunch and some art supplies and they didn't whine or ask for anything { much } at the toy store.

yesterday, i was not relaxed. i wasn't even in sam's club for five minutes before i started to feel overwhelmed. i didn't express it in any way but i'm sure my kids picked up on my uneasy energy. i don't like crowds and of course everyone and their grandmother was at sam's yesterday. i tried to stay focused on the kids and the task at hand but i'm sure they were somewhat overloaded on the sensory stuff, too. then i expected them to switch gears and go from the sam's environment to one on the complete opposite side of the spectrum.

seems so obvious now. kids outings should equal more fun, less agenda.

i had been leaving the kids with awesome papa but still carried some child-shaped guilt with me every time i left, even if it just was to the grocery store. now i'm completely over myself and the silly notion that i must "do it all". it's not always beneficial, for any of us, for them to come with me. of course, it's not always possible for them to stay home, either, but now i see the difference in the manageable vs. the crazy making.

here's to increasing the manageable ;)

follow your own path

as usual, i have so much to say but don't want to or don't know how.

this makes blogging an unusual challenge.

life is good.

the path was rocky but change is never easy. i think i've been as balanced as possible while on my current tight-rope walk of faith and i'm not out of the water, yet, but the path emerging is clear.

the messages from the universe and from the people i have just serendipitously met along my way are what keep me going. i finished a piece recently that i just absolutely adore. i will have lustre prints available on etsy soon but here until then...a non-blurry ipod, non-hipstamatic sneak peek of "follow your own path"...

still surrendering...

this week has been good, but tough.

i am completely broke and because two student loan companies didn't offer a long enough forbearance while i waited for my deferment approval, my credit rating has tanked in two months, A LOT, and i'm so broke i can't pay some of my bills this month, surely adding to another drastic reduction of an already not so great number.

i am seriously trying not to freak out about things that i cannot control and things that are only fears right now, like the possibility that all of my interest rates and my car insurance premium will go up.

i got a call from the counseling place this week and it looks like i could possibly be working for them in the next week or two but had i known when i signed up for the three full training days that it would be unpaid and could still take up to a month to start working, i might have rethought my entire strategy.

i am seriously happy in my decision to stop watching the girls when i did but i might have made better financial plans before saying my good-byes. aside from lack of money, it was a wise decision, though. my sprout hasn't had a runny, icky diaper since. the baby girl kept passing something around. she was constantly sick and the poor thing also suffered from a major lactose intolerance that her parents were well aware of but chose to completely ignore at their convenience. changing multiple diarrhea diapers every day was the worst! i have also had time (and energy) to devote to much needed organization around my house. i still have lots of grown-up phone calls to make and other business to take care of but i got a handle on some very important rearranging. i'd like to say that my house was in tip-top shape but my pelvic misalignment is back in full swing, it's gotten progressively worse over the last seven days. yesterday, after two near-falls and being unable to get back up, both times, for about twenty minutes, i got serious about making sure my core muscles were tight and did a much longer series of realignment exercise a la the don tigny approach which was always more helpful and accessible than anything my PT wanted me to try last time i was pregnant. truth be told, she didn't even know what to do with me and the one chiropractor in town that supposedly specializes in SPD (which is apparently now known as pelvic girdle pain, in the UK, at least, where they do a ton more research on the topic) caused way more pain than she helped relieve. at this point, i'm all about self-help techniques, but yesterday was so bad that for the first time in three years, i need pharma-pain-relief as well. i think between babies, i had taken aleve or motrin a few times, but i hate pills and never take anything remotely risky while pregnant. i also have a pretty high pain tolerance but i'm going on five years of feeling like shit nearly every day.


so i took a vicodin. whooo, did that make me drowsy. i was so happy that i could walk around pain-free, but that only last twenty minutes before the pain came back. the previous three hours i spent on the couch trying to rest or nap, which the littles wanted nothing to do with.
the other night, the pain wasn't even full-throttle like yesterday, but i threw my right leg out of whack while putting the little ones to bed and the thought crossed my mind that maybe some inner emotional stuff was working itself out as this odd manifestation of severe symptoms again. see, i generally have some mid-cycle "looseness" and mild pain in the hip/pelvic region but since last tuesday it's been much more pronounced than it has since sprout was born. two years postpartum, i thought it would be getting better. i'm not nearly as immobile as i was while pregnant but i find that i have to once again move around very, very slowly. anyhow, after this thought crossed my head, i mentioned it to my husband. i don't think he believes in the mind/body connection at all, at least not in the sense that real tangible pain and dis-ease can be somehow intricately tied to inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions. his answer was no, i was in pain simply as the result of having three children.

i don't even know how to explain why i resented that comment so much. if only my mind allowed me to think of this problem as so easily explained. if only i wasn't in pain, mostly all the time, as a reminder of why i can't have any more babies. if only that were true, than more women would be limping around as well. but when i think about that one too long, i realize how often it is that i do see women limping. how often i notice older women with walkers or canes or wheelchairs, while their husbands walk gallantly aside. i don't like to make statistical claims and i'm no scientist but it does make me wonder how many of those women had pelvic misalignment during pregnancy. that ol' pregnancy limp that we've gotten so used to seeing as a mock-pregnancy signature walk? yeah, it ain't normal.

anyhow, despite all of this - the pain - the lack of money in the bank - i am so grateful that my husband supported my leap of faith and that i've had this time off, so to speak, to tend to matters around the house. even if i haven't been the most patient and available mama this week, i have had some small successes.

i was able to handle all of the last minute details of highschool choir and variety shows last week, i was able to start small and plant seeds in three planters with pea, and i have fully weaned sprout (thus why i felt safe taking that vic, yesterday) but have open and available arms for him to fall asleep in every day at nap time and every night before bed.

still learning what it means to surrender to the process that positive thinking will pay off but making time to journal every morning helps a lot ;)