Emotional Rollercoaster

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Aurora in Complaint Department, Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Faith, In Hindsight, Rants, Taterbug, Writing

Tags

anxiety, cats, children, depression, disabled, family, kids, life, marriage, moving, parenting, poverty, rants, writing

Life has surely had its ups and downs the last couple of months here. We’ve jumped through so many hoops, sometimes I wonder how much more jumping I have left in me. Being this stressed is exhausting. It’s easy for others to tell you not to worry, when they really have no idea what you are going through. Sometimes I wish people would do a little less telling me not to worry, and just ask me what it is they can do to help. Life would be so much easier.

We are still looking for a new place to live, and for a short while, we thought we had found what seemed the near-perfect place for us. It was a nice house in a very small town an hour to the north of where we live now. John’s mom was going to help us get the down payment to be able to buy it, and I thought things were finally looking up.

That was until, lo and behold, and out of state buyer swooped in at the last moment, and outbid our offer by several thousand dollars.

Needless to say I was crushed and still am. Now I guess it is back to the drawing board. The realtor says she has more homes she can show us, but in our price range, the selection is kind of limited. Part of me is almost afraid to get my hopes up, but I want us to have a nice home of our own so badly. Rents are way out of league around here, buying seems like our only option if we have a prayer of affording anything. Rent on a comparable house would be four times as much as the mortgage payment would be, at the very least.

I just want a stable place to call home. I want somewhere for Thor to grow up, and not worry him over having to move every few years. I want to be able to paint walls a color that isn’t white or beige, and hang as many pictures as I darn well please. Now that my older kids are grown, in a few years I want something their kids will be able to call grandma and grandpa’s house, somewhere they can run back and forth in and jump up and down on the floor in without driving the downstairs neighbors insane.

Maybe it’s all just too much to ask for, but I have to keep trying. Hopefully when next week comes, there will be better news.

Meanwhile the little guy is growing like a weed and into everything. He keeps me smiling even when it seems like the job of trying to keep up with him never ends. He is almost frighteningly smart nowadays. He already knows how to do basic things not only on our cell phone, but also on the computer. He can open iTunes and play his favorite music, which I think he recognizes by the album cover pictures. He also already uses about a dozen different words , with some of his most consistent ones being: up, spoon, hi, no, and of course the word, owl. He still can’t seem to get enough of owls, which have been his favorite animal since he was only a few weeks old, but which are now having to share a special place in his heart with cats, especially his now much beloved stuffed cat named Tygie.

Tygie is the first toy that I can say, Thor picked out all by himself. He takes him almost anywhere and everywhere now, at least around the house. We try to make sure he leaves him at home when we have somewhere to go, because we are a little afraid of the cat getting lost. Thor would be devastated if that happened. He won’t go to sleep at nap time or at bedtime without him.

As you can see, orange cats are by far his favorite, I think because they look like our real live cats. The kitty here in the photo with Tygie is our oldest cat, who unfortunately came to us already with the name Boobies. He is quite an old man now, at 19 years old, and is very well loved, if slightly afraid of our son when he’s being noisy and moving too quickly near him. Thankfully Thor is getting much better about being gentle with the cats, and doesn’t pull tails nearly as often as he used to.

I am unsure what else to write about at this time. It’s hard to write, let alone be creative when your mind seems so busy with every day worries that seem so overwhelming. Writing used to be an escape, but nowadays it seems impossible when life seems this overwhelming. I am hoping to some day soon to at least have something good to write about here, instead of all this seemingly endless venting of the day’s issues.

Even if it is with much ranting and complaining, I always seem to keep moving, somehow…

Thinking Turkey Thoughts

28 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by Aurora in Complaint Department, Holiday Thoughts, Rants

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Tags

depression, family, grandparents, holidays, kids, life, loneliness, motherhood, parenting, rants, thanksgiving, thoughts

Holidays aren’t easy for me. I know that statement will be hard to explain to some people. Life hasn’t been easy for a long time, years now, even decades. I was a child the last time I really have good memories to look back on, even related to holidays.

I know some people joke about wondering how long it will take during the holidays for the police to be called, but in my family it’s a distinct possibility. The last time I remember spending Christmas with my family two fights broke out, and that was just christmas eve. I haven’t eaten a thanksgiving dinner I haven’t cooked myself in so many years that I can’t even remember when the last one I ate with my family was. I do however remember it was horrible and not much worth writing about food wise.

Being just me and my oldest daughter for years on the holidays, I never did the whole big turkey and all that, not that I ever could have afforded to anyway. Usually Thanksgiving for us meant pork chops and stuffing with mashed potatoes at home, and eating in front of the tv still in our pajamas. It was always just the two of us, or at least on most years.

Last year I think I made a half-effort at making a little bit of turkey, but not a whole one. It came out mostly ok, even if the veggies ended up a shriveled mess and not exactly edible. Cue this year’s second attempt, which I will be trying in a crock pot instead of the oven, because the oven will be occupied by my roommate’s god awful tofurkey. Just the thought of tofurkey makes me shudder with revulsion.

Holidays are hard, and the funk they leave me in is hard to shake myself from. All I usually end up thinking of is how much I envy people with close and loving families, and how I’d give almost anything to be part of a family like that. Yes, I have a husband and kids, and memories to build there, but thinking of the past and the mess that is the rest of my family, still hurts to no end, and probably always will. I see how it is even affecting my kids now and it upsets me so badly I could scream. Three generations of this family have been completely ruined by all this dysfunction and drama my mother and aunt just can’t seem to bury the hatchet over.

I really hope someone brings my grandmother dinner tomorrow, I would if I had a car, and weren’t so far away. I hate the thought of her sitting in that house all alone, especially with this being the first Thanksgiving that my grandfather has been gone. I worry a lot for her now, but there’s only so much I can do living an entire state away. The rest of the family is too busy not speaking to one another to really care I think, as they have been every year for who knows how long. All I can do is call grandma tomorrow, and at least let her know she hasn’t been forgotten.

Turkey is all well and good, but what I’d really love to have someday is a family that acts like a family, at least long enough to make it through dinner.

Am I wrong to just keep wishing?

Ouch from the couch…

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Aurora in Complaint Department, Rants

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

bored, life, random, rants

I’m grumpy, I’m tired and I’m sore. Last night after coming home from the chiropractor my back went into such a bad spasm that I spent half the night in the emergency room, because I had to break down and actually do something about the pain. I don’t know whether something went wrong while being adjusted yesterday, or whether lugging around my 22 pound son car seat and all threw my back out on the way home.

I hate taking pain pills, can’t stand it…don’t even want them in my house usually.

Today I am still sore, but not nearly as bad as last night thank goodness. I’ve been taking it easy and using my husband’s lap desk from the sofa to type on. I know I shouldn’t just sit here, and I need to move around a little to get myself unstiffened again, but I don’t wanna.

Maybe food would be a good idea…Lucky Charms you have become my new favorite food for the evening. Ain’t cooking, can’t make me.

Playing Ketchup?

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by Aurora in Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Random Tangents, Random Thoughts, Taterbug, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

anxiety, children, disabled, family, ketchup, kids, life, marriage, NaNoWriMo, parenting, random, worry, writing

Yes I misspelled the title of today’s blog post on purpose…because I can.

Life still seems to be stuck in that same stressful holding pattern, of waiting for answers. It’s hard knowing things are out of your hands when it comes to what your family’s financial situation is going to be like for the foreseeable future. Sadly worry isn’t really getting me anywhere, or I’d be a millionaire from doing it by now.

It’s hard to find ideas for what to write about when I’m stressed. I remember a time when writing was my escape from it all. I wonder what’s changed?

I go days at a time without writing now, and then try to play catch up when I do write. Sometimes I may get interrupted half a dozen times trying to make one post by the baby, the hubby, or sometimes even the cat, thinking he needs to do the typing for me. I love my family, I really do, but sometimes I think that in order to get something resembling serious writing accomplished I am going to need to padlock myself in a room a few hours a day somewhere I don’t have the luxury of wi-fi.

One thing uncertainty has always given me is an urge to plan ahead. People who don’t know me are usually amazed at my ability to pack rat the necessities far ahead of when we need them. I’m not a hoarder, but I do believe in having some things set aside in advance of when you need them. You never know when there will be an unexpected emergency, or your kid will have a sudden overnight growth spurt.

When I didn’t know how our finances were going to change, the first thing I did was start trying to plan for Thor this winter. It’s hard enough to find little boys clothes around here on a good day, let alone coats or anything of that nature, so that was the first thing I went after, making sure he had two sizes worth of decent winter coats and footy pajamas to last him through winter this year. As long as he isn’t in a larger toddler size by spring I should hopefully have most of his clothes except pants covered for the winter. My friend Christie knitted him a nice warm hat, that thankfully he seems to love so far.

Boys jeans are proving to be harder than anything to find for some reason. Thor already wears a larger size in shirt than in pants anyway so “outfits” usually aren’t that good of an option unless the pieces can be worn separately. I really miss the old Garanimals section of the kids area of department stores, but none of the stores around here seem to carry them anymore.

The stores I have seen in my area are like a sea of little girls clothing, with hardly a rack of boys things in sight. This is precisely why when I actually run across decent boys clothing at yard sales, if I have the money, I clean the place out. Outside of underwear and shoes, I don’t think there’s much parents aren’t better off buying used for all the longer kids are going to wear it, well, unless it’s a nice outfit for a special occasion. The styles of girls clothing do tend to change frequently, but with boys, thankfully, people tend to stick with the classics, sports, trucks, dinosaurs, and super heroes, so they don’t seem to go out of fashion nearly as quickly.

It still puzzles me why people assume Thor is a girl, when I dress him up in tie dye though. I don’t get that at all …

People are just weird I guess…

Then again I’m rather odd myself, so I don’t know why any of that surprises me anymore. This post, like so many others is turning into a ramble, without that much of a central point. I guess I am writing just to write. I need to do more of that. It’s getting easier now that I’m finally doing it. Maybe that means if nothing else, at least this mission, for now, is accomplished.

Hearing myself think

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Complaint Department, Rants, Taterbug

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

babies, family, kids, life, mom, motherhood, parenting

The after shot crabbiness is still in full swing. The swelling on his leg from the shot is going down, and all the other symptoms seem to have vanished but this fussiness. He was like this for awhile after last time, and I can’t remember how long it took to clear up then. I just hope it goes away soon. My nerves are frazzled.

It seems any little thing can send him into a crying spell, putting him down for even a second, walking out of the room, me trying to eat anything, all of them seem to induce tantrums. It’s all John and I can do to keep him in a good mood even for a few minutes at a time. We can’t even have a conversation when he is fussing because John’s hearing is too bad for him to hear anything over him. cartoon_baby

I know as much as we parents love our kids to pieces, it’s days like these last few days that really put our patience and sanity to the test. Sometimes nothing you do seems to work, or only works for a minute and you are back to square one all over again. His diaper is clean and dry, he’s been fed, he’s being held, what more could he want? We seem to keep going in the same circles over and over again trying to figure it out.

I can’t even come close to pretending I am one of those people with those perfect looking lives you see on a lot of parenting blogs, I won’t even pretend to be. I get frustrated and frazzled with the best of people with motherhood on days like today. But I also love my son more than anything, and that alone, is what makes all this worth it.

I know better days are coming…please come soon…

Tomorrow would be nice…

Unhappy Campers

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in In Hindsight, Taterbug

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

babies, family, kids, life, parenting

It’s been a very long day today. The day started off nice enough, the weather was somewhat warm, and it was nice and dry at least the first half of the day. Unfortunately today happened to be Thor’s four month checkup at the doctor’s, and that means, you guessed it, more shots.

He did ok with them at the time, he cried a bit in the office afterward, but promptly fell asleep as soon as we put him back into the stoller to leave. He seemed mostly okay until mid evening just about the time the tylenol was starting to wear off, and then he started getting really grumpy. I am not sure if it’s the shots, or just his usual evening fussiness with the not feeling well from shots on top of it. I am thinking both.

I think getting him his shots is almost as rough on me as it is on him. I know they are necessary, but I always feel so awful having to put him through things that I know hurt and are scary for him. I worry, my husband says, far too much. Maybe I do. All I want is a healthy happy baby. I just really hate to see him cry that way. You’d think it would get easier with him being the fourth baby, but it doesn’t. It’s still hard.

Thor is going to grow up in a completely different world than my older kids did. There are family members my older kids loved that he will never get to see. Sometimes it’s sad to think about it, but he is never going to know what it is like to have a grandpa. He won’t have siblings or even cousins close to his age to grow up with. Sometimes I worry things will be too lonely for him. Part of me doesn’t know if I want any more children, but there’s a small part of me that doesn’t want Thor to grow up all by himself. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have another baby, but the thought of going through yet another pregnancy in my forties really scares me.

I know I can’t always fix everything for him. I can’t shield him from every hurt and disappointment he will face in life, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t some small part of me that wants to. I think all parents have that desire inside them. I just hope that I can balance my need to protect him, with giving him the room he is going to need to grow. I want to be loving and not smothering. I want to help him grow strong and not hold him back from the hard things he will need to do for himself, on his own, to help him grow.

You’d think I’d have the answers by now but I don’t. My past mistakes have taught me more of what not to do, than what I should do now. There’s not magic book of instructions to give us all the answers. I guess we all just have to do the best we can, and hope in the end it’s enough.

Busy days

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Aurora in Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Random Tangents, Taterbug, Writing

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family, kids, life, motherhood, NaNoWriMo, parenting, pittsburgh, writing

Finally Smiling

Sorry for the little disappearing act, I seem to be good at those. This week was full of appointments and places to go. The good news is my insurance is letting me have the treatments for my back again, at least for a little while, so I am in a lot less pain now. I also finally got the correct lenses for my new glasses. They are taking some getting used to compared to the old pair, but so far they aren’t too bad.

We also went to the first meeting for our new writer’s group and amazingly there were three other people that came. The group is only going to meet once a month for now, on the first Thursday of the month at the Avalon library, but it’s a start. In other writing related news I signed up for the Camp NaNoWriMo for April, and hopefully will get some writing done. I am crossing my fingers but not holding my breath on that one.

Today we got a lot of housework done, and we rearranged our bedroom. My hubby did most of the heavy lifting part, but organizing is gonna take a little longer. There is at least a lot more room to move around in there now, and hopefully having the shelves of the changing table to arrange baby clothes on until we can get him his own dresser will help us out a little as far as storage space goes, seeing as he has definitely outgrown the little plastic drawer sets we were keeping them in before.

The hardest part of having roommates, is not really having enough room for everyone’s things in this house. John, Thor, and I share one small bedroom here, and somehow we have crammed into it, our queen sized bed, the crib, two book shelves, a changing table we are using as a dresser, a file cabinet that doubles as a nightstand and a laundry hamper.

Clutter annoys me to no end, but with a roommate that is a borderline hoarder, it’s staring me in the face no matter where I look here. I try really hard to make sure at least the areas I have control of stay as organized as they can be under the circumstances. I guess it’s just a side effect of coming from a family of packrats who rarely throw anything away. I can only look at the mess and clutter so long and it starts to drive me crazy anymore. I was an adult before I knew a house looking like that wasn’t normal, and now I get really embarrassed when anyone comes over and the house isn’t in order. Don’t get me wrong, the place doesn’t have to be spotless, just somewhat remotely clean and put together.

For a long time after the baby was born I wasn’t feeling well enough to do much of anything around here. If things are getting to me this much, I must be starting to feel better. I am tired of sitting around, I want to go places and do things. I want to talk to people, and see what there is to do around here. Maybe it’s just cabin fever talking, and I’m ready for it to warm up and winter to finally be over. I wanna get out of the house, take the baby with me and put some serious miles on that stroller.

New day, new theme and color tv

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Aurora in Boredom, Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Fun Stuff, Taterbug

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

books, entertaiment, family, kids, life, parenting, television

Welcome to my new and hopefully improved blog. Yes it is hard letting go of the tye dye, but this one is so much easier on my poor eyes when it comes to reading. I’m sure I am not the only one who finds the white backgrounds on most of the blog templates to be downright blinding sometimes.

I’ve always had very light sensitive eyes, and am not a fan of really brightly sunny days because of it. I have to keep dark sunglasses on just to function when there isn’t enough cloud cover. Bright snowy winter days are the worst, and snow blindness isn’t fun.

So now you all know the main reason for the switch, not to mention, I really think this new theme looks nifty 🙂

The family and I had a long day out today up to Bellevue. We visited the eye doctor to see what is up wonky with my new glasses, and I have to go back tomorrow to have them rechecked. We visited the library book sale and picked up some new books, which is always enjoyable. All the rain we had today did put a little bit of a damper on it, but fortunately the bonnet on Thor’s stroller kept him nice and dry.

John and I are both firm believers in keeping lots of books around, and our son will never have a shortage of things to read. We probably have a few thousand books in this apartment already, and we are slowly building up a children’s book collection with him in mind. More books and little or no tv for him is definitely our plan when it comes to raising him.

Hopefully it will work out well that way. I’ve seen far too many kids who spend way too much time with the electronic babysitter for my comfort. It’s not to say I am against letting kids watch tv at all, but I do believe in letting them watch it in limited amounts. I am also a firm believer that their tv viewing should be limited to shows with educational value or other redeeming qualities. Most kids shows nowadays seem to be materialistic utter nonsense.

There isn’t even much my husband and I find worth watching anymore, outside of maybe Mythbusters and some good documentaries and britcoms on PBS. We no longer even keep cable, and just buy seasons of shows we like on itunes, or stream them online. About the only thing we miss about cable is Food Network, and we subscribe to the magazine so that’s almost just as good, and far easier to refer back to without having to set a DVR. (which I would have no clue how to do anyway, but that is another story for another day…)

Packages

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by Aurora in Boredom, Daily Drivel, Fun Stuff, Random Tangents, Taterbug

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

books, family, kids, life, motherhood, parenting

We seem to have gotten a lot of packages in the mail today that were waiting for us at our PO box. We rarely if ever have anything shipped directly to the house, mostly because we don’t want things walking off of our porch if we aren’t home when the mail arrives to get them right away. Ah the joys of living in the big city.

One of these packages was actually for me for a change, it contained a very much needed lightweight jacket. I have been lacking one since fall, since mine somehow vanished in the process of being prepped for the c-section back in October. This means I now have a jacket and a really hippieish looking multicolored sweater that I can wear now when its chilly out, but not cold. Yay!

Thor’s box of new stuff is always the biggest of the boxes. Today he got a new set of baby dishes with Pooh Bear on them, a cookie jar that looks like our beloved cat Poly, and last but not least, he got a new book!

One of the first things I did after opening the box was sit down to read the book, and it is a wonderfully adorable story about a kitty who loves his peace and quiet, almost as much as he loves his human. I can see this easily becoming a storytime favorite of ours. The story is simple enough for a little one to understand, but still a book even a small child learning to read on their own would love I think.

Thor turns four months old in a couple of days, and everyone knows what that means right? Cereal! I am gonna have to get pictures of this when it happens, but I still wanna double check with the doctor that it’s ok to start him on it first. That should be fun…

What I thought I wanted to be

21 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by Aurora in Boredom, Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, In Hindsight, Random Thoughts, Writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

depression, dreams, family, kids, life, marriage, Music, parenting, regret, writing

I make myself sound like such an old fart when I talk about the past, even though I’ve barely cracked middle age. A lot of things in this world have surely changed, and it seems they are changing more and faster every day. I don’t know when the things of this world got as “disposable” as people nowadays seem to believe that they are. Life didn’t seem to be like that in another time that I remember. Maybe that’s just another thing that’s changed.

I can remember being a small kid, and now I look back on everything I always thought I wanted to be, and what seemed to be important then. I don’t ever remember a time when I didn’t want to grow up and be a mom. I used to dream of being a famous singer, or a famous writer. I guess I still do dream of the singer and writer part, but sadly anymore you have a snowballs chance of getting to sing unless you are a size 0, barely outta high school and have the “look” the record execs are looking for.

When did I kinda give up on my dreams? Maybe it was as I got a little older and teachers and other people told me that only the most beautiful and the best deserved to do those things. I don’t know why I let them make me feel so unworthy, but I did, and to this day I still struggle with it. Maybe it was when my mom told me that if I couldn’t make a living at it, it wasn’t worth doing and I would be an idiot for trying. Dreaming was going to get me nowhere in life. That stung, those words still hurt.

Today I only sing with the radio, and as many awards and compliments as I’ve ever gotten for my singing, I’m still so self-conscious that my husband has heard me sing only once in the almost two years we’ve been together. As much as I dream of singing, I know no band out there wants a 40 something slightly overweight soccer mom at the mic. Maybe I have to accept that dream is one who’s time has passed.

Writing is something I still dabble with, but I’ve somewhat almost given up on as well. I’ve written 3 complete novels and several partial ones now, but no one seems to want to read anything I’ve written. My mom still believes it’s a waste of time, and my husband only seems to beat around the bush and come up with reasons not to when I ask him. It almost feels pointless sometimes to write all these things if no one will ever read them. Why do I keep doing it? Maybe because I have to. Maybe getting everything down on “paper” is the only way I know to let out everything I can’t say otherwise.

Maybe what I thought I wanted to be is still who I want to be after all.