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I can't seem to gather my thoughts lately because we have so much activity in the house! This will be my choppy update, I guess:
The german guy got back with me and he seems a little less interested in having me *help* than he seemed to imply earlier. Now he is suggesting trying to *integrate* me into the course. It's funny how things change! Maybe I'll just end up being a *consumer* on this one....I don't know. Either way, I get my German program here for the kids, so it is still a *win-win* situation.
Yesterday, we were supposed to leave for TX to visit my dad for a few days and then spend the weekend with my mom. Unfortunately, because we're flying out standby, we've had to delay trying until Wed. The flights are all over-booked and the list of stand-bys ahead of us with more priority is well into the double digits. If Wed fills up, the trip will end up being a no-go, I guess. The kids are all pretty disappointed already that the visit has been cut short. As it is, we will be flying out Wed and then coming home on Sunday. It will be a short visit! I guess at least this gives me more time right now to get ready for our visit with our friends from the UK. They are arrriving on Aug 23rd with their two little ones. I'm sure that this will be an interesting trip!
My friend who will be visiting called yesterday to talk about everything and I found out that her two children are currently going to bed at 6.30PM....7.00PM at the latest. HUH?
I thought I had heard wrong! Besides the fact that basically, she appears to be living my fantasy...I have no idea how this will work out.
The absolute most frustrating and infurating part of parenting to me....after nearly 13 years of being called "Moooooooom" is bedtime. It has never come easy for us. When Andrew and Amanda were born, the family bed was all the rage in Europe....and I was all "other mammals don't put their babies in cribs and force an unnatural separation before their babies are ready...what is wrong with we humans".
Eventually, we did try a crib with Andrew, but he actually had such a tantrum and shook it so hard that it broke into pieces with him in it! I'll spare you a description of our sleepless years...partly because we are still living them....and partly because I'm ashamed to admit that now that we finally have our older 3 in their rooms, our younger 2 are living it up in the family bed because I feel to guilty for giving their older siblings something and not giving it to them as well.
I know that I'm not alone with the bedtime blues, because I've talked with enough moms who struggle with this....but oh, how I wish that we could get a better routine going here. Summer is the worst though, lately because we fall out of the routine of early mornings for school and end up sleeping in...which perpetuates the cycle. OH, OK...I won't spare you the gory details. Here....is an excerpt from last night:
7.30 PM "Aidan, Zoe, lets get upstairs and get ready for bed. Alex, why don't you come up and get a shower and then you can read to me once I'm done reading to Aidan"
I get Aidan and Zoe into PJs and put Zoe in her crib in my bedroom...because I'm desperately trying to get her out of my bed. guilt, guilt, guilt. She (predictably) begins screaming bloody murder while Aidan starts crying hysterically that he is NOT sleeping in his bed. I soooooo am trying to ease us out of the family bed. I put him back into bed and grab some books and his Diego doll for some snuggle/reading time while he leaps out of bed and runs towards the stairs. I catch him in the nick of time and carry him back to bed...while he shrieks and cries and tells me that I am "killing him" and he "can't breathe". Ummm....ok.
So Zoe is still shrieking and Amanda says "You are a terrible mother. You are a torturer. How can you do this to Zoe. You are stupid."
I settle back in with Aidan and suddenly Zoe (who has been released by Amanda) toddles into the room and wrecks the train tracks that Aidan had built.....more hysterical crying from Aidan.
Why isn't it a good idea to install locks on the outside of children's doors? Please...I need someone to remind me of exactly why that is a bad idea.
I go down to Thomas.
"Can you help me?"
"I'm busy. The printer isn't working"
"uh. huh. So when we talk about 'us' getting the kids to bed, you really mean me."
"I am tired."
"Me too."
"You left me alone with the kids for 2 hours today"
"ummm, I watch them all day every day when you are at work."
"Well, when I'm at work, I'm working, so that's just not fair."
Andrew went up to bed with no problem....Alex finished his shower and hopped into bed and listened to the end of some stories for Aidan and then began reading "Captain Underpants" while I took Zoe back to my room and ......drumroll....yes...I relented, put her in my bed, gave her a bottle and laid down with her and watched HGTV until she finally fell asleep.
Ahhhhhhh.....the path of least resistance.
They know they can wear me down and they do it....every night. Super Nanny, where are you?
By then, it was almost 10 PM. I'm not kidding. And yes, it IS like this every night.
Thomas came up the stairs and said "I thought you were getting the kids to bed. They are all up". I got up to find Aidan playing trains in the hallway (quietly). I sent him back to his room, but he was afraid....because.....Thomas had caved and allowed Amanda and Alex to sleep downstairs.
sigh.
I demanded that all parties return to their beds....and got to be the bad guy yet again.
Aidan came downstairs while Thomas and I were sitting on the sofas (and I was bawling him out for not helping). He crawled into Thomas' lap and didn't fall asleep until 11pm.
Exhausted ourselves, we went upstairs to find Amanda and Alex laying in bed together drawing comic books. We pretended that we didn't see it and went to bed. Thomas put on a DVD for himself, but I was asleep before it even came onto the screen.....
And then Zoe began waking up crying every hour.....By 3am, Thomas had to go down in his office to sleep....and somehow, the older kids had a radar that let them know he had gone down. When I woke up at 7.30 to start getting Zoe ready for Physical Therapy, I found Amanda, Alex, Aidan and Zoe all scrunched up next to me on the bed.
No wonder I'm so tired.
And tired...makes tired....I'm so worn out that I know I won't be the bundle of energy that I need to be tonight to rally the trooops.
Just thinking about it makes me.....tired.
Where is my coffee?
It wasn't always this bad, but the truth is that when I was sick and going through chemo....and then Zoe was in the NICU and I was so low energy....we didn't enforce many rules. We were too emotionally drained. I see some of this as truly being fallout from the cancer.....Not all of it....bedtime was always an issue. It was just never...this much of an issue. Thomas and I are still spending an awful lot of time in our own respective *corners* and aren't communicating like we need to be. I still struggle with being tired....a lot....maybe this is a function of not getting enough sleep and maybe it's still a function of my body recovering. I don't know.
I went out with a friend for coffee this weekend. Her husband was my chemo buddy and she and I have been friends for years...Her 3 children are about the same age as my older 3...and they are struggling with similar issues. She said, "all anyone focuses on is the fact that he is in remission. The cancer is gone. Of course I'm glad that the cancer is gone, but my entire family is falling apart. There is no one to help us.". We talked about the lack of resources here for families and caregivers...and even the patients themselves beyond the standard medical care required.
It can be frustrating to deal with lingering issues when we are supposed to celebrate the end of our fight for survival....and yet....the feelings that we are having are completely normal.
I am incredibly grateful for the fact that I am in remission. I have my health...I feel emotionally in a very good place...I feel positive and upbeat much of the time. Actually, I think cancer made me an optimist.
At the same time, I feel frustrated with the pulmonary issues that I continue to have....I am now also struggling with arthritic joint problems...this apparently is not uncommon for the treatment that I have had. The *what if* still lingers in the back of my mind, coupled with a desire to make the most of each day my life with my husband and children...and then, of course, there is the reality of life and chaos and the day-to-day stress that creeps in and takes away from what I am trying to build.
But....all that being said......life is good.
The german guy got back with me and he seems a little less interested in having me *help* than he seemed to imply earlier. Now he is suggesting trying to *integrate* me into the course. It's funny how things change! Maybe I'll just end up being a *consumer* on this one....I don't know. Either way, I get my German program here for the kids, so it is still a *win-win* situation.
Yesterday, we were supposed to leave for TX to visit my dad for a few days and then spend the weekend with my mom. Unfortunately, because we're flying out standby, we've had to delay trying until Wed. The flights are all over-booked and the list of stand-bys ahead of us with more priority is well into the double digits. If Wed fills up, the trip will end up being a no-go, I guess. The kids are all pretty disappointed already that the visit has been cut short. As it is, we will be flying out Wed and then coming home on Sunday. It will be a short visit! I guess at least this gives me more time right now to get ready for our visit with our friends from the UK. They are arrriving on Aug 23rd with their two little ones. I'm sure that this will be an interesting trip!
My friend who will be visiting called yesterday to talk about everything and I found out that her two children are currently going to bed at 6.30PM....7.00PM at the latest. HUH?
I thought I had heard wrong! Besides the fact that basically, she appears to be living my fantasy...I have no idea how this will work out.The absolute most frustrating and infurating part of parenting to me....after nearly 13 years of being called "Moooooooom" is bedtime. It has never come easy for us. When Andrew and Amanda were born, the family bed was all the rage in Europe....and I was all "other mammals don't put their babies in cribs and force an unnatural separation before their babies are ready...what is wrong with we humans".
Eventually, we did try a crib with Andrew, but he actually had such a tantrum and shook it so hard that it broke into pieces with him in it! I'll spare you a description of our sleepless years...partly because we are still living them....and partly because I'm ashamed to admit that now that we finally have our older 3 in their rooms, our younger 2 are living it up in the family bed because I feel to guilty for giving their older siblings something and not giving it to them as well.I know that I'm not alone with the bedtime blues, because I've talked with enough moms who struggle with this....but oh, how I wish that we could get a better routine going here. Summer is the worst though, lately because we fall out of the routine of early mornings for school and end up sleeping in...which perpetuates the cycle. OH, OK...I won't spare you the gory details. Here....is an excerpt from last night:
7.30 PM "Aidan, Zoe, lets get upstairs and get ready for bed. Alex, why don't you come up and get a shower and then you can read to me once I'm done reading to Aidan"
I get Aidan and Zoe into PJs and put Zoe in her crib in my bedroom...because I'm desperately trying to get her out of my bed. guilt, guilt, guilt. She (predictably) begins screaming bloody murder while Aidan starts crying hysterically that he is NOT sleeping in his bed. I soooooo am trying to ease us out of the family bed. I put him back into bed and grab some books and his Diego doll for some snuggle/reading time while he leaps out of bed and runs towards the stairs. I catch him in the nick of time and carry him back to bed...while he shrieks and cries and tells me that I am "killing him" and he "can't breathe". Ummm....ok.
So Zoe is still shrieking and Amanda says "You are a terrible mother. You are a torturer. How can you do this to Zoe. You are stupid."
I settle back in with Aidan and suddenly Zoe (who has been released by Amanda) toddles into the room and wrecks the train tracks that Aidan had built.....more hysterical crying from Aidan.
Why isn't it a good idea to install locks on the outside of children's doors? Please...I need someone to remind me of exactly why that is a bad idea.
I go down to Thomas.
"Can you help me?"
"I'm busy. The printer isn't working"
"uh. huh. So when we talk about 'us' getting the kids to bed, you really mean me."
"I am tired."
"Me too."
"You left me alone with the kids for 2 hours today"
"ummm, I watch them all day every day when you are at work."
"Well, when I'm at work, I'm working, so that's just not fair."
Andrew went up to bed with no problem....Alex finished his shower and hopped into bed and listened to the end of some stories for Aidan and then began reading "Captain Underpants" while I took Zoe back to my room and ......drumroll....yes...I relented, put her in my bed, gave her a bottle and laid down with her and watched HGTV until she finally fell asleep.
Ahhhhhhh.....the path of least resistance.
They know they can wear me down and they do it....every night. Super Nanny, where are you?
By then, it was almost 10 PM. I'm not kidding. And yes, it IS like this every night.
Thomas came up the stairs and said "I thought you were getting the kids to bed. They are all up". I got up to find Aidan playing trains in the hallway (quietly). I sent him back to his room, but he was afraid....because.....Thomas had caved and allowed Amanda and Alex to sleep downstairs.
sigh.
I demanded that all parties return to their beds....and got to be the bad guy yet again.
Aidan came downstairs while Thomas and I were sitting on the sofas (and I was bawling him out for not helping). He crawled into Thomas' lap and didn't fall asleep until 11pm.
Exhausted ourselves, we went upstairs to find Amanda and Alex laying in bed together drawing comic books. We pretended that we didn't see it and went to bed. Thomas put on a DVD for himself, but I was asleep before it even came onto the screen.....
And then Zoe began waking up crying every hour.....By 3am, Thomas had to go down in his office to sleep....and somehow, the older kids had a radar that let them know he had gone down. When I woke up at 7.30 to start getting Zoe ready for Physical Therapy, I found Amanda, Alex, Aidan and Zoe all scrunched up next to me on the bed.
No wonder I'm so tired.
And tired...makes tired....I'm so worn out that I know I won't be the bundle of energy that I need to be tonight to rally the trooops.
Just thinking about it makes me.....tired.
Where is my coffee?
It wasn't always this bad, but the truth is that when I was sick and going through chemo....and then Zoe was in the NICU and I was so low energy....we didn't enforce many rules. We were too emotionally drained. I see some of this as truly being fallout from the cancer.....Not all of it....bedtime was always an issue. It was just never...this much of an issue. Thomas and I are still spending an awful lot of time in our own respective *corners* and aren't communicating like we need to be. I still struggle with being tired....a lot....maybe this is a function of not getting enough sleep and maybe it's still a function of my body recovering. I don't know.
I went out with a friend for coffee this weekend. Her husband was my chemo buddy and she and I have been friends for years...Her 3 children are about the same age as my older 3...and they are struggling with similar issues. She said, "all anyone focuses on is the fact that he is in remission. The cancer is gone. Of course I'm glad that the cancer is gone, but my entire family is falling apart. There is no one to help us.". We talked about the lack of resources here for families and caregivers...and even the patients themselves beyond the standard medical care required.
It can be frustrating to deal with lingering issues when we are supposed to celebrate the end of our fight for survival....and yet....the feelings that we are having are completely normal.
I am incredibly grateful for the fact that I am in remission. I have my health...I feel emotionally in a very good place...I feel positive and upbeat much of the time. Actually, I think cancer made me an optimist.
At the same time, I feel frustrated with the pulmonary issues that I continue to have....I am now also struggling with arthritic joint problems...this apparently is not uncommon for the treatment that I have had. The *what if* still lingers in the back of my mind, coupled with a desire to make the most of each day my life with my husband and children...and then, of course, there is the reality of life and chaos and the day-to-day stress that creeps in and takes away from what I am trying to build.
But....all that being said......life is good.
Also, he has had a large quantities of homework from day 1. I finally quit arguing him and telling him not to say the "s" word. "Yes, Andrew, this sucks monkey balls....now get out of bed". 
I could see the nerves....hell...I could feel the tension as these little girls said their "hellos" to each other and looked each other up and down and I just wanted to take her and LEAVE.
We were out of tokens, our kids were melting down....it was awful...and we couldn't leave because we didn't have enough car seats in my van.
I love preparing big morning meals...bacon, eggs, pancakes, coffee etc and serving people. I really do. It brings me a weird joyful feeling.
My truest confession here is that my way of dealing with stress (as is evidenced by my pictures of myself or my big ass if you have seen me in person) is a #8 value meal (Big 'N'Tasty) with cheese and of course a big french fries.....When I feel unhappy, stressed, sad...whatever....I get one. Lately, that's been an awful lot of times. :bummer: Maybe I'm wrong, but....I don't think I am.
So officially I could have commuted to the cities in the time it took for me to drive around locally and get kids where they needed to be.
)
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