T-1 day until my mil arrives from Germany. I have been busting my behind to get the house cleaned up and I feel like I'm never going to be ready. So....I'm doing what any rational, busy, mom of 5 who desperately has to get her house cleaned up by tomorrow would do...I'm....sitting online catching up on my blogs.

Yesterday I spent 4 hours cleaning out the garage. It looks much better now, but it still isn't where I would ideally like to see it before she gets here. I accepted though that it is done for now...and I moved on to the kitchen and main living space. ...and...true confession...I hired someone to come in and help me. She did the downstairs bathroom/family room/kid's playroom-guestroom while I worked on the kitchen. It was a huge help and I hired her permanently. I have always backed away from having any help with cleaning/childcare etc and lately I have been turning the corner on both issues. I'm sick and tired of cleaning up the same messes over and over again that 5 children can make and I'm desperate for some help. Yesterday morning I was facing this house with dread at how much I had to do. The downstairs looks fabulous, and I didn't have to do it....I can not begin to say how relieved I was. I am literally willing to go and get a job at McDonalds just to pay someone to help me keep my house clean.

While my cleaning help was doing the downstairs, I spent 3 hours on the kitchen. THREE. I took the table and chairs out onto the deck and cleaned each piece individually. I cleaned out drawers and threw away junk. I swept, cleaned and polished the wooden floors.

And then the kids came home from school and.....within 15 minutes, my floor looked like I hadn't cleaned it in a week. How does that happen? To make matters worse, while I was cleaning out Fred's cage, Zoe got into the cabinet beneath my feet and pulled out an entire can of paint. I didn't realize what she was doing until I felt something wet on my foot...and looked down to see her gleefully sitting in/spreading about the latex paint all over the floor and...the laundry that we had ready to be washed.

I literally put in a full day of work cleaning up yesterday....and I can practically start from scratch today with the kitchen. I haven't touched the upstairs bedrooms/bathrooms in days....and the laundry is literally growing as I sit here and type.

Ahhhh, the glamour!

By itself, this week has been another whirlwind of activity. Amanda turned 11 on May 2nd and we went to our traditional birthday hang-out as a family: Space Aliens.






And finally....The birthday girl herself:


We had a fun night....

But our waiter seemed awfully familiar to me. I kept trying to figure out where I knew him from. Finally, he asked me how old Zoe was:

"She just turned 1"
"Really, when?"
"April 17th."
"You're kidding. My daugter turned 1 on April 16th".

We exchanged notes and discovered that they were both born at the same hospital. He whipped out his wallet and showed me a picture of his little girl.

"Well, Lydia spent 2 weeks in the NICU"
"Really, my daughter spent 5 weeks in the NICU...Lydia, Lydia....OMG..." and then I started recounting what I remembered about her. Lydia and Zoe used to have little burping competitions. He and his wife had bought a pink little carseat that ended up being a bad fit and they had to go out and buy another one..he was a DJ during the day for a local radio show. I was excited to recognize him and tell him what little I did remember about them.

He smiled and recounted how traumatic the NICU time had been for he and his wife. They were also there the day that the little boy was crashing and dying. We had both sat in our cubicles holding our babies and were equally as devastated....He talked about all of the awful things he had seen there. He felt that he was different from everyone else because their baby just happened to come a little early (at 31 weeks) and had done very well and left within 2 weeks. Other people, he explained were there because of awful things happening in their lives or terrible tragedies. He treated me like we both had been onlookers to the trainwreck that was the NICU.

"I'm sorry. I just don't recognize you" he finally said.
"I looked a little different"
Pause.
"I always wore bandanas because...I had lost my hair".

He literally took a step back. In that instant, I realized that I was no longer a bystander who had shared an ordeal with him...I was a passenger on the train that he had watched .... in apprehension and fear.

He finally caught himself.

"My God...is this...ZOE."
I shook my head.
"Oh, Zoe. She's ok....She's really ok. My wife and I ...we have talked about Zoe and...you...and you are ok. Really...You are ok...you and Zoe are OK."
Hot tears stung the back of my eyes...but I smiled to alleviate our mutual discomfort.
"I am doing really well, and so is Zoe. You'll have to tell your wife that you saw us and that we're both doing great."
"Oh, I will...I won't be able to go to sleep tonight before I tell her. I just can't believe this. It's incredible".

I offered him my phone number and suggested that his wife and I could get together and have Lydia and Zoe play. I never heard from them....but I honestly am not surprised.

I was really saddened by this exchange in a way that I just can't explain.

For the most part, I believe that I have just moved on from the last couple of years. It doesn't seem real to me. When I see photos or think about the drama surrounding my pregnancy and Zoe's first months, it is like thinking about someone else's life...not my own. I don't...feel...most of the time what I think that I *should* feel...and yet, maybe that is exactly how I'm supposed to feel in order to be able to move forward...move on with my life.....

That evening though was a mixed bag....The joy of celebrating (ummm, I can't believe that I'm using that word) my oldest daughter's official entrance into the world of Tween and the sadness at facing the painful memory of my youngest daughter's entry into this world.

Later in the week, Amanda had a choir concert. It was awesome. Her 5th grade class has some really talented singers in it...and I have to include her in that group....they did a wonderful job. Amanda has a lot of musical gifts. She is the one in the pigtails with the long hair covering her face.


Friday, my dear friend, Kelly came up to visit from the Twin Cities. She is preparing to move to Ohio and we're trying to get in a few last visits....I can't believe that it is already time for her to move on. I have cherished our friendship and the opportunities that we have had to get together over the years. We've been through a lot together. I will miss having her nearby.



Saturday was Amanda's birthday party. She invited two little girls from school for a sleep-over...



They spent the evening reading Teen Cosmo and gigling down in the playroom, giving each other make-overs and running outside in the backyard and playing on the pond. I think it was a really nice day for her and I enjoyed seeing her together with friends. I was really bothered by the fact that she excluded a friend from the party. I know that this is part of this whole "tween" thing that I'm dealing with...but I just can't keep up anymore with the friendship changes. The particular little girl who wasn't invited has been a good, steady friend of Amanda's. They have gone roller-skating together on weekends, had sleep-overs and play dates.....She is a really nice girl...but she doesn't *fit* the new "I want to be popular" look and feel that Amanda is going for...and so...Amanda has slowly walked away from this friendship.

I feel sad for this little girl...and sad for Amanda...and maybe a little sad for myself since....I think I might have been that little girl when I was younger! But...I also went through what my daughter is going through and I can think of one friendship in particular that I moved away from when I was in the 9th grade.... These are tough years for girls... I better buckle up my seat-belt for the ride!



My daughter is now obsessed with fashion and glamour.

It's brought out some good things in me...It has re-awakened by own desire to look nice. I find myself working with my Richard Simmons hair more often. I also bought myself new, more fashionable shirts/cami's to go underneath them and am enjoying finding interesting shoes to wear for the first time in probably 10 years! It is actually kind of fun to try and keep up.

I'm also losing weight. I've lost 7 pounds since I really started trying again. The scale hasn't moved down for me over the last several days, but...my pants have gotten so loose that I actually had to go out and buy a new pair the other day! Yeah! It is helping that Spring is FINALLY here and I can get outside and go walking every day.

Life in general is better than it was just a few weeks ago when Spring just refused to come.

Andrew is caught up on his missing assignments and has accepted that he will be going to the Prep school next year...things are going fairly smoothly with him (with the exception of when he was jumping on Alex's bed and fell into the wall and put a hole in the drywall the size of his head....sigh...). Alex has started going to KidStop several days a week. As much as I was opposed to the idea (why am I a sahm again?) I realized that he needs to play with other children. He is incredibly social and had begged with me to let him go. He has a wonderful time too....I'm sorry that I didn't let him go sooner. I am going to send Amanda and Andrew as well because I think it is good for the social stuff. I'm tired of them coming home from school only to grab their snacks and crumble them through the house while they play gamecube, watch tv or surf the computer. I want them socializing. I think Andrew and Amanda really need that!

Aidan is doing great....He and I drove out to the German-Immersion preschool this week to enroll him and much to my relief (those of you who know how I've struggled with this issue will be relieved too) I discovered that the program really isn't what I want for him...or for Alex (the elementary school). The whole way out there I was thinking about ways that I could make the 1.5 hour drive daily so that Alex could do 3rd grade and Aidan/Zoe could have the benefits of the preschool. Once we were in the school though I discovered that the instruction is in German but that the kids speak english with each other and are permitted to answer the teacher in english. What...is the point then? We already do that here at home.

Truly, I was relieved to know that we don't have to up and move closer to the cities to let them go to the german school. I am relieved that I don't have to lament the "they're missing out" anymore on a nearly daily basis. What I can provide for them at home is at least of equal quality to what they would be getting there.

I haven't homeschooled the kids in german though since I got sick and we have fallen out of the routine. I ordered some materials to help me organize and decided that this summer I will get back into a daily 2 hour homeschool routine with them.

At least we laid that argument to rest.

What we haven't put to rest is what I will do with my life.



I find myself vascilating between homeschooling my children full-time, biting the bullet and applying to med school (ummm, can you have two such opposite aspirations), teaching german through community ed or getting a degree in health psychology.

It's really crazy to have gone through such a life-altering experience over the last two years and to land on my feet right where I was when the whole thing started. Actually, I think that I had been much more at peace with my career self before getting sick. Now, I am accutely aware of the fact that we don't know what is around the next bend...and that we can't put off being happy or fulfilling our dreams until tomorrow...because tomorrow...may not come.

I have spent a lot of time walking and sitting out in my garden on the pond thinking about my life and my goals and...who I am...where I want to be with my life......reflecting.



I have spent my life moving from place to place and trying to *fit in* wherever I land. My dad was in the Army and so we moved every 1 to 3 years. I went to several elementary schools, 2 junior highs and 3 high schools before graduating, and I promised myself that as an adult, I would never move. I recently found one of my high school year books and one of the girls had written a good-bye to me that year that said "A rolling stone gathers no moss". I remember reading that after she had written it and thinking that if I ever wrote a book about my life...that that is what the title would be.

I realized this week that I'm still there....rolling down that hill...enjoying the scenery, but...not planting my roots or establishing lasting friendships. I don't even know if I know how....

We have lived in this house less than two years and I already find myself looking at other homes...other towns....I have been frustrated by the fact that the housing market here has taken such a nosedive. I know that we can't move in the next few years without losing a lot of money and I have felt trapped.

A few days ago, I was on a walk near the woods and I came upon a massive old tree growing crooked into the sky. I stopped to look at the disfigured, slanted trunk growing up above the younger trees. I wondered what misfortuntes had caused it to bend and lose many of its branches. And yet there it was...growing tall...it's leaves a brilliant green...

It felt literally like the hand of God reached down and said "Grow Where You Are Planted".

I am like an old, gnarly tree without roots twisting deep into the soil as my foundation to hold me in place. I am always, always...moving.

I need to make decisions about my life and determine finally....to let my roots take hold of the soil....[/quote]