Control FREAK

I am a control freak. I admit it, but I believe chances are you are too. From all the women I have been around my whole life, it seems to me that women are controlling. This is not a negative. It is very positive. In a family, each person is going to have a role to play.

Traditionally women have had the role of mistress of the house. The woman had to run her house like a well oiled machine. Things had to work in a certain way so that people had cloths to wear and food to eat and a clean place to live. These tasks seem menial.

A modern women can do whatever she wants. The world is our oyster, and we just expect ourselves to lead the way and for everyone else to fill in the gaps. That is until we become moms.

The working mother, generally speaking, does it all. She does the majority of the house work, the child rearing and adds to the income of the house hold. I contend that most women do this not because they have horrible spouses. No, it is, because she is a control FREAK.

I speak from experiance. My mother is a control freak. My sisters are control freaks. My sister-in-law is a control freak. I am a control freak. My friends moms in high school, all control freaks. Every time I talk to someone about her mother, I hear the same thing, control freak. The common denominator is that we are all moms.

I contend that all women and specifically mothers are controlling. This is by design. We need this to manage our house hold because if someone isn't making sure that everything flows, and every thing gets done, and that every child gets fed the right food at the right time, chaos ensues!

The controlling nature of a women is not good in the workplace. I say this because every female boss I have had I hated! They are controlling. I hate to be controlled, because I am controlling. This nature is perfect for the home, though I try not to control my husband to much.

It's so hard to be five!

I have a five year old boy. We are going through some crazy stuff right now.

I really never thought that I would have a child that was so defiant. When I was a teen, I had this vision of motherhood. I wanted to be just like June Cleaver, well with a little more personality. I thought I would keep house very well, wear the A line-skirt with a little gathered apron, make wonderful food, and look beautiful for my husband. I also thought that my kids would be obedient and almost perfect, with an occasional naughtiness here and there. Oh I had it all figured out.

Flash forward ten years. I have been married 6 years. Our house is messy more of the time than it is clean. My children act out more than they obey. I would also like to say, I have had more bad hair days since I've had kids, than I ever had before them, plus my clothes don't fit the way they should, because I still believe I'm 20 and not 26, 5 accumulative years postpartum. Please don't misunderstand. I love my life and I would make all the same choices again. I just did not expect the chaos and I'm using this to process it.

Also I have a 5 yr old boy. He has always been defiant. He was defiant as a newborn. I swear. He refused to open his big giant mouth. We would latch and re-latch a dozen times every time I tried to nurse him, and he insisted on latching his way, not the way I insisted. Believe what you want, but I was there.

He is coming to a whole new level of  defiance that I never expected from a 5 yr old. He talks back, He argues. He mimics me in a mocking tone. He blatantly disobeys. He hits his sister all the time, all the time. Some of the stuff is pretty funny, but I can't let him see me enjoy it, because that will just encourage it.

I am just hoping, this is a phase. We will deal with the issues as they arise and discipline as necessary. I am hoping to solve this before he reaches adolescence.

Loss

This post will be sad.

I am grieving the loss of my fourth baby. He was about 5 weeks past conception. When I found out I was pregnant, I was overjoyed. I was super excited, but I had these strange feelings. I first was wondering if I really read the test right. Then the test came up faint at the midwife's office. Not an unusual faintness, but unusual for me. My lines have always been blazing even though I took them really early. We ordered an HcG test, for my own comfort. So if the levels where normal it would put my mind at ease. I didn't get the test results when I expected them, which made me wonder, what they were. Did the midwife get them and could she not bring herself to tell me the results? I tried to put it out of my mind. Then on Monday June 6, after I got up from dinner I went to the bathroom and there was blood.

I panicked and called the midwife asked her for the test results. She said they were normal. So here is where I have conflict. The test that was supposed to reassure me came too late and later on made me really sad. I had only that initial blood, I stopped bleeding and my midwife said that wasn't enough blood for a full miscarriage. So hearing her, I grasped on and held firm to hope, because hope is only a virtue when things are hopeless. Perhaps the baby would be ok. I asked what the options where from here, and she said that I could go in for a vaginal ultrasound, but she told me that the only thing an ultra sound would do would tell me if my baby was alive or not, something I could figure out on my own in a matter of days. If I had stopped bleeding completely, I might have gone in because I wouldn't know for sure what had happened on Monday, but I did continue to bleed. And it was apparent to me, very soon, that my baby was no longer alive and now my body was bringing him out.

My baby is too small to see. I have been saving some things I have been passing, hoping my child's body is among them, so I can give him a dignified burial. He deserves it. He is human and he deserves the respect of any person, and to me much more, because he is my baby.

In my process of grief, I have accepted it as God's will. My midwife told me that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. The sad thing is we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world, people die for seemingly no reason. The search for answers, the what ifs, can end up hurting us more and causing us to grieve longer rather than accepting what it is. Babies die. That's how it is. That may sound cold, it's not. My baby died. There is nothing I could have done to prevent it. I want my baby. I still think about my life when I was pregnant, how I wish I could still be there. I see left overs in the fridge from when I was still pregnant. I see the clothes I wore that day blood stained, the sheets on my bed. We just brought a bigger table into the dinning room to accommodate our growing family, that day.

So knowing that my baby was normal for the time of the test, allowed me hope; however, it has brought me more pain because occasionally I will think,
"My baby was normal. What did I do to hurt my baby?" Then I feel like the loss is my fault. That is a dangerous road. I am not going to do that to myself. I have 3 other children that I feel so lucky to have carried to term. I feel lucky that I got to feel them move, lucky I got to hear their heart beat, lucky to have delivered them. Yes, I feel lucky that I got to feel the pain of child birth, because it is a much nicer pain than the pain of miscarriage.

So please keep me in your prayers my friends.

Totally in love with my baby

I love my baby. She is 1. I find her to be so cute and so sweet. The funny thing is that I am perfectly content with my life right now. Meaning that I don't need time to rush forward to see the future. I am very happy with the current stride of life.

The reason I find it so strange to find myself so perfectly content, is usually I am very happy but I can't wait for the future. When I got engaged I couldn't wait for my wedding. My wedding day was great. It was one day. Then it was over and I was looking forward to when I would get pregnant. Then I got pregnant. I wanted desperately to have the baby. Then I had the baby, and I loved him so much, began to wonder what it would be like to have two babies. Then I wondered what it would be like to have three babies. Through out this process, I enjoyed life. I loved my kids. I love the point I was in my life, but I was still eager for it to move forward to see what the future would be like.

Now my life is like this: I'm married, living in a house. I have three awesome kids. And I am expecting my fourth. Some people might find this a little overwhelming. I get overwhelmed with laundry, dishes, toys, messy rooms, bathrooms, yard work add anything to the list of home management. But the children themselves have never overwhelmed me. I don't know why that is. I am not a special person. I don't have some great ability to control myself. Ask anyone. But how many children I have, having a child in the future, does not psyche me out.

This is the only way I can rationalize it. When I consider the children in my future, I can't think of how crazy they will act. What type of work they will cause me. I said I can't think of it. I don't have the ability. I actually try to psyche myself out so that I'm prepared for the future and I try to imagine changing poopy diapers and dealing with a child who intentionally knocks over every pile of laundry I just folded. And even though I try to think negatively about these things, all I can think is: that is one time or 5 times it doesn't last.

Children's lives are full of phases. Nothing with them last forever, except personality. I love my kids personalities. Even if it is stressful at times their personalities describe who they are as people. I think that they are pretty stubborn, obnoxious, outgoing, fun people.

What is important to me is that this journey that I live, means something. That what I do impacts my kids and impacts those people around me. If something were to happen to me, God forbid, my kids not only have dad, they have each other. They have their own little community. Thank God they have each other. Thank God I have them. They make my life meaningful.

The Tale of the Laundry Giant

The story begins deep beneath my house where the laundry piles start. Bedding and sheets for every bed being thrown down because of a tick epidemic. My daughter wearing 3 different outfits a day. My son getting soaked from playing in the rain. The laundry falls down the laundry shoot (thank God I have one of those) and fills up a basket that overflows. After the Memorial day party I decided it is time to tackle the Laundry Giant and begin the massive task of sorting washing and folding laundry.

Ok. That title is a little misleading. This is really about a giant load of laundry, and my struggle fighting it.
You can see the pictures of the pile of laundry in my basement, you cannot see how enormous it is, because I took a picture with stitch assist, and then I couldn't find the software and long story short, the laundry pile is even more enormous than you see.

I am very aware that there are families out there with even more laundry, much more laundry. What I can't figure out is how a family of a tot, two kids and two adults makes that much laundry in one week.

Actually this happens to me about once a month. See for three weeks out of the month I think things are good. I've got a great rhythm. Clothes are getting washed and put away. Everything flowing then suddenly it seems like I just did a load the other day, and there actually is this huge amount in my basement and no one has any clothes.

And I was just thinking one week out of the month things are good and flowing the other two weeks I have clean laundry in laundry baskets all over my house because I can't commit myself to folding it. Then people come over and I have to hide them in my bed room. Laundry Chaos.

So one load at a time I am going to wash that laundry. I am going to fold or hang and put away every piece of laundry. And I'm not sure how long it will take, but it will happen, and I will make it through this. The important thing is not to become over whelmed.

Obsessed with Dropping the Pounds not Obsessed with Dieting

I hate dieting, and I stink at it. I love to eat junk food, sweet food, and fatty food. Big problems for me trying to loose weight.

I have finally forced myself to start Weight Watchers. I hate it. My pride is injured because my mom says it is the only way to loose weight. I contend a person can eat healthy fats and loose weight, like a lot of healthy fats. I mean eating real sour cream, real whipped cream sweetened with raw sugar, using lots of real butter in cooking. I love whole wheat Belgian waffles with real maple syrup, and butter.

but in reality my problem is balance and Weight Watchers will fix that. So I have decided to do it modified with less bread, more protein and more good fats. I really hope this works.

I really told you all that just so I could tell you this. I believe that eggs are a super food. I hate eggs. But I have found a way to do Weight Watchers, eat an egg (with out it being a part of some type of pancake), and drink coffee. In a sauce pan I poor a cup of milk, and then I beat in an egg and I slowly heat this beating constantly. I used this concoction in my coffee in the morning. that with an all fruit smoothie and a piece of whole wheat toast makes for a very healthy, weight watcher friendly breakfast.

And I am just proud of myself, so I wanted to share.

The Screaming Toddler Part 2

So I didn't know what to do. Milk was the first thing on my list to stop eating. I tried giving it up for a week. There was no change. I know, and even knew then, That you really need to give something up for at least six weeks to see a change, but I was in denial. I really like milk. I did not want to give it up. And with John he had a constant runny nose from 5 weeks to 4 months that disappeared after a week off milk. I beat myself up about every time I think back. How could I really let my little baby suffer like that?

The eventually she kinda stopped doing it. The occurrences be came less and I was living with it, hope, praying she would grow out of it. I moved her to her own bed at about 16 months. When she would wake in the middle of the night, I don't train or force my kids to sleep through the night, she would come into my bed. Sometimes she would wake up while I was still awake. I'd go up stairs stay with her until she went back to sleep. Sometimes it would take so long to get her back to sleep I would dread going up there and I'd wait. I'd give her up to ten minutes be fore I went up there and I would occasionally find her sleeping on the floor by the baby gate. So now I was tempted to sleep train my baby. Oh her waking up in the middle of the night screaming crying it was just bad habits. It CIO works for other people. I wouldn't let her go all night but ten minutes? So that was my new strategy. (bad idea. I still feel guilty about letting her cry to this day)

Ten minutes would go by sometimes and the crying wouldn't stop. I'd go up there and she didn't care that was there. It was like she was stuck in a frenzy. Her tummy was hard like she was pushing. I gave her all sorts of stuff to ease stomach cramps: tummy soother tea, homeopathy, belly massage, position change. She was screeching bloody murder. She was in supreme agony. Then I did it. I took her off milk.

It took about six weeks. It she stopped having stomach cramps. I gave her rice milk and goat milk and kept even cultured cows milk away from her for what seemed a long time. Then one day I allowed her to have some yogurt. I watched her for weeks every thing was fine. Then the night terrors started.

She'd come and sleep in our bed in the middle of the night. She'd wake up early morning screaming. Stuck in a frenzy. I had no idea what it was. I tried waking her it didn't work. She would scream and cry and yell at her brother in her sleep. She would answer my questions with no. Always no. No matter what the question. I would finally get her out of it after an eternity. Sometimes these attacks would happen once a night at 10 sometimes 3 times at 10, 12, and 3. Some times once a night at the other times.

I'm not proud of this but I used to use the TV as a baby sitter. I stopped that when I research night terrors. (do not try to wake up a kid in a night terror it just creates more problems.) Then they stopped after 2 weeks. Everything was fine for a while. Then the stomach cramps were back. I took her off milk. It didn't do anything. I didn't know what to do nothing was working. I had a new baby and Abby would occasionally need to be walked around in the middle of the night and I was tried and my sweet little girl was a crab during the day. It was like a snow ball she was sweet once and she became more irritable and angry and sad as she got older. The cramps were starting to hit her during the day. After awhile things settled down a bit and she just had about one stomach cramp a night. but she was cranky during the day. And she stopped having bowel movements for about 3 days. She was refusing to drink water. She seemed sick and dehydrated.

Something occurred to me that I didn't' consider she might be constipated. Could it be that she had something stuck in the wall of her intestines that caused bowel inflammation? Cow milk irritates bowels. maybe taking her off cow milk eased it up a bit but perhaps something little she swallowed when she was very little just kinda lodged itself in the intestine and was now making this a chronic issue.

I decided it was time for an enema. Psychologically and enema sounds traumatic and horrible, gross, icky, etc. My sister has a handicapped baby the same age as my daughter and she was telling me of the virtue of the enema, because she needed to do it for her baby. She said, "It is a tool for a mother to use when necessary, and it is not traumatic for kids. That is just something we are told by society." I determined this was the answer.


She pooped, a lot. That night she slept. All night. She slept every night all night for a long time. Months. Her personality changed and she was more like the little baby I had before: sweet and fun and kind. Then after a long time she got the cramps again. And she started to develop a low fever. I did it again. It wasn't effective because I just did a small one. So we tried it again a week later, doing a thorough cleaning. She pooped a poop that was big and shaped weird. It looked like a poop with a white thing as a right angle at the top. I've been told I should have dissected it. I was just happy it was out so I flushed it and my little girl came back. And we are living the good life. She doesn't wake up with stomach cramps any more. I hope they never return.