catching up

It's almost 10am and we are still at home. Totally out of the ordinary for us. I've been waiting for a repair guy who clearly thinks showing up 2 hours late is ok. I've been bad mom and let the kids watch tv and play on the iPads so I'm taking advantage and using the computer. I think I'm finally caught up on all my photos and it feels good!

I've been obsessed with bleaching little shorts for Otto. It's a nice stinky mess but it's pretty fun. 

So little and so cute. 

Her Valentines stash from school. 

Valentines Day was amazing. I refuse to go out to dinner and "celebrate" so we did a beach day with the family and some friends. Stayed till it got dark and ate pizza and cupcakes. 

Weird photo but Otto was so tired after the beach that he passed out in the shower. 

here i am

I've really been trying to live more in the moment and not get so stressed on what I need to be doing next and just try to be present. The idea of it is amazing and some days I nail it, other days I fail miserably. This week has been hard and just trying. For the first time in my life I've taken responsibility for feelings that I have. For me this is major anxiety and depression. Some days some weeks are bad bad bad, other days I do great and I'm calm like really calm. I can remember writing posts years ago and feeling an emptiness. I never understood it but now I get it. I always pictured a depressed person sitting in their bed not able to get out and face the day so I never thought that was me. Cause if I can do anything I can take the day by the balls. I can get a million things done, go on crazy adventures, and do it with an insane amount of energy. And hello to the manic part. It's pretty severe and I only joke cause while I may be bat shit crazy I can't take myself THAT serious. It all stems from some pretty messed up stuff but thats totally besides the point. The issue is dealing with it every single day. Add my kids to the mix and it's hard, really hard. We all deal with things so it's not like I'm alone. In all my therapy the one thing I've noticed is everyone is pretty fucked up. We all have our shit and its really just a matter of how you deal with it. I'm trying so so hard. Although I'm dealing with all of this I also finally feel whole if that makes sense. Like all the pieces came together and while they may be kinda wacky they are all there. I'm not sure why I felt like I needed to put it out there but I'm sure I'm not alone in this.  I don't have all the answers and I sure as shit don't know what I'm doing most of the time but I just want to be happy. It seems so so simple and its truly what I wake up every morning breathing in. 

My photos are always my happy place. Little tiny moments when things were just right. I want to remember these right here. 

So Blake and I went on a trip to Joshua Tree. It was amazing and for the first time in my life I feel like I relaxed, like truly stopped. It's pretty incredible out there. People always talk about the weird powers and feelings out there and I thought it was some hippy bullshit but it's not. It's pretty magical. Oh and we got matching tattoos cause were weird like that. 

And then we came home and it was practically summer here....

it's not you it's me

I got into bed with some good intentions of sleeping but my head is spinning with a million things and the last thing I'm going to do is sleep. My twice a month posts are pathetic but I do have so many good intentions of writing more but the plain truth is I'm tired every single night. Today was an interesting one and a huge lesson in so many ways for me. I've always brought my kids into "my world" which I mean doing stuff maybe I enjoy and letting them experience it to a certain degree. Sometimes this backfires and sometimes its an incredible experience. Basically manitaning relationships with friends that don't have kids is really really hard.

Today I realized that and it was a big eye opener. We only had plans to get lunch which was a pretty damn large feet. Everything about it was difficult. Olive completly read the situation and knew that the attention wasn't on her and just reacted right away. She is a smart smart kid so she played it up. She took being a shitty kid to a whole other level. Every single time I told her to stop or yelled at her it was just more and more fuel as it was bits of attention. Now I know she is 4 and a total little shit most of the time. I can handle that. Today was beyond anything I've ever seen. I know I can be dramatic but I am not kidding when I say it was hands down the hardest few hours with her. Luckily my friend loves my kids and doesn't hold it against me but still for the first time ever I was embarrassed. I blamed myself and my parenting thinking I was raising this spoiled rotten brat that has zero respect. I felt super shitty. I was disappointed in her and mostly in myself. When we got in the car to drive home both kids passed out and I just thought about it. All of a sudden it hit me that it wasn't her fault for being a little shit, it was my fault for putting her in that situation. Now I know life isn't all fun and games but how can you expect a 4 year old to walk quietly and not whine and complain or beat up on Otto while me and my friend are trying to talk about (to her) the most boring conversation ever. We were walking down a busy street, it was hot, and no one was talking to her. I'm the asshole here. I'm not in any way defending my kid and her shitty behavior I just think the expectations are crazy. I mean obviously some kids would be perfect angels. If you know me or read this blog then you know I don't and will never have those kids. I'm fine with that.

During Christmas time I read a pretty cool article. I wish I could find it now but I think about it a lot. Basically it was just saying how during the holidays we shlep our kids to all these adult parties, make them wear stupid clothes, take a bunch of photos, hang out with weird aunts and cousins they have only met once and we expect them to be good. It's bullshit and the article kinda talked about that. It wasn't rocket science but I think we don't always think about it. Ya it sucks I wanted more than anything to catch up with my friend and talk for more than 1 min before having to stop and yell or remove one of them off each other but this is my reality. While I need to raise my kids to be respecful I can't expect perfect little angeles. I know its all obvious stuff but today just really opened my eyes. I love all my child-less friends but I think I need to revaluate when and how I see them. Being stressed all day over Olive and yelling and threatening did nothing for both of us.

It was a long day and there were definitely early bedtimes for the kids and a very large glass of wine but we made it and its pretty exciting when you can learn something. The glass of wine plus my lack of sleep put me in a crap mood tonight. By the time Blake got home I was exhausted and grumpy. We sat on the couch and talked for awhile. He was telling me all about these podcasts he listens to and just talking about his day and people from work. It was wonderful and seriously makes me so happy but all of a sudden I was just overwhelmed by this shit feeling of I have nothing interesting to tell you, nothing. I know he doesn't expect anything, he knows what I do all day but its me. I know I've talked about this a million times on here. I try not to get too down on myself about it as I literally have no time for myself but I just felt shitty. I felt left out. I felt sad. I felt pathetic. These feelings are just the gateway to the depression that sets in when you realize you just have nothing interesting to talk about. In the light of day and much more sleep it's never that bad of course but some days it's hard. Today was just one of those days.

Random photos to end on a good note....

goth

I've opened this blog a dozen times over the last few weeks and just stared at the screen. I would write a sentence, delete, and repeat. This space still feels weird. tainted maybe. Right now it's hard to write about my life when my head is all over the place and my feelings are so up and down and all around. Taking photos is so much easier. It's like this one moment that is perfect and there. It doesn't change. It is what it is. You can remember just that moment and it can be just that. Call it controlling or whatever but it brings me some sort of peace in all this chaos. I'm working on it one post at a time.

Olive learned to ride a bike, a two wheeler. Kind of a big milestone in life I'd say. We took off her training wheels months ago and took her out. After a few minutes she was beyond frustrated and crying so we decided to give it some time. I knew she would be able to do now. It took a few times holding on to her so she could figure out her balance and then a few pushes to get some speed but she nailed it. After 15 minutes she was riding around like she'd been doing it her whole life. We took another ride today and she did amazing. We were stuck in the house for the last few days with the sick. Both kids have a nasty cough. It's been crazy and we all went a bit stir crazy but I decided today we all needed a little break.

Having a 4 year old is pretty rad when she isn't being a total jerk . Today she decided to call me Jenn and holy crap did she think it was the funniest thing in the world. Kid is full of personality and energy. She knows how to have fun and her imagination is like something I've never seen before. She has developed some weird fears. It all started a few months ago when we were at Disneyland. We were watching the Jedi training school thing and Darth Maul came out and she immediatly started crying and jumped under the table. I have never seen her scared of anything before so this was shocking. After that the night fears and  fear of going to bed really set in. There was about a month or two where it was hours of screaming and crying before she would stay in her room. Like the kind of crying where you can't breathe. It was a pretty wild time and to say it was exhausting doesn't even give you an idea of what we went through. She was scared of everything in her room, the dark, monsters and pretty much her own shadow. One night when I was moving the Elf on the Shelf to a new spot I came up with an idea to have the elf leave her something magic. If it came from us she would have blown it off as bullshit but coming from the elf, it had to be true. I searched through some drawers and found a silver dollar. Funny enough I think it came from "the tooth fairy" when I was a kid. Why I have it or kept it was beyond me but it came in handy. The elf wrote a letter explaining that by putting the coin under her pillow that she would be protected from all monsters and evil. It worked perfectly and the next night it was like a new kid. Crazy right? We still have to go through a whole night time ritual and every light in the hall/bathroom is on but its fine. Nothing is as crazy as all the screaming. After the coin she was still waking up and coming in our bed in the middle of the night. After a few sleepless weeks we moved her to a floor bed when she came in. If it was as simple as her falling asleep on the floor it would be fine but she would toss and turn and do this weird throat thing which is her current weird tick. I say this in a loving joking way cause she is a weird kid but in the best way possible. So as of now she is sleeping in her room. Hallelujah!

With the fear of the dark came the death talks. We told her about someone who died while trying to save someone who was drowning in the ocean (he was a lifeguard) and it totally kicked in that fear of the ocean and being completely freaked out when Blake goes surfing. She was beyond curious about death and spent a lot of time talking about it. She would tell people about Ben (who had died) It was kinda awkward and uncomfortable especially because she would straight up tell strangers about him. I know, weird. But really I get it. Death is this crazy new concept for her and wrapping her 4 year brain around it is HUGE. Not everything is goth for her. She is learning at the most incredible rate. Sometimes I forget she is 4 because I feel like she gets so much. She loves school, loves learning, and is the most social kid I know. I walked her into school one day and three girls ran over to her, one gave her a hug and the others whisked her away. It was for sure one of those emotional moments where she is her own little person and at that moment she was just her, didn't need me. Moments like that are weird in parenting, bittersweet I guess. As crazy and hectic as life is I've been trying to live in more of these moments. It sounds easy and natural but it's not. Life is full of a million errands, another kid running the opposite direction, thoughts of dinner, cleaning, the possibility of getting a bathroom break, and returning a phone call from a friend that called you weeks ago. Ya shit like that. But ya the moment. I don't always do it but I'm trying to when I can.

2 0 1 5 F U C K Y A

Yep I'm still around. I took a little break from the blog but I feel ready to get back to it. Life took a funny little turn and shook me up and spit me out. I've been dealing with a lot of shit, a lot. It's been some of the worst crap I've ever dealt with but it's also changed my life.  A lot for the better and maybe some for the worst. I'm dealing with myself and my demons and whatever else gets thrown at me for the first time ever. I'm ready to take life by the balls!!! This space used to be for me to just vent and share my life and I feel like I want that back. 

So happy new year and cheers to 2015!!!!