Bubbling emotions

I've been listening to my new MP3 player today as I puttered around the house, tidying up the ever-present crap my kids (and, in all honesty, myself) leave around waiting for the cleaning fairy to take care of. A couple of songs in and I found myself in tears....

The song was "The Warrior is a Child" by Twila Paris. The lyrics that really got me were practically the first ones out of her mouth:

"Lately I've been winning battles left and right
But even winners can get wounded in the fight
People say that I'm amazing
Strong beyond my years
But they don't see inside of me
I'm hiding all the tears

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
'Cause deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child"

People are sometimes surprised at how strong I am. They tell me that I'm a strong mom for taking care of Tristan and his hearing issues and his diabetes. I really don't understand that. I don't FEEL strong. I feel scared, and weak, and sometimes absolutely broken-hearted for my baby. I would do ANYTHING if I could take his burdens as my own. I would gladly, without a second thought, take on his diabetes, and I would do it with joy for him. It's just WRONG for him to suffer with this. WRONG. I'm his mother. *I'm* supposed to take these things on so that he doesn't have to. I'm supposed to protect him.

But I can't protect him from this. I can't take it away. I can't kiss it and make it better. All I can do is take his hand, hold him close and let him know that I would if I could. He was rather astounded by that, honestly.

People tell me I'm strong. I know that. I discovered an inner core of strength years ago, one that I treasure, but it's something I want to put on a shelf. I want to leave it there, knowing it's there if I need it, but hoping that I'll never need it. I don't WANT to be strong, damn it! I want to curl into a ball and cry until I have no more tears to shed.

But my babies need me. They need me to hold it together. I simply don't have the luxury of a nervous breakdown. So, I guess, that makes me strong? But, really, I don't get it. I'm a MOTHER. This is what mother's DO. We do what we need to so that our children are cared for and loved and all of that.

And, yet, deep inside that armor, this mommy is a child.

25 Random Things About Me

This is all the rage around Facebook, so I thought I'd post it here too.

1. I've been tagged for this by at least 4 people, and probably more. I must be popular, right?
2. My dad is a retired professor of Veterinary Medicine and a vet.
3. My sister is my best friend.
4. I LOVE to read fantasy novels, particularly Mercedes Lackey.
5. I actually love all kinds of books, except gory murder mysteries and overly fluffy stuff.
6. I'm a third generation teacher.
7. My youngest child was a surprise to everyone but God, and I'm so glad I have her!
8. She's named after Bruce and I. His middle name is Alan and mine is Louise, so she's Alana Louise, pronounced a-LAY-na.
9. Our African Senegal (medium-sized parrot) landed in our backyard one September day a few years ago.
10. I caught him, fed him, and placed the "found" ad, but no one claimed him, so here he lives. And he hates me!
11. I'm so addicted to scrapbooking that I became a "dealer" (Creative Memories) to support my "habit!"
12. I have a hard time with digital stuff like pictures and music. If I can't touch it, is it real?
13. I record a bunch of shows and then watch them on my laptop while scrapping, sewing, or cleaning.
14. NCIS is my favorite show.
15. Tony Hillerman's death last fall made me very very sad (He was a writer of mysteries set on the Navajo reservation).
16. I spent a month in France as an exchange student the summer after I graduated from high school.
17. I've mostly forgotten how to speak French.
18. I'm a bleeding-heart, tree-hugging liberal.
19. My biggest pet peeve is GOSSIP! And I define gossip to be anything spoken about someone that you wouldn't say to their face, true or not.
20. I would love to write a book someday, or maybe publish some poems, but I struggle to find the time to put pen to paper.
21. I also struggle to believe that anyone would want to hear what I have to say.
22. I never planned to be a SAHM, but now I wouldn't change it for the world.
23. I miss teaching, though.
24. I found out in December just how many people love and care for me and my family. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring from friends near and far when Tristan was in the hospital.
25. I'm still in awe of that.

Success!

I made vegetable broth! Without a recipe or much guidance (my cookbook only does meat broths)! But, I winged it (wung it?) and it turned out pretty good! I threw in just about every veggie I had in the fridge, except the cucumbers which somehow didn't seem like a good idea in there.....

Anyway, I put in:
1 onion, chunked
2 potatos
1 large handful of baby carrots
2 small zucchini, chunked
4 stalks of celery
4 cloves of garlic (at least)
12 crimini mushrooms, chunked
1 t salt

I probably had about 8 cups of water in there, maybe more? Then I got it boiling and let it cook for 6 hours or so, covered. And guess what? It's GOOD! Heck, I've had chicken broth turn out weaker than this stuff. Now I'm using some of it to make some veggie rice soup for dinner for me. I really could drink this, just as it is. Of course, I've got a cold and a sore throat, so maybe that's why I want to dump it in a mug, curl up with a book and just veg (with my veg-broth! *giggle*)

Since the rest of the family has to eat.....

Here's my menu for the next two weeks. I've included my meals where I can:

Monday--Manwich
Tuesday--BBQ Ribs in the crock pot (soup for me?)
Wednesday--Chicken Fajitas (mine will just be sauteed veggies with Mexican seasoning)
Thursday--Something with Johnsonville brats
Friday--Pasta Alfredo
Saturday--Creamy Ranch chicken (CP)

Next week:

Sunday--Spaghetti (squash for me?)
Monday--Sub Gum (CP)
Tuesday--Egg/chile puff
Wednesday--Tacos
Thursday--Campbell's Cheeseburger Mac helper
Friday--Take-n-bake pizza

Daniel Fast--Day 1

Okay, so I was more enthused about this on Friday than I was today, but so far, it's going well. I had oatmeal with applesauce and cinnamon for breakfast, apples and celery with peanut butter for lunch, plus some veggies, and a big salad for dinner. I was disappointed to discover that I don't like the hummus I bought, so I'll take it to my UMW meeting tomorrow night and feed it to the ladies there! LOL! I also need to tweak the salad dressing I made.....too much balsamic vinegar I think.

Onward to tomorrow!

Daniel Fast

I read about this on one of my message boards, and was intrigued. The title comes from the Biblical book of Daniel, and the idea is to eat the same way that Daniel did. Different websites list different rules, when you get into the specifics, but the basics are all the same. Eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes and drink only water. Some sites say that honey is all right and others okay herbal tea. Foods to be "fasted" from include meat, dairy, sugar, caffeine, flour, leavening agents, and all preservatives. Spices are all right, and so are whole grains like brown rice. I suppose wheat flour would be okay, but there isn't much you can do with flour that doesn't have some kind of leavening in it. One site says unleavened bread is fine....others don't.

Do you get the sense that this is supposed to be an individual thing? Yeah, me too. I'm embarking on this fast, starting Monday, for 21 days. I'm going to allow myself to drink black tea with honey, mostly because, if I quit caffeine cold turkey then, by Wednesday, I'll be insane and I'll quit. Maybe I'll try to taper off in time for Lent.

Some may say that I'm not embracing the spirit of the fast. That it's supposed to be about sacrifice and allowing God to work in my life through that sacrifice. I say I'm sacrificing quite a lot, thank you, and God and I are okay with this modification. At least, that's the general sense that I get.

I started with this idea as a way to lose weight, or at least jump start that process. But, the more I've thought about it, and as I shopped for veggies, fruits, hummus, peanut butter without sugar, and other things, I began to hear God's voice. It's interesting how we can start something with one intent and wind up with something totally different, isn't it? I'm curious to see where God will lead me during this fast.

Bruce is on board and is willing to do much of the cooking for he and the kids. I really don't think that will be necessary. I've already thought of ways I can modify the recipes for them to suit this fast. We're having fajitas one night.....I'll just saute the peppers and onions for me, plus some spices and maybe a portabella mushroom or some squash. No problem! We'll see how I feel by the end of the week, however.

The kids, by the way, don't get it and keep giving me this look like I've suddenly grown another head. Shannon is calling it my "vegetarian" fast.

We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow, I'll delve into the Bible some more.

Alana Funny

Okay, sorta anyway.

Alana has this thing about writing on her walls, dresser, shelves, cupboards.....you get the idea. The other night, Bruce sent her to her room to clean it. Now her room is the size of a large closet, so it doesn't take much for it to look like a tornado hit.

Well, Alana got mad and wrote all over her walls with green marker. She also drew a frowny-face on her carpet. Yeah, Bruce was seriously peeved!

So, he takes away her canopy (it was getting in the way of cleaning the carpets), and Alana is having herself a mighty fit about putting on her shoes and socks and getting ready to take the older kids to their activities at church. Now, Alana's fits are something to behold. She screams and fusses and carries on, hollering things like "I HATE shoes!" or "Socks are STUPID!" or "I HATE YOU!" Since she's our third child, we've gotten rather nonchalant about such things. My usual response is something along the lines of "That's nice. Put them on anyway." or "You don't have to like me....but you still have to do (whatever chore she is trying to avoid)." My favorite is probably when she says "I don't WANT to." My response? "Well, I don't want to listen to a whiney little girl, but we've all got to do things we don't want to do. Put on your shoes." She HATES that!

But I digress........Bruce is threatening to take away her favorite stuffy (currently a seal named "Peachy"). I said she'd have to hand over all of her crayons, markers, pens, pencils, and colored pencils since she didn't seem to know how to use them properly. Bruce said something to the effect of "Yeah, that. That makes more sense." ROFL!

Alana made it very clear that she did NOT want to go with us. Period. She was NOT putting on her coat. She was NOT getting in the van.

Bruce is getting ready to drag her out the door. I said "All right then. Stay here. By yourself. Have a good time." And walked out the door. (one of these days she's going to call that bluff). But, of course, she got very upset at the idea of being left alone and came running out to the van, wailing her head off.

So, we took the kids to church and then went out to dinner. Along the way, Bruce asked Alana why she wrote on the walls and her carpet.

Her response? "Because I was mad at you. I don't WANT to clean my room!" (Picture her darling face with a pouty, defiant look).

Ohhhh.....I see.

Later, at dinner, I'm telling her that, when we get home, I want all of her crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc.

She says, *sigh* "Mom, I never color on the walls with crayon. It's too hard to get off!"

Methinks Magic Erasers and washable markers have made her life a bit too easy!

Tristan Update

Lot's of people have how he's doing, so I thought I'd post an update.

All in all, he's managing pretty well. He seems to have accepted this new thing in his life with not too much fuss. He occasionally has a moment here or there where he's frustrated, but we're working through it.

Our big issue has been low blood sugars. He can't go to bed if his sugar is below 100. Blood sugar tends to drop during the night, so he needs to be high enough to account for that. A couple times over the break, his sugar just would NOT come up. One night, he was up until 1:30 am!
So, we've adjusted when and how he takes his insulin, and so far, it seems to be working. We're in what they call the "honeymoon period" where some cells in his pancreas are still making insulin, but not the way they're supposed to or in any predictable pattern. Over the next 3-12 months, those cells will die off as the disease progresses, and then he'll lose his "free" 15 carb snacks......of course, for a 12 yo, 15 carbs is NOTHING. The kid eats like 5 meals a day right now! LOL!

He's doing more things away from us, which has been a bit hard on me, but he's got to learn to do it eventually. So far, he hasn't gone on any Scout campouts without Bruce, but I'm sure that's coming this spring. We had scheduled a quick training session for Scouts last night, but the roads were horrid so Scouts was cancelled. Everyone Tristan works with is more than willing to learn what they need to do to help him manage, and that feels really good. Our church folks have been amazingly supportive through it all.

And we've got one set of neighbors where it's a "knock and walk" relationship....she knows where my spices are, has a key to my house and so forth, and I'm that way at hers. We've chatted with them about what to do for Tristan in an emergency and all of that as well because we do leave the kids home alone for an hour or two here and there.

Quick Alana funny.......We've got an injection that would need to be given to Tristan if he passes out. We told the girls about it when we first got home from the hospital, as in, If we're not home........Well, Alana heard only the first sentence or so and ran away screaming! ROFL! Tristan and I both decided that we'd like to do that too, if only we could.

We had a follow-up visit with the endocrinologist yesterday. Tristan's A1C was 8.7%. That's a measure of how well blood sugar has stayed within the "normal" range over the last three months. Good control is 7% or lower. Considering that Tristan was only diagnosed 5 weeks ago, this is a GREAT number. My hunch is that the disease really came on quickly. He'd also gained over 17 lbs since his hospitalization...we think he'd lost about 10 lbs before diagnosis, so that's good news too.

So, yeah, we're adjusting and moving on. Estimating carb content is getting easier, though I need to organize the mountains of paperwork we've got related to this and get rid of a bunch of stuff that really isn't relevant, etc. Maybe next week? LOL!

Look Ma! A new blog!

I think this is the third blog I've done, and each time I get a bit more adventurous. I really do enjoy the writing, and the thought that lots of people are anxiously awaiting my latest updates. Okay, so there's three of you, but it's still fun!

Happy 2009

Some of you know that I don't do resolutions, at least not anymore. In years past, I would make LENGTHY lists of a zillion goals in all areas of my life. But really, those lists only served to point out just how lacking my life currently was, and well, that's not me either. My life is generally pretty great, and I'm filled with gratitude for that. Listing all the ways I need to improve myself seemed to fly in the face of that. Not that I don't need improvement.....don't we all? But, well, big lists just brought me down, especially when it's cold and dreary outside. Made me want to go back to bed until spring!

So, now I do a motto for the year. It's easier to remember and attempt to live by a simple phrase than it is to deal with checklists about organizing my house, catching up on my scrapbooks, losing 20 lbs, and solving world hunger, kwim?
This year's motto is....

(drum roll please).....

Assume The Best

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? And yet, I know that I tend to assume the worst. I assume that the clerk will be a pain about the return I'm making, or the insurance company will cause me trouble, or that statement was intended as an insult, or that generic phrase someone said in blog, email, or chat was about ME. Obviously, those things do happen. But, more often than not, they don't. So, I'm going into this year assuming the best from the people around me, from circumstances, and from myself.

Happy 2009!