Oh, the pain

I screamed. I never scream. I screamed and cried and wailed, and I must have kept that up for a good 10 minutes.

I've had broken bones. I've had three children. Two of them were born without me being medicated. B But this pain was somehow worse.

It will sound crazy to anyone who has not experienced this, but I fell down some stairs. My foot twisted. I landed on the side of my foot at the bottom of the stairs, and I could. not. move. Awful pain.

The word "sprain," takes on new meaning for me. I admit that I always thought sprains were minor. Breaks were major. Broken bone, oooohh, now that hurts. Sprain, eh, you'll be OK, I used to think.

My hope is that it will heal faster than the broken foot I had in my 20s, when I walked around my college campus in a cast for three months.  And by the way, I didn't utter a scream when that happened. A wave of nausea. Pain. NO screaming.

And though I've been slowing down the past year or so, delegating duties to others, resigning from boards and committees, and even quit my job to stay home and homeschool Sean, I guess I need to slow down even more.

That is the message I'm getting from this. I need to kick back, prop up my foot, and not worry that the floors are filthy and no one in the house has clean clothes. I need to let others do the floors and the laundry. And I'm not really comfortable with it. And maybe that's exactly why I need to do it.

My husband is amazing. I already knew that, but this incident showed me just the man he is, and how lucky I am. I'm so blessed. He is so caring. He's a firefighter/EMT, so he's skilled at taking care of people until he hands them off to the healthcare team. But he's still here for me, making sure that I have what I need. He carried me to bed. Brought ice water and medicine to the bedside in case I needed it in the middle of the night. Carried me to the bathroom, helped me get into the bathtub and out. He's continued to help me up and down the stairs. He's taken on the chores of laundry, dishes, meals, and is great at helping with the kids.

But I really do hope I heal quickly. A few days of this is enough.

Let's talk about parenting

I believe there are way too many people ready to tell others how to do things. Especially how to parent.

What I think we all need is a little more support and a lot less judgement, and especially we need to be told that everything will be OK.

I recently read an opinion about parents. It was about parents who the writer said are so involved in their children's lives that their kids can no longer do things for themselves. The crux of it was to stop doing pretty much everything, and let the kids do for themselves or it would lead to a crippling effect on the child and a future of the parents phoning professors over a bad grade, and accompanying the kid to their job interview as a young adult.
The examples were unfair, in my opinion. I really believe parents know what their kids need. They also know their own limits, their children's limits, and their breaking points.

We all do things sometimes that our kids can clearly do on their own. I know from experience (with two children who are completely grown now) that my youngest child will eventually do everything on his own.

I'm a Montessori mom. Montessori education is done with the philosophy of independent learning. The basic motto is, "Teach me to do it myself." And so that is basically what I have done since Sean was about 2 or 3. But there have been times when I just couldn't.

I used to tie his shoes, even after he knew how, because I needed to get out the door and on the road. Any other time of day and he could tie them on his own and take as much time as he needed. Guess what? Brace yourself. HE TIES HIS OWN SHOES.  I know. Unbelievable. I tied his shoes for a few years, and now he does it by himself.

Until recently I poured his juice. Our refrigerator is not designed to hold large bottles anywhere except the top shelf. And our cupboards are high, and the cups are in there. So I retrieved his cup, and the juice from the frig. And usually I poured it, and kept the juice bottle on the table. And if he needed a refill, he would DO IT HIMSELF. Amazing. And now he's tall enough to reach the shelf and the cupboard, and he gets his own juice, even though I used to do that for him.

I've met some parents who seem very worried, anxious, and downright overloaded with paranoia. They worry about outside influences, lead in toys, and pesticides in foods. (I am concerned, too.) These parents are trying their hardest to do everything right.

My theory is that at some point in the late 1990's or early 2000, parenting changed. It seemed to be the age of competitive parenting-- Pergo strollers, Britax car seats, designer diaper bags. And also scared parenting-- is that crib safe? Has it been recalled? What about those diapers? Do they have bleach in them? You feed your baby Gerber baby food? For the love of God! Haven't you gone Organic yet?

My mom was a great mom, but she wasn't worried. It seems we are all worried about everything now.
I started to notice this new competition/worry craze when I had my youngest child. For some reason I got a little caught up in it, even though I had two teenagers who were just fine. But maybe things had changed, I thought. Maybe there were more dangers. Certainly it seemed there was more information about safety, and recalls of certain car seats and cribs. And any good mother worries, right?

We want the best for our babies, and our toddlers. And as the child gets older we want to choose the very best pre-school. Then we want to research the very best elementary school, and so on.

It's not something we are doing wrong, it's something we believe with our whole hearts that we are doing right. And I am completely guilty. I am trying my best to do what is right.

So if you are a parent, and you are trying to do what you believe is right, good for you. And, if you are a parent and you aren't that worried about pesticides and lead, or the best elementary school, or any of this stuff, good for you.

Our kids are pre-wired to watch how we do things, and then set about learning how to do those things on their own. They will learn. They will laugh. They will cry. They will grow. And they will grow up.
And to all of us, I say: Everything will be OK.

A Christmas Letter (circa 2004)

The Christmas and New Year holidays are over, but I was having a conversation with a friend who had a tough year, and we started to talk about Christmas letters.

I have written one almost every year. There have been years that I started and stopped, started again, and finally just gave up.

You see, I think those letters are really just a recap of all the cool and fun stuff you have done throughout the year. Those years I couldn't write were so filled with awful things that I truly couldn't find anything good to write about that sounded genuine. I had moments when I thought maybe I should just write the truth. It would have gone something like this:

This year was one humdinger of a turd. I started this year with the death of my step-grandfather. Soon after I delivered that eulogy I separated from my husband. My toddler son had to have surgery this year, twice, for two different medical issues. 
And oh, did I mention my mom has cancer? She was actually diagnosed with the recurrence a couple of years ago. We've spent lots of hours on the road this year to take her to appointments and chemo treatments. 
Mom has good insurance, but this year her insurance coverage jumped to $800 a month.  
Yeah, so we are living with my mom. I don't have a job, and if I did my money would be dumped into a daycare center. 
I've spent many hours this year talking with my attorney, who by the way, has sucked up most of my "spousal maintenance," that I had to garnish from said soon-to-be ex-husband. We've become connoisseurs of spaghetti, and spaghetti sauce. We've eaten it almost every night this year, and we have decided that Barilla noodles that we get at the You Bag It grocery store, along with Prego sauce, also from said You Bag It store which we buy in bulk at highly discounted prices, is the best.
All I want for Christmas is a divorce, but this thing keeps dragging on and it looks like it will be next year before it will end.
That about wraps it up for us, and we hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

Of course I never sent it.