Things That Aren't Perfect Despite My Best Efforts

Moving back to the homestead.

18 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Starting Monday, I will be living at my parent’s house during the weekdays. My new job (so freaking excited & nervous!) is even further from our for-the-love-of-God-please-sell-already house, which means that Harrison & I would need to leave the house by 6:30am to begin a roughly 2-hour commute including daycare drop-off.

That ain’t happening. My sanity can’t take it & my Twitter stream cannot handle any more LOOK HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET HOME! that they had this past winter.

So to cut back the time by roughly an hour each way, Harrison & I will be living out of suitcases on work nights & then trudging back to our home for the weekends. Doug will be doing a 50/50 dance of checking on the house & staying with us. I’m not looking forward to being without my husband so much, but we know it’s temporary.

This is the room I’ll be staying in – one of the guest rooms that has zero of the personality it used to have with college banners & football trophies from when my brother lived in here. I’ll be moving in my desk & computer & I switched out one of the nightstands for a bookcase (I love having my books close). The Momma is clearing out space in the closet as I type. But I’m at a loss as to what to do…I’ll be here 5 nights out of the week without my husband for who knows how long & I am wondering if I should try to bring a little of “us” to this room. Bring pictures of our little family, use a bedspread from home.

I’ll need to remember to bring over Harry’s favorite bedtime books & toys for the evenings. I’ll need to leave a post-it note reminding Doug to water the garden every night. It’s going to be crazy-weird living under my parent’s roof again, except now I’m an adult & it’s so temporary. Hopefully our house will sell this spring so that we can put all this nasty commuting mess behind us for good.

But for now, I guess I’m moving back to the homestead.

Y’all.

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 Moving back to the homestead.

23 Comments
Filed Under: Adult Club, All about BA, Finding Balance, I share DNA with these folks, Life in General, Moving on up, Outsourcing Parenting Skills, Potential for Doocing, The I Do's, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts

A call for responsible discourse.

17 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Last week it was suggested that I am an abusive & neglectful mother for letting my child play alone in our secure backyard, only feet away while I empty a dishwasher.

“So I unload the top of the dishwasher, then peek out to check. Unload the bottom dishwasher & peek out to check. Wipe down the counters & brew a cup of coffee & head outside for another 30 minutes.” ~from my Babble.com post

The comments poured in, different opinions & questions & then first neglect, then abuse. oh, the rage. It was strong. Not because someone disagreed with my parenting choices or felt they were wrong – I highly expect that for every decision I make regarding my child. I formula fed & suffered postpartum depression & don’t spank my child so if you think I still have a thin skin regarding parenting choices, try again.

My rage came from blatantly flippant use of the words “abuse” & “neglect.”

Definition of child abuse (per dictionary):
mistreatment of child: severe mistreatment of a child by a parent, guardian, or other adult responsible for his or her welfare, e.g. physical violence, neglect, sexual assault, or emotional cruelty

Definition of child neglect (childhelp.org):
Failure to provide for a child’s physical needs. This includes lack of supervision, inappropriate housing or shelter, inadequate provision of food and water, inappropriate clothing for season or weather, abandonment, denial of medical care and inadequate hygiene.

My child playing 10 feet away where I can hear & see him easily is not severe mistreatment. Him learning independent play in a secure environment where I am seconds away is not careless disregard.

It makes me wonder if those that throw those harsh words around so easily have ever seen true neglect & abuse first-hand. If they’ve ever lived with a nine-year-old boy that only weighs 40 lbs because his mother bought drugs instead of food. If they’ve ever had to carry a hyperventilating six-year-old out of a store because a piece of glitter landed on her hand & she had a flashback to years of child pornography. If they’ve ever sat with social workers for hours as part of a home study & heard a little boy say he was given to the devil. Because I have & those are memories that marked my heart forever to where the word “abuse” is as strong as a racial slur or the R-word.

Child abuse & neglect are powerful words, real words that are real in our society. They are the children that are starved & beaten & locked in closets, torn apart at the hands of people they know, molested & left for days. Every ten seconds, a report of child abuse is made. More than five children die every day as a result of abuse. Child abuse is serious & it is a serious allegation.

I beg you to be mindful of the words used to describe another parent’s actions. Are they truly abusing their child, causing danger to the child’s overall well-being? Or is it a simple heated discussion where you feel you are right, by golly?

Let’s talk about parenting. Let’s share ideas & concerns & hopes & fears. Feel free to disagree with me respectfully & accept that I may defend my stance. But let’s have this parenting discourse responsibly.

If you do see child abuse & neglect happening, please call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.

128 Comments
Filed Under: Adult Club, Guzzling the Haterade, Open Letters, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts, Unpopular opinions

When I don’t understand but I just love him, love him, love him.

11 Apr posted by heirtoblair

ff2bf2b84aa111e180c9123138016265 7 When I dont understand but I just love him, love him, love him.

Our boy.

He doesn’t talk the way other kids his age do.

I’ve known it for over a year, watching him & practicing & my heart hurting the way he seems to struggle. The way he doesn’t quite form the words & I know that part of him being so quiet is the perfectionist trait he inherited from his momma, not wanting to try unless he knows he can succeed. The way my heart burst one thousand times when he put two words together on his own in January, saying “Bye-bye, moon!” when we went inside & I nearly cried. How many times I’ve cried, out of pure joy when he says a word clearly & in frustration when he is screaming & I’m begging him to please, please use a word or show Momma, but no screaming. How once & twice a week for the past six months, I’ve sat on the floor in speech therapy, taking mental notes for ways to play with him, read to him, teach him to use language.

I don’t understand it because language has always come easily for me, from talking to reading & writing. I may not always know what to say, but I always have something to say. It is so different with my boy, who sits quietly while we race monster trucks & bake wooden cookies.

I know this is a “common” thing, especially for young boys. I hear stories of kids that open their mouths for the first time with full sentences when they are four & stories of apraxia with years of therapy. There are people that tell me to wait it out, that he’ll speak someday. There are others that warn me against waiting too long, that push for a diagnosis. We are doing what feels right for our son. All other opinions are just unwelcome noise.

He is my baby & I am his momma & I love the parts of him that are hard for me to grasp.

Filed Under: Adult Club, Fears, Harry in General, I wish parenting came with a manual, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts, Toddlers eat your brains

Wait…what did I do again today?

4 Apr posted by heirtoblair

Monday was one of those days where Doug walked through the front door & I just shrugged.

There was no dinner in the oven, the child was shoeless & filthy, toddler bedding was strewn across the living room floor, & my hair was in a top knot with a bandana holding back my bangs. In short? We were a hot, hot mess. If Doug had asked me what I did all day (you know, if he wanted to have his balls for dinner), then I would have simply said that I kept his kid alive for one more day.

Oh, sure. I had plenty of aspirations including homemade chicken pot pie for dinner & dessert in the oven for the basketball championship game. When I woke up that morning, I imagined booking an extra hour while the boys did their nightly game of chase in the backyard. Then reality took over – Harrison slept in a little bit, I took him out for breakfast before we went grocery shopping & he was perfectly behaved the entire morning. Then he dumped tomato soup on his head & needed a mid-day bath, my laptop battery died, & I found two molars blistering through his gums all before naptime. We spent the rest of the day “camping” in a Thomas the Train tent & coloring (only making it into the coloring book 50% of the time, RIP Melissa & Doug puzzle).

Nothing that mothers don’t deal with on a regular basis. Nothing that I didn’t face in the office with other work. Nothing to complain about or make a fuss over, but just the little things that take away from the moments in the day & I look up & oh my, how is it 5:30pm already?! I haven’t worked or made dinner or cleaned the house or done anything that leaves a tangible response.

I called my mother the next morning & she reassured me that in her many years at home, she had days like that where the clock flew faster than the to-do list. & that there were many times where “Honey! The children are still alive!” was worth celebrating.

23 Comments
Filed Under: FAIL, Finding Balance, Harry in General, Life in General, Never Have I Ever, Outsourcing Parenting Skills, Sorta Staying Home, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child, Things that aren't perfect despite my best efforts, Toddlers eat your brains

Owning my life & other Nashville lessons that should be in a country song.

2 Mar posted by heirtoblair

nametag 300x300 Owning my life & other Nashville lessons that should be in a country song. I find myself tongue-tied in regards to Blissdom this year.

There’s this wild, wonderful heart-song that has been beating through me ever since I boarded a plane for Nashville & I have not quite found a way to piece it all together.

When I went to Blissdom, I found myself at an awful crossroads in my career. I lost a job & gained contract work, but nothing felt secure. I spent nights lying awake, ticking away the 18 months of COBRA coverage & worrying how I would find another job. How we would get insurance or a home loan. The anxiety crept up to my throat & I sat on the couch in my doctor’s office & she asked me to define the problem.

“I don’t know!” I wailed. The control freak in my clashed & battled war on my spirit & everything inside me wound tight for no reason. Why couldn’t I let go when I finally had everything I ever hoped for?

I have a job I love. It pays well. I am home with my son. I am writing successfully. I have insurance coverage for 18 months. We won’t be homeless.

Four days of wild creativity, of hearing lectures where I was told to admit that I’m a writer, to think of goals & pathways & to be okay reaching for them. To sit with others & hear that sometimes, they feel split one thousand different ways & they worry about the uncertainty of free-lancing, but oh, isn’t the free part of free-lancing so wonderful? Yes, it is. Jon Acuff spoke of the “reverse Superman” of changing into business suits from conference clothes & my heart hurt at my own memories of soul-blackening work & somewhere in Tsh Oxenreider’s session about growing with quality, a wave of awesome slapped me upside the face.

Really, there’s no other way to describe it.

I have a job I love. It pays well. I am home with my son. I am writing successfully. I have insurance coverage for 18 months. We won’t be homeless.

I’M GOING TO OWN THIS SHIT.

Finding myself writing for a living didn’t happen the way I thought it would, but then again, I never dreamed of an @microsoft email address either. Potentially growing our family on COBRA isn’t something I would have ever considered before but being home with my littles is something I have considered often. Selling our house & getting a home loan on Doug’s salary wasn’t our idea, but we will learn to live simply & install floors on our own & that will be just one more adventure to take on together.

blissdom collage Owning my life & other Nashville lessons that should be in a country song.

When my friends ask me what Blissdom is, I smile. It’s fashion shows in the bathroom with a friend that lives an entire country apart & a photo shoot in downtown at night & the words “I am a writer” scrawled across my journal with other notes but mostly, Blissdom is where I come alive.