I was having a serious heart to heart with my friend Miranda this morning, and I feel like I need to have a serious heart to heart here. With you, SCL-ers.

In our chat I typed out the sentences: “If I’m being honest, I don’t feel like I’m raising her. I don’t feel like I’m teaching her or molding her or leading her.” and “I have nothing to give, and honestly, I have to stop that.”

And I got tears in my eyes.  Because the bare bones fact is for over a year I’ve been keeping her safe and alive.  And I haven’t done much more.  Yes, I play with her. Yes, I make sure to take her to do things in life.  But I feel like I haven’t been actively raising her as much as I’ve been actively growing her, physically.  Feeding her, cleaning her, keeping her physically safe and healthy and alive.

A few months ago Sophia received the official diagnosis of PDD-NOS.  She is on the super high functioning end of the autism spectrum.  I’ve known for roughly a year and a half that there was more to her speech delay, to her outbursts, to her quirks.  The road to a diagnosis wasn’t easy, and throwing in a move and some insurance changes and doctor changes, and anyways…here we are much later. And me just keeping her alive and safe. Avoid triggers as a way to cope with PDD-NOS, not only for her sake…but honestly a little bit for mine.  I want to raise her to learn to cope and be able to live life where a walk through the mall isn’t cause for a breakdown, or where too much eye contact makes her shut down, where she can be with multiple peers and actually interact with them.  I need to actively be a participant in teaching her how to cope with life, in ways that are effortless for other children.

I don’t want to make excuses, yes I am a single mother. But that’s a fact of life. I refuse to allow either of my kids to not be raised, truly raised, because I am tired and have so little to give.  I spent part of my childhood raised by a single mother, I know how that felt as a child.  To not feel like I was being raised, or led, or taught by my parent.  This is not an attack against that time in my life, but an observation that after having lived it myself I will not let my children live it.

I have to find more.  It’s not an option to continue with the minimum.  I have to shut down any excuses about being tired, about feeling empty, about not knowing what I’m doing.

And let’s talk about the not knowing what I’m doing. Because I don’t.  But let’s be real, do any of us? Do any of us really know what we’re doing?  I mean I’d venture to say, probably not.  I have some awesome friends who recommended a few books to me, and this morning my Mom recommend a few more. And I’m going to learn, because I feel like I need to know more skills and ways of parenting than what I have in my arsenal.  I want to be the parent that shows grace, but also making a concise effort to raise my children to be loving, compassionate, good, honest people.  Because I think that’s what it’s about.

When we all decide to be parents, while we’re pregnant with our babies, this isn’t the part of parenting that weighed on us.  This isn’t the part of parenting that people warn you about, or tell you to prepare for.  It’s the sleepless nights from feedings, and the endless bottles to wash or breast feeding issues.  But to be honest this part of parenting is turning out to be the most difficult, the responsibility to make a focused effort every day to teach and mold and grow a small mind.  The responsibility is heavy, and I know that I find myself losing sleep over it.

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Today I read this post by my lovely friend, Jill.  And I was nodding along thinking THIS IS ME (except the growing a baby part, I am most certainly NOT growing a baby in my uterus!).  And then I realized that in order to get back in to blogging I just need to blog.

The thing is what do I blog about?  I am so happy with all the part of my life that I’m scared to share them because what if that sets off some domino of bad things that makes it all fall.  But then, I think it’s just been so long since I just wrote.  If I’m being honest, I don’t want to write with a filter, but I keep finding myself struggling to just write.

I want to write about Sophia, and I want to write about Holden.

They are growing so fast, and I just want to write it all down.  But they are growing so fast I don’t have time.

Then there’s the guy that…that is just amazing.  He’s so amazing that I’m scared to overshare…because I want to keep it all for me. Well, for us.

And my job.  My miracle job that changed my life, and my kids lives.  Making it possible for me to raise the kids I wanted to still.  The job that pushes me talents, forces me to learn new things and stay creative.

Things are awesome, and amazing.  And I’m finding it’s just as hard to find the voice to talk about the good stuff as it was to find my voice about the bad stuff.  Funny how that works.  And sure, I could fill this space with endless dribble about nothing.  But I vowed to make my words matter (and those sponsored posts, those totally matter. Bills and stuff y’all!)

So I am trying to get back here for real. For real, for real.

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*Due to some technical-computer-issues this post is coming late, and after the two month mark.*

So two months as a #Shakleeblogger has come and gone…and honestly…it was completely effortless.  It has all become a habit, and I make the smoothies, take the amazing metabolism pills, drink the tea…..and then the end of the day comes and I realize I’ve done it all with out thinking.

The challenge? Because let’s get real, there is always challenges in life, is I am starting to miss some of the more high calorie foods.  Pasta, cheese burgers, pizza, pasta.  I know there’s the whole “Everything in moderation” thing.  But I am not good in moderation.  I am good with EAT ALL OF IT UNTIL THERE IS NO MORE!  So for now, I am just sticking with the plan, and enjoying all my progress!

What is that progress?!  WELL LET ME SHOW YOU!!

WARNING – SORT OF BRAGGING BECAUSE OH MY GOODNESS!

From May 4th 2013!

And WOW! I am four to six jean sizes smaller.  FOUR TO SIX JEAN SIZES SMALLER. I wouldn’t have believed it myself except…I had to go buy new jeans.

Shameless dressing room photos...that's right!

This has been the easiest life change I’ve made, and it’s been worth it to make myself a priority in this way.  It’s made me happier and more energetic!  Everyone wins! Thank you ALL so much for your support! You’ve made the last two months fun, and hopefully you’ll stick with me for the next FOUR!

Don’t remember where things started? Check this out. 

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post as part of the Shaklee Corporation blogger program. I have received free products, online support, and incentives for participating. My opinions are my own.

People following the weight-loss portion of the Shaklee 180™ Program can expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week.

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So yes, I’m still talking about hair. I can’t even help it.  When BlogHer and Olay offered posts all about hair, I jumped. Because I can’t stop thinking about what I am going to do with my hair.  I mean I’ve been growing it out, forever.  And so, it’s reaching the point where I think “What, now?”.

Cut it?  Color it?  If you follow me on twitter you know a couple of weeks ago I snapped a photo of a strangers hair because she had the most amazing highlights, and then I asked her where she had it done. Because they were amazing.  As much as I want to cut it off (seriously, how do the Kardashians handle all their long hair with all the extensions?!!!)….I am waiting until after Summer.  Why? Summer beach hair.  I want to have awesome summer hair, again.  My favorite hair is after spending all day at the beach, with the salt water in my hair all day.  Sure, it damages it like WHOA, all that salt in the hair.

But, I’ve spend the better part of fall/winter/spring working on great beach hair with out all the salt….and this tutorial is pretty helpful.  I’m going to have to try it, because I need to take advantage of all this hair while I still have it.

(Trust me: you want to watch the whole video! I mean CHANCE TO WIN PRIZES and learning a hair trick! WIN!)

Sweeps rules:

http://www.blogher.com/hair-sweepstakes-official-rules-week-7

Prizes & Promotions page on Blogher.com:

https://www.blogher.com/blogher-tv-weekly-hair-style-sweepstakes

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I can’t even believe it’s been a year.  I have been on an emotional roller coaster all day, my last baby, no longer a baby.  With out realizing it I feel like I replayed the day hour by hour, in my head.  I’d glance at my phone and think “He was in my room with me still.” and then think “I bet this is when the neonatologist came to talk to me.” or “I can’t believe how different seeing him in the NICU was compared to seeing him now.”

Tonight, I feel completely overwhelmed with gratefulness. I am so grateful that I got a miracle, not only to have gotten a chance to be this amazing boy’s mom…but also that he survived something other babies don’t.  A year ago he fought a hard fight, a fight that other babies lose.  And now he is one.  And in moments like so many today, I don’t even have the words to express what a gift I know I have.  What a blessing he is.

I am sitting here with tears burning my eyes remembering my desperate prayers, and the whispered promises I made to him.  A year ago I prayed for today. I prayed for all of the last 365 days, and I prayed for a lifetime of days with him.  And now he is one.

I sat down to write a post of photos and write down the memories that we made today.  But instead something much different came out.  If you have never read Holden’s GBS story, here are the posts (one and two).  If you don’t know what GBS is, or you aren’t sure what can happen, please check out GBSI. 

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Sometimes ideas swirl around in my head for a while.  Building momentum until I finally say to Suzzanne ”I should write a blog post about this”. And then she says I should. And then I stop playing Candy Crush and come over here and actually put some words together and write a post.  It’s lovely how that happens.

So here’s the deal, I probably learned more about marriage from getting a divorce than I did from being married.  Sometimes a good way to learn how to fix something or make it work, is to break it.  And my marriage was broken (no blame game here) and then it was over and here I am happy on the other side of the wreckage going “Ohhhh, right. That was dumb right there.”

I want to give a disclaimer here that while I think no one ever wants to get divorced, and divorce was never what I wanted.  It was 100% the right thing in my previous marriage and it allowed me to get back to me (even though that’s really hard to do with kids).  What I’m saying is that I have no regrets about my past when it comes to any of this.  But more of a “Next time I’m not going to do ____. And I’ll do ____ better!”

1.  Go on dates with your spouse.  I get it.  Sitters cost money, and they’re expensive. And is it really worth it to spend 10 dollars an hour just to go to dinner with your spouse when you can pick up food to go and eat together after the kids go to bed?  Yes, it is.  There’s something to be said for making an effort.  And it’s much harder to go on dates when you’re a single parent of those kids, and you’re still paying a sitter 10 dollars an hour.  And the thing is that eventually in single-parent life it IS WORTH IT because you have to be more than just the role of caretaker.  Plus dates are fun.  I know not everyone can swing it, but really make an effort to find a way to go on a date with your spouse.  Because dates are FUN!  A day at the park on a paddleboat doesn’t cost a ton, but it’s FUN! And couldn’t everyone use a little fun?!

2.  Buy cute clothes.  Again this is going to be one of those things that I tell you that it’s easier and more practical to do it when you’re married than trying to do it when you’re single.  Trade in your stretched out Aerie sweat pants for a pair of new cute yoga pants.  Pick up a new top while you’re picking up diapers at Target.  It’s harder to make an effort to find date clothes for the dates you go on looking for Mr. Future Right than it probably is to make the effort for the guy you’re married to.  So make the effort.  And I’ve learned that while it seemed like a waste to buy cute clothes to get spit up on…I wear cute clothes now that get food on them and I don’t mind. Why did I mind before? Well who even knows, I was a silly ol’ married woman.

3.   Do the little things.  It’s easy to get in to a routine, and honestly the bills and the cleaning and the diapers and the nap times…it’s a lot. Living is a lot.  And part of the good thing about marriage (I guess?) is that you have a partner to weather all of that stuff with.  But I think it’s super easy to forget to nurture that partnership with the things that started it all.  New relationships are fun and exciting. It’s easy to remember to send a text that says you miss them or you’re thinking about them.  It’s easy to have their favorite ice cream in the freezer if you know they’re coming over.  Because it’s new and exciting and you want to nurture that.  I think it’d be a lot easier and rewarding to nurture that relationship with someone who sleeps in your bed and is your partner in the chaos.  (With the added bonus you already know his favorite ice cream! So no standing in the freezer section trying to remember what he said when you had that conversation. Was it strawberry cheesecake?!)

4. Be honest about the things that bug you.  I have a set of deal breakers a mile long these days, because I learned when things went wrong what things I didn’t want to put up with.  The problem is, all the things that really truly deep down bugged me in my marriage, I don’t know if I ever even talked to my ex about it when we were married.  But I have this list, I knew all along.  I picked fights about other things.  But the things that really bugged me, the things that now I won’t even consider?  Now those things are in black and white.  So weird.  Obviously you shouldn’t try to CHANGE someone, married to them or not.  But I think relationships are about growing together and compromising (as if I know, why are you folks listening to me again? I am divorced silly!).  So no, your goal shouldn’t be about changing them, but growing together. And maybe it’s still something you have to get over, or maybe it’s something the two of you will work on. But if it’s something that would be a deal breaker if you were in the dating world…it’s probably worth talking about.

5. Talk. Right, I know.  OF COURSE YOU TALK TO YOUR SPOUSE.  You probably even ask how their day went, and you listened to them complain about work and traffic.  And then you sit down that night and watch TV and probably talk about the news or the weather or the story line on the show.  Then you go to bed and you probably ask if they can remember to call so-n-so tomorrow, and they ask you to get something at the store, and you ask if each others alarms are set.  Look at all that talking, right?  I mean you probably even call or text once a day just to say hey and hows your day/kids/work going.  You think that you’re checking in every day, you know so much about each other now.  I mean you’re talking every.single.day.  But when you’re in a new relationship you’re REALLY talking.  About where you want to be in a few years, what your favorite :insert every possible subject ever: is, about your history and what you think your future looks like.  In marriage, even if you’re talking every day…one day you may realize you don’t even know the person you’re married to.  When you’re in a new relationship you’re trying to discover and know everything.  The thing is, there’s no end to that.  There’s always something you don’t know about the person you’re with.  We’re all changing, meeting new people, experiencing new things that morph our way of thinking.  It doesn’t stop, and married folks who want to stay married folks shouldn’t stop learning about each other.

I’m no expert. I’m a divorced woman, a statistic.  I’m happy and learning about what I want now from this place, and it makes me think about the things from the place I was in.  I guess these aren’t things I wish I’d do differently, even though I am divorced I think things are exactly how they were supposed to be. But these are things I learned, things that I realize would have been easier to do/work on when I was married than doing/working on them now as a single parent.  Because I always had excuses, and now I find a way despite the excuses.  Why wasn’t it as important then? Well that’s probably a whole different blog post.  What I’m saying, make an effort.  Don’t let things get away from you.  The days and the weeks and the years.  The person you’re married to is changing and you’re changing and it’s important to always have a little bit of excitement around, even if it takes work.  Not that I know what I’m talking about, maybe one day I’ll do a follow up and tell you if this advice is actually any good.

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Things have been going well on #Shaklee180!  I feel confident with my progress so far, but in the video below I discuss the things that are making me nervous…as well as how I am trying to use those things to motivate me.

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Last night I went to bed the mother of a new born baby girl, Sophia.  I smelled the top of her head, I stared at all her tiny features.  I watched her sleep and prayed I wouldn’t fail her.  I felt small and scared, awkwardly relearning how to change tiny diapers and give tiny baths.

Over night we lived through so much, a personal hell that felt to go on for months upon months…it now seems to have just been hours.  Until the minute it was different.  Sometime in the wee hours of the morning she learned to walk and run, she grew and became a person.  She started talking and singing and making jokes.  She became capable of a huge love, a person who can feel every range of emotions.

When I woke up this morning and suddenly Sophia was a kid.  An independent kid who is slowly starting to just call me Mom.  A kid with long hair and long limbs.  A kid with bruises and skinned knees.  A kid who grew up even when I willed her not to.

_________

On our way out to the car she picked a flower.  I asked if she knew what we were doing and she yelled “GOING TO SCHOOL!” I kneeled down and told her today wasn’t school, watching a little bit of excitement leave her face.  Today we were going to sign her up for school.  And maybe she’d see other kids signing up for school too.  I wondered if their moms were struggling too.  Struggling with the idea that yesterday when they went to sleep, they were exhausted by the cares of a newborn, only to wake up today and see that tiny baby as a walking talking full of life kid.  I wondered if I was the one who wasn’t ready for this, when the rest of the world was.

Why is it so hard to watch her do what kids do, grow up? How is it possible to have so much sadness and yet so much excitement over her future?  I can’t wait to see the person she becomes, but I’m not ready to let go of my baby just yet.

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Part of why I picked North Carolina was how close it was to two beaches that I love: Wilmington and Myrtle Beach.  Both for very different reasons. Wilmington is calm and quiet, every time I’ve gone the beach has been mostly empty and the kids can play with out me worrying that they’re going to throw sand on someone’s beach towel.  Myrtle Beach is much more busy, but there’s more to do outside of the beach that my kids enjoy.  So it’s a toss up, and I love the fact that by living here it’s pretty easy access to both.

Last year, a month or so after moving here, we took off to Myrtle Beach before fall really set in.  A few days and I was DONE.  Being at the beach with two kids (a 3 year old and a 5 month old) in a single small hotel room…it was a test of my patience that I probably failed at.  It was fun, but exhausting and nerve wracking.  I worried then that I would never feel comfortable to go on trips with my kids.  It would just be day trips for life for us, if at all.

The spring has come though. And I’ve gotten in to somewhat of a groove with the single parenting of two thing.  I’m not the best at it, but they’re alive and happy.  So it’s working out, ya know?  I have been craving the sun and sand, and have been compuslively checking the weather at the coast for weeks.  But the good weather days came on busy work days.  And so we’d been stuck home.  Until yesterday.

A rough Tuesday left me frustrated and tired.  I knew how the day would go, all three of us feeding off each others cranky.  I laid in bed putting off getting up because I dreaded the meltdowns and tantrums.  I grabbed my phone and checked the weather.  82* in Wilmington by the afternoon.  SOLD!  We rushed out the door and just started driving.  There was no plan.  We didn’t need one.  Two hours of “Are we dere Momma?” and “BEACH MOMMA BEACH I WAN DA BEACH!” we reached water.  I don’t think Sophia had ever looked so at home in a new place.  The beach does the same thing to her soul that it does to mine.  It sort of feels like coming home.

It was exactly what we needed.  A break from the every day. A break from the walls of the apartment and the attack of the pollen.  A day that recharged my I can do this resolve.  And more importantly, a reminder that I am doing this. 

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Holden turns 1 in a few weeks.  And I am so far in to denial about it I’m practically drowning.

I refuse to believe that the little baby who aged me a decade in just his first week of life, is already through his first year.  His first year being completely healthy and normal despite his battle with GBS.

I can not come to terms with it. And it’s maybe a little bit of a problem.  You see, it really did sneak up on me. He’s still taking a bottle, he sometimes still eats baby food…and if you haven’t caught the fact that I am usually exhausted he’s also not sleeping through the night.

All of those things were like a checklist that I was working down on when Sophia neared the age of 1.  And with him? I just sort of forgot that 1 was coming. Like maybe if I didn’t prepare for it he could just be my baby boy forever.  With his 6 perfectly white teeth and his chubby hands clapping together when he sees me.

But. Time doesn’t care if I’m ready, or if I worked through a checklist. Time is saying it’s time, he’s going to be one.  So what are you going to do about it?

And the answer is I have no idea. He refuses to drink out of every sippy cup and straw cup I’ve tried.  He’s still taking a bottle or two at night, but I have had the forethought to start transitioning him off of formula.  He eats a ton, but not nearly as much solid food as I think Sophia was eating.  He walks sometimes, but honestly crawls so fast that I think walking just frustrates him.

I am so unprepared.  I am in so much denial.  I am not really ready for the little boy who made me a boy mom to turn one.  The hardest and best year of my life, and there’s so much to celebrate.

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