Cookie madness

Toddlers are cute as can be, but sometimes they're not quite right in the head.

My little guy was over-the-moon excited when I said we could bake cookies for a treat this afternoon. He wanted to carry the three pound box from the freezer to the table. He dropped it on his feet when I gave in and let him hold the whole weight of it, but he wouldn't have been happy until I let him try. So he gave in and let me put them on the table, but he wanted to open the box. More frustration ending with me opening the box. He was eager to help put them on the pan and proud of his big boy skills. Then he grabbed a frozen cookie and took off into the living room. No amount of coaxing would get it from him, so I put the pan in the oven and put away the box before trying again. I went to get the frozen cookie only to find him eating it. So much for baking cookies! Raw cookie dough that's been frozen shouldn't be a food poisoning hazard...I hope...

12 weeks is a long time

I know part of my writer's block has to do with my emotional state. My recent loss is still a weight on my heart that I struggle to carry daily. I worry about how much this is affecting how I handle mothering my children. I also worry about its affect on my marriage.

I don't know what to do about any of it because 12 weeks is such a long time to get used to the idea that life is about to change again. It's a long time to think about adding another soft, sweet, special little person to your world. It's a long time to remind yourself of the sights, sounds and smells that melt your heart. It's long enough that now that I've reached what would have been the middle of my pregnancy, I still can't completely grasp that there will be no new baby for me in the spring. I still feel phantom pregnancy signs. I've wasted money to take tests to make the reality settle into my brain, but it won't. I tell myself it could be a faulty test and then start all over again trying to grasp reality in some other way.

I don't know how long it will be before I accept it and move forward, but I know that if/when I am blessed with another pregnancy, the world will turn upside down again and I won't be able to accept the reality of that until I have a live baby in my arms. The irony in that is almost too much to handle, but I'll keep carrying my burden and grab onto any balloons of hope that happen to float by and try to use them to the best of my feeble abilities. If nothing else, this Bad Mother is stubborn and can't keep from trying even the missions that are unachievable.

Writer's block continues

I'm not sure what causes the weight of emptiness to settle into my brain when I sit down to write, but I am hoping to get rid of it soon.

You know what's crazy?

Crazy is a woman who complains about rambunctious boys one day and makes superhero capes for them the next day. They spend so much time tying on baby blankets and trailing bed sheets behind them, that it only made sense to save some washing and safety hazards by making simple capes that fasten with velcro. Great idea! That is, until there's a 7 year old leaping from one heap of pillows he's spread throughout the house to another or the 3 year old "flying" from the couch and knocking over the toddler in his wake. I believe I could successfully claim insanity and get them to let me have a nice, cushy rubber room all to myself...

Cold weather

It can be an enemy to the best of mothers on the best of days, but a couple days with active little boys unable to play outside for more than a few minutes at a time can cause this Bad Mother to tear her hair out. Oh! My! Word! The business of running and jumping and yelling that boys must do in the course of every day...(my eyes are bugging out of my head here) They have fought and thrown hard objects at each other and nearly broken their own necks the past couple of days, but even colder weather is coming for the weekend and I believe we're going to need padded walls for me.

What really reminds me of my Bad Mother status on this one is knowing that we live in one of the warmer climate zones where they get to play outside regularly until October or November and can start going back out regularly by March or April. If we lived in a cold climate where they have snow starting in September? I'm quite certain they'd have to put me in a straight jacket by the beginning of warmer weather. I have immense respect for the mothers who can tolerate little boys being wild animals while stuck indoors for six months of the year. Yowch!

Over half way through NaBloPoMo

Woohoo! I didn't even think about it until today. I'm over half way and I haven't completely dropped the ball on writing. I am still dealing with a bit of writer's block, but I will march on and get past it. I have a million topics a day, so they should eventually hit me at the right time, right?

I hope I not only get the gears lined back up, but that I will have developed a habit of not going to bed without at least writing something on my blog each day. I've really found this to be a great outlet. It's good to have some record of the cuteness and the crazyness and even the exhaustedness of life with little people and also to find friends who don't mind reading all this rambling. Thank you!

Contemplative

I've had several post ideas bouncing around back and forth in my head lately, but when it comes time to write they're not there. I want to make notes to myself to write about them, but I think if I get any bit of it written my brain will stop formulating. Yes, I know that sounds a bit crazy, but it's a solid fact of motherhood that what you write down becomes history and no longer sticks in your head as something to be finished. The written item holds that piece of your brain for you, so your brain lets go and picks up something else to run with, like the latest talent displayed by one of your children or the latest household project or even just the dinner menu. Any or all of them can and will flood into the space left behind and sweep out any vestiges of what was there before.

It's funny to me that in the days before I had children, I could easily jot down writing ideas for college papers and whatnot and pick right back up. But now that I'm more capable of handling life in general and dealing with the intricate details of the lives of several other people, I've lost that. Motherhood changes you in so many ways and it is sometimes very interesting to notice some seemingly insignificant change affecting your life in new endeavors when you least expect it.