Falling off the Wagon, and Getting Back On

My goal when I started this blog, was to use it as a tool to journal to both help remind me of those moments you don't want to forget, and to help motivate me to continue to strive for improvement in my life.  With a history of depression and post traumatic distress syndrome I know, I have tendencies to spiral and tendencies to only see the negative. 
About a month ago I joined an online parenting group focused on gratitude and how to improve your sense of it and recognize it.  I started it gungho and started to feel better about the little things that I wasn't getting done.  Then the holidays came, life got busy, and I let the group and assignements fall to the back burner.  I told myself that I didn't have time for that I had to have the perfect family holidays.  I noticed over the last 10 days that I have become increasingly short with my husband, having increased anxiety/depression symptoms.  I began to realize that by not making time to keep my gratitude journal, and take time for myself I was actually in danger of losing myself.  So after realizing that I had decsions to make.  The primary one being how was I going to allow myself the me time needed to focus on the gratitude project.  In the span of laundry, playing with Jack, working full time, cooking, and clenaing, where was I gonna find time?  I struggled with this for several days.
I have come to the realization that having me time, for reflection, journaling, projects etc is not a frivolous extra rather it is a necessity to maintain both my identity and my sanity.
I am still at somewhat of a loss on how to acheive this butnowing is half the battle.  My children will not be scarred by not having a spotless house, however, they will be damaged if I do not put them first above menial tasks.

My new mantra :  There is no such thing as perfect parent or perfect spouse.

Recent Finds: Naptime Tales: New Year's Resolutions for Moms

So, I am notoriously bad with follow through, and have never kept a new year resolution.  As i welcome my first New year's as a mom I am surprised at my renewed interest in resolutions.  I think it comes in part from a desire to continue to evolve into the best parent I can be.  It also comes in part from a trying year of struggling - struggling with am I the parent my mom was, am I a good parent, if I ask for help does that mean I am a failure and so on. So when I reopened my blog (I haven't written in it in almost 2 months) I was excited to see the following blog post that truly strikes a cord with me.


Naptime Tales: New Year's Resolutions for Moms:

The Month of Thanks.

November is often seen as a month to be thankful for what you have, and to count your blessings.  I have often wondered why only one day, week, or month.  Shouldn't we be thankful every day.  In reading some of the blogs that I have been following I came across a couple of challenges that I think will help me. 
The last couple of weeks, heck the last couple of months, have been filled with ups and downs on many levels, both professional and personal ones.  I realize that I am letting life pass me by because I am to upset about the negatives.  As life does not have a habit of becoming easier, and they say you are not handed more than you can handle, I can only assume that the universe is trying to teach me a lesson.  The lesson to be learned is to allow the positives to have more weight than the negatives in my life.

The first challenge I am going to do is the30 day to a Better Mom challenge from the iMOM site.
30-day-mom-challenge


The second challenge is the 30 day to a better Wife challenge also from the iMOM site.
30-day-marriage-challenge

The final challenge is a year long challenge, the Abundant Mom Challenge.  This one is from the awesomely awake blog. The awesomely awake site is one I have found a lot of insight and encouragement from.
http://awesomelyawake.com/

As time goes by I will share some of these challenges on my blog, others I will use jsut to become a better wife, a better mom, a better ME.  Regardless, I encourage you to check them out and see if just maybe they might help you become a better you.

Hard Week in the NICU

This last week has been hard in the NBICU.  We lost 3 patients.  This part of our job never gets any easier.  Andrew, Rio and Amaris may be gone but they will never be forgotten by their families or by us.  Their families will never be forgotten.  The babies go to join Jax, Gabriel. Aaron, Bridget, and unfortunately many others.

This week I was taken by surprise when one of the families came back and gave me (and everyone who had taken care of Rio) the following story.
A wise man was accustomed to taking walks on the beach every morning, thinking of ways to change the world.  One morning, he passed a boy methodically picking up starfish off the beach and throwing them into the water. He asked the boy, "Why are you doing this?" The boy replied without looking up, "It's low tide," he said, "and all these starfish on the beach will die out here in the sun." The mans smiled. "But son, this beach stretches on for miles and miles and there are thousands of starfish.  Do you really think you are making a difference?" The boy grabbed a star fish, gently tossed it back into the water and then looked up at the man. "I made a difference to that one."
They finsihed the story with saying this was their way of saying thank you for making a difference in their lives and the life of Rio.

This really touched me in a way that I can't really explain.  Often when having to help families say goodbye to their babies I feel a sense of failure.  I often feel like I let these families down.  There unfortuneately is not always things that can be done.  We try our best and sometimes it is not enough.  Instead of feeling like I let them down, this family reminded me that for whatever time they had him I and other members of the NICU team had made a positive impact on their lives.

So the lesson reinforced to many of us this week, is to take time to hug and love those close to you, because death can be sudden and unexpected.

Mommy Advice

Patience Should be a Four Letter Word

Patience.  One of the blogs I follow, Amazingly Awake, had an interesting point in her ezine I got this week. I started following her through a post on Pinterrest – “25 ways to be a Calm Parent”.  Now being a working mom, and step mom, I am the first to admit that I am not always patient.  It can be hard when one is pulled in 20 directions at once. So I eagerly looked at her site, and signed up to follow her via email.

The email I got earlier this week before embarking on my trip was o ne that included a patience challenge.  When I first read the email I was struck at the irony of getting a patience challenge as I was embarking on a solo trip with a six month old.  

Being an ICU nurse and practitioner, I am not well known for patience.  In fact, I have often said that I skipped that line when traits were handed out.  As long as I can remember, I have been less than patient always wanting things done right in the quickest manner possible.  I could give you a million reasons why I have not been patient – I could tell you it was beaten in to me.  In fact, that wouldn’t be far from the truth.  That however, is a separate story. 

 Have recently realized that my drive for perfection is dangerous to my happiness as a wife and mother.  I feel as is if in order to show my family how much I love them, I have to have the perfect home, and get everything done.  My husband, bless his soul, has often tried to tell me that I show my love in other ways, not just in how many chores I get done. I admittedly have had a hard time believing him.  Perfection has been ingrained in me as the way one establishes ones worth.  My drive fpr perfection often makes me less than patient with my family and life in general.

As part of the Mom Challenge, the first one was to slow down.  This was a difficult one for me and one that is going to take more than 1 week to work on.  However, it does go along with patience quite well.  Things are not going to be perfect 100% of time and that is ok. Things are not always going to get done on my schedule.  As long as the important ones get done in a timely manner I have to learn to live with that.  I may not get the dusting done but if the clothes are clean and the family fed and happy then it is ok.  The dusting, vacuuming, etc are chores that can wait for another day.

Traveling with Baby!

So this past week I embarked on my first trip solo with Jack.  We set off to my visit my grandmother and grandfather and introduce Jack to his cousins and great aunts and great uncles. I was terrified to be perfectly frank. 

Being me I procrastinated until Sunday to start looking for tips etc, and to pack.  Did I mention that Sunday was my fourth 10 hour shift in a row? Yep add on to that Jack was sent home from daycare on Thursday with his another cold/fever and you have a mommy on the verge of a breakdown.

Luckily one of my coworkers and friends was working in the stepdown unit with me and she has traveled much farther with her young children, to Canada.  So I picked up some handy tips from her and was feeling pretty good again.  Then I googled traveling with infant and got a little scared.  The information out there ranged from the extreme of don’t do it ever to travel and be proud, babied cry etc.  I went home from work, and finished packing by about 10pm and got ready to get up at 4 am.

So up I got getting ready and the car packed before waking up Jack.  I got him dressed and we told Daddy bye and headed off.  Our trip got off to less than a stellar start with a minor traffic accident on the way to the airport.  I was shaken but neither of us were hurt and I believed the car to be driveable.  So I get unloaded at the airport.  I manage to juggle the luggage, the carryons, the stroller, the carseat, and the baby.  Still shaken I attempt to maneuver my way into the airport by myself.  I get part of the way there and lose the luggage for like the fifth time.  A nice stranger came up to me and said he would help me get my bags to the counter.  I could not thank him again.  He said no problem, he and his wife had traveled with an infant before.  I thought to myself, man this trip is looking up!  Then as I was checking in as people passed me I started to hear people say things such as God hope he’s not on our flight. I was like really?  He’s still asleep in his carseat.  I tried to ignore it but after hearing it close to 2 dozen times I got a little paranoid I mean up to this point he hadn’t even let a peep out yet.

Then the travel gods smiled on me.  There was another mom traveling solo with a 5 month old little boy.  Forget that he was twice the size of Jack I was just excited that I wasn’t a pariah alone.  We ended up sharing a three seat.  The flight attendant said well if someone wants to sit here one of you will have to move.  I asked him if he really thought someone would want to sit with us and he laughingly said no.

Jack did pretty good sleeping until landing in Houston.  I never thought I would regret the fact that Jack didn’t take a pacifier.  Then came the landing in Houston where I couldn’t get him to swallow or suck enough to pop his ears.  All of a sudden here was the baby that everyone worried about having.  He was miserable, screaming and carrying on.  Then all of a sudden you could tell his ears had popped and he let out the hugest smile. The mom sitting next to me said that even though there were bumps that she would consider my first trip a success.  Her praise made me feel so much better about embarking on the journey alone. 

There would be more ups and downs on the trip but no matter what I knew that it would be ok.  Some people would always prejudge moms traveling with babies, and some people would always be there with an encouraging word.