My Compliments to the Blog

                                                       Thanks online chalkboard picture!

I don't take criticism well.

I take compliments even worse.

I always downplay whatever the compliment is with a fault.

"Wow your hair looks super cute today!"
Thanks, I need a trim badly.

"These little tarts are so yummy."
They were supposed to have a sugar cookie crust, but I burned them.

"I love those shoes."
Thanks! They're getting pretty scuzzy though...

The reason why I do it is because we're supposed to be humble. Humble people don't take compliments, right?

Well, there are two ways to take a compliment. Actually, three, but the above example isn't very good.

1. Accept it...and run with it.

     "You did such a good job on that song!"
Right?! I worked really hard and knew it was going to be awesome. I can't believe how well I nailed it and the entire audience was enTHRALLED with....hey where are you going?

The complimenter has been slowly backing away from the blinding light reflecting off your self awarded gold star.

Think of a compliment as a pat on the back, not a party in your honor. Some recognition for a talent or hard work, not an Oscar.

But, Kate, I'm that guy...

Hey, it's ok. I've been that guy at one point or another. Especially when I'm REALLY excited about whatever I was complimented on. I word vomit every detail about the whole thing. If you feel yourself gushing, take it down a notch Old Faithful. We can definitely be excited and grateful for the compliment without boast or brag. Make it a conversation! Graciously accept the compliment and turn it back to them:

"Thanks, I worked really hard on it! What did you think of the accompaniment?"

Voila...compliment accepted.

2. Just...accept it and give love back.
      "I really like your outfit today."
Thank you! I love your top. Where did you get it?

This is where I struggle. I feel like everything needs an explanation or a back story or an excuse as to why I don't deserve recognition. It's taken me a long time to realize this option is not the same as option #1. You CAN take a compliment without sounding like an arrogant jerk!

I promise!

I've done it!

I did it last night!

A friend of mine told me she likes my Facebook posts. That they're funny.

I'm not going to lie...I think I'm hilarious.
Other people generally don't think so, but I do.

Still, it catches me off guard when I get compliments for ANYTHING. Husband always rolls his eyes when I negative out a compliment.

        
                                            "Just take the dang compliment!"-husband
                                                                     "no."-me

So before I could write off her praise with something like "I just write down stuff that I think about" or "meh, they're ok", I simply said...wait for it...

"Thanks!"

I'm starting a little challenge to try and compliment at least one person a day that's not in my family. If you like your waiter's tie, let him know!
That girl in line at Trader Joe's with the awesome haircut? Teeeellll her.
A little kid with a cool hat or t-shirt would love to hear someone say how cool it really is.

This will be hard because I'm always worried people will give me that weird side-eye, but hey, at least they know some random girl at the grocery store thought their dress was pretty. Even if she might be a little crazy.

P.s. you have beautiful eyes

New Balance

My scales are usually faaaaaiiiiiiirly balanced between family time and personal time. Most of the time they lean more toward family time, but for a stay at home mom, that's to be expected.

I recently went back home to Washington for my kindofsortofmaybenotreally little sister's wedding. She's not really my little sister, but I like to think she is. It was a whirlwind weekend of hair, makeup, dresses, food, flowers, and very little sleep. I loved it though!

The only problem was it was a whole 3 1/2 days without kids after a month on my own. Husband was out of town last month and it was....an experience.

#notagoodsinglemom

It was my first break in a long time and I was too busy to enjoy it! I loved spending the time with everyone and staying up until sunrise talking with my mom, but I did NOT get to relax. Even the plane rides were stressful.


rough take off, turbulence, and rougher landings do not bode well for me

So here I am back at home. In the throes of summer vacation while Husband is studying for his next board exam. Basically still a single mom (kindsortofmaybenotreally). My break was not as much of a break as I had hoped. I'm still catching up on missed sleep and my skin is adjusting back to 10% humidity.

acne....acne everywhere.

My scales are tipped pretty far away from personal time. It's noticeable in everyday life, too. Husband will say PMS or too little sleep or I'm hungry.


There's a good chance one all of those are all true. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But even with mother nature taking a break, a full night sleep, and a food baby on board, I'm grumpy. I'm restless. I'm extremely annoyed at everyone. All the time. About everything.


My patience does not exist.


With medical school not slowing down any time soon, I'm left with two choices:

1. Babysitters. Lots of them. Which is expensive and stressful to coordinate.

2. Do it myself when I can.

I've got option 2 on the brain and I'm thinking of ways I can get my personal time outside of nap time and bed time. If I use those for personal time, the house doesn't get cleaned, my book business gets neglected, and the laundry begins to come to life. I also don't go to bed until 1 am which perpetuates the no sleep cycle.

Today I took all three kids swimming. It was a little stressful because
3 kids + 1 parent + 2 swim vests= Someone is probably going to drown.

We did really well though and Older Girl Child decided she could swim! Despite my hate for the Phoenix Valley, I love sunshine and summer is amazing. Up here in Northern AZ, summers are even better. Hot, but not face melting hot. There's always a nice breeze. So while the kids got to splash and swim and cool off, I got to soak up some vitamin D and work on my tan. Yes, I was still watching kids. Yes, I was still getting annoyed.

But I wasn't dying for bed time.

When Smaller Girl Child came shivering to me saying, "Mama I want to a go hooooome", I was a little disappointed. The good news is, the weather is warm and the summer just started.

I'm also trying to prioritize my nap and bed time solitude. Usually nap time looks like:

1. close bedroom doors and sigh in relief
2. start dishwasher
3. make lunch
4. stop dishwasher to put lunch dishes in
5. sit on the couch watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer for the next two hours while I eat WAY too much candy

Don't hate on Buffy btw.

So I'm trying to throw some more laundry or sweeping in there in place of candy and an episode of Buffy (or Empire, or Supernatural, or Greys Anatomy, or New Girl). This frees up more time at night to relax which makes going to bed earlier so much easier. It's going ok so far. The balance is still tipped, but slightly less so. It's whatevs*.

*That's just for you Heather!

Side note: My regular bathroom scale is also tipped in an unfavorable direction, but that's another post for another day!

The Darkness Has Always Been

After Older Girl Child was born, I had your typical baby blues. They went away, but I was a little more tired and little less patient.

After Boy Child was born, same baby blues. Thanks, hormones. Things leveled out, but I was more tired and even less patient.

After Smaller Girl Child was born, the baby blues lasted a little longer than before and I couldn't seem to shake that last lingering bleh cloud. I was even more tired and even less patient, but hey, three kids under the age of 5 and a med school husband will do that to you.

The bleh cloud progressed into the meh cloud that followed me everywhere and seemed to cover the sky completely. I couldn't feel anything. I had small breaks where I was happy or sad, but nothing lasting and nothing overwhelming. The only emotion I was able to feel was anger.

I had the patience of something that doesn't have much patience. My kids were disciplined for things that are normal kid shenanigans...if they did something REALLY wrong? I never hit my kids, but I yelled. A lot. I had no desire to be their mom and every morning I would wake up and stay in bed as long as possible to avoid the coming hours of bickering, fighting, "LOOK AT THIS!", stories about nothing that take 15 minutes to tell, and the mess. Oh, the mess.

Husband was great and would always offer to take the kids so I could go have a break and do something fun. I didn't know what was fun to me. I knew what was fun to him, OGC, BC, and SGC. I knew their favorite songs, shows, foods, colors, clothes, and exactly what it took to get them into bed relatively easy each night. I usually defaulted to staring at a burger at Red Robin and then sitting in the car, staring at the parking lot.

With depression carrying such a stigma, I never thought to reach out. I never even thought something was wrong. I wasn't refusing to get out of bed and weeping uncontrollably. I didn't want to harm myself or others (mostly, those kids sometimes...). That was depression to me. I didn't have that.

After we moved up north, I lost the few friends I did have and became pretty secluded in our little house. The women I've met here are incredibly friendly, but I had no interest in developing friendships. I was too tired, the kids were too crazy, Husband was too busy. So I retreated back a little further into the only constant I had, anger.

I began to feel intense rage over the stupidest stuff and everyone suffered. After one particularly bad explosion, Husband came into our room, sat on the bed across from me and simply said,"What's wrong?"

What's wrong...clearly something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I couldn't tell him anything except I felt so so angry all the time. I was constantly tensed and screaming at people in my head. I had zero attachment to our kids and him. I started crying because I no idea what was wrong or if I could even be helped. I was afraid to go to the doctor and hear, "It's just stress. It's normal for a SAHM. You just need a break once in awhile."

Husband told me he was pretty sure I had depression, and needed to make an appointment to figure things out. I rolled my eyes because I wasn't a sad egg rolling around or a wind up toy that's slowing down, or a woman peeking sadly over her arms as a soothing voice mentions a laundry list of side effects.

 

I brushed his pseudo diagnosis aside and tried to soldier through. Then one day I was laying on the couch, cruising my phone while the kids watched TV and I thought, "Why not at least google..."

You know what one of the symptoms of depression is?

Intense anger and rage.

I started crying and Smaller Girl Child came over and said,"Mama sad? Mama so so cryin?" and she started whimpering herself. I stepped back and realized how much I affect these monsters. How much I had already affected them. I made a decision. I tried to get an appointment with a doctor up here, but the soonest I could be seen was in 2 months. I called my doctor an hour and a half away in our old town and when I asked for an appointment to discuss depression, the receptionist immediately changed her tone and asked how soon I wanted to be seen.

I got a sitter and drove down to see the PA. She asked the normal questions and typed away at the computer in front of her. Finally, she turned to me and said, "It honestly sounds like you have postpartum depression." I laughed because Smaller Girl Child was 2! She assured me that if left untreated, postpartum depression lingers and gets worse. I was told I probably had it after OGC was born which went untreated and compounded after Boy Child was born. That also went it's merry way and got even worse with SGC. Coupled with the normal life stresses, I got to this point.

I was prescribed medication and texted my mom saying, "It's official! I'm crazy!"

That's not ok. I'm not crazy. I'm not delicate. I'm not some inferior person who wasn't strong enough to man up and grow a pair.

I'm someone who battled through every day, trying to make it to bed time without any collateral damage. I'm someone who yelled at a woman at Walmart because she said something that pissed me off. Like, legit yelled at her. I'm someone who has an incredible family to support me and help and listen to me when I'm having a bad day.

I'm someone who wasn't strong enough to man up and "quit being so weird", but I'm someone who WAS strong enough to finally reach out and recognize that this was not normal.

I hope this post helps remove some of the hush hush and shame of mental illness. I hope it helps someone, somewhere (I'm looking at you random readers from Sweden) recognize their own struggles and be strong enough to say this isn't normal and get help.

I still struggle. I have to get medication adjusted because my stupid body won't let them work properly. I still yell, though not as much. I still scream at people in my head, but it's staying there instead of boiling over into the real world. But, I'm trying and that's better than nothing.

Smaller Girl Child

I'm sitting on the living room floor surrounded by laundry begging to be folded. Your brother and sister are asking for lunch despite being in time out for fighting...again.

As I pull jeans, pajamas, shirts, and dresses out of the baskets, I start setting aside the ones I know are too small. I also start putting your older sister's clothes in your piles because I know she's growing out of them and you're growing in. It won't be long before you've caught up to her.

The basket empties a little more and the pile of clothes for Goodwill and yard sale is getting bigger. Almost as big as the pile of clothes to be put in your dresser. I stop for a moment to soak that in. The purple snowman jammies that I watched your sister run around in were passed on to you. You crawled, rolled over, walked, ran, and climbed in them too. Now they're in the other pile. The pile that's being put away for good. Even if you had a little sister of your own, you two were so rough on those snowman jammies, there's no way they would last through another round.

You're pushing a little wooden chair around the living room and I cringe at the noise of it scooting across the tile floor. The scooting is covering up you singing "For The First Time In Forever" for the millionth ti me in forever. You stop and look at me, confused why I stopped "doin a lawn-ree".

When you ask "mama all done foldin a close?" I point to the basket and shake my head. You ask what I'm doin' and I say writing. You run and throw your arms around my neck and wipe your allergy induced snot all over my shoulder while exclaiming "MAMA WRITING?! Oh I LOVE IT!"

I'm pretty sure you don't know what writing is, but thanks for the support. I'm definitely grossed out by your nose and the wispy blonde hair stuck in the never ending snot, but this hug is too good to care.

For all I know, soon I'll be putting big snotty hugs, enthusiasm for something you know nothing about, and gibberish off key songs in the pile with those snowman jammies.

And now you're standing on the counter trying to sneak gummy worms.

Hiatus

So....I mainly blog from my phone because lazy.

Then my phone broke.

I had to go back to my 3GS and everyone made fun of my Cretaceous phone.

Even the guy at the AT&T store laughed when I went in to have it reactivated.

So embarrassing

But now I have a new phone and I'm back for your uplifting and hilarity needs! I've really missed this blog. It's a nice place for me to be somewhat creative with little effort. Plus, the things I post about are a nice release of my emotions.

Plus, you guys read it and make me feel famous

So hold on to your butts, because Britney Kate is back!