Night Terrors Are Freaky

I don’t know what took me so long to actually sit down and google “night terrors.” But I guess tonight’s episode did it.  Phoebes, my now 6-year-old wildflower, has been having night terrors on and off since she was about four but I have never really sat down to read about them. But tonight’s terror was a real doozy so it inspired me to run right over to the computer and figure out what the hell was going on.

They most always start the same way – these night terrors that invade our peaceful evenings.  The moan starts and quickly escalates into a crying scream.  The sobs are always louder and more panicked than a normal cry and when I realize that the terror is not going away quickly, I usually peek into her room and see her standing on her bed facing the wall.  She is usually saying all kinds of crazy things that are mainly incoherent but tonight I heard something very clearly.

Out of the screaming mumbo jumbo, I heard, “NOOOOOOOO! I want MY mommy!!!!” And when I went towards her to wrap her up in a comforting hug, she sobbed and screamed and ran away from me.

That was a pretty freaky feeling. Having my kid look right at me (or so it seemed) and scream that basically I’m not her mom.

She ran out of her room and literally made a couple laps around our living room screaming, crying and stopping occasionally to raise her arms in the air and let out a even more blood-curdling scream.   I picked her up several times to try and comfort her with my voice but she would have none of it.  It was such an adrenalin-inducing experience for me.  My heart was racing and yet I felt so helpless.  To have my daughter state with such fearful conviction that I was not her mommy.

And while often times, googling a condition can get me into a worse frame of mind, this time it helped.  I read some articles that described Phoebe’s behavior to a T.

I learned that night terrors:

• are worse than nightmares because you usually can’t wake the kid up during a night terror

• often happen in the earlier part of the night (so true) because the kid is transitioning from one kind of sleep to another at that time in the night

• often involve all kind of panicked screaming

• usually result in the kid not remembering ANYTHING!

• can sometimes be stopped if you wake up the kid right before the time they usually have their night terrors. (This helps to break up the sleep pattern.)

• last between 5-30 minutes.

• are way more traumatic for the parent than the child. (Isn’t THAT the truth?)

I also learned that I shouldn’t talk to loudly or firmly to try and jar her out of it.  I should just pick her up, comfort her quietly and lay her back to sleep.

So although tonight’s terror was super freaky, I feel better after my successful google session.  What can YOU tell me about night terrors?

Do Fun Stuff and Make Good Stuff Happen

I still remember the first time I read this guy. I was sitting in line at one of those drive-thru car washes and I read a post of his that hooked me. I guess what blew me away was that here was this GUY writing about his FEELINGS and well, ladeez, need I say more?  I mean, when my man writes me a few of his feelings in a birthday or anniversary card, I savor those few words for as long as possible  A guy writing about feelings is  better than a diamond ring for me. Seriously.

I have followed this guy’s journey from the sidelines checking in when I can.  I read along as his wife became pregnant and gave birth to their gorgeous daughter and I read when his young stepson received the official diagnosis of Smith Magenis Syndrome (SMS) in late 2009.  Before the diagnosis, he would write about his stepson and would allude to some of the issues his stepson faced that were different than other kids his age but it was clear that there was a lot of uncertainty as to why the stepson was different.

After the diagnosis of Smith Magenis Snydrome, this guy has been on a mission.  A mission to learn more. A mission to shine a light on a condition that not too many people know too much about.  A mission to empower other parents by arming them with INFORMATION.  A mission to inspire more funds so that more research can happen.  A mission to make sure that other parents aren’t left in the dark for as long as he and his wife were before the diagnosis.

And I am totally behind this mission.

So I’m telling you about this -

Do Fun Stuff.

Do you like cool music for kids that doesn’t make you insane while listening to it? The kind of tunes you and your kids can groove to in your living room? (one of my favorite past times by the way) Well, by checking out Do Fun Stuff and buying the original kidz’ music album that the guy I’ve been writing about produced with the help of some awesome visionary artists,  you can help other families with SMS not feel so in the dark.  Shining a light on SMS.  And dancing while we’re at it.  Not a bad deal at all.

Thanks for listening and Happy Monday!

Where I’m At

When I was growing up in Phoenix, every Good Friday during Lent between noon and 3 PM, my mom would turn off the television or any music we had playing so we could spend some quiet time in prayer.  We couldn’t play, or swim, or basically have any kind of kid fun during those hours. Me and my siblings always complained, of course.  “We’re bored,” we would say. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Think about Jesus hanging on the cross,” she would reply matter of factly. “And go outside and pull weeds.  Or rake the figs.”

The moaning would ensue but inevitably we would trudge out into the scorching Phoenix sun to think about Jesus and his suffering and to start doing some suffering of our own.

We had this huge fig tree in one corner of our large backyard that produced and dropped waaaay too many figs.  I would alternate between pulling weeds and raking figs. I could only take so much of the fig raking. There is something highly disturbing about raking hot shriveled figs oozing their figgy innards.   We had plenty of weeds to pull and I would have to pull some to relieve myself from the dreaded figs. But wow, for a 12-year-old, pulling weeds is pure torture.  During the pulling and the raking and the watching of the rake spires get sticky with figgy innards, I would think, “Boy, I simply must be earning some serious points with God. ”

The suffering I endured raking figs and pulling weeds ranked right up there with being crucified.

I was certain of it.

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The last few months of my life, I feel, I’ve been hanging in the balance.  Suspended somewhere between the panic of stillness and the eerie calm of busy days whipping by.  The stress and the stream of endless thoughts rise within me approaching a rapid boil and yet I float through each day and I remember smiling and laughing and breathing.

I have made a choice, for now, to wrap my arms around the opportunities that seem to be swirling around me.  Throwing caution to the wind and letting faith float me forward.  Having no idea where I am truly headed and wondering how I am managing to not crumble under the weight of these possibilities.  I am rooted firmly in the ground acknowledging the profound responsibility that dictates so much of what I do now and yet I am dreaming like almost never before.

And then a moment comes, unexpectedly.  A free moment. Even though logically I realize I have no free moments. And the list filled with dreams and responsibilities appears before me beckoning me to step closer and grab a hold.  There is no time to waste, it tells me. The free moment you thought you had is already gone.  Don’t be fooled.

But maybe because I’m 42 years old and I’ve lived a lot of life, I have been able to tell that list to eff off. I have been able to turn my back on the dreams and the responsibilities and to walk into the free moment and live it.

And maybe because I’m 42 years old, sometimes I can imagine no better thing to be doing with my free moment than pulling weeds.

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And with the other free moments that appear before my eyes, I’m planning on getting back into my writing groove.

Chasing Destiny

I’ve been reading a book I am thoroughly enjoying called The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

I read this cool passage today:

“Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications.

But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.”

The words just seemed to jump out at me today. Going for destiny.

Yeah.

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How’s destiny treating you today?

The Top 10 Things A Mom of 3 Does While on a Family Vacation…

…that she rarely does in her every day life.

And that mom of 3 happens to be me.

And yeah, I’m on vacation.

With my kids.

And my man.

On Catalina Island.

So – because I generally dig Top 10 Lists especially in the middle of summer, here is my list of…

THE TOP 10 THINGS A MOM OF THREE DOES WHILE ON VACATION THAT SHE RARELY DOES IN HER EVERY DAY LIFE

10.  Eat ice cream DAILY.

9.   Get sucked into a good book.  (Currently that book is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.)

8.   Let my kids eat Cool Ranch Doritos and chocolate muffins for breakfast. (Although I may never ever let that happen again…EVER.)

7.  Wear a bathing suit almost all day long even while making dinner.

6.  Play beach bingo.

5.  Lay on my back on a huge lush grassy lawn overlooking the ocean with my kids lying on top of me laughing and hugging and just hanging out.

4.  Not think about work and bills and life and to-do lists and all of the other things that usually occupy my brain on most days.

3. Let my kids eat ice cream – not just daily but bi-daily.

2. Pick up the guitar and strum and sing some tunes. (Something I used to do a lot and now NEVER do, but need to do more often.)

and the Number One thing I do while on vacation that I rarely do in my every day life (actually I would never do in my daily life) is….

1. Build a ice cream sundae thing out of this arts and crafts thing called Bendaroos. Claire just got it for her birthday from a friend and I’m in the middle of a friggin’ masterpiece that is supposed to end up looking like this:

But instead, it currently looks like this:

I’m getting a lot of flak from my girls about when I plan to finish it.  And being the obsessive that I am sometimes, I’m wondering why it all looks so uh, lame?  The package says Benadaroos are for Ages 3+.  Are you kidding me?  You’ve got to have a master’s degree in bending colored straw like things to make this ice cream sundae look decent.

I’ve got a couple days left to work on this thing. I’ll let you know how it all shakes down in the end.

Now, what do YOU do when you’re on a family vacation that you rarely do at home??

Happy summering!!

Green Backgrounds – A You Capture Edition

It’s summer right? Am I the only one lazing out in blogland or what? Days are drifting by while my computer remains closed. But there’s nothing like a little You Capture to bring me out of my summer haze cave.

I love You Capture because it forces me to look at my photographs with a new eye.  I do not claim to be a “photographer” (whatever that means) but I do enjoy taking photographs.  Call it what you will.

I have chosen to experiment with the color green. It was one of the You Capture theme choices.  Last week I got to hang out with my kids in a very green place – an amazing guest ranch near Solvang, CA (north of Santa Barbara).  My in-laws started this tradition two years ago.  This is our third summer spending a week there and I have to be honest, it’s a tradition I didn’t know I needed.  But I’m kinda addicted.

This guest ranch is called The Alisal and it’s magical up there.  It really is. At least my kids think so and in turn, so do I. Isn’t that how it works when you’re a mom?  You see all kinds of magic you never saw before? Yeah.

My focus is using green as a background. I thought it was kinda cool to decide to only think about using green as a background in my photos. Once I started looking at these pictures with that focus, I realized how much fun I could have choosing different colors to use only as backgrounds.  It really does give these photographs new meaning for me.

So here’s some green for you to ponder at The Alisal….

The green backdrop of The Alisal

My freshly-birthdayed 8-year-old cowgirl with green glimpses

My still 5-year-old cowgirl in the shade of a huge green tree

Six feet on a green lawn before dinner

My freshly-birthdayed 3-year-old cowboy in a green paradise

Daddy and Claire heading out to the greenish trail

A grumpy overtired Phoebes seeking refuge on a green bed

Claire and “the best skipping rock EVER” in front of a limey background.

(She later dropped the rock on a hayride. She cried.)

Grandpa V and Tommy seeing the green sights

I must say I am seeing green in a whole new light.

My Boy

We had been living in limbo for too long it seemed. It was late Spring 2006 and our second-born, our Phoebes, was going to turn 2 in July. The last two years had been the hardest we had ever lived as a couple. The foundation we had started building together since the oh so young age of 23 had crumbled beneath our hearts. It shook us to the core and left us dazed as we stood looking at images in our mirrors that no longer resembled our former selves.

When I look back at it now, I am amazed at how lost we were. How lost I was. How I literally lost myself to motherhood. And not only in the way that we all lose ourselves to motherhood. Not because I no longer had time for pedicures or movie nights or reading or jogging or hardly anything I had used to like to do….but because I had lost my identity. The thing I had unknowingly clung to for so long. The definition of me that I had believed was true. The picture of a life that represented everything I truly was. Or so I thought.

I was empty during that time, I think. I was moving through each day and talking and making dinner and diapering two little girls and sometime I even laughed and smiled, but I was empty inside. Maybe I was grieving the loss. The loss of me. The loss of us. The loss of my dreams. But deep within, I knew there were answers waiting somewhere in the emptiness. I just had no idea when those answers would emerge.

On that late Spring day, as the music blared in my ears, and I watched my feet hit the pavement, I turned it over and over in my head and my heart. Did I really want another baby? We had worked our way back from the darkest depths of us – we had worked to see each other with new eyes – we had come to the conclusion, as we have always done, that we could do this. As long as we were together, we could do anything.

But we were simply stuck on this decision for a third baby. Two babies had changed it all, I thought, and in most every way, these girls were all we needed. We were a family. We loved these joy lights of love more than anything and anyone we ever thought we could. Why would we try for another? Somewhere within I felt a tinge of excitement when I thought about having a third. In a way, three just seemed more ideal than two. For us. But why? There really was no logical explanation for the why.

And as I moved through life on that Spring run, my brain went to what it often goes to if I feel stuck in a major decision. But something I had not allowed myself to consider when it came to another baby. Maybe it was because the earthquake of becoming a mother had buried this truth too deep within. And I needed to do some more shifting and searching to unearth it. It’s something I learned many years ago during a spiritual lecture series that had been given at my church. I had sat there in my early 20′s with the weight of the world on my shoulders, I had thought then, and the speaker said,

“In most decisions in life, it almost always comes down to two choices – a choice based on faith and a choice based on fear. And fear is a dead end street. Fear prevents you from moving forward. Faith steers you towards so many more possibilities.”

As I ran, those wise words floated to the surface of my soul so I could grasp them once again. I realized that although I was so afraid that another child would make me feel lost again, for some reason on that day, I let my brain and my heart go the way of faith. The faith route. I had realized that I was stuck in fear on this thought of having another baby. And that was the sole reason we were not moving forward.

Fear basically prevents life from happening.

I remembering smiling as the music played, feeling lighter, as I ran my familiar neighborhood route, and when I rounded a corner on the top of a hill with the city sprawled below me with life bustling and buzzing and moving, I had made my decision.

Yeah, the faithful one.

And today he’s turning three.

Thank God for faith.

Happy Birthday my boy.  I’m crazy about you.

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“Conversations with my Kid” is taking a birthday break today.  Have an awesome weekend!

Mama’s Got A New 4-Letter Word

So who was the wise guy who had the bright friggin’ idea that almost 3-year-old little boys are supposed to uh, share?

I kinda wanna pummel that person with a wiffle bat or a Thomas train or a toy dump truck.

Yeah.

Have you ever been at a park with a little boy who happens to be your son who is happily playing and some other kid comes up to your kid and wants to suddenly play with whatever your kid is playing with and your kid is all, “HELL NO!” and then the other little kid is all “HELL YES!” and then the caretaker of the other little kid, who may or may not be the mother of that kid, starts chiming in with “Oh just wait Johnny, let the little boy finish his turn and then maybe he can share his whatever he is playing with…” and then you’re all thinking to yourself “Why in the hell is my kid supposed to, all of a sudden, be having a turn with his own toy that he so desperately wanted to bring to the park while little Johnny waits nearby screaming and whining and just waiting for the chance to pounce on said toy the second that your kid looks away for a brief second at a seagull cruising by…”

…and then before you know it, you’re engaged in some awkward silent battle of care-taking and life-raising styles with some complete and utter stranger and you so wanna get the hell outta there but holy crap, it only took almost an hour to actually motivate out of the house on this beautiful day to get to the park so you don’t really wanna give in that easily to Johnny and his demanding caretaker’s sharing ways so you stick it out in the sandpit at the park just wondering if your kid will ever really decide that his turn is over, and then when your kid does glance away from the toy for longer than a few seconds, you do end up sliding it over to Johnny’s caretaker with a half-assed smile of “Yes, you see, we sure do believe in turns and sharing at our home because after all, we are good parents who do work hard to teach our kids the right thing and yes, of course, sharing is right” and then your kid looks back too quickly and notices the betrayal and starts throwing a full-on almost three-year-old tantrum in the sand, but holy shit, the said toy is already firmly in the grasp of crazed Johnny and his nodding, knowing, holier than thou caretaker who has no problem watching your kid throw a tantrum because his turn was over, and holy hell, now you totally remember why you bog so hard getting out of the house to get to the park because this sharing movement has gotten all insanely out of control….

So yeah … really.

Sharing is so damn overrated.

Don’t ya think?

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My dear friend, Ash, has an important post today that I thought I would share with you. Yeah, in this case, I’m all about sharing. Please check it out.

Conversations with My Kid – The Counting Edition

In one week my baby boy will turn three.

It’s unbelievable really.

I am holding onto each passing moment as tightly as possible. I tell him that he is delicious and he tells me “You’re alicious too mama.” And my heart melts into a pile of little boy love goop.

Everything I’ve ever been told about being a mama to a little boy is true. I am in love.

We read books together every single night as we rock together in the glider that I have rocked all by babies in.  Recently, he’s been loving reading counting books.  Every night we read one or two counting books where I watch him point to all kinds of things and count.  Sometimes he counts the objects to ten just perfectly and other times his brain moves faster than his little finger and then six freight cars behind Thomas are suddenly nine freight cars. I love that.  I never correct him.  I just smile, squeeze him tighter and kiss his delicious cheeks.

The other evening we sat around the dinner table together as a family which we are able to do so much easier when both mama and daddy are currently unemployed (which will change soon enough).  Tommy was in a counting mood so he spread out his fingers on one hand and started counting:

“One, two, three, four five…..” he said as he looked at his little fingers.

He paused slightly to switch his focus to his other hand currently clenched.  He then deliberately opened his fingers on that hand and continued counting….

“…six, seven, eight, nine, ten…..”

He paused again to look at all of his fingers outstretched on both hands and then lifted his head and asked us, “Where’s eleven?”

My sweet almost-three-year-old baby counting boy.

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“Conversations with My Kid” is my weekly ritual started a few months ago so I could actually remember some of the awesome conversations I have with my kids every single day.

If you have a Conversation with My Kid post that you want to share, please link up below!! I missed last week because I was decompressing on my little anniversary getaway.  But it’s good to be back because these conversations just make me smile and kick off the weekend just perfectly!

Hope you have an awesome weekend!

It’s FUN raising my kids in Los Angeles

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say

“I would never ever want to raise my kids in LA.”

It’s kinda cool to live in a city so misunderstood.

‘Cause truly you can’t believe the kinds of things we have in our ‘hood.

Would you believe me if I told you this photo was snapped just 15 minutes from our home?

On a Saturday June evening when the fog from the beach was just rolling in?

And that the kids fed the horses with long stems of grass with no one telling them what not to do?

And the cost of this childhood memory was absolutely free?

This is LA.

And I am so glad that I am raising my kids here.