Never Too Many Cooks!

It’s two days before Thanksgiving, which means preparations started in earnest today for making all of our favorite dishes. Even though most our serious baking will not happen until tomorrow, today was a day for boiling eggs, pitting cherries, washing cranberries, and mixing up several batches of pie dough. 

When I was a very little girl, probably the age of my Lady Eleanor, my grandmother would lift me up on a chair, caution me not to dance off the edge, hand me a tiny rolling pin, a miniature pie pan, and my own ball of dough, would sprinkle some flour on the counters, and then she’d set me loose. Sometimes I’d actually create something semi-edible, but most of the time she’d just let me play, for what must have been hours, until the dough was crumbling to pieces in my tiny hands.

I don’t know if she knows that I remember those times, but I’m just now able to appreciate how much patience she must have had to allow a small person run of her kitchen. How it must have been difficult not to hover over me correcting mistakes and sweeping up the flour that I’m sure I spilled all over the floor. I know things would have gone so much faster if she’d just done it herself, but I never felt rushed, and I never felt scolded. I don’t remember a time I was denied when I ran up with a sweet “Grandmama, can I please help?”, and I never caught her going back and fixing any of the mistakes that I’m sure I made.

Today Daddy took the boys and Miss. Mabel so that Eleanor could help me with pie prep, and as we measured flour, rolled dough, and danced around to Christmas music (because listening to Christmas music while you bake makes everything taste better), I was taken back 30+ years to a bright, warm, purple kitchen and a little girl just discovering her love for baking with her favorite person.

 

After we cleaned up from all this we set up the tree in my room so that Daddy and the others would have something exciting to see as they drove up to the house, and then we snuggled together in bed and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the 1,000th time this year. I sense a new tradition in the making.

Tomorrow I will have a very full kitchen. Three sets of hands will eagerly offer to help peel eggs, add ingredients, and stir bowls. It would go faster if I sent them all out and did it myself, but I will welcome the crowd. There can never be too many cooks in my kitchen. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

Dear Me,

Dear Me,

Dear Younger, Frightened, Struggling Me, 

I know. I know that you are struggling right now. I remember that feeling. I remember being so sure that I was drowning. That I was going to break into a million pieces right there. But you’re not. You’re still standing. In fact, I might argue that you’re more than just standing at this point.

Michael is deployed for you right now, and that really stinks. You feel like he’s missing so much, and he is, but he’s going to be home before you know it. You’re what? Three months in now? You have a couple more to go, and then he’ll be home with you again. I’ll let you in on a secret. This isn’t the hardest or longest deployment you have ahead of you, but you’ll get through those too. And the homecomings! I’ve done this several times now, and I still have no words to describe those homecomings! They almost make deployments worth it.

Almost.

Listen, there is probably some space-time continuum reason for me not to say much here, but since you obviously can’t really read this, I’m going to give you a little advice.

That guy you’ve been hanging out with from time to time? The one who keeps trying to get you out of the house? Let him. He’s going to become your absolute best friend outside of your husband. He’s going to be the reason that you make it through this deployment. He’s going to be an uncle to your children, the reason you get on a motorcycle, oh, and he’s going to get married to your cousin. Yeah, that’s a thing these days. Also, and maybe most important, he needs you too right now. Get outside of your self-pity for a minute and realize that he’s having a rough holiday season too, and someday it will get worse and he’ll need you and Michael just as much as you’re both going to need him in the future. So take a shower, get dressed, and let him take you to the stupid Twilight movie.

People are going to talk. Forget them. Those aren’t your people.

You won’t be stuck in Idaho forever. I know it seems terrible right now, but look around. Really look. The state might suck, but you have friendships here. Nurture them! Before you know it you’re all going to be scattered to the winds and you’re going to wish that you could call them up to just hang out. It doesn’t matter where you are stationed. Without the right people, anywhere can be lonely.

For the love of God, take in these days with Parker. Absorb them. Love every minute of them. Try your hardest to remember every little thing about those baby cheeks, his gummy grin, and how he looks at you like you’ve hung the moon. You are going to blink and these moments will be gone. It sounds so overdone, but the years really are so very short no matter how long the days are.

No marriage is perfect, yours included. Keep fighting for it and working for it, because it is more than worth it.

Michael is right. Just order the damn king sized bed. You’re going to end up with one anyways.

Thirty is not the end of the world. It’s actually a rather nice year, all in all, and you’re going to learn to let go of so much as you near thirty-five. Believe me. It’s very freeing.

Stop letting the things you are scared of stop you. Failing at something just means you actually tried. Failure is okay. Write more! Create more! Fear less!

For the love of God, buy stock in Tesla!

Oh, and on October 8, 2014 make sure you have a tarp or something in the van. (Yeah. You’re going to be a mini van mom. Just embrace it and get it over with.)

Why would I tell you all this? Well, the stock in Tesla is just good advice. As for the rest of it, it’s because I’m hoping that there is yet another older, wiser, greyer version of me doing the same thing nine years from now. I’m hoping that forty-three year old Holly is writing to tell me that yes, my children do still love me. That she remembers the struggle that the last year has been for me, but that I get through it. That I’ve come to accept Parker going to Ohio State (spoiler alert, our son is a Buckeye fan), that Sebastian’s Diabetes hasn’t stopped him from following in Steve Irwin’s footsteps, that it is possible to have a healthy relationship with my teenage daughter despite not having that growing up myself, and that my youngest child getting ready to turn ten doesn’t make me old yet.

I’m hoping that this older version of us is smiling remembering what a struggle the past few weeks have been for me in particular, and that even if she’s thinking to herself “Just you wait! It’s going to get worse.”, she is also able to say “But it’s also going to get so much better!”

I hope that she’s comfortable in her body. That she can embrace her grey hairs. That she’s lived the next decade to the fullest with less regrets than thirty-four year old Holly has writing to twenty-five year old Holly.

We don’t have it all together yet, so get that idea out of your head that you have of where you “should” be by thirty-five. It’s unrealistic, and it’s just going to put unnecessary pressure on us. However, we’re getting there. This has been a rough year for us, but we’ve grown so much, and a lot of that growth is because of how tough things have been.

I know you’re scared. I know you’re struggling, and I can’t tell you that it won’t get worse. It’s also going to get so much better. Keep your chin up, Sweetheart. You’re still kicking, and a little age looks good on you.

Love Always,
Me 

All of Me

I recently had an online friend open up about the very hard time she was having with anxiety and depression after the birth of her youngest, who is about the same age as my Mabel. I wrote to her telling her that she wasn't alone, and that I was always there any time she needed to talk, including that I could empathize due to my own issues with anxiety and depression. 

"I never would have known that you had any anxiety. You always seem to have everything so together and under control."

At first I chuckled a little bit, but then it started nagging at me. Just like a faint buzzing in the back of my head at first, but before long it was like it was screaming at me, demanding that I address it now, right now, or else.

The me you see on Social Media is not all of me. 

I am not trying to lie to people or put up a fake front, so the things I post about, the things I share, are a very real part of who I am, but I try not to over share the bad. I want to have a positive space, so I try, and sometimes fail, to only bring the positive along with me online. I obviously don't always do that, because I'm human, but I apparently do it enough that I've managed to convince others that I have things together and under control. I don't, and this simple, well meaning, comment now has me worried that I'm making myself unavailable to friends who might need me. Anxiety and depression is a lonely place to be, and I know that I would never personally approach someone who seemed to have it all "together" even if I was in a place where I most needed them.

Listen, friends. I. Am. A Wreck. I have battled anxiety for literally as long as I can remember, long before I knew what it was. When your a child, and then a teen, you don't understand what anxiety is, or I didn't anyways, and so you loose a lot of people. I am forever thankful for the friends I have from those years, because they stuck it out with me even though they didn't understand any better than I did why I would cry for no reason, and put myself down constantly, and need crazy reassurance that people actually did like me and were my friends. Because anxiety is a liar and a thief, and it controls your life in a way that I wasn't able to cope with at that age or for many years afterwords. 

Then you bring depression into the mix, and there is nothing I can think of to describe it. Not only are you constantly scared, constantly anxious, constantly angry without knowing why, but you start to convince yourself that you are the problem, will always be the problem, and that everyone else would be better without you. 

It doesn't matter how good things are going in your life, because that just makes you feel worse. Why can't I be happy? I am so blessed, I am so fortunate, why isn't that enough? There are well meaning, loving people in your life telling you that you can't possibly be sad. Look at your husband, look at your children, look at all the people who love you. They don't mean to, but they are making it so much worse, because you already know that you should be happy. You just don't know why you can't be happy. 

The last 12 months have brought with them some of my darkest moments. There have been months at a time where we were getting knocked down every time we'd get our feet under us again. People who should have been a support turned out to be some of the people knocking us down the hardest. But here I am. I'm still here, and these past 12 months have also brought with them some of the best moments of my life, and some of the most amazing growth I've experienced as a person. I wouldn't have made it without my husband, my children, and the amazing friends I am fortunate enough to have. I have friends, people who are more like family, who I've been able to reach out to when I'm in my darkest places, because I know they have been there too. I know they won't judge. I know they care. I know they won't take what I tell them in a dark moment and use it against me, because they know what that's like too. The thought that I couldn't do that for someone else because all they see is Put Together Holly hurts my heart. The me you see online is the real me, but it isn't all of me.

I don't care who you are, or how together you think anyone has it. If you need someone, reach out for them. If you have no one to reach for, you have me. No one has it all together, and everyone needs someone at some point, and I'm here. 

Anything But Basic

It's finally here. My favorite season! (Outside of Christmas, which is really it's own season to me.) Autumn has arrived, and with it all the promise of cool, crisp mornings, changing leaves, the start of the holidays, and eight million memes on the internet insulting people who love pumpkins, coffee, and boots.

Wait, what?

I can look back on almost any point in my life and remember women, or girls, tearing other women down in the mistaken thought that it would somehow elevate them. If you look at magazines, TV, movies, books, etc. the message somehow seems to be that we somehow make ourselves shine brighter if we can dim another's light. Women are taught, by and large, that other women are competition. This goes back as far as I can remember, but I think the mass introduction to social media platforms over the last decade or so has made it so much easier. People get very comfortable within their own anonymity, and that makes it easier to be outright cruel.

And I have been 100% guilty. I think everyone, if they are being honest with themselves, has, but it's been refreshing to see the massive push that many women are now joining to stop with the tearing down of others of our sex. Seriously, ladies, we're just hurting ourselves.

However, every year, the memes start. Mocking people drinking pumpkin spice, wearing Ugg (or, in my case, Fugg) boots, embracing the season...We call those people "Basic" and "Shallow" and "Spoiled", get a good laugh, and go on about our day. And yes, there are probably some shallow, spoiled people who love pumpkin spice and tartan scarves during this time of year. There are probably some people who hopped on the bandwagon, or the hayride as it were, to try to be "cool" or "hip". The real question though is why anyone cares? I don't care if the teenagers next to me in line at Starbucks are ordering a Venti Pumpkin Spice and wearing ugly ass boots because it's "cool" or not, though I would hope they would pick something they actually like instead of suffering through $5 worth of coffee they can't stand. I do care about the people who will avoid their favorite things, things that might legitimately bring them joy, in the hope that they won't be labeled though.

I like pumpkin. And plaid. I really hate how my Fuggs look, but they keep my feet SO very warm. I like leggings under tunics, and long, draping sweaters. I like chunky hats, and patterned mittens, and I'm starting to find an appreciation for finding a fabulous lipstick. My daughter likes these things too, and anyone who has met her knows that she's anything but "basic". And I'm not either.

I'm standing here on the brink of 35, and I just don't care what you think of the fact that my girls and I have weekly "coffee" dates, that I'm "too old" or "too curvy" for leggings, that I go overboard with pumpkin decor, or even that I'll start putting up Christmas lights well before Thanksgiving. I don't care if you roll your eyes when I post yet another selfie with my children, or my Scentsy, or a Pink Drink, because I enjoy those things, and life is too damn short to give up on things that make you happy because other's might call you a petty name for doing them.

But there are people who do care. People who spend years not being them just because they don't want to be the punchline for some stupid meme. I care about them, because I was them not so very long ago.

Just let people enjoy the things they enjoy. Seriously. It's past time to stop going after one another for the stupidest reasons. Yes, "Basic Becky" might have only First World Problems going on in her life, but if her coffee and pumpkins bother you that much, so do you. Get some coffee, have a cake pop, and enjoy the little things. There are enough big things tearing us down without having to do it to each other too.

    

I Made A Horrible Mistake Today

I did something very, very unwise today.

It started out innocently. I was looking through old pictures, hoping to find some great ones to post tomorrow in celebration of our nieces 5th birthday. In my search I came across this picture:

Looking at the date I realized that it was taken exactly one year before he was diagnosed. Just my boy with his most favorite Bear ever in a picture that we took for his Star Student poster in Kindergarten. He looked so happy, so healthy, so rosy and warm in this picture. It got me thinking. He couldn't have been sick yet. Not here in this picture, so when did it happen? When did my healthy little boy disappear?

I started looking. I went back, pouring over pictures, analyzing every smile, every time he looked like there might be shadows under his eyes, any time ho looked slightly tired. Was this it? Was he sick here?

How could I possibly have missed it in my own child? Maybe because, right after his first day of school picture was taken, the engine went out on our van on the way there? Suddenly, at 7 weeks pregnant, I found myself under unimaginable stresses that wouldn't stop for the next year? (They still haven't, truth be told.) Stresses that caused my anxiety and depression to flare up in a way I don't remember it ever doing in my lifetime. Was I so self absorbed that I missed what his little body was trying to tell us?

What kind of mother misses these signs?! How is it that I didn't notice that my son was fighting a battle inside? That his weight loss wasn't just due to the fact that he sprouted up 2.5 inches in a little over a month? When did it start, these signs that I missed? Signs that a good mother surely would have picked up on!

  

By Christmas, surely. You can obviously see it in him by Christmas. Was it before that? How long did I let his tiny little immune system suffer on its own while I missed what was going on right in front of me. By February we knew. He was so thin and so tired, but his A1C told part of the story. That he'd been battling for much, much longer than we'd known. They assured us that we weren't at fault, even while talking about how they had never seen an A1C that high in real life, but how do you not notice?! I'm his mother! How could I not see then what is so easy to see in pictures now?!

And so I went on for quite awhile. Kicking myself. Angry at myself. Questioning everything from the day that we took that amazing picture of him in February 2017. Questioning everything that happened in the months that led up to his diagnosis.

But then something happened. I started coming upon the new pictures. Life on the other side of T1D. I watched as his face became rounder again, and the color returned to his cheeks. I watched my happy little boy meet his tiny sister again, and cried over how he'd said to her "I hope you don't have diabetes." I smiled at his goofy soccer pictures, the first season where his coaches had to be educated about something other than his speech and muscle tone, and I laughed outright at pictures of him in his spring musical. He was so proud to have a line! I absolutely beamed at my Doctor holding his little companion safe and close after reassuring me over and over again that "I've got this, Mama! I won't let her fall ever!"

Today he's outside, soaking wet, in the middle of an hours long neighborhood water fight. I made him stop for a moment just to snap a picture, and that picture tells the story. That picture shows a happy, healthy, wonderful little warrior who never, not once, stopped smiling.

He is amazing. I have said before that his story will not be Sebastian the Diabetic. He is just Sebastian, and yes, he happens to have diabetes, but that's only a small part of who he is. As you can see, he is happy, and healthy, and amazing. Nothing that he, or I, could have done would have stopped the last year or so of his life from happening. It is unwise, and unhealthy, for me to do what I did today, because it doesn't change anything. Because it makes our story about the diabetes when it really should be about how amazingly strong my little human is!

I almost turned these happy, wonderful memories into something dark and ugly. ComicCon, first days of school, football, and holidays shouldn't be about the "what ifs" and "was he sick here?". They should be about meeting our heroes, starting new adventures, cheering on our team, and comfort and joy! I'll tuck these pictures away to look at again. Not to cry and worry over, but to smile and remember fondly the amazing memories I have with my son. Here's to many more!  

The 497 Stages of Grief

Okay, so they tell you there are only seven, and that might technically be true, but what they don't tell you is that your journey through those stages isn't linear. You don't just journey through them and come out on the other side after finishing stage seven. No. Those stages of grief are more like a damn staircase. You might climb a couple of the steps only to twist your ankle and fall back down to the bottom again. Then you might think to yourself 'Fine! I'll just jump over a few.' and do that only to trip and find yourself down on another familiar step again. 

It sucks. 

When Sebastian was first diagnosed I remember one of the doctors telling us, in the gentle, understanding voices that everyone was using, that we should expect to experience grief. That it was perfectly normal. That we should not only expect it but we should allow ourselves to feel it. I remember thinking to myself  'Grief? He's not dying.' Of course, I wasn't happy about the diagnosis, but we were in a children's hospital. I was fully aware that only a couple of floors above us there were terminal children who would never leave these walls. To think of grieving my type 1 child's diagnosis when there were parents going through the unimaginable felt so selfish to me. What did I have to grieve? We had answers, and we had a way to treat him. We were going to be fine.

But that's not how this works. There were things to grieve, and those seven stages didn't care if I thought I should be grieving. They were going to make sure that I did, and that I visited every stage as many times as they thought I needed to. 

We're only a couple of weeks into this new normal, but I think I've gone through each stage a few times at this point. I don't know how long this will last. I'm not sure if I'm coping well or horribly, but I know that this blog is supposed to be my outlet, so I'm going to write about them. Whenever they hit, and however they make me feel, I'm going to fight those battles here. I'm going to drag my way up these steps, and when I fall I'm going to drag myself up again. Eventually I will get to the top and I won't fall down again, and maybe my sharing here, my showing that this is normal. will help someone else as they start the journey up this deceptively small staircase known as grief. 

Fuck you, grief, and fuck you, diabetes. (Perhaps I'm visiting with Anger at the moment.)    

Our New Normal

So, here it is. Here we are. A week ago, just a week, I wouldn't have imagined writing this, but Life served us a giant truck load of lemons this week, and I'm struggling to figure out exactly how to turn them into lemonade. 

On Thursday afternoon Bash had a pretty basic doctor's appointment. We'd scheduled it because of a few concerns about weight gain and what I hoped was a UTI, but I think we knew better. I was hoping it was just Mommy Worries, but Michael and I had discussed the changes several times in the weeks leading up to this appointment, and we both knew his symptoms could be "something else". Really though, what are the odds?

After seeing him even the doctor said he appeared very healthy but that we'd do some blood work just in case. He said he doubted it was anything to be worried about, which gave me a crazy amount of hope. If the doctor thought it was likely nothing more than a growth spurt and UTI what did I have to be worried about? 

Less than an hour later the phone rang and I was told that the Children's ER was expecting us and to go, go now, because his blood glucose levels were dangerously high and he was spilling keytones into his urine. Michael, of course, had just left for the gym, and I spent a good 10 minutes trying to call his cell phone before it hit me that I could just call the gym and have him paged. I did that, and probably made no sense to the poor woman on the other end of the phone as I blurted out that I needed my husband now because the children's hospital was expecting us. They got him home though, and we made our way 10 minutes down the road on one of the longest drives my Mama's Heart has ever made. 

We found out that night that our son has Type 1 Diabetes, and according to his A1C, his little body had been fighting it for awhile. It just couldn't do it anymore which caused the symptoms that made us take him in. Always, ALWAYS, follow your gut and take them in! No parent wants to think about the fact that a weekend could be the difference between having their child or not, but that's where we were even though he wasn't acting particularly sick. A couple of days could have made a very big difference in what I'm writing now. A very big difference. Instead, we ended up with an amazing team of people around us that did exactly what he needed them to do, and by Friday morning Michael and I were at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes (one of the best centers in the country) learning how to be an effective pancreas for our child. 

It's still very new, and very raw, but we're figuring out our new normal, and learning a LOT about diabetes. Bash, of course, is doing better than either of us, and he thinks his new necklace is about the coolest thing ever. I imagine this won't be the last I post about this, because it's our life now, but it won't all be fear and uncertainty. We will make lemonade out of this, and my son will drink it with us! He's going to rock this. I have no doubt. 

A Tale of Four Hamsters

How did we get here, you might ask? It is a fair question. I have been asking it myself for the last several hours. Yet, here we are. 

It all started with one. One, sweet, small, spunky, fluffy little hamster named Snow. The Christmas Hamster. The one who came first. The one who left a little boy, my little boy, completely brokenhearted. 

Bash is our child who asks for one, maybe two things for his birthday and Christmas. They are always such simple requests, ones that he has put so much thought into, that we try to accommodate when possible. This year for Christmas the thing he asked for was a hamster. A real, live, hamster. Not only did he ask for a hamster, he found the exact one at the pet store that he wanted and had us photograph it so that he could take that picture to Santa and ask if it was at all possible. 

I didn't want to get him a hamster. I have nothing against hamsters, exactly, but hamsters die. Hamsters are small, sometimes biting little creatures that will go belly up on you without warning, and I didn't want to do that to my child. But it was what he wanted. What he talked about for weeks leading up to finding the perfect hamster in the store. He stood there, shaking so hard that he couldn't even hold the phone steady to show the picture of "his" hamster to Santa, asking for something so simple, and I knew there was exactly no way we weren't going to end up adding four tiny feet to the family on Christmas morning. 

Not wanting his specific hamster to get sold, Michael and I bought the silly little thing that very night, which is how I ended up with a fluffy grey and white hamster hiding in my office for the 10 days leading up to Christmas.

And I liked him. He had some spunk, and would run around chattering at me and playing while I wrapped presents locked away in my office. He was young, healthy, and liked apples, and I started to feel a little more confident in our decision. After all, hamsters can live 2-3 years! This guy had too much attitude to die on us. I also told myself that, even when he did die, 2-3 years from now, Bash would be okay. He loves animals and wildlife. He's my little Jack Hanna, my future Steve Erwin, but he has always taken a very philosophical view of death. Animals die. He'd had and buried two fish, fish he loved dearly, since he got his first one for Christmas 2014. He'd also been our practical little man when we lost our cats, Barkley and Tessa, in 2016. Yes, he was sad he'd tell me, but they were old and that's just what happens when we get old.

He'd be fine. 

We were the first two up on Christmas morning (He'd, in fact, come in about 6 times between midnight and 5 am to ask if it was time to get up yet.), and he ran right to the table under the tree where the gift of honor sat. (Unwrapped, because I just couldn't figure out how I was going to wrap a live hamster in his cage.) As I sipped my coffee and waited for everyone else in the house to wake up my little boy sat in front of his fluffy new hamster in his shiny new cage and whispered all his hopes for the future. I knew we'd made the right decision. Knew it in my bones. 

Snow the Hamster loved apples and carrots. He would stuff his cheeks full while his young master laughed in delight. He'd let his young human pet him and talk to him for hours, and he'd talk back with squeaks and chatters that no one doubted that Bash understood. He liked to run around in his plastic ball, and seemed to get an ornery sense of pleasure from chasing the dog, who was terrified of something 1/100th his size of course. He was oddly interested in Eleanor's toy Maui, and would spend hours at a time running on his wheel. He worked out, and did it with a superior air that made you feel lazy as heck in comparison, especially when he'd look through the bars at you with his dark eyes squinted judgmentally while you nibbled on that Christmas fudge.

And every night Bash would lay in bed, staring adoringly at his hamster simply doing hamster things, until he'd finally fell asleep smiling. 

Snow, The Christmas Hamster, was simply the most amazing Christmas present ever.

Then, one morning in mid January, the boys came down to tell us that Snow wasn't waking up. Sure enough, when Michael and I bolted upstairs to check, there he was. Dead.

"Wake him up, Michael! Please, wake him up!" Poor Michael. He no doubt knew how unwise it would be to tell his pregnant, crying wife that he was, in fact, unable to bring a hamster back from the dead. He just looked at me, completely helpless, as I begged him to wake the hamster up, then turned to the stiff, unresponsive Snow and sniffled "Wake up! Wake up you little asshole! You have to wake up!" I'm sure you are aware, as I was at 34 years old, that neither my husband or the hamster was going to listen to me. I kept asking though, because the alternative was to go downstairs where my children were anxiously waiting for the verdict on poor Snow, and I wasn't ready to do that yet.

Snow spent one final night in my office before he was laid to rest on a breezy, beautiful day with loving, tearful words spoken over his final resting place. RIP, little Snow. 

Michael and I told Bash that we were more than willing to buy him another hamster, if he wanted, to which he firmly responded that he did not want to replace Snow. My boy was not okay. He was mostly okay during the day, if a little quieter than usual, but night time was the worst. Night time was when he'd look over at the empty spot that had once been Snow's place of honor and start crying. He'd curl up in my lap and say "Mommy, I'm just so sad.", and I'd silently curse both the little grey and white hamster and my own stupidity for buying him. 

It got better though, as these things always do, but there was still no interest in getting another hamster until earlier this week when, while sitting with me in my office one day, Bash looked at the place we'd stashed the now empty cage and told me that "maybe someday" he'd like to get another hamster.

"Okay, buddy. Maybe someday." I'd agreed, not knowing how fast "someday" would become "right now". 

Today we walked into the pet store where, in addition to all the small animals they had for sale that our children like to look at and talk to, they had hamsters up for adoption. Yes, for an adoption fee of only $5, you too could give these poor, orphaned hamsters a forever home! These hamsters, who were born right around the time Snow would have died, were just as interested in my children as my children were in them, and it wasn't long before I had sets of red, brown, and blue eyes all looking at me pleadingly. 

After all, they were up for adoption! Clearly they were orphaned! What if their mommy and daddy had died and we were the only ones who could give them a loving home?! (My oldest and youngest are good at this everyone. So good.) It was Bash though who finally, in merely a whisper, settled the matter with "I'll bet these are Snow's little brothers." 

Michael and I have been together a long time. It's pretty easy for us to have fast conversations with our eyes using very little, if any, words. The conclusion we came to? We're suckers. We're also the proud new family to 3 new hamsters. 

Bash picked the grey one with a white belly, because Snow was grey and white, and he's still picking the perfect name. Parker picked the reddish brown one who was dubbed "Firestar" before we even made it home. Eleanor's whitish-marbley hamster was christened "Fluffy-Pants", though we all agreed to call him "Fluffy" for short. First impressions are that Bash's hamster likes to eat. A lot. Eleanor's hamster is cautious, but curious, and Parker's hamster is going to leap first and ask questions later...All of which seem appropriate for my children. They have been pet, spoiled, and settled into their new home for the night, and the last time I checked Bash was staring adoringly at them as he fell asleep. 

I also took a private moment to tell these hamsters that they were, under no circumstances, permitted to die on my children. Ever. 

Keep your fingers crossed for us.    

A New Chapter

It's been a rough year or two. 

It's been a rough year or two for a lot of people. I'm not alone in this, I know. It seems like many of the people we know personally have been struggling the last 24 months, and I don't know how to help any of us. 

There's been a lot of collateral damage to the hard times, and one of those, while very minor in comparison, has been my desire to write. I've said before how one of the best things I can do for myself is writing. It's like cheap therapy, but I've almost completely given it up in the past months. It's time to take up the virtual pen again and get back at it. Somehow though, it didn't seem right to just jump back into my old blog. So much has changed. I've changed. Our lives have changed. We're headed into an all new, frightening, exciting chapter, and I felt like maybe that deserved it's own new, fresh place to start. 

So, here we are. A new chapter. A new blog. A new outlook. Because I need it. These chapters in my life will not always be pretty. Sometimes they will be blotted, smudged, and damn near illegible. They won't always be positive, because life isn't, and while I will try to find the ability to make something resembling lemonade with the lemons we get handed, sometimes it will just be mediocre water. With seeds. That's real, and I won't apologize for it. I hope, though, that the chapters will come together to make an amazing story, and that the lemonade will end up being the best damn pitcher anyone's ever had. 

With some seeds.