reflections

i'm ready to move into the new year, slowly but still moving forward. leaving 2012 in my memory is the best thing for me, js and pbs. i am happy to leave the good and bad behind to see what's in store for me, us in the future.

i don't know what the future holds, nor do i want to know now. i can't change it. even if I knew what the future held, i don't think i would want to change it. that would change too many other facets of me, who i am supposed to become. the path that has been laid for me is specific to me. why would i want to change something so important?

there are times when i feel like i'm not worth it, a failure. i try to change my attitude, to be more positive. it works most of the time. other times i wallow in self pity for a while. then i am reminded by pbs or js that i'm not a failure and i am here for a reason. i might not know the reason right now, but i think js and pbs are pretty good reasons.

the last few years have been pretty challenging. i wouldn't be who i am today if i hadn't gone through those experiences. i would not have had the confidence to be a sahm, to start my own mary kay business, to travel by myself. some, if not all, of those experiences made me stronger, more willing to take risks. i hope that one day i understand why js and i had to go through so many losses and hardships. right now i just want to live! i want to reflect, remember and learn from but not dwell on or in the past. so as 2013 quickly approaches, reflect and move forward, learning as you go.

tears of sadness

in the last couple of days i've broken down in tears a few times. pbs has come up to me and said, "mommy? you're crying? let me give you a hug and kiss to make you feel better." i wish that was all that it would take to make me feel better.

when i've started crying it's because i was reading an article on the newtown, ct elementary school mass shooting and i was thinking about the parents of all of those children. i can't imagine how those parents, both those who lost their children and those who did not, feel. i can imagine what it's like to lose a child and my heart completely breaks every time i even think about the evil and cruelty in our world.

there was even a point when i spoke with js on the phone, he's been on travel for the last week for work. he hadn't heard what happened. when i told him what had happened, we talked about home schooling pbs. i don't really feel qualified to home school him and i want him to have a so called "normal" childhood, which would include going to a real school. i would like to send him to a private parochial school because i went to private parochial school from preschool through high school. js is on the public school side because he went to public school from kindergarten through high school. after this latest mass killing, we might be more on the same page.

 

it's not that a private parochial school is any better or safer than a public school, but i think that i would feel that it was a bit better and safer because i could have a say and see where the money was actually going. i know that bad things happen in these schools too but it doesn't seem to be as often or even on the same scale. class sizes are smaller and there are more opportunities for individualized instruction. 

here's an example. i went to a very small school. it started when i was in third grade with a total of 23 children. we had combined classes. so in my classroom it was second, third and fourth grades. kindergarten and first grade were combined in another room. there were eight of us in these three classes, all of us girls. fourth grade was the highest grade, kindergarten was the lowest. the preschool was separate. we had the principal as our teacher in the morning and the preschool teacher as our teacher in the afternoon. the principal and preschool teacher were married to each other. 

now, fast forward almost thirty years...js and i moved to the west coast and started going to a church where my third grade teachers were attending. they are some of our closest friends and are pbs' God parents. i don't think we would have found a relationship like this in a public school.

it's not fair to have to make these kinds of life decisions for our children. i know that we make life decisions for them from the time we find out we're expecting, but why should we have to decide where to send our children to school based on whether it's safe and secure? i guess the days when parents decided to send their children to a school because of it's academic reputation are gone. 

i'm so saddened by all of this, especially because it seems to be "normal" to have a mass shooting. 

results

the results came back from the blood tests that js and i had done. everything was normal. it's good news to know that there's nothing wrong according to the blood tests that were performed. but it's also frustrating because we still don't have any answers to why i keep having miscarriages around the same point in every pregnancy. plus the doctor we saw was on vacation so i couldn't ask the questions i wanted to ask.

we've been pregnant five times. we have pbs. he was our second pregnancy. our first ended around eight weeks but i didn't have any symptoms of the loss until 13 weeks. our third and fifth pregnancies ended at seven weeks. our fourth pregnancy ended at five weeks. we've named all of the babies except for this last one. i haven't been able to come up with a name yet.

some days are better than others. some days are worse. i have a very hard time being around anyone who's pregnant now or has just had a baby in the last few months. i can't say congratulations or give any sort of well wishes. i feel guilty about this but i don't know what to do or say. it's always awkward, i'm sure because others don't know what to say or do or how to react to us.

i want answers. i hope to get some soon.

testing, testing...

more tests. i'm ready for more, if you are. bring it! consider it brought!

i feel like everything seems to be a huge test lately. either i'm feeling testy because someone or something is getting on my nerves or it really is a test that js and i have to work through.

pbs likes to push buttons. he likes to say, "i'm pushing your buttons!", when he's pushing buttons on a remote or an old cell phone. it's pretty cute but sometimes it's true, he is pushing my buttons. i try to laugh it off and go on with whatever i'm trying to accomplish. sometimes i get angry and frustrated and that shows on my face, in my actions. pbs can tell and seems to get a little bit scared. i try to take a step back and look at the situation and approach it a different way. it doesn't always work.

i think he's testing js and me to see how far he can push us before we tell him to stop. i'll tell him up to three times not to do something. if by the third time he hasn't changed his behavior i take action. we sit him on a step for a time-out or if he's doing something that is dangerous, he gets a spanking. i hate spanking him. it tears me apart to have to do it. i guess it's another test that i have to work through.

we've gotten some results back from some of our blood tests and they were all normal. we're still waiting on some others. the waiting seems like a test sometimes too. how patiently i can wait is the hardest test right now, i think. i guess we'll have more testing done if the other tests come back normal too.

testing, testing...