Easter makes me cry

Easter was always one of my favourite holidays. Are you kidding me? 4 days holiday plus all the chocolate you can stomach (and then some) - my kind of holiday.

But for the last few years it's been a different story.

The year my Star was born, Easter fell on 23 March - just a little over three weeks after his birth. In the weeks following his dearth, we barely left the house. I didnt eat for a week, and when I did start, it took weeks before I could eat more than a bite at a time. What I do remember is FUIC and hot cross buns. It was what we survived on. It was our comfort food.

The Easter weekend I was convinced to leave the house, to go on our usual vacation. I cried almost the whole weekend. I could barely force myself to interact with Rocket, or set out his gifts. It was probably also the time I had the last good conversation with my ESIL. It was hard. The whole holiday sucked.

Ever since, Easter has been hard. Harder than any other holiday. The closer it falls to his birthday, the harder it hits me. Even without getting into the rebirth/resurrection/"this is a time for new life" theme of the season, it's hard.

This year, with Easter being right at the end of April, it's strange. The timeline has shifted a full month. But when I smell hot cross buns, I am still taken back to that time. I am still in our old house curled up on a mattress on the lounge room floor, numb half the time, howling in pain the other 50% of the time.

I wonder whether I will ever truly enjoy Easter again?

motivation...or rather, lack thereof

Do you ever have trouble motivating yourself to get off the couch, put the laptop down and turn off the tv? I sure do. There are lots of things I would like to be doing...that I want to do, but I find myself stuck back in the same damn rut I was in before I left. Time to get my ass UP and GOING.



To help keep myself on track and make myself accountable, I've signed up on Day Zero and made me a LIST. Is there anything you can think of that I should add? I'm totally open to suggestions of ways to brighten things up and get creative with my life, I am ready to get my life going again after being so stuck in the babymaking circus and putting off so many things for so many years.

development

Got little man's "development summary" from his daycare centre today.

Was pretty amused by the summary on the front page where they describe what a delight he is, and follow it up with "At times he can assert his rights a little over zealously and we have to encourage his gentler side"

I seriously think whoever wrote this needs to go into politics! Left to me it would read "At times he is a giant brute who will steamroller anyone who gets between him and the object of his desire." Pretty funny, and fairly accurate I would say.

But then you come to the ILP (Individual Learning Plan) where they describe the psychosocial key learning area - where he will learn to empathise and show caring towards others, and the evaluation reads "Manny has been away for 3 weeks and come back, he still is not caring with friends"

This about broke my heart. He is such a loving boy! Sure, he will crack a wobbly if anyone tries to play with something he already has, but toddlers don't understand sharing! It pains me to think that his carers don't feel he is caring with his friends. You should see him with babies - so gentle. Poor wee mite. Methinks they are expecting too much of a 2 year old (just quietly).

Have you ever been shocked by something on a development summary about your little 'un? Do share.

cosmic jokes and blogging

I remember when I first came across this thing called a "weblog". Actually the first ones I came across were "online diaries". I was fascinated.

Writing out your thoughts and having people comment on them? Sounded wonderful to an 18 year old sitting at home alone heavily pregnant with no support system, no family, and friends who were still caught up in this thing called "youth".

It's hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago. It's amazing to think that I still talk to the people I met in my first online incarnation, that we are still friends, without ever having met in the "real world".

In the time I've known them we've had babies, got married, got divorced, been through adoptions, stillbirths, miscarriages, deaths, kids with issues, cheating husbands, and just about any other life experience you can imagine.

The internet is such a powerful creature (for good and for evil).

Blogging has enriched my life in so many ways, and carried me through the greatest heartbreaks. It led me to some people who I now regard as some of the closest friends I have.

It's amazing the way blogging has changed over time. It's amazing to me that so many people have blogs now (where we bloggers were once regarded as somewhat strange)(okay most people still regard me as somewhat strange) and that so many people are making a living from them (who knew that was possible? Thanks Dooce)

I have longed to go to BlogHer for a few years now. But being all the way over on this darn island makes it somewhat more challenging. I wished there was such a thing as an Australian blogging conference.

Guess what, there was!

Guess where I was? In the damn USA!

Definition of irony?

I've wanted to take this blog in a hundred different directions over the past year. But then IVF took hold of me and took over my life (and by extension of me - this blog). As there is no prospect of that ever happening again, it's time to move on. Onwards and upwards as they say. Now is the time to make some changes.

I wish I could have been at this "conference" they speak of, but alas, my life being the cosmic joke it is, I wasn't. Anyone care to clue me in on what I missed?

home at last

oh it was almost one of those "kiss the ground" moments when we finally touched down in our home town this morning!

It was a good holiday but oh my it was hard work. Hard Work. If it was just the toddler, or just the 9 year old, perhaps it would have been ok. But both of them? Whew! It reinforced for me that I am certainly not cut out to homeschool as I do not have the patience! I think we survived really well though, for living in each others pockets 24/7 for the last 3 weeks.

On the upside we went a full three weeks with no phone and no watch, virtually completely apart from our regular lives and it was a great break, time to really think about some changes we want to make in our lives and re-establish our family.

I should be sleeping now but I just feel wacky which is making it hard. I really should though as I have a wedding tomorrow that I have to do bridesmaids hair for so I have to at least try and get over this jetlag nonsense!

Just wanted to pop by and say hey, I'm baaaaack ;)

Holiday!

Hello there, it's been awhile, hasn't it?

So here we are, in New York City :)

We're almost two weeks into the trip and so far we've had a gastro bug go through the whole family making us all sick as dogs for a couple of days, our entire trip to San Francisco rained out (so bad that we couldn't even SEE the Golden Gate Bridge when we were parked next to it!) and a hotel employee stalking us because we made a complaint about him!

But...we also got to spend amazing days with my soul sister and her beautiful family, we got to see the bright lights of Las Vegas, and we got to watch the NYC St Patricks Day parade today. Despite the hideous setbacks, its been pretty good, and hopefully will only get better! We end in Disneyland so hopefully we end on a high :)

I look forward to catching up on everyone's blogs when we get home..

Until then,

love and kisses from the big apple!

Wordless Wednesday - New Ink

Three sessions, seven and a half hours, and one very talented artist friend produced THIS:



The green bird represents my Rocket; the red, Manny; and the little orange one sleeping in the nest is my little star xxx