Halloween During a Pandemic

 Due to the restrictions of the pandemic, Halloween didn't quite go the same as years past. Instead of trick or treating and passing out candy, we had a whole new experience. We spent the first part of the afternoon swimming in my parent's new pool (they moved 15 minutes away from me YAY!!!!). Then after getting out some much needed energy, we carved pumpkins. We had the kids clean out their pumpkins of all the innards, draw faces on them and then carved them. They had so much fun as you can see. 

Bugaboo is not a fan of touching the inside of the pumpkin with his hands. He used his hands once this year but I didn't catch it on camera. But spoon scooping is just as effective if not more so. 

Chickadee was arm deep as soon as I opened the pumpkin for her. She was happy getting her hands dirty and get all of the pumpkin guts out. 

The pumpkins turned out great!

After pumpkin carving and clean up, we moved on to the next activity of the day, cake decorating! 

We made a graveyard cake... This can be made with any flavor cake that you want as the base. After cooled frost the cake. Then take chocolate sandwich cookies crush them completely and sprinkle on top of the cake. Cover the entire top of the cake, to create the dirt. Then take milano cookies, cut them in half and push them in to make the tombstones. If you have some melted chocolate or edible marker to write RIP on the tombstones then go for it. Also add in some gummy worms that are moving through the dirt or some pumpkin candies throughout. 

These zombies loved decorating the cake. Once dessert was made, it was costume time. 

Even though they couldn't go trick or treating, we didn't want to deny the kids the chance to dress up. 

My kids and their cousins dressed up and ready for the next activity. 

My Bugaboo is riding a t-rex around and he loves it. He loves dinosaurs and was ecstatic with this costume. 

Chickadee dressed up as Mal from Descendants. She is a big fan of all the musicals that the Disney channel puts out and loves to sing and dance along with them. 

Once costumes were on and pictures were taken, it was time for the final activity of the night. 

A search for glow in the dark bugs!!!!!

They were some nifty little toys with glow stick that we stuck around the dark back yard and had the kids search for them kind of like an easter egg hunt. The kids had so much fun that we sent them inside for a piece of cake and hid them again. 

After that it was time to clean up, putting everything away and getting ready to go. Each kid was sent home with a bag of candy still. 

What did you do for Halloween during the pandemic? Did you have any fun and unique ideas that you guys did this year? 

Until next time, I'll just continue on in this unprecedented journey...

Kindness and Compassion

 Trying to teach my children kindness and compassion in today's world has been exceedingly difficult. I look around and find a serious lack of kindness or compassion which is disheartening and saddening. It was pointed out to me that I might be more on the defensive in the way I view how people react in situations given that I have a child with special needs and see how he is treated by people in a dismissive and negative way, which encourages my continuing lack of faith in people. 

In our household, we encourage our children to accept people for exactly who they are. We discourage any form of bullying and encourage respect, compassion and kindness. We remind our children that everyone is different and that is a good thing. Everyone has a different perspective, opinion and ideas which can provide information that you might not have known otherwise. We push for them to stand up for their friends, invite everybody to play and not to follow others but think for themselves. 

In the same conversation where I was told that I might be defensive, I was told that I was burdening Chickadee because it seems I am forcing her to be protective of her Autistic brother and ideals that are beyond her comprehension at age 7. I have several thoughts on this that I didn't get a chance to eloquently reply with at the time. First and foremost, I believe that it is never a burden to be a good person, honestly how could it be. I reinforce kindness and compassion for all people not just her brother. It takes just as much effort to be kind and compassionate as it does to be rude, disrespectful and hateful. There is not a time that I would ever let my children treat people that way and let them get away with it because children are not born knowing right from wrong or good from bad. It is my job as their parent to teach them how to treat people and I take that very seriously. Second, I do not expect her to fight her brother's battles and this is for several reasons. First, this would suggest that he isn't capable of standing up for himself which is not the case at all. Autistic people are perfectly capable of voicing their opinions, standing up for themselves and providing people with open and informative discussions. Autism my make them different but it does not make them incapable. Another is to suggest that we are expecting more from her than is capable at age 7. We have told her that if she sees people being mean to others that she can tell them to stop or go get an adult to help with the situation. Reinforcing the idea that she is capable of standing up for herself, her brother and her friends and that adults are there to help. We want her to be strong and capable which does not happen over night. In order for the lesson to stick, we need to reinforce this idea continuously until we no longer need to remind them. It is never to early to start teaching children kindness or compassion and never to late to show it or express it. I think people do not given children enough credit with their capabilities of understanding and observing. 

In today's world with the pandemic, protests, politics and basically everything falling down around us, it seems that kindness and compassion are needed so much more. Everywhere I look, it seems that people are dismissive and negative. I have seen so much name calling, and horrendous written comments and people treating each other just horribly. I have seen people throw hateful words towards others for having a difference of opinion. How is it possible to have an open, honest, respectful conversation with someone if you are going to dismiss them because they don't believe absolutely everything you do? How is it fair or reasonable to encourage differences as long as they are the ones that you approve of? How is it 2020 and we still have to discuss that everybody is different or how to have an actual conversation? I honestly believe that kindness, compassion and love are the most powerful things in the entire world (an idea that I share with my children constantly) and it can change the world but we can't make changes if we can't have a conversation. When talking to someone who doesn't carry your same beliefs or opinions, ask yourself if you are really listening to them when they talk. Do you honestly understand where they are coming from or are you dismissing them for not believing exactly what you believe? What was the last real conversation you had?

I try to have as honest conversations as I can while listening and being respectful. In order to maintain my open mindedness, I have made changes on my social media feeds to provide more kindness and acceptance for me to view daily. I follow the Body Image Movement, Returning the Favor and other positive messages to fill my feed with things that bring me joy and happiness because if I am happy it is easier to exude kindness and compassion for me. I am open to differences of opinions, beliefs and values so you can be honest with me...Am I being to harsh on people and society? Is there more kindness and compassion? Do you think I am burdening my children? How do you teach your children about compassion and kindness? What do you do to show kindness, compassion and understanding? 

Although the ride maybe bumpy and filled with many twists and turns, I will just continue on this journey of an everyday mom...

Life is Definitely Different...

 How to even begin discussing all the changes that have occurred? The world is a different place now and life is definitely not the same. It feels like so much has changed and it is a struggle for me as an adult let alone my children. For Hubby and I, work has been a little crazy. I have been considered an essential employee throughout the entire pandemic and therefore have been at work onsite the entire time. I don't know what I would do if it weren't for Hubby. I mean seriously I don't know how he does it. Since he already worked from home, this did not change but he has been pulled onto daily 12 hour long conference calls since March. This with two children running around the house confused and with distance learning, I'm telling you he has surprised and impressed me so much during this time. I cannot praise the man enough (really my appreciation knows no bounds for him). I know many people have been either unemployed or moved to working from home which are huge adjustments to make. This alone is difficult but add in parenting, shutdowns and distance learning and it is all sorts of immense craziness. 

Lets start with distance learning...I know that making the decisions about what was best for our family was a difficult decision when it came to choosing what form of school the kids would be going through this year. It didn't help that our district was still attempting answers up until the decision had to be made. Watching an 8 hour long board of education meeting that lasted until after midnight when I had to get up at 4 am the next morning for work was difficult but it was necessary to come up with the best decision for our family that we could make. Distance learning is difficult, especially with a special needs child with an IEP. Luckily he has been doing well so far, but we have had to fight for his one on one aide to be kept for him (after we fought to get her in the first place). Bugaboo's class starts at 8:30 until 2:30 everyday. He has online session with his teacher from 8:30 until about 12:00 which is all up to Hubby since he is the one home and on a conference call usually during this time (really can't express my immense gratitude for this amazing man). Chickadee's day starts at 12:45 and goes until 7:00 pm. Her live session with her teacher is from 3:45 until 7:00 in the evening which I am usually home for. Then there is homework and help with independent work and trying to get programs to work and times when the link doesn't work. Can I just say that I do not like trying to figure out common core math...(I am constantly having to look at their books or watch the videos and then go why????? prior to helping them with their assignment. Anybody with me on this?) At one point when we were working on getting one on one aide time for Bugaboo, we were told by the district that he didn't need it because we were home with him and we were supposed to be his support. Now we attempt to be his support as much as possible but trying to be all of this with our current work schedules was more than just "difficult" as the district attempted to put it, it is more like daunting. (Although when Bugaboo's teacher asked his class who they talk to when they are scared, or happy or need help and he answered with mommy, daddy and sister it just made me feel like I am actually doing something right which is always a nice feeling.) But seriously, trying to navigate work for Hubby and I, both the kids school schedules and be 100 times more involved with everyday school work has been stressful and overwhelming and frustrating. Sometimes we want to scream, or pull our hair out or both. Yet that is not all that is difficult when it comes to what is happening in the world today. 

Trying to explain to my kids about a global pandemic, shutdowns and changes in the world has been extremely difficult. Trying to express how significant it is while not overwhelming them is frustrating. I attempt to be as completely honest as I can, not to downplay anything while not making them scared to just live and be kids. Finding a balance in all of this, dealing with my own personal feelings and frustrations while trying to help them navigate their feelings and how to deal with them is overwhelming some days. I have lost my cool, yelled and cried and then apologized profusely for taking it out on them. I have expressed that is okay to be frustrated, to yell into a pillow when you can't get it out any other way, to cry and be mad. I have given hugs and reassurances while reminding them to wear their masks, wash their hands and just be kind to everyone because this hard for everyone. I have to search a little harder for the silver lining in most things but overall, we have banded together as a family and supported one another. We may have had a few fights but we found ways to communicate better with each other about what we need (which may include a mommy time out until she can get her bearings back). It is okay to ask for help! 

The journey this year has had more bumps, bruises, ups and downs than ever before. There are more questions than answers, more frustrations than joyous moments and unexpected changes. I am expecting the zombie apocalypse to occur at any moment. What has changed for you? How are you handling distance learning? If you want to know anything else in regards to how things are going for us or how we explained something to our children, feel free to reach out. If you need help, feel free to ask and I will help you find the support you need. Until next time (which I hope will be much sooner than this) just keep holding onto hope on this journey...

During uncertain times...

During all of the uncertainty of today's world, it seems that the role of a parent has completely changed in the recent weeks and the need for interaction and support has multiplied. With the kids home from school, stores closed and many people's jobs uncertain and a virus running rampant across the world, fear and frustration are clearly  emotions people are dealing with daily. Isolation is a necessity right now, making human connection much more precious. Everyday life has completely changed and this change is not an easy thing to deal with. It is completely understandable to be afraid, frustrated, stressed or uncertain.

Hubby and I are considered essential employees based on the work we do with governmental and health care customers. Hubby is working from home and pulling triple duty by taking care of the kids and the shopping and things around the house while working. I have been unfortunately sick for a little over a week and am finally feeling better (my fever has broken and I am no longer experiencing any symptoms of the cold I had), moved out of isolation (I was quarantined away from the kids and hubby to make sure they don't get sick) and back to work (I have to go in). It has been a crazy couple of weeks (following a crazy few months, the beginning of 2020 has not been very kind) but we are pulling through. I have to admit with the kids being home, the mom guilt is kicking in big time but that is a blog post for another time. Mostly the feelings of stress and being completely overwhelmed have run Hubby and I a little ragged. So if you are feeling any of this, that is completely normal. If the kids are driving you a little insane (or a lot) that is completely normal.

I watched a very helpful video from a life coach (Kemi Nekvapil) the other day that gave great advice for what to do to help with the feelings that are so prevalent (THANK YOU RESET SUMMIT from the Body Image Movement you should check it out https://bodyimagemovement.com/resources/the-reset-summit/). If you notice yourself being overwhelmed, angry, scared, stressed...stop take a breath and ask yourself what do I need right now and how do I get it? Is it a time out for a couple minutes, comfort food, watching something that will make you laugh or calling someone that is supportive in ways you need. Whatever it is let yourself have what you need. Realize that there is only so much that you can do. If you are providing those you love with what they need for support and taking care of yourself then that is the best thing you could be doing.

Another thing that she mentioned was what can you create or build right now? What is something creative that you can do that will bring you joy? Most people feel relaxation and joy by being creative, so by allowing yourself to create during this time is a helpful way to spend some time doing something to make you smile. It's positive energy, happy healing and mind clearing relaxation.

How are you all holding up right now? What are some projects you are working on while being on isolation? Are any of you essential employees (Thank you so much for continuing making it possible for life to continue going and working so hard everyday!!!)? If any of you need help, please reach out. If you are in need of support let me know. If you want someone to understand or just listen I am willing.

Just know that I am right there with you all during these uncertain times and will continue on this journey, struggling through the changes that are what the world is currently...

When you question everything...

When you are sitting in the room with the specialist that is giving you a diagnosis for your child, it changes your entire world view. It changes who you are as a person and who you thought you were as a parent. I never truly understood my own strength until I had to become someone else's voice and advocate. I never realized how deeply I could feel about the treatment of other's until I could see it from both sides of the situation. I never thought about how much I wanted to make a change, a difference until I truly realized the world that we are living in. I can only speak to my own views and feelings about being a parent. My family is my entire world and I feel like I can never do enough for them. I constantly feel like I don't tell them I love them enough, that I haven't taught them how to handle situations or haven't taught them to stand up for themselves. I question every decision I make and then feel guilty as though I haven't given it my all. I have  massive amounts of mom guilt from working and not being there for every small achievement at school. I sometimes feel like my daughter gets the short end of the stick because of the times we have to cater to our son with special needs. Other times I feel like my son has the short end of the stick because our daughter is a person that demands attention and loves to talk while he sits quietly on the side lines. Then there are the days where I hug them and ask them, you know I love you right and they say yes mom and tell me how much they love me to. There are the days when my special needs son looks at me and says, "Mom I'm  happy." There are the days that my daughter looks at me and says, "You are the best mommy in the entire world." 

For all the days where I question every decision and feel the mom guilt, I can only say one thing, Thank the heavens for my support. My hubby, the man who gets the kids ready for school every day. The man that is on every field trip, who takes pictures and videos of every performance I can't make it to and who is there being the most amazing father to both our kids. Every person at the school knows who my husband in because he puts in that kind of effort. I am so utterly grateful that he works from home making it possible for me to be outside of the home working. I am even more grateful that he is the kind of father he is because it makes it so much easier knowing and trusting that the kids are in the most wonderful, caring and loving hands other than mine. It is difficult being a special needs parent, there are meetings, IEP's, therapies, conventions, research, offensive people, people who are rude, stare, point...There is just a lot to face, deal with and conquer. I am so utterly grateful to have my hubby by my side. He is such an amazing support system. He is strong and my rock and I definitely don't tell him enough how much everything he does means to me. So hubby you are amazing and I love you more than words can ever express. You are wonderful and an amazing father and husband.

Over the past year we have faced several deaths in the family, changing of jobs, a new school year with all sorts of obstacles and mom guilt galore. There have been long hours, stress, questioning of choices and feeling like I have not done enough for everyone. I have been overwhelmed and hugely locked in my own head while I worked through everything. I am finally coming out the other side and feeling more like me. I do not like feeling out of control and over compensate by kind of shutting everyone out. It happens occasionally and is a horrible flaw that I am trying to get away from. So now that I am out of my head and ready for the new year, new possibilities and putting more of myself out there I am back again to continue sharing my journey of an everyday, emotional mess of a woman and mom...

Curve Balls...

It has been forever since I have been on here and I am so terribly sorry. Life has yet again thrown curve balls in my direction and I have been handling them to the best of my ability, unfortunately that has meant that some things have slipped from my grasp, like being able to to write on here. I have missed this terribly and am hoping that after the next month things will slow down enough around here to give this blog some much needed attention. Until then, I'll just let you know about the most recent round of curve balls that were thrown my way.

I explained in my last blog post that I had recently changed jobs. I had started in a completely new area of a company than what I had previously experienced. I started in accounting with some amazing and funny women. The two women that I began working with are so much fun that it has made work fun to go to. It was less stressful for me and consisted of mostly paper pushing and data entry which kept me completely busy every day. Unfortunately for me, the stress free time did not last. I must say that I love learning and expanding my knowledge. I was approached by the general manager to help with an upcoming Aerospace audit that the company was having. I'm not sure how much you all know about manufacturing and Aerospace standards, but to go from mostly commercial work to Aerospace work is a very time consuming and extensive transition. When my general manager approached me, there was roughly a month prior to the audit. Now my previous job was with a company that held a majority of aerospace and defense customers, so I had some knowledge of aerospace standards and requirements. Unfortunately, the aerospace standard had recently been updated and we had to go through a complete and thorough audit this time around. While attempting to help the company with this transition and keeping up to date with all of my accounting duties, it was almost as if I was working two jobs. I brought quite a bit of work home with me daily to update the necessary paperwork for the audit and get up to speed with the changes in the current revision of the standard. They eventually hired someone in to handle the accounting aspects of my job while pulling me full time into production and updating quality standards to meet the Aerospace requirements. Roughly two weeks before the audit, I was informed that my new title would be production manager which is quite surprising to me, since this is mostly a male dominated area of many shops. The men I work for are extremely respectful and appreciate the knowledge that I do have but I feel almost like I have to truly prove my worth. The audit, and all the updates will take me into the middle of August before it is through and then I have to work on maintaining all of the changes we are currently making. It is going to be challenging and time consuming but as I said I love to learn new things. Unfortunately the new hire for the accounting department has not been entirely successful and so I am still helping out with aspects of that department as well. It has been difficult and stressful to say the least. But this is only the first curve ball...

The next curve ball, was heartbreaking...My husband's grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. She was definitely another grandmother to me and was an amazing great grandmother to our children. Hubby loved her like another mother since she helped raise him for several years and was extremely close to her. It has been heartbreaking for him to lose her. That women was strong and funny. She loved to laugh and whenever the whole family got together it was literally nights filled with laughter. I love her very much and miss her terribly. We have been trying to help with all the necessities like cleaning out her apartment and helping with the memorial (Hubby has made an incredible slide show that made me cry). It has been difficult since it was a sudden and unexpected loss that has happened following other unexpected losses We have had months of  sadness and aching hearts. Between our cat, my husband's grandfather on his dad's side, my uncle on my dad's side and now Hubby's grandma on his mom's side, it has been an extremely rough six months.

This leads to my next curve ball...Explaining death to my children has not been an easy task. Trying to help them understand this type of loss and helping them grieve is complicated and rough. Hoping to have the right words for them to understand such a vast topic while creating a way for them to work through it has been one of the toughest things I have done. I felt like I didn't have enough words, or the right words. It is hard to explain something when it is hard for me, the parent, to grasp. If you are curious how I explained this to my children, message me and I will gladly share with you what I shared with them. I don't want to go into detail here because we all have different beliefs and views which are your own. This has been one of those times where I'm not sure that I haven't failed in this parenting gig. I mean having to explain death to your children is always hard and I wonder if I should have tried to shield them from it more but how can I do that when they won't ever see their GG again? How to explain it? How much to explain? How to help them understand that the doctors couldn't do anything even though they are supposed to help people who are sick? How in depth should I go? How much of my beliefs do I share? How much do I want them to explore and discover on their own when they are older? It has been a series of never ending questions and then second guessing myself every time I explained anything. If any of you have had to explain, how did you do it?

So dealing with all of these curve balls, grieving, stress and questioning everything has left me worn out and run down. I am hoping once work slows down and we get past the memorial that I can get back to sharing more with all of you. Please feel free to share anything with me. What have you all been up? What curve balls have been thrown your way recently?

Until next time, I am just going to keep working through this journey...

Truths...

When you are faced with continuous stress in multiple areas of your life for months it can be very trying and exhausting. It messes with your head, your mood and how you feel. For months, I was irritable, tired, moody and pretty closed off. Now one of my many flaws, is that I don't share the things going on with me until I work them out or I blow a gasket. This is not the healthiest way of dealing with many emotions or stressful situations. I am aware of this and it is one of the many things I am working on about myself. Luckily I have a very supportive husband who lets me vent, cry and snuggle as needed. He is the one person I consistently confide in before anyone else. I did let a couple of my close girlfriends know about what I was dealing with but it was limited and I mostly held radio silence with everyone because frankly I was trying to maintain my strength in myself. What I mean by that is it felt like if I started to open up, the floodgates would pour out and I wasn't ready but I am now so let the flood of info commence...

I know I told you all about the things that happened over the last few months, but I didn't mention that it put me in a funk. I didn't feel like myself. I felt constantly tired and just like I kinda deflated as a person for a little bit. I knew that I needed to get my head back on right. I my new job that I needed three weeks before I started because frankly I needed a break. I couldn't take it all anymore. I needed time home with my family. The most important people in my life, the ones that make me smile and the ones that just put things into perspective for me. Luckily for me, my old job let me go a week early which means that I got two weeks home. Two weeks to breath and not feel like everything was falling apart. During those two weeks, I took time to process everything and do a lot of soul searching.

First, I needed to deal with the intense sadness I felt from the death of my uncle's passing. The first day off was his funeral. As I said in my last post, I felt an intense need to take care of my Nana the entire funeral and witnessing the entire funeral was very soothing to my soul. It also helped that I got to look at him and touch his hand during the viewing. I was one of the last people in the room and so I took a minute to touch his hand. The same one I held all day a week before. It was cold and it made it very clear that he wasn't there anymore. I cried at that moment, but it felt like closure to me. To just know that he wasn't there. I cried during the funeral itself and by the end I felt a sense of peace in regards to his passing. I knew that he had been in a lot of pain and wanting to leave this world. It didn't make it easier for me to say goodbye. Remembering being a source of comfort during that last day with him and a source of strength for my Nana at the funeral, that made me feel better. It reminded me of my inner strength, my ability to listen, comfort and my ability to continuously remember all the wonderful times that I shared with him. After that day it was as if the sadness just left me. I miss and will continue to do so intensely and immensely. But it is not the same as the aching sadness I felt deep inside for the entire week after I was informed of his passing. It also made me appreciate family that much more. To see the way that family gathers, supports, comforts and loves each other is amazing to see and even more wonderful to feel and personally experience. My family was a wonderful support system during this time.

Next, I got to take my kids to school and pick them up everyday for two weeks. It was nice because I often have mom guilt for not being there for those things. My schedule and traffic requires me to leave the house at 4:30 am and I usually don't get home until 4 pm sometimes later. So getting a chance to finally meet my son's one on one aide and hear how his day was, receiving the reports directly and seeing their interactions just made me relax. Hubby usually handles all of this and he gives me the rundown daily of both the kids' days, which I love and appreciate with everything in me. But being able to witness it and participate eased my guilt and gave my children joy and Hubby a much needed break from these daily activities. It made me feel connected again. Just getting to spend all that time with my kids and Hubby gave me a sense of peace and comfort just by living life daily, by focusing on the needs of my family and taking care of them like I hadn't felt I had been doing.It was comforting and all the snuggles just made it that much better. I have to say being reminded of all the love provided by everybody during all these struggles just reinforced the goodness in the world.

Finally I focused on me. I provided myself with a lot of self care and love during this two weeks. First I slept in. After years of getting up every morning at 4 am, sleeping in every day until 630 for two weeks was amazing. It let me get some much needed rest and relaxation. One night after everyone else in the house went to bed, I danced around the house to some of my favorite songs. I also focused on the things that mean something to me. I let myself dream of what I want for the future and how I want to spend my time. I put together a list of the things I want to focus on for myself and then shared it with my husband so we are both on the same page. Plus I want the support of Hubby when I am working on these things. One of the things I want to focus on is writing, it is relaxing and brings me a lot of joy. So hopefully you all will see a lot from in the near future. I also love working with the amazing women of the Body Image Movement and the global ambassadors. They are incredible women who are working towards making global change. Many of them have made careers out of this. They have inspired me to work towards making this full time for myself as well. I am working on a plan of what my strengths are and how to do the most good with them. Let me start by sharing with you a course I took that helped me view myself in a completely different light. If you are struggling with yourself the way that I was, then this course is an excellent and informative step in truly accepting and loving yourself for who you are. This course is called Embrace You and you can check it out at the following link: https://bodyimagemovement.com/embraceyou/?ref=W217 Also if you have not yet watched the Embrace documentary then you should see it!!!! It is currently on Netflix in the U.S. and on ITunes in most other countries. I will use another post to go into more detail about all of this information but the most important thing I can tell you is to know that who you are as a person is amazing. We all deserve to love ourselves and I spent two weeks reminding myself exactly why I love myself.

So if you are still with me, thank you for letting me ramble all of the information that has gone through my mind over the last couple of weeks. Also if you want more information about Embrace, the Embrace You course or the Body Image Movement please let me know. I will gladly share it all with you. Let me know some truths that you have discovered. What experiences made you see what you really want? What are your dreams for the future? What are some ways that you provide yourself with some self love/care? Feel free to share whatever you want with me, I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings. Until next time I will just keep dreaming through this journey of an everyday mom.