It’s that time of day again. Nap time! Those few precious hours I so dearly hold onto as tightly as possible. Moms, chine in if you know exactly what I mean.
To me naptime means I am temperarilly not at the beckon call of every single want and need of my kids. The best part of nap time these days is when Marley is in school and I have two hours just to me!
So how do I spend nap time? It really depends on the day. Some days nap time means I’m sitting in the car while hubby runs in and out of appointments and stores taking care of errands as Jack naps. Some other days, nap time means Marley and I get, “Mommy & Marley Time,” where we read, work on Braille, and do crafts.
Today however, nap time means a mad rush to clean the kitchen, sweep and mop the floors, crank out a blog, and Braille out a few Christmas cards. To make more productive use of my time I’ll be listening to an audiobook while I doo the majority of these tasks.
So for now, I bid you farewell. I must tear myself away from the computer to go dance with the broom and mop. Until I write again, have a wonderful day!
Smiley face pancakes with blueberry eyes and strawberry lips for Marley and Jackson
Life is about choices. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we close our eyes at night, we are faced with hundreds of thousands of choices. What to wear, what to eat, coffee or tea, and that’s just the first few. How about choosing how to feel?
Have you ever considered that choosing how you feel could be something you have complete control of? This is a concept we are working with our children on. We choose to be happy. Nothing is strong enough to keep us down. There may be bumps and bruises that cause us to cry from the initial pain, but in order to move on we choose to get back up again with a smile, laugh, and learn what could have prevented those tears.
Last weekend, I chose to commit myself to myself. That was not a typo. I registered and made the first move in fully committing to creating a better me. Come January 15th I will begin this journey through an intensive self discovery and leadership program that focuses on emotional intelligence. Hundreds of people travel from all over the country, and the world, to participate in this program. I fortunately only need to travel about 20 minutes from my front door. I’ve observed the break through and changes my husband has gone through, and am both nervous and excited to experience my own.
I teased him the other day that he was using words from the program on me. Our Friday afternoon was a hectic one. The morning had flown by. It was noon and we had an hour to get out the door. That didn’t happen of course. After scrambling to finish my blog for Halloween, him scrambling to finish commitments he’d started on that morning, we were finally ready to leave. ?The kids were strapped in the car. We went over our check list of must haves before driving away and realized we didn’t have Marley’s cane. The next half hour was spent searching every closet, corner, in and under every bed and couch, combed every inch of the backyard, and couldn’t find it anywhere. Marley couldn’t remember where she’d put it, and I let my frustrations of me overcommitting to too many events in too short of time come out in this one predicament. Hubby caught me snapping at Marley, and said, “Back off of Marley. This is our breakdown. We shouldn’t take it out on her.”
He was right.
I sulked, sighed, and chose to change my mood. We got back in the car, and we headed off to our first event for the day. Even though Marley didn’t have her cane with her. It was still a successful play date. We met little Dillon and his parents, all three of whom are blind. Dillon’s mom and I had arranged the play date so that Marley could show Dillon her cane. He had recently been given his first cane and doesn’t want to use it. We met them at their house, and all walked to the park together. Marley and Jackson showed Dillon’s mom their Halloween costumes by what we call, “Seeing with our hands.” Jackson was excited to see Dillon’s dad had a cane too since his Daddy doesn’t have one. Fun was had by all as the kids ran, swung, climbed, hid, and slid, and us grown ups bounced ideas around and made plans for future outings together.
Like I tell my children when they are upset, let’s make a choice on how we will feel for the rest of the day. Let’s choose to feel happy.
Now, go out and make it a Happy day!
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Today’s blog post is going to be short. It’s been a long day. Neither one of the kids got their afternoon nap. We just got home from running errands. We had a late lunch and ended up grabbing In and Out for dinner. The kids are both asleep, and Aaron and I are both feeling weird from the sangria from lunch, not quite hungover but definitely very very sleepy.
But I just wanted to sit down and say that I am especially thankful for the Honda Pilot in our garage. I’ve always said that if I could drive, I would drive a Honda Pilot. It’s the perfect family car. It seats eight, but with the back row folded down, it has plenty of room for the double stroller, our dog, and lots of luggage. It has a built in DVD player, also great for long road trips. And it is the first car we’ve owned to have leather interior, very great for young children and spills.
So that’s that. I hope everyone has a safe and slumberful night.
I am thankful for my friends I’ve made since moving to Las Vegas
It is not always easy when you are a blind mom in the burbs of Las Vegas. This isn’t the most pedestrian friendly city. Between the hot tripple digit summers, the wind storms, the freezing winters, I can’t exactly walk everywhere with my little ones in their double stroller. There have been many times I’ve called friends to pick up milk, diapers, or even just to come over and read me the dosage directions to a new box of medicine.
When the word got out about the wreck, concerns and support came pouring in. Everyone wanted to know if there was anything they could do.
The stress of my hubby’s accident kept me in a sour mood for days. Once my friends found this out, they all made it their goal to put some sweetness back into my mood.
I don’t have any family in town, so knowing there are friends who I can call at any time of day or night for any particular reason helps to make Las Vegas feel like we live in a small close knit community. We take turns watching each others’ kids. We borrow each other’s clothes and jewelry, We share recipes. We go out for drinks. We gossip over coffee. We throw each other birhtday shindigs and showers. We hand down our children’s clothing. We understand that sometimes things come up. We don’t judge or criticize, but rather offer comfort and hugs.
I wish all of my friends could live in the same city as me, but then there’d be no reason for me to visit SF, Austin, Tampa, Seattle, Virginia, Hawaii, China, Sweden and everywhere else in the world.
Blind Mom in the Burbs 