Category: mother

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Time to Write

Olof

Things are changing. They are always changing. Every moment when I get into the rhythm of “I got this” life happens and I have to learn to dance to a different beet and sometimes life doesn’t even provide me with the music to dance to and I sort of have to be super creative. Now is one of those moments where there is music but it the station keeps getting changed a lot and I have learned to just roll with it. Funny thing is that it keeps mixing my favorite hip hop station with my least favorite techno station and I have NO idea how to dance to techno. But even my favorite Hip Hop station is throwing me curve balls that I can manage and they are not horrible but throw me off beet. Thankfully there is more Hip Hop than Techno.

So here it is. Remember when we purchased the house the summer of 2016? The 1978 monster of a house that was frozen in time in 1978. There was shag carpet everywhere. Even in the bathrooms. There was carpet in the kitchen. Yep you read that right. IN THE KITCHEN!!! We knew that was not going to fly with 4 young boys, a dog and 2 cats. So we ripped out ALL the carpet except in the formal living and dining room which looked newer than the rest. But Ya’ll the carpet in there is cream colored and that is where I have the boys fenced off when I need to finish dishes, laundry, cook dinner or what have you and the dining room is the play room at the moment and the formal living is the game room with the ugliest pealing pleather couch that you could think of. We stalled out of updating the house about 7 months ago. Getting all of this done with 4 kids, a dog and 2 cats in tow on top of homework, school pick up, mountains of laundry, all the meals and all the normal stuff we have going on just wasn’t happening. One of our investments did well and we suddenly had the money to pay someone else to do the work and it was like a light shown down from the heavens. This is where I spend most of my time. In this house and we have had nasty concrete floors for over a year. The toilets and everything in the bathrooms is an ugly beige that makes me want to stab myself in the eye. But we have a great friend that does AMAZING work and was willing to take us on as clients and I am so excited to see what he will do for our house. Hopefully by the end of February I will have the house of my dreams. Before then we ran into some snags.

We found bats in the attic Bye Bye $1170 for removal and clean up

We hired a structural engineer because of some uneven floors and wanted the foundation to be fixed before we put new hardwood floors on. We need piers and foam to stabilize the foundation. Bye Bye $10,000

We needed some trees trimmed and removed from our property and the rental property. Bye Bye $2400

This all before we even start on the whole house remodel. The new appliances needed and the furniture that we need after that is done. We never fully moved into this house because it was never finished. The attic above the garage (that doesn’t have bats) is still full of our stuff that I never moved in because we had so much left to do. Also we moved from a 1500 sq ft house to a 3390 sq ft house. We still have whole rooms that we don’t use at all because they really aren’t usable because there is just subflooring.

As I was dealing with all the contractors (I’ve already been stood up 2 times and we haven’t even started on real renovations) I get a call from my 3rd boy’s principle. It is that call that no parent wants to hear. “You need to come pick up your preKer because he has been violent towards another child and has left marks on him.” I was in complete shock and disbelief. He is stubborn and sneaky and a hand full at home but never would I have imagined that he would be violent towards another child on purpose. I left a note on the door that I would be back in a few minutes for the contractors and speed off to school. Ashamed of my sons behavior. When I asked him why he did it he told me that he wanted to come home and this is the only way he gets to go home. It was one of my few days where I get to get stuff done without having small children under foot. My youngest (who is almost 2 and throws the greatest tantrums ever at the moment) was at his little preschool and I was trying to pack as much into my window as I could. Alex, my #3, got suspended for the rest of the week. He thought he won the lottery and got to stay home. I took away screens, I took away games, but honestly there is little I could do to make staying home with me less great. He hates school. Says his teacher doesn’t like him and even though I have asked for a change, written emails and showed up to meetings and other things nothing but a Behavioral plan has been done for him. The child that hasn’t done anything like this before is suddenly labeled a psychopath by his teacher because he is trying everything in his power to get out of there. What really makes me sad is he begged to go to “big kids school” for almost a year before he started. He had been dreaming of it for so long and I remember sitting down with the teacher at the beginning of school and thinking “oh no” that she was not a good fit for him and this might not go so well. I thought he would be unruly for her but NEVER violent. I can’t change things for him at school. I can just be a loving place for him at home. Make sure he talks about his choices at school and try to move on. This part of parenting sucks. When they have to learn to be outside of your zone. If they never really learn this the rest of life will be hard. I don’t want that for him.

As all of this is going down, the endless estimates and contractors and Alex making himself seen in our large busy family, I am also planning a trip to Iceland to see my family for Christmas. We won’t be there for long so I’m trying to introduce my boys to all of the different families on a one on one basis. This takes planning. I also have to make sure that I have all the outdoor clothing we will need for all 4 of them. Good shoes for all kinds of weather and that I make time for friends and us too with out hurting too many feelings.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, most of my music is good music that I love to dance to, finally getting the house done the way I like it and money not really hindering that, but I find myself stumbling through the techno noise and feeling like I am failing in ways along the way, when I am navigating the parenting outside of my control zone, watching my child not thrive and knowing that he needs to learn to be without me and I will not always be able to pick and chose his caretakers or bosses along the way. I hate that he is learning this so early. He is only 5. But also sheltering him even longer might not be helpful either.

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Baby, birth, Boy, children, family, mom, mother, motherhood, Parenting, parents, Stay at home, stay at home mom, Uncategorized

Introducing Ragnar Baldur

Olof

 

As I have told you in prior posts I was expecting a baby. That baby was born December 7th of last year. His name is Ragnar Baldur and he is the easiest baby I have ever had. He is both easy on the eyes and sleeps really well. He goes for 5-7 hour spurts at night. I am so lucky and thankful for his sleeping so well.

 

Since I have other kids I’m not getting much more than 6 hours at night but most nights it is continuous sleep which I have never had before with a little one like this.

He was less than a week old when I started to need to cart him to school Christmas events. He almost never fusses at being dragged all over creation as long as he is dry and not hungry then he usually just sleeps through it.

This mamma is just so in love with this little human. His brothers are so happily surprised that he doesn’t interrupt their lives too much and they are great helpers.

Pour Ragnar got really bad baby pimples. But they have since cleared up.

I’m sure you are thinking Ragnar Baldur is an interesting name to pick but if you watch the show Vikings (and if you don’t you really should because they are a really good depiction of what the viking culture was really like) then you might have noticed that the main character’s name is Ragnar. It means a warrior sent from the gods.

 

His middle name Baldur is a Nordic god name. The god of poetry and beauty. So now we have our oldest Odinn, the god of gods, our next oldest Magni, the god of strength, our 3rd child Alexander Thor the god of thunder, and now Baldur.

 

Ragnar was 10lbs 3oz at birth. Many of you might be thinking that that is big. It is not small. But Alexander Thor was 11lbs 14oz. I worked so hard this time not to have a giant baby by watching what I ate and going to the gym daily until I got sick and started coughing and didn’t stop. So the 3rd trimester I was not as active but I made sure I didn’t put on more than 29lbs and lost 21 of them giving birth.

 

When I need to get housework done and he is awake usually putting him in his bouncy chair with a toy will keep him busy for long enough to clean up the kitchen and start a load of laundry.

Waking up in the morning to this face never gets old. No matter how tired I am I smile and am thankful for all the love and beauty he brings to this family.

Most of the time when we have appointments for my son’s orthodontist or a Dr’s appointment this is the norm. He sleeps in his car seat and I knit or read something. During swim lessons he just hangs out in his ergo baby.

There have only been a hand full of days since this child was born where he just needed to be held and all else had to wait and during those days I hold him with gratitude for he will only be little once and since this is rare I have an excuse to just sit and snuggle him. My surprise baby that was far from planned.

 

Most of the time he is a happy laundry helper but in that pic you can see it is not ALL the time.

 

 

He found his thumb a couple of days ago. Magni and Alex also did that for a little while at this age but never got into it. But who knows, I might have my one and only thumb sucker.

Love his little baby voice. And that is it. Sorry about flooding you with images and videos. As you can tell I am head over heals about this guy. My surprise 4th. The baby I cried for 2 weeks over when I found out that he was on his way and I thought that I couldn’t handle any more children. But here he is and he is perfect.

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Time Flies….

Olof
Happy Sunday!

I know it has been a long time since I last posted. I have been very busy with life as a working mother the last couple of months. I have finished the “training stage” of work and actually started working as an intake therapist at a local inpatient psych facility. I really enjoy work. I know that I am making a difference in peoples lives. I am sometimes the first step in someones road to recovery from mental illness. I enjoy the people I work with and even though at times I feel like I don’t know what I am doing I know I have people supporting me that do.

My office at work.

It is hard to leave my children in the care of others each morning though. If I wasn’t finishing my candidacy hours then I would probably not be working full time. But I only get so long to finish my hours and I already took 18 months off to have Alexander. So I pay 2032 dollars a month so that someone else can watch my children. Mamma guilt gets to me when I am picking up my children at 5:30 or later because I couldn’t leave work fast enough. I try not to think about how many hours they spend in other peoples care. I hate that I spend the days that I do have them cleaning, grocery shopping and doing all the things that need to be done to keep this family of five running. Just yesterday I went grocery shopping and then to get my hair fixed for the first time in 4 months. Today I am about to spend the rest of the day putting clean sheets on all the beds, doing all the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and mowing the backyard.

Speaking of the back yard. I got a new coop. The great coop that my husband made me was not big enough for all the birds I have. It is better suited for 2-3 standard birds or 3-4 bantams. So that coop will be sold. The new one I put together myself!!! With power tools and all!! I am so proud of myself and the birds like it. They actually go in the coop instead of trying to roost on my back porch which was becoming really GROSS! Lady Gaga is the only chicken that keeps trying to roost on the back porch still. But she is not the brightest of the bunch. I got this coop at mypetchicken.com.  While it looks nice it was very beat up when I got it and broken in several places that I ended up having to fix. Unless you are handy I would not order from them.

My chickens have been molting and they also got an upper respiratory infection from the Americauna that I traded the rooster Cowboy for. Being a new chicken keeper I didn’t know that hearing a chicken sneeze is a bad thing. Well it is. Very bad. Stopped all of my chickens from laying for over a month. I got my first egg yesterday and that in the nesting box. It was one of Buff’s eggs. I was so happy to see it. I was so scared that they had gotten a line of strep that keeps chickens from laying for ever. Can’t wait for them all to be laying and the beautiful colors that will come with it.

We have had a visitor in our back yard this week. This poor cat looks like its hind quarters have been saved. Also it is hard to see in this pic but it’s tail is either dislocated or broken. I’ve been letting it eat our cat food. It has been getting cold at night and I can’t think of not helping him grow his fur in by feeding him some good food. 

 Alex and his baby. We got that baby in IKEA in Iceland this summer when my mother died. He didn’t show much interest in it then but now he walks around and hugs on it and kisses. It also sleeps with him at night. Poor Alex has had pneumonia and a double ear infection. He has been a trouper about it too. He almost had to go to the hospital last weekend but we got pediatric home health to come to the house instead. He was still drinking and eating fine so I didn’t see a point in stressing him by putting him in the hospital. 

9 month old, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iceland, mother, sudden heart failure, travel

Back from my trip of sorrow.

Olof
Sorry for the radio silence but now I am back from Iceland. I had decided to not blog until I was back. It has been a one day at a time sort of 3 weeks for me. My mother actually died of sudden cardiac death and not a heart attack. This is why even though my dad was performing CPR immediately and the search and rescue squad got there with in minutes with a defibrillator nothing worked to bring her back. My mother died in my father’s arms early that Saturday morning changing my family’s lives for ever. Great sorrow has moved through our very large family and she was the first of her 5 siblings to die at the age of 68 and she was not the oldest.

My mother’s empty chair and her unfinished knitting

During my stay I got to know my sisters again and their families. I have lived in Tulsa for over twelve years now and before that lived in France for two only going to Iceland every 3 or so years because of how expensive it is to go there.

At the viewing I was lucky enough to get time with my mother before everyone else came. My mother was different of course but I was happy that they did not use too much make up but let her be the natural lady I knew with light pink lipstick and mascara. When only the closest of family had arrived for the viewing it started and  I had closed my eyes to gather myself and while doing so saw it raining love over my whole family. My mother was showering each and every one of us and it gave me strength to be the person that my sisters and father could come to for strength and love. To welcome their sorrow and hurt and let them feel some comfort in my arms. Even though at times I got sad for some reason I did not really cry while I was in Iceland.

My mother’s Icelandic sweater and slippers. It looks like she will step into them any min.

Planing a funeral is hard but even harder with such a large family. Hundreds of people showed up to the funeral and the wake. My mother was loved by many and will be sorely missed.

At the funeral two of my sisters that did not just have surgery, two of my grown nephews, two of my brother in laws, my brother and I carried my mother in her casket from the church out to the hearse. It was so heavy that it mimicked the sorrow that we all carried. It was almost too heavy to bare but just holding on and trying to put one foot in front of the other was exactly what we were doing in life at the moment. Our steps were ungracious but they kept the pace. It was a slow, painful walk until we got to the hearse but then we got to hand the weight over for someone else to carry like handing the pain to God to be able to sleep. 

My father’s eyes are hard to look in these days as the sorrow flows from them. The hurt and pain is so deep that it was hard for me to leave him in Iceland but know that my sisters are there for him and the socialist system is there to help him with grievance counselors and other support.

My mother’s angel with the view of the mountain she loved so in the background. 

When I drove to my father’s home so that he could drive Alex and I to the airport he tells me to go inside to make sure I get anything that I might have left behind and told me to say goodbye to the house because he can’t afford to keep it. My heart breaks again. I walk into my parent’s room and on the bed sits the teddy bear I gave my mother for her 50th birthday 18 years earlier and with the white scarf I had given her when she baby sat for me when I went to the meditation retreat over two years ago. She had always said that when she had the feeling that she needed to hug the bear that it was time to give me a call because I wasn’t feeling well. Hoping that the bear was still a link to her I gave it a goodbye hug hoping she would feel it on the other side. 

I did the math and realized that if I were to go at the same time as my mother that my husband and I would have already finished a 4th of our relationship. That made me really sad but also reminded me to be kind, thoughtful and tell my husband and my boys how much I love them every day. To be a good wife and a good parent getting my children ready for the real world out there because I will not always be around.

Yesterday I made coffee and cried. I cried the ugly cry with snot and all. I also have lost my voice so I sounded like a frog that was gasping for air. Grief is ugly and unforgiving. It grabs you when you least expect it. I realized that I would never make my mother another cup of coffee in my home. That she would never be back to give me those hugs that I love and that my childhood home is going to be sold. A great loss. Great sorrow.

Be kind to one another. Tell the people you love that you love them and live the life you love and love the life you live. Life it too short to be unhappy. 

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Sad and Crushed.

Olof

My mamma nerves are raw tonight.

A little over 3 weeks ago I went to the farmers market to pick up some eggs. When using set eggs I saw that they were fertile eggs. So on a whim I put 2 of them in my small little incubator. I thought since they had been refrigerated that there would be nothing of the eggs and from my reading on the web it said that they would most likely not hatch but I was wanting to give it a try.

Ten days later I candle the eggs and see that one had started developing. I thought this very cool and had this great blog post brewing in my head about how you can hatch out eggs from the farmers market at only pennies on the chick where they would be good layers since they come from stock used for laying.

Anyhow, fast forward to today, day 23 of the chick being in the egg and the normal cycle 21 days to hatch day and I thought the worst, that the baby chicken had died. Crack open the top where the air sack was and to my surprise I see movement. I instantly feel horrible. Baby was still in there and alive and clearly just behind because, duh… I put COLD eggs into the incubator and it took a few days for the temp to get just right.

I hurry up and put the egg back in the incubator and go online to look for guidance. With the information I had given of baby being on day 23 someone told me to pip the egg (making a hole in the membrane) so that the baby could breath. I try and it starts bleeding! I’m horrified! I feel so guilty and dumb. Poor baby I should have just left it alone to do its natural thing like I believe in for all healthy births! I watch until I notice that baby is not moving anymore. My heart sinks. I leave the egg in the incubator until the boys go to bed to investigate. I poke at it and no movement. I watch for anything but the color now is off too. Finally, I come to terms that the baby is no longer alive in the egg and I crack it open to find a beautiful baby that died because I could not wait longer.

Perfectly formed. All the toes and nails and everything there. Just me being a bad, ignorant mother hen. Had I given the baby a couple of more days to finish absorbing the yoke and pip itself then I would have been welcoming a new member to my flock of chickens instead of feeling loss and guilt tonight.

5K, breastfeeding, color, Color run, mother, running, Tulsa

The Color Run- Tulsa

Olof
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/4EERSfHiqT8&source=uds

OMG I’ve lost my mind and I’ve signed up for my first 5k in 17 years. I have signed up for the Tulsa Color Run. A friend of mine said that she was going to do it and have a blast. Not so much run as just walk fast and have a fun time. I thought this would be the perfect way to start, hopefully, new 5K habit.

The color run is more about the fun of getting out and doing it than a hard core run but it will be a jump start in the right direction.

Of course I need new gear to start getting ready like new running pants and support bra (those breastfeeding milk jugs need to be contained and protected) but boy I’m excited. I haven’t run since before Odinn was born but now I really am excited to start. My body needs the exercise too. Since we have daylight longer during the day I have decided that I will be ready to leave the house as soon as my husband gets home and go for half an hour 3 days a week and when I can do that easy I will add a 45 min run once a week and then when that becomes easy then I will add an hour run. I know I have a ways to go here but boy will this be fun and painful. LOL

Have you done a 5K this year? It has been on my bucket list for a while now. I did a few before I was an adult but I haven’t done any since. Always thought that I had to be a runner that could run for an hour with out stop to do one. Well I haven’t been that EVER so I never went out. I’m hoping to really get into running again. I miss it. I quit while I was pregnant with my first because it hurt so much to run.  Hoping my hips will let me do this with out too much pain. My body after 3 kids in 4 and a half years is not very happy with me.