Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Saturday, November 24, 2012
A Few Pictures, Before, During, and After Thanksgiving 2012
 |
| Ready to run the Turkey Trot at big sister's school. Goggles are important. |
 |
| Avery's popsicle stick boat |
 |
| Side dish: biggest potsticker in the universe. Avery's idea. YUM! |
 |
| To the beach with Aunt Megan |
 |
| It's never too cold for the beach. |
 |
| After diving full-body into the waves, in 60 degree weather. Luckily Mom made her bring her fleece. |
 |
| Ahhhhhhhh!!! Water's cooooooold!!! |
 |
| Tree is decorated! |
 |
| Hmm. May have found another ornament. |
 | |
| Mischief time!! |
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Halloween 2012
This was really E.'s first trick-or-treat experience. She would have gone last year, but she was sick, so stayed home with Dad handing out candy. She was so excited for this, and she kept up with big kids every step of the way. Became enraged when I demanded she hold my hand to cross the street. Weaved through undulating seas of costumed teenagers to extract her piece of candy. Did a wonderful job saying "bink you!" every time she got one.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
This One's Not About the Kids
http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/emotional-stress-how-chronic-emotional-stress-can-ruin-your-health
I read this article by a doctor named Ben Kim on the almighty internets today and felt a strong need to re-post it, even though I have an aversion to re-posting other people's stuff - it's why I feel weird about Pinterest. But this article has particular relevance to my life right now, so I love it...and hate it with the heat of a nova (to quote Toby from The West Wing). But let me tell you why.
Hate it: Here's a quote from early in the article: "...your body cannot defend itself against the damage that emotional stress quietly creates over time. [You] pay a heavy physiological price for every moment that you feel anxious, tense, frustrated, and angry." Just reading that makes me feel anxious, tense, frustrated and angry about my anxiety, tension, frustration, and anger. Could it really be true that I'm doing irreparable damage to my body every moment I experience one of those feelings? Is it helpful to even have the thought that my body is damaged every time I feel these things?
As a therapist, mother, wife, daughter, sister, etc. etc. and just as a participant in the game of life, there are things I've come to understand about myself and everyone else. Here are two of them: 1.) We can't change our feelings, or make ourselves not feel them. We can tolerate them, or squash them down and pretend not to feel them, and we can make decisions about what we're going to do because of them, but we can't change them. At least not without some serious, long term alterations in our thoughts and behavior, and even that's questionable. 2.) What we think has a huge influence on how we feel.
For me, reading things like Dr. Kim's statement on the damage stress does to the body causes stress. It makes me feel scared and guilty on top of stressed - scared that the stress I'm experiencing in my life right now, and struggling to overcome, is doing permanent damage from which I have no hope of recovering, and guilty about what I've apparently done to myself. Not helpful, Doc.
He fleshes things out a bit here: "I'm not suggesting that you should strive to never feel these emotions. Anxiety, tension, frustration, and anger all serve important purposes when they first arise. The danger is in experiencing these emotions on a chronic basis." Now, the second sentence in this quote seems to directly contradict what the good Doctor said in his intro about every moment of stress causing dire physiological consequences. So I wonder which statement he truly believes.
I read this article by a doctor named Ben Kim on the almighty internets today and felt a strong need to re-post it, even though I have an aversion to re-posting other people's stuff - it's why I feel weird about Pinterest. But this article has particular relevance to my life right now, so I love it...and hate it with the heat of a nova (to quote Toby from The West Wing). But let me tell you why.
Hate it: Here's a quote from early in the article: "...your body cannot defend itself against the damage that emotional stress quietly creates over time. [You] pay a heavy physiological price for every moment that you feel anxious, tense, frustrated, and angry." Just reading that makes me feel anxious, tense, frustrated and angry about my anxiety, tension, frustration, and anger. Could it really be true that I'm doing irreparable damage to my body every moment I experience one of those feelings? Is it helpful to even have the thought that my body is damaged every time I feel these things?
As a therapist, mother, wife, daughter, sister, etc. etc. and just as a participant in the game of life, there are things I've come to understand about myself and everyone else. Here are two of them: 1.) We can't change our feelings, or make ourselves not feel them. We can tolerate them, or squash them down and pretend not to feel them, and we can make decisions about what we're going to do because of them, but we can't change them. At least not without some serious, long term alterations in our thoughts and behavior, and even that's questionable. 2.) What we think has a huge influence on how we feel.
For me, reading things like Dr. Kim's statement on the damage stress does to the body causes stress. It makes me feel scared and guilty on top of stressed - scared that the stress I'm experiencing in my life right now, and struggling to overcome, is doing permanent damage from which I have no hope of recovering, and guilty about what I've apparently done to myself. Not helpful, Doc.
He fleshes things out a bit here: "I'm not suggesting that you should strive to never feel these emotions. Anxiety, tension, frustration, and anger all serve important purposes when they first arise. The danger is in experiencing these emotions on a chronic basis." Now, the second sentence in this quote seems to directly contradict what the good Doctor said in his intro about every moment of stress causing dire physiological consequences. So I wonder which statement he truly believes.
Friday, October 19, 2012
She's Getting Older and Wise-ass-er
I'm in the car with E. the other day, on our way to pick up A., and we sit at a red light next to the Trader Joe's construction site. I'm all happy about Trader Joe's coming to our town, so I entertain myself with a little made-up song about it. After a minute E. says, without looking up from her Leapster, "Mommy, stop it!"
I ignore her and keep singing. She ratchets up the whine: "Mommy-y, stop iiiiit!"
"Aw, why?" I ask her.
"Because. Noying."
Fine, cuteness wins. Again.
I ignore her and keep singing. She ratchets up the whine: "Mommy-y, stop iiiiit!"
"Aw, why?" I ask her.
"Because. Noying."
Fine, cuteness wins. Again.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
So sweet
Today I was working at my desk in the family room while E. played. We were alone together while Dad and A. were out. She'd found an old doll of hers from last Christmas, a cloth one with a floppy plastic head and an outfit you could wrestle on and off, and she was happily testing the tensile strength of the threads that held its arms on when....well.....the inevitable happened.
I dropped what I was doing when I heard her wail, because you can tell immediately when it's not just an "Ow, I pinched my finger trying to close the lid on my fake jewelry box" but rather an "I'm super-traumatized right now cause my baby doll's arm fell off!" I hugged her close and told her it would be okay, and she clung to me and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. And it was.
Finally she was ready to hear about solutions. But to add insult to injury, she developed the need for a major diaper change at this point, so while we talked we took care of that business as well. I explained about my sewing kit, and that Baby's arm could be repaired in less time than it would take Dora to rescue a pygmie marmoset, even with Diego's help.
Looking up at me from her changing pad, E. said, "Thank you." She said it in her little helium voice, with her toddler-ish pronunciation, but her tone was very mature and serious, like the tone my grandmother took while thanking her beloved daughters for speaking at their beloved father's funeral. "No seriously - thank you," E. might as well have said. I wasted no time procuring the sewing kit and getting that arm back to rights. Times like this I realize how important my job is.
I dropped what I was doing when I heard her wail, because you can tell immediately when it's not just an "Ow, I pinched my finger trying to close the lid on my fake jewelry box" but rather an "I'm super-traumatized right now cause my baby doll's arm fell off!" I hugged her close and told her it would be okay, and she clung to me and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. And it was.
Finally she was ready to hear about solutions. But to add insult to injury, she developed the need for a major diaper change at this point, so while we talked we took care of that business as well. I explained about my sewing kit, and that Baby's arm could be repaired in less time than it would take Dora to rescue a pygmie marmoset, even with Diego's help.
Looking up at me from her changing pad, E. said, "Thank you." She said it in her little helium voice, with her toddler-ish pronunciation, but her tone was very mature and serious, like the tone my grandmother took while thanking her beloved daughters for speaking at their beloved father's funeral. "No seriously - thank you," E. might as well have said. I wasted no time procuring the sewing kit and getting that arm back to rights. Times like this I realize how important my job is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)