parenting

Family: Parenting Is Hard. Especially for an Introvert

August 15, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

Not that I thought parenting was going to be easy, but it is so much harder than I thought it was going to be.

I love my kids. I love snuggling with them, hearing about their days, and seeing them grow as people. They are amazing.

But I honestly think parenting is even harder if you are an introvert.

I’ve learned to tolerate the hour a day it takes to pick them up from school.

I still dislike sitting through dance class week after week, but I manage, mostly because I plan ahead with books and snacks for the child stuck sitting with me.

Then there is all the other things you have to remember to do, like buying new fall jackets after they lost theirs at the zoo. Or, just in general, noticing their pants are getting too short or they need new socks and underwear. There’s the yearly purchase of winter gear etc.

These are all things I can handle. I may not be good at them, but I an handle them.

Then there are other things that you feel obligated to do because kids should experience them even if you would really rather not. Really, really rather not.

Like the children’s museum.

Or a water park.

Or state fair.

I hate crowds. Hate them.

Too many people. Too much noise. Too many distractions.

I feel overloaded.

Add to that trying to keep track of two children in the middle of all of that, one who wants to go, go, go, and the other who wants to walk slowly and observe everything and you have an introvert’s nightmare.

This was brought home to me when I made the mistake of going to the state fair with my husband and kids.

Before children, we never went to the state fair. It was of no interest to us. Then some friends invited us to go with and bring the girls. My husband took them, and I stayed home. My allergies thanked me, and he and the kids had a great time, and I got some quiet alone time. Win-win.

Then this year there was a spate of shootings right before they went to the fair.

Fueled by fear, I begged my husband not to take the kids. The last place I wanted them to be was another large public venue.

He said he wouldn’t live life in fear, he’d promised the kids the fair, and they were going with our friends.

I am not entirely certain why I chose to go other than fear. Fear that I wouldn’t be there to protect my little ones if the unthinkable happened. Not that I could do much other than throw myself over top of them, but it still seemed like a smart idea in our quiet home that morning.

It wasn’t a good idea.

The fair is everything I hate.

Hot. Crowded. Overstimulated and Bored.

Is that possible to be overstimulated and bored at the same time?

I wouldn’t have thought so, but it is. I felt assaulted by smells from food vendors, noise from the crowds and bands, and the visual panoply of booths, rides, and people. Add to that the heat, the low grade fear from the evening news, and the very real need to keep a close eye on two energetic kids.

But none of this entertained me.

I couldn’t enjoy my time with our friends as I was too stressed. Sitting and waiting for my kids to get off of rides was not exactly exciting. And the heat made eating less desirable. Even when I was hungry, nothing tasted all that good because of the assault of smells from everything else.

Still, I tried my best to give my kids a great time. This was made all the more difficult by not knowing what to expect, so being unprepared for it.

My husband is great at going with the flow of things, and I figured he had everything all set for the big day.

Love him dearly, but no.

I will stick to what I am better at.

Next year, when/if he takes the kids, I will stay home. I will make sure he has enough cash, sunscreen, and water bottles packed in a backpack. I will make sure he has tickets and ride bracelets. I will make sure they have a spectacular time.

While I enjoy the quiet.

I accept I am an introvert. This means there are some thing I won;t be able to give my kids other parents can. I also think this means we are not doing Disney.

The Constancy of Change

January 24, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

On my way into work on a blustery cold morning without a spec of sunlight yet pinking the horizon, I succumbed to a bit of wistfulness as I drove past houses that didn’t yet have their lights on.

Back in 2011, that would’ve been me.

My husband and I both shower at night because of my allergies, so we could get up at 7:15 am, enjoy a cup of coffee and our breakfast smoothie while we watched the birds and squirrels in our backyard. We even bought bird feeders and heated bird baths to bring more creatures to our yard.

We then left for work at 7:50 am, each of us making it to work with plenty of time to spare. No rush. No frantic frenzy.

I didn’t bother packing a lunch because I lived close to work and came home every day. My husband made his lunch in less than five minutes.

At night, we made supper in a leisurely fashion, ate in front of the TV, and gamed or read books for the rest of the evening. We considered 11 pm a reasonable bedtime, though 11:30 or midnight was not uncommon. Weekends saw us indulging in our night owl preferences, and we’d regularly go to bed at 2 am then sleep until 10 am.

owl-3184032_640 — We used to know great-horned owls were nesting in our backyard because we listened to them on weekends.

I start work now before I was even awake back in 2011. My husband and I get up at 5:15 am because there are four lunches to pack. We have to make sure the kids are dressed, their hair combed, and they eat breakfast. Backpacks to remember and the car to load.

I then head to work while my husband finishes up the morning routine, wrangles the kids into the car, and drives them to school.

While I start work earlier than I ever have, I don’t get home much earlier as I have pick-up duty. As hard as the kids are to get into the car and off to school, they are equally hard to gather up and bring home.

Then comes the emptying of lunches, going through paperwork from school, and making dinner while I fuss at the oldest to do her homework.

Why does a 1^st grader even have homework?!?

Our house is anything but quiet ever. Once we could hear owls hoot. Now, we’d be lucky to hear a locomotive driving down our street.

There are also a lot more hugs, a lot more cuddles, and a lot more love.

Things may be hectic and messy, and I will never fit in with the dance moms, but the noise and chaos are part of this phase of our life. A part of having young children. And while I will never like mornings, I do love the grin on my daughter’s face as she runs out to hug me when she wakes up.

So many changes.

Makes me wonder what life will look like in 2025.

I’m guessing more changes.

How to Not Set Goals

April 5, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

Goals are important. They are how you turn dreams into reality, breaking down the ephemeral into manageable tasks.

But I set my goals a little too aggressively in March.

Sometimes, when you are so focused on achieving something, you can forget other obligations.

I released a book in early April. You can check it out here. It was the culmination of a lifetime goal.

I started writing my first novel when I was ten. I still remember the teal blue spiral notebook that housed that first book. I had planned to publish it before I was twelve, because I was awesome.

How I wish I had the confidence now I had then!

As excited as I was to release this book out into the wild (and nervous), it was a lot of work. On top of that, I was trying to write 1.5k words a day on a new WIP, work a demanding full time job, and be a parent and spouse.

Yeah, some things fell down.

I will never be Mom of the Year, but I could’ve been a lot a better.

I will never be a perfect wife. Ever.

I will never be tracked as a “superstar” where I work. I just won’t put in enough hours, which is interesting when I think of all of the hours I’ve poured into writing novels.

But, I do need to figure out a better way to fit writing into my life. I love telling stories, though the act of writing itself is work. Hard work.

But I have this tendency to throw myself fully into whatever I’m doing when what I need is balance.

So, I’m sorting through that at the moment.

I finished a story I think of as Logan and Rita. Catchy title, I know, but it’s a fresh first draft. It’ll get better. I promise.

Now, to put my editing cape back on. And by cape I mean my comfy jammies with the most amazing LL Bean slippers. I need to figure out a pace I can manage with my children, spouse and job.

Not sure what that is yet, but I’m not giving up on my Winter 2018 time frame for How to Love a Duchess.

“Oh, Momma Look!” Never Ends Well

October 11, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

At least, it never ends well for me.

So, when we were at Home Depot of all places, and that come out of my daughter’s mouth, I knew I was really in trouble.

What had caught her attention? An eleven foot dragon. Yeah, she’s totally my kid.

I have to admit, she has good taste. But it looked HUGE in Home Depot. I couldn’t imagine how big it would be on our suburban front lawn.

Of course, she reminds me that we have no other decorations. Which, she’s not wrong. I don’t suppose the three little pumpkin walkway lights really count. I love watching the kids dress up at Halloween, but I hate anything macabre. You can keep your ghosts, skeletons and dead brides, thank you very much!

But she’s now at the age where she really wants to decorate for the holidays. Unlike my husband and I who were known to go without even a Christmas tree before we had kids.

I told her I’d think about it, hoping she’d forget. Of course she didn’t forget, and she reminded me about it for the next two weeks.

So, we went back to get the eleven foot dragon. When we got to Home Depot, the thing was sold out. Even the floor model was gone. This was back at the end of September, and I was shocked. A quick search with my phone showed no other Home Depots with guaranteed stock in the area. But I could still get it online.

So, I assuage my daughter’s crushing disappointment that she isn’t getting it that day with the fact that it will arrive in three to five days and we probably wouldn’t have had time to put it up that weekend anyway. She trudges back to the car, but at least I got her out of the store without a scene. There’s more than one reason why I do so much shopping online!.

The dragon arrived, my husband put it up for her, and she is now totally excited. So excited, in fact, that when she and her sister saw the dragon deflated the next morning on the way to school, they both were super insistent that I needed to “fix” the dragon.

Raising a pair of dragon lovers. Couldn’t be more proud!

Do you decorate for Halloween? If so, do you go all out, or were you like us with our three little pumpkins? Any of your neighbors go all out? What’s the best or worst display you’ve seen?

Taking Time to Unplug

August 16, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

It’s Sunday night, and the family is getting ready to go back to our work schedule. I’m trying to get dinner ready while sneaking in a few more words, and DH and DD1 are trying to enjoy a game together.

Enter DD2.

She is angry and upset, crying for no apparent reason. We’re all testy with her. She cries harder.

One of our cats has had made a mess, and DH is irritated as he gets the vacuum to clean it up. Terror sparks in DD2’s eyes as she sees the dreaded vacuum. I put my iPad away, gather her up, and carry her to our bedroom.

Her tears instantly dry up as we lay on the bed together and play silly games of counting her toes, getting tickled (we took turns tickling each other), and just laying together with her head on my shoulder.

Her laughter and giggles made my night.

disconnect1 — Or trying to understand and bond with a toddler?

Holding that in my heart, I cuddled with DD1 before work Monday morning. She is getting so big, but she still likes snuggles. For now. We talked a little, but she mostly just wanted to be held.

I’m starting to feel like the whole family is too busy, but not busy with the right things. Time goes by so fast now. I was looking at pictures of DD1 when she was just a few days old. Hard to believe that was almost six years ago. It seems like only last year we were bringing her home and learning what it was really like to have an infant in the house.

I need to slow down. Make connections. Build a relationship with my girls, and strengthen the one I have with DH.

Writing is a part of the equation. I really shouldn’t have been trying to sneak in words. But there’s more to it. I feel like my family has all become too reliant on technology for entertainment. We need to unplug.

Bored? We turn on Netflix or Amazon, and we don’t even have to sit through commercials. Open the iPad or Kindle. Pull out your phone. A lot of this isn’t deeply entertaining, but the companies know how to lure us how. How to grab our attention and keep it. How many times has boredom had me checking my phone for a quick fix rather than getting up and actually doing something meaningful?

I got so consumed with these distractions that I got annoyed with my beautiful and amazing toddler rather than giving her the love and attention she both wants and needs.

A part of me wants to give away all of the electronics, but that’s just not reasonable.

Still, I need to find a way to unplug and disconnect more, help my family unplug more, so that we can really connect. So that we spend more time counting toes and less time staring at screens. I just don’t know how.

How about you? Ever tried to unplug? What did you do? How did it work? Ever try to unplug your whole family? What did you do? How did it work?

What to Do When Faced with Night Terrors

August 7, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

Per Kid’s Health, our pediatrician, and a child psychologist, “A night terror is a sleep disruption that seems similar to a nightmare, but with a far more dramatic presentation. Though night terrors can be alarming for parents who witness them, they’re not usually cause for concern or a sign of a deeper medical issue.

Night terrors happen during deep non-REM sleep. Unlike nightmares (which occur during REM sleep), a night terror is not technically a dream, but more like a sudden reaction of fear that happens during the transition from one sleep phase to another.”

Night terrors are caused by the over-arousal of the central nervous system, but science doesn’t know why. The best hypothesis is that this area of the brain is still maturing, especially as the night terrors seem to fade as a child ages.

Doctors think it may be hereditary as most kids that have this condition have a family member who experienced them or who was prone to sleepwalking (which is apparently similar in nature to night terrors).

*Glares at DH*

Guessing it’s hereditary as the other things, like taking a new medication or sleeping away from home, don’t play into it.

Night terrors are rare – happening in only 3-6% of kids. Lucky us.

Our daughter has them regularly. Almost every night. We’ve talked to the doctor and a child psychologist. There is very little we can do.

Our pediatrician has told us the best way to combat them is to make sure she has a solid bedtime routine and is getting enough sleep. Of course, the child suffering from night terrors would love to stay up until 10pm then sleep until 9am. It’s too bad our life doesn’t permit her the schedule she wants as I have to be to work at 8am.

So, we do our best. Every night is a challenge, as she hates going to bed and usually wants me to be next to her when she falls asleep. I know, Ferber Method, etc. etc. But I’m not sure I buy into the Ferber Method (also known as the cry-it-out method).

If my toddler is scared and alone, crying for me, I need to go to her. I need to hold and console her. Especially as I am there when she cries out at night. I’ve heard her fear.

Seriously. Until you’ve heard your toddler scream in terror in the night, begging some invisible something to “STOP”, it’s hard to understand. The night terrors are awful, and she is hard to wake up from them even if we want to wake her. She’s not in REM, so she doesn’t awaken easily. And when we do wake her, she’s shaking but doesn’t remember what happened.

Maybe I’m spoiling her, or maybe I’m showing her when she needs me, I’ll be there for her. Even if I didn’t hold and comfort her, I wouldn’t be able to sleep hearing her cries anyway. Better to follow heart and gut on this.

gut

But it does explain why I’m not sleeping. Why I’m a little crabbier. And why I’m burning out.

At this point, I have no idea how to make it better. I’m rolling with the phrase I heard somewhere about raising kids, “This, too, shall pass.”

I hope it does. She deserves a good night’s sleep, and so do I.

How about you? Anyone in your family ever have night terrors? How did you deal with them? Did they ever go away? If so, when did they go away?

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