I started my period when I was 11 years old. I remember going to the nurses office at school that day because my lower back hurt so badly. It felt like nothing I had ever felt before, but was a feeling I would become quite familiar with. Imagine there being a bowling ball inside your body, resting on your tail bone. It causes pressure just sitting there. That was a good day. The bad days were when that bowling ball was being ground into my back - from the inside trying to find a way out. Later, when laboring with Lily, that same feeling was there. Lily was upside down and her head was resting on my tailbone. The contractions that drove it deeper into the bone were killers. So all those years of imagining my inner bowling ball were not that far off! In those first few years of cycling I would often seek out the hardest surface I could find and just lay on it, trying to flatten my back into it. Our living room floor usual...
Parenting brings obstacles and challenges like none that we've ever dealt with before. My first was when my son was born. He was the most difficult baby I'd ever come across, and I got to be with him all the time . I remember how defeated and discouraged I was, and how I thought to myself, "I can't do this. I can't parent this child, make him happy, stay sane. I don't even want to". I didn't know how I was going to get through his infancy and this obstacle felt like the greatest obstacle of my life. We got through it, I got through it. Time passed and allowed me to forget the depth of the struggle so that when the next challenge arose, that one felt like a new biggest and worst. The new challenge was now the thing that was going to end all civilized thought in my head. Again, we got through. Time and again, challenges, the biggest and worst, have arisen. Each time I have thought, "How? What am I supposed to do with this...
Tonight the kids and I were walking home from work (mine, not theirs) just as a piano class was letting out. A cute little Japanese kid - probably about 10 - saw the kids and I and turned and ran back inside shouting. A moment later he reappeared with a friend, to show us off. It was pretty comical! It’s those moments that I laugh on one hand feel so grateful on the other. I feel so thankful that Lil and Jax are growing up rounded, being exposed to so many different versions and variations of life. Speaking of variations...here are a few of the differences we are experiencing here: Uniforms - I’ve posted pics of the kids in the uniforms, but that was just the beginning. Since then we have had to buy their school hats (2 for each, one bright yellow for to and from school, another, red, for outside at school), school umbrellas (bright yellow), school shoes (2 pair, one for inside and one for out) and PE uniforms. In the grand scheme of things it is easier, as in, no arguing o...
Am enjoying your blog :-) Am hoping to come visit with Leslie before your contract is finished.
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