One and Done. Not by Choice.

I recently joined a one and done not by choice Facebook group and quickly realized how so many in there were still in the fresh pain phase. My heart broke reading their raw posts about how they were struggling to accept they would not have another child. So I decided to share my story. Many were thankful and said sweet things. A few couldn’t see past their pain to see mine and their comments reflected that. We are all on our own journey to acceptance. I decided to share with you what I wrote and hope this opens you to see that when you see families not to judge or ask why. It is our journey and story and we have the right to feel and decide what is best for ourselves.

My one and only was conceived naturally after almost 6 years of unexplained infertility. I suffered Post-Partum Depression. I am almost 39 years old and all of our parents are dead except for my husbands mom. Not a lot of family support. So we are one and done.

You can choose to focus on the negatives or look at the positives and celebrate what you do have. I remember spending entire nights in trying to conceive forums and every month obsessing over every twitch to convince myself I was pregnant that month. Don’t bring those feelings to your current life. You did it! You are a mom! There are so many in the TTC community who just want what we have – remember that! It is human to feel anger, or jealousy or sadness. You can control however how you react to those feelings. Focus on the good in your life.

For me I have decided to embrace the freedom that having only one gives us. We can afford vacations every year. We can afford to give him a college education. I can give my son all the attention. I have a partner that loves our son and plays with him and allows me to work a side job that fulfills me. There are a lot of positives to having one. As I touched in above I have also buried both parents. I could drown in grief and anger or use my experiences to strengthen me and make the most of the life I have.

Society and social norms make us like to think that a “multiple family unit” is still the normal. But it isn’t. Take a look around you and you will see families of every number, and you see non-traditional families and blended families more and more every day. I used to think that no one could understand my grief. That I was the only 34 year old out there who had buried a parent and couldn’t get pregnant. But the truth was I was only allowing myself to see what I wanted to see. Don’t let people own your emotions. You do you.

Below is a picture of my “family”. It is perfect and it is mine.

The Holiday Breakdown

I cried in the Dunkin Donuts drive thru line this morning.

It started innocent enough. A image of my dad holding his coffee mug while shuffling to his home office and my mom yelling at Cindy and I to run to the car as we will be late AGAIN for school ran through my mind as I waited for my coffee and bagel breakfast.   But then I thought about Omi’s Christmas cookies, and how dad would hoard his cookie tin from all of us because he loved to drink his coffee while eating them. And how on Christmas Eve mom would make us take naps so “Santa” would come and when we woke up we would open presents before heading to church that evening. Santa always came on Christmas Eve at our household. Maybe because we had to drive two hours on Christmas Day to see dad’s relatives. Santa was on a timeline you know.

I miss them. My parents. My sister and I were talking over Thanksgiving how memories are growing thin, especially with dad. 18 years now since he died. He would have loved Bryce. Bryce loves trains just like he did. They would have bonded over that.   The funny thing though is the year before his death was hard. We were not close as a family. Mom and dad had just moved us from South Jersey to North Jersey and the transition didn’t go well. Mom would spend all day in the bedroom depressed and dad would sit at night alone in the basement playing his old vinyls. And the fights. So intense between them. And then all of a sudden he died. Less than a year after we moved. Just like that. No nice ending, no goodbyes. No I am sorry and I love you please don’t leave me. It was bad and then it was over. And mom fell apart. Her depression, along with her injuries from the car accident left her unable to care for us emotionally. She never recovered. And with it our relationship with her never recovered. When she died in 2015 Cindy and I were only talking to her sporadically. When I got the call from the hospital at 1:00 AM saying she had passed I remember screaming in my head “NO! I never was able to fix us! It cannot end like this!” But it did. It ended messy, with no kodak moment goodbye like I had envisioned for us.

But oh do I miss them. Because before it was bad it was oh so good. My sister and I had a great childhood. Mom and dad loved us and provided for us. We lived in our little bubble in South Jersey where we had a pool and a dog and during the summers we would swim all day and play too many video games. And along with our other relatives, holidays, birthdays and vacations were amazing. We had fun as a family. So that is what I choose to remember. The good.

As Bryce gets older I am starting to incorporate family traditions from my childhood. This year we are doing one of those chocolate advent calendars with him. Last night while opening the little door and extracting the chocolate prize I clearly remember doing that with my sister and mom. I love that I am passing it down. Because in the end those family traditions are what you will remember when you start crying in the Dunkin Donuts drive thru at 7:30 AM on a Thursday.

Life is messy. We all will have regrets when it comes to our family and life choices. But you can’t let it consume you. I encourage all of you out there who are challenged by the holidays to just embrace the good. Hold on to those good memories. And create new ones where you can.

 

Toddler Antics

Kids make you insane.

Not necessarily in that gibbering, banging-your-head-against-the-walls, strait-jacket kind of insane (well, maybe in small doses), but in the way that it warps the way you look at the world. The world a parent lives in is not the same world that a normal human lives in. We see things that are invisible to most people. We do things that make normal people scratch their heads in wonder. Our heads are constantly filled with bizarre fuzzy maths that would make the physics department at MIT weep. We tie ourselves in knots to make the world livable for ourselves and the future humans we are tasked with raising to adulthood.

Here are just a few of the strange behaviors that have become totally commonplace for my husband and myself since having a “tiny human.”

1. Normal people can drink out of cups, but we can’t. If we have a glass of some beverage, and we leave that beverage unattended for even fifteen seconds, then that beverage will end up spilled on the couch, the carpet, or possibly the ceiling. The fact that we have a cat plays in here, too, because our cat cannot abide an upright glass. So instead we drink out of bottles with lids, all the time, until the kid is asleep and the cat is preoccupied with grooming itself for the 10th time.
2. Normal people lock the bathroom door, but we don’t. I don’t even close the door all the way; I just rest it lightly against the frame. For some reason, the kid never wants my attention so much as when I’m trying to do my business.  And here comes that mental math I mentioned: I can lock the door (which will keep him out) or simply close it,  but then I have to suffer the slings and arrows of a tireless banging on the door to the chorus of “MAMA!? MAMA!?” Or, I can give him easy access, and put up with the lesser indignity of relieving myself in front of the tiny human while listening to him prattle on. (Generally, the prattle wins out over the banging on the door.)
3. Normal people can drive and listen to a song of their choosing, but we can’t. As soon as we put the car in reverse it starts.  “oh oh” song.  Or “Disney” music.  If I don’t play it I deal with the endless whining.  And when I do play it I have the battle of getting my sweet child to not ask to have the song repeated a gazillion times.  EACH song that comes on the tiny human wants to hear again. And again. Such fun.
4. Normal people check the thermostat maybe once or twice a day, but I have to check it more often. This makes me crazy, because the thermostat is not a thing that changes on its own, and I feel like an insane person looking at it as often as I do. But little kids love pushing buttons, both the metaphorical and the literal. Seriously, he had somehow managed to turn on the heat while it was 95 degrees out the other day. Luckily, I caught it before the house or any of us combusted from the heat. Because I check the thermostat more often than your dad does. Every time I walk past the thing, I check it.
5. Normal people know what “no” means, but we don’t. The word “no” means nothing in our house. For two reasons. First of all, it obviously means nothing to our child. We both say it and say it, but the little human keeps asking or doing the thing that had us saying “no” in the first place, so we clearly haven’t taught the meaning of this simplest of words properly. Then, there’s that thing that happens, you know, where you say a word over and over and over in rapid succession and, like a soggy Cheerio, it just kind of disintegrates in your mind? Like the syllables and the letters come apart and the meaning just evaporates? Where do words come from, anyway? What’s a language, for that matter? How are we even able to communicate at all?

There are more, but I have to go check the thermostat.

When the Kid Goes Back to Daycare….

Me at 7 months pregnant

” of course I’ll come back to work after maternity leave, ill be going mad at home” 

Me at 3 months from birth of child on returning to work

“Back to work? but I’ll miss everything, first steps, words,  .. And after paying child care I’ll be earning Ramen Noodles.. so whats the point?” 

But, my personality requires me to need some adult conversation .. and not just from my husband. Plus I prefer our bank account to be positive not negative so off to work I went and off to daycare my son went.  It went OK for a while. But as I talked about in a previous post, I pulled him and he stayed home with grandma.  It was great and at the time was the best thing for him.

But he is getting older now and more active.  Preschool is less than a year away. And as an only child I want him to understand that there is a word called “share” and yes you have to….

So a month ago he started daycare again.  New place.  New people.  A highly regarded place that I had been trying for 8 months to get him into.  I knew there would be an adjustment but man, separation anxiety is real and really hard to deal with.  The crying….I had to force myself to walk away on drop off’s and I would get into my car and be on the verge of tears that I was messing my kid up for life.  And then in the evenings when we picked him up he would come running to us faster than a cheetah after their dinner and would clutch onto us for dear life less we got the idea to leave him there…..and again the mom guilt would chime in big time.

But this week it is finally starting to get better.  He is adjusting.  The place we have him at is great and he will learn so much there.  He is starting to like it and the teachers are telling us he is doing so well.

But man, this past month has been hard.  When you have a kid they should come with a warning sticker that says “Buckle up buttercup.  The ride has just started and there WILL be bumps in the road.  And vomit every once in a while. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Gluten Free Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

My son turned 2 years old last week. Everyone warns you the time goes fast and they are right.  I was looking at his baby pictures this past weekend and just couldn’t believe how much he has grown! Where did my baby go!?

Mom, I just want to touch the fire.  Please? Why are you blowing the fire out? I wanted to touch it! This was my son during the “birthday song”.

 

So this past weekend we threw a birthday party for him to celebrate. We made TWO cupcake recipes. Banana Cream Pie and Black Forest Cupcakes.  Here is the recipe for Gluten Free Banana Cream Pie.  Yummy and decadent, yet surprisingly easy since we used a boxed cake mix! (Betty Crocker to the rescue.  Awesome gluten free mixes). We finished this with homemade whipped cream frosting and chocolate “B” letters.

They turned out delicious! Try it and see for yourself!

Banana Cream Pie Gluten Free Cupcakes

Ingredients 

Cake:

• 1 – 15oz box of Betty Crocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• ¼ cup water
• 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) softened
• 2 teaspoons of gluten-free vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 2 small bananas  (3/4 cup diced or smashed)

Pudding:

• 1 cup milk
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ Tbsp butter

Frosting:

• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 packet (0.25 oz) plain gelatin
• 3 Tbsp cold water
• ¼-3/4 cup of powdered sugar – to taste
• ¼ -1 tsp of almond extract – to taste
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Prepare muffin baking pan with liners.
3. Cream butter until smooth with electric mixer.
4. Add eggs one at a time and mix.
5. Add vanilla extract, bananas, sour cream, and water.  Mix to combine.
6. Add Gluten Free Cake Mix to the wet batter and blend with electric mixer until combined.
7. Pour batter into liners (about ¾ full)
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean
9. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack

Pudding:

1. In a small saucepan, heat milk.
2. Add sugar and cornstarch whisking vigorously until combined and smooth.
3. Continue to whisk until mixture becomes thick.
4. Add butter and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
5. Allow to cool.

Frosting:

1. Place water in small pot and sprinkle with gelatin. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes.  Whisk the gelatin and water in the pot and heat on low whisking until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from heat.
2. In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk the whipping cream on medium high speed until in starts to thicken.
3. Add powdered sugar, vanilla, and almond extract.  Whisk and taste.  Some people like their frostings sweet and others less sweet.  I provided a rough range for the powdered sugar and almond to allow you to tweak the recipe to your liking.
4. Continue to whisk at medium high speed until the cream begins to get fluffy.
5. Slowly add gelatin while whisking until incorporated.

Preparation:

1. Cut a small hole out of the middle of the cupcake.  Save the top of the cut out.
2. Spoon about 1 Tbsp of filling into each cupcake and replace top.
3. Finish with frosting.

Notes:

• Ripe bananas provide much better flavor.
• The gelatin allows the cupcake frosting to set up and stiffen.  This is a great trick for keeping your whipped cream frostings looking perfect.
• Refrigerating the cupcakes will allow the frosting to slightly stiffen and allow the frosting to look and behave a little like a buttercream frosting.

 

Mother’s Day Highs and Lows

Prior to having Bryce this was one of the most depressing days of the year for me. I so badly wanted a child and it just wasn’t happening. I feel for all the women out there that hate Mother’s Day because I once was one of them.  But now I am a mom.  And I embrace Mother’s Day.  Last year, for my first Mother’s Day, I was so tired from lack of sleep that I don’t really remember anything.  Hopefully I showered? Maybe ate a hot meal? So this year Bryce made up for it by not only sleeping through the night, but sleeping for 14 hours straight, which is unheard of for him!  So that was my Mother’s Day gift.  It was wonderful and I have told him he can repeat that gift anytime he wants.  Lol.

The day was not without grief though. It was my first Mother’s Day without a mom. It will be a year in July since she died.  I miss her. Her death has been more complicated for me to handle this past year since we had such a strained relationship at the end.  Her addiction and health issues made it that I did not have a healthy relationship with her.  We would go weeks without talking.  We lived states away from each other.  So yesterday I mourned.  I thought of mom and tried to remember the good times, before disease and addiction took over.  I thought about what I would have said to her yesterday on the phone and how I would have told her how Bryce can now say thank you and I would have told her that he loves to jump in puddles and play with water hoses and sprinklers.  That having him has turned on a light inside me that is helping to heal the darkness.

She loved him. When I told her I was pregnant she was so so happy for me.  When he was born and she couldn’t come to visit me she broke down in tears on the phone.  We both knew she would never be able to visit.  That she would never be able to do the “mom” things one does for their daughter who has just given birth.  I told her it was OK, that we would visit that fall or Christmas.  It was the last time I had a real heart to heart conversation with her.  We did go up at Christmas, which ended up being the last time I saw her before she died.  I am so thankful she got to meet Bryce.  She died 6 months later.

As I embark on this motherhood journey I hope to be the best mom I can for Bryce. That he will know how much I love him and how very much I want him to live his dreams.  Even with all the issues I had with my mom, she equipped me with what I need to make it in this life which is grit and determination.   It is because of her that I plow on and believe that I can actually do anything I want to.

Thank you mom. I miss you so very much.

The mom I remember. She was so beautiful and the life of every party.

 

 

Meeting Bryce at Christmas

All things in moderation…..

So last year I got in on the essential oil bandwagon. I love them.  I really do.  I now have things in my home like all natural laundry detergent and natural hand soap that have essential oils in it.  I have roller balls of essential oil blends that I wear as perfume or for help with everyday aches and pains. I have an awesome homemade muscle rub cream that I swear melts away my neck tension every night.  But I am also living modern life.  I am a working mom who eats things like Orange Chicken (so delicious) from Panda Express for lunch.  I let my son do things like drink water from the garden hose or eat day old cheerios off the floor.  I also still have a medicine cabinet filled with things like Tylenol and Claritin because you just never know when you will need them.

When I decided to start this website last summer it was to be an outlet for me to write about my new role as a mom and explore this new world of essential oils I was excited about. It was also a creative outlet for me as I grieved the sudden loss of my mom last summer.  And over the past year I have been feeling more comfortable in everything. My son is going to be two in a few weeks and I still love my essential oils.  I also can think about my mom now without dissolving into a pile of grief.  It has been a good year.

But….

There are so many fanatics out there on both the essential oil AND motherhood front.   Sometimes I want to shout, “REALLY?  You really did power yoga, cooked an organic breakfast AND magically healed your sick child from one application of essential oils all before 9 AM?”

The reality of life is that sometimes you feel like super mom and other days you just survive till the kids go to bed. Essential oils have supported my family in an amazing way this year and I love them.  But I also will still take my child to the doctor if he gets really sick.

It is called moderation people. In the end, we are all just trying to make the best decisions for our family while trying to fulfill our dreams and ambitions at the same time.

Now excuse me as I get my 3rd cup of coffee for the day.  It is Friday after all and I am running on fumes at this point.  Moderation in the caffeine department can start tomorrow…

Chopsticks and Toddlers

So last night we went out to dinner with some friends. Bryce was extra fidgety.  He wouldn’t sit in the highchair, wouldn’t sit in the booster, nor would he sit on our laps.  Thankfully we had a booth and he happily sat between us for the meal.  But not while sitting still.  Up and down, to and fro he went.  I tried everything to distract him.  Ipad? No.  Toys?  No.  Knife?  Yes. Wait, knife?!  Grab that from him! Ugh…

Finally I spied chopsticks sitting on the table and gave them to him. That worked.  For one minute. Until he decided to throw them at the older couple behind us.  Mortified, I apologized.  The guy, apparently a grandfather or at least a kid lover, came over to our table and gave Bryce his chopsticks back.  He bent over to his level, and smiled big for Bryce while saying hi little man.  Bryce, being the ham he is, loved the attention and started clapping and laughing, bringing even more attention our way. Soon three tables around us were clapping along with Bryce!  The rest of the meal Bryce happily clutched the chopsticks and never threw them again.

As a parent I will admit I do not keep calm during the storm. I am the parent that worries what others think, feel like I never can keep my kid behaved, and am anxious as soon as we leave the house.

Last night reminded me that most people at one point were in our shoes. That maybe, instead of seeing an out of control rambunctious toddler, they see a sweet almost 2 year old enjoying his time out with his parents and finding everything about the experience thrilling, including chopsticks being flung and then returned by a sweet couple.

This stage of life….it’s hard.  But it also has the most rewards.  Lesson learned.  At least until the next outing….

 

When Toddler Angst Strikes

Am I the only parent with a toddler who goes crazy when a parent is out of town on business? Brian has been gone since Monday and Bryce is progressively getting worse each day. He is fussier, clingier and not sleeping well at night. Last night he started screaming in his crib and would only fall back asleep when I put him in bed with me.  The weird part is when Brian facetime’s us Bryce refuses to talk to him! He sees it is daddy and walks away.  Like he is mad that daddy is not here so is giving him a hard time.

Brian comes home late tonight so hope Bryce will be back to his normal self soon. This morning he woke up at 5:00 AM and just wouldn’t settle back down.  So I will be drinking copious amounts of coffee today and just hope to get through.  I am grateful that it is at least Friday!

Here are photos of us from earlier in the week. His toothy grin is just precious.

The Language of Parents

Here are examples of things I say to other parents and then what I actually mean. The best part is that most people understand that I am talking about the long version without me actually saying it.  Anyone relate out there?

What I say: I’m trying to potty train my kid but we are not there yet.

What I mean: My son pooped in the shower the other week and recently peed on my freshly cleaned carpet.  He thinks an actual toilet should be where his toys are stored and has completely disassembled his “practice” potty. I am fine with using diapers.  What size do they go up to again?

What I say:  I am sorry I can’t go there today, my kid might fall asleep in the car on the way back.

What I mean: If my kid falls asleep for even 5 blocks on the way back, we will get home and I will be exhausted from whatever outing we just had but he will want to run around the neighborhood, and I will turn into crazy mommy.

What I say:  I’m sorry I can’t go out tonight. It’s been a long day with the kid. He got up at 5AM

What I mean: At 5AM I was woken up in a way that is inhuman. My son was screaming for us in his crib and wanted up. I then proceeded to attempt to make breakfast while son is running circles around me and the cat is going nuts because I haven’t given her food.  Breakfast ends up taking 30 minutes of rushing around grabbing food and drinks and cleaning up the ones that spilled and I didn’t get to even drink a cup of coffee. When I head out the door for work, I will have felt as if I worked a full 8 hour day and feel relieved that I get to go to my job which, to me, seems like a break since I can use the restroom at some point with no one screaming at me. After I get home, make dinner, do something that looks like a cross between eating and waiting tables, clean the house, bath the kid, brush his teeth, put PJ’s on him, read stories and wrangle him into bed, I then start the laundry and see it is already 9PM.  I’m now so tired my eye balls are stuck looking at the wall so I technically I cannot make it to my car and safely drive.  Have fun without me.

What I say: I have decided to “free range parent” with sleep training

What I mean:  I am too exhausted at night to deal with his screaming so I do whatever  it takes to get him to sleep.  You want to sleep with mommy and daddy tonight? Fine.  Just try to keep your feet out of my face.  You need driven around the block because you decide you just don’t want to fall asleep any other way tonight? I’ll get the keys.  Rock you to sleep while you hoard all 10 of your blankets around you because you suddenly decide one blanket is just not good enough? Fine.  I am learning that as a parent getting them to sleep is more important then how it happens. Because once they are asleep for the night you finally can sleep!

What I Say: We are getting a date night this Saturday.  I’m so excited

What I mean: Besides a “to do” list and talk about the kid, my husband and I haven’t had a real conversation in weeks.  Nor have we been able to sit at the same table and eat a hot meal without getting up 10 times each.  We haven’t seen a movie in over a year and we most likely will stay out too late and have to pay the babysitter overtime. When we come home we will feel like we took a vacation since we actually got to leave the house and relax while doing it.