Letting the cat out...

Of the proverbial bag.

I run across a good bit of blog posts that say something like "sorry I haven't written in a while, but," yada yada, life happens. Like a news cast or headlines about their lives. It makes me wonder why we are afraid to let people into our hardships and, instead, use writing as a means to work through our problems. Are we afraid people just don't want to read that our lives aren't perfect? Or embarrassed that we are human enough to have personal dilemmas and might actually need help? I don't know. 

I've always been an editorial writer myself. The in your face, someone should care about this, passionate, nitty gritty writing. Yes, the news updates and headlines are not for me. So, right now, what I'd like to do is get off topic and express what I am struggling with at this milestone in my life if you will humor me. 

Some of you may know that last October we suffered a miscarriage after attempting to add a third addition to our family. Well, my due date for that pregnancy is coming up next week along with the first mother's day since the miscarriage and I am having a hard time with that.

Also, many of you probably don't know that we suffered a second miscarriage in March. We didn't tell anyone we were expecting except for family, but as the days pass and I become more and more plagued by my dysfunctional body I realize it is time to reach out. 

I have learned that people's reactions to miscarriages are interesting, for lack of a better word. People sympathize with you for a little while and then after a certain period of time- a month or so- everyone pretends nothing happened. Things are expected to go back to normal and the topic becomes hush hush. If you have more than one miscarriage people's sympathy changes to speculation ("I wonder what's wrong with you?") but then continues in the same cycle. In fact my husband's root canal a few months ago had about the same sympathetic impact. 

I am here to tell you, after a miscarriage your life is never the same. Nothing goes back to normal. In fact, you have to find a new normal and all you really want to do is talk your heart out about it every chance you get and just have someone listen to you, hug you and ask if there is anything you need every once in a while.

After your life changes forever your body decides it wants to go haywire and does weird things. I know a man who lost a daughter shortly after birth while they were still all in the hospital. Shortly after going home with no baby the mother developed something called "heavy arm syndrome," where her arms ached and the only way the pain would go away is if she carried something in her arms that weighed somewhere between 7 to 10 pounds. The mother didn't put down their cat down for a year. A whole year. Not just one month. Your body gets all confused because it thinks you've given birth and you should have a baby to care for, but you don't.

You might say, well that's different. She carried her baby to term. Gave birth to her baby and got to see her baby before the baby died, but let me ask you this: Look at your children and tell me at what point in any of your child(ren)'s life would you have been willing to let them die? Ten weeks pregnant? Forty weeks pregnant? How about 10 days old? No? A death of a child is the same regardless of the age or gestation period for the mother. Fathers don't make a connection until they hold their child. 

So, unfortunately I've had to go through all the emotional, physical and hormonal changes a new mother would experience twice without the encouragement of a new baby to keep me going. Depressed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel on my worse days. 

To make matters worse my healthcare provider has me dangling in limbo as she consults with another healthcare provider  about what they should do with me. I am their science experiment. 

Meanwhile, I'm at home miserable dealing with constant headaches and popping up to 3 Goody's powders a day (that is the equivalent of 6 Excedrin migrane pills), putting up with acne of a preteen, along with my new body of a preteen, and hormonal mood swings of a menopausal woman. I can't sleep and when I do get to sleep I have a hard time waking up. I have weird rashes that won't heal, I have no appetite, no desire to have fun with my kids and I dread everyday. I have no energy to do anything around my house and haven't cooked anything in days. All of these things are due to a hormonal imbalance that started before I had the miscarriages, what caused the miscarriages, what has intensified after the miscarriages and what is causing all of my discomfort everyday. The worst part is that no matter what I do or how I try to put a positive spin on it, I can't fight my hormones. They make you feel and behave a certain way without your consent and there is nothing you can do about it. So I am stuck like this. 

Now I'm not writing about all this because I want a pity party or want people to boo hoo over me. I'm writing this to raise awareness that sorrow and hardships for the mothers suffering from miscarriages goes way beyond the initial pain of loosing a child. There are all the things I've discussed previously and then there are the anniversaries that roll around every year. 

That same woman with the heavy arm syndrome felt the need to celebrate her deceased child's birthday every year for over 10 years. Every time there is a graduation or a wedding of one of your children, or even someone else's, there is that bittersweet feeling that you will not get to experience that with the child you lost. Every holiday you think about what it would be like if that child were there. Even the birth of your grandchildren invokes the thoughts that you will never get to see the birth of grandchildren from that child. 

Not only that but many parents don't ever experience closure because they don't get to bury or cremate their baby. Then there are unnecessary D&C's 

(dilation and curettage) which create more stress on a woman's body and then she has to deal with the trauma of having her child scraped from inside of her and leaving the hospital violated and empty handed.

So you see, the need for more support and encouragement and compassion for parents who have miscarried children is needed leaps and bounds compare to what is actually given. We are faced with the fact that everyday something is missing from our lives. Yes, of course, if you are a Christian, you have that hope of seeing your child in heaven and that gets you through some days. But there is that constant pressure from society to pack up your emotional baggage and move on with your life when you really should be doing the exact opposite. That pressure of course gets stuffed down inside and it either makes you sick or you explode.

So please if you know someone who has gone through a miscarriage or a still birth and you know they haven't had the best support or compassion just go give them a hug and tell them you had no idea what they were going through but you are here for them now and 20 years from now if they need it. Then wait for them to talk. It is hard to talk about, but when they are ready block some time off just for that. Then every once in awhile just randomly send a little "thinking of you" gift. Have your kids make them a card. Get a white rose for special anniversaries. Get a trinket engraved. Get her a gift certificate for some pampering. On Mother's Day get her out of the house just to sit over coffee or tea. Cook her a meal and drop it off at her house. Just anything to let them know you are still there and you still care. You don't need to say anything. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words. In fact less talking on your end is better. Never say "well it was God's will." That may be true, but people don't say that at funerals and you shouldn't say it to them. All you need to say is "I'm so sorry. Is there anything at all you might need? How are you feeling (emotionally)?" That's it. 

At some point they will be okay and not want to talk about it anymore, especially if they get pregnant again. Which is a very scary time where talking about miscarriages is the last thing they want on their minds. Let them guide how much they want to discuss it but always let them know you are there.

 

Also, please feel free to repost this, pin it, share it, tweet it, email it or whatever form of communication you use to get the awareness out there that we need more support and society needs to start looking at us differently. Our children died for God's sake, we didn't just have a tooth pulled. 

It will be worth it all

I wish I could say today went as smoothly as Monday, but it was the exact opposite. In fact today's lessons ended in tears. Mine mostly, but it made me wonder why there has to be days like this?

It does seem like when we have a really good day the next day is difficult. Nothing changes except the activity I try to present but they seem to burn out easily. Then that leaves me feeling like what I do for them is worthless. All the work I put in just seems to go unnoticed and unappreciated. That's motherhood though. We give our all and sacrifice so much and try to do all we can to provide opportunities for them and it often goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

So what do you do when you have days like this? Well I lock myself in my room and have a hissy fit and cry for a little while and then come out and apologize to my kids for my behavior and remind them I love them no matter what. After that I just keep going. I do what I have to do one step after another and hope that tomorrow will be better. I also remind myself that it all is worth it. Things might not go well on a particular day but it does matter and it does sink in and make a difference in their lives whether I see it immediately (like Monday) or whether I see it a year from now.

Also, I remind myself that in my faith as a Christian, nothing goes unnoticed by God, and he will take care of everything if I trust in him.

So I just want to say to all parents, Montessorians or not, what you do matters and it is all worth the effort you put in!

Back in the game

I have noticed whenever we take a break or miss a few days in a row from lessons the girls come back with a hunger to work. Today was no exception.

The stars of today's lesson were supposed to be geometric solids and matching but we got other unexpected things accomplished as well.

Here is Delores doing a little mirror cleaning after she noticed touching the mirror left handprints preventing her from seeing her new hair accessories.



Then Lydia noticed the container of poms behind the couch in my boxes of supplies and begged to do something with them. I set out a dip tray and gave them the container and they just went at it.



When we finally got around to doing activities on the shelf Lydia did her matching objects (socks) to pictures and did great. It was her first time matching to pictures but she had no problem picking right up on it.


Then she wanted to put on the socks. It was the first time she put on a sock all by her self! She has been struggling with this for months, but today she got it. I got all excited of course and she looked at me like "what mom? Geez." Very humble and funny girl.

She moved on to her open and close boxes and actually got the lids on this time.



Delores worked on her favorite activity, the large button frame. She worked on Lydia's matching activity, the beginning sounds "F," activity, Lydia's early counting tray and then moved on to the geometric solids.

Now, I have a love-hate relationship with the geometric solids. I love the concept; learning the names of 3D shapes by feel, by name, and helping the child develop the ability to see the shapes in their world. But, those shapes have hard, long names and it is not easy for my girls to learn them. After many months of trying to teach them both either two or three at a time with a three period lesson neither one of them could recall any of the names. So I gave up for about a month. Now I've redirected my attention from the names to just matching. Wooden shapes to real life objects, shapes to pictures of the shapes, shapes to pictures of real life objects, just any kind of matching to get their minds to at least recognize the shapes in their everyday environment. I know one day it will click, but for now I'm not going to stress out about it because then they become stressed and loose their passion for trying.



Guess what? She actually remembered the ovoid, the rectangular prism and the triangular prism. I still didn't try to teach her the rest of the names, but it goes to show, not rushing the child and trusting your instincts really work.

And just a couple of funny moments:

Working on a letter "F," worksheet.


Peeling wrappers off crayons. Her absolute favorite thing to do.

So we are back in the routine and now that we have gotten started again the bug is back and my itch and passion to teach and guide and plan and craft together activities and lessons is back in full swing. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Guess the lesson-rounding up cattle

We are not doing formal lessons this week for reasons you can find in my post May Calendar. However, as any Montessorian may know, you can't turn off inspiration or stop seeing opportunities to introduce a lesson. So, from a recent trip to Wilson's 5 & dime I picked up this little cow bell (among other things). Any ideas as to what I'm using it for now?

Well, I have to admit that I am a bit of a yeller at my house. Not the angry kind of yelling but the "hey leave your sister alone," "time for dinner," "don't make me come back there," kind of yelling. Usually while I'm cooking dinner and can't leave what is on the stove. This is not montessori style at all and I admit it is my downfall so don't start doing this if you are trying to start montessori methods at your home.

Anyway, all that yelling is hard on my throat and my voice and, since I sing in our choir at church, it is not helpful that I do this to myself. So the cow bell is to round up my cattle (my girls).

After I got it home I explained to each of them that I will ring the bell and when they hear it they have to stop whatever they are doing and come straight to me. This way there is no yelling and they are face to face with me so I can tell them what I need.

Then we played a game. They went in another room, I rang the bell, they came running. They got high fives for following directions and they thought it was great. Then I hid in areas throughout the house and they had to find me by sound alone. After that they got to ring the bell and send me running. We had a good time.

This may not seem like much of a Montessori lesson, but when you think about what is involved it really is a sensorial lesson because they are developing and refining their auditory sense by listening for a sound, responding to a sound and following a sound.

Don't you just love how you can turn almost anything into a lesson?

Weekly highlights--4/27

From my previous post you can probably guess that none of us really wanted to do lessons this week. Especially since I watched the other two babies Monday. That just kind of threw our whole week off. But we did manage to get a little done this week.

Monday Delores hopped up at the counter and said "can I do lessons?" Like I'm really going to deny her the opportunity to do lessons on her own. I had placed the miniature knobbed cylinders and our language boxes on the counter to prevent baby fingers from losing and/or tearing up the materials in this picture.


And here's some practical life experience as she spreads butter on bread.


Tuesday, I lost my voice. All I could get out was a whisper. This made it very interesting. I didn't want to try to round up the girls for lessons in the living room so I just took the lessons to them. It actually worked out okay that I couldn't speak. I find myself talking too much when I'm trying to present something anyway so this made it very easy to just say what I need to and that was that. They also had to listen very carefully and pay very close attention to catch what I was saying. Almost a win-win situation, except that it was extremely aggravating. But I got to experience what it is like for mute people for 2 days.

Open and closing boxes from Hobby Lobby intended for Lydia.


Our "F," beginning sounds basket and alphabet puzzle by Melissa & Doug. Each time they learn a new sound they get another puzzle piece and slowly fill it up. It gets them excited every time they get to put a new piece in the puzzle and they revisit the sounds they have already learned.

Wednesday I decided we were all too sick to have our Freeday and go anywhere so we had a short lesson period.

Trying out our new sound bottles. I'm not 100% happy with them though so I'll do a separate post on those when I've modified them a bit.



Working on "F," worksheets.

They were more interested by the new porch being built on our neighbor's house than doing lessons though.


Thursday, was a repeat of Wednesday.



Except that we found a dead baby bird outside and we spent a lot of time discussing and mourning and looking at the poor bird.



Today I needed to get out of the house so I took the girls to the library for story time and we've just been taking it easy. That's really all there was to this week.

May calendar

Along with fighting off sickness this week I have been getting my May calendar together. At the end of each month I sit down and plan out lessons for each girl for the whole next month. This really just gives me an outline of what I would like them to accomplish for the month but it changes every week once we get started.

Now you probably have noticed that there is still a few days still remaining in this month, but I only plan for the first full 4 weeks of the month. If the month goes over by a half a week or it is a 5 week month I take that week as a break week. No lessons, just fun.

So here is what our May calendars look like.

(If you are viewing the mobile version of this scroll all the way to the bottom and hit "View web version," to see images more clearly. However, my favorite blog list goes right through the enormous picture. Geez-a-Lou! Blogging solely on a mobile device sure is more difficult than it ought to be)





I could have made 1 calendar for each child but then I would have to be jumping back and forth between 2 documents each day as I made notes about how they did with their lessons. So it just seemed easier to put both of their activities on a calendar for 2 weeks at a time.

At the end of May I'll post our completed calendars and see how much they've changed.

If you have any questions or comments at all feel free to ask. I'll be happy to oblige.

No rest for the weary

In my last post I mentioned that Lydia was a little under the weather, well she so kindly shared that sickness with me. Last Friday night I started feeling puny and it progressed into full blown just plain sick. But, hey, it comes with the territory, right? I'm pretty sure it was in my job description when I left work to be a stay at home mommy.

"Mother of the household will be expected to share sick germs and contract same illness as children as well as take care of the sick children and carry on with normal daily duties. She shall obtain the illness in any of the following ways:
1. From the shirt she is wearing that was previously used as a tissue.
2. From sharing silverware with children while eating because it is more efficient not to get an additional set.
3. By kissing children because mother shall not reject any said kisses.
4. From wiping runny noses and not immediately washing her hands because she will remain too busy to do so.
5. From children placing their unwashed fingers into her mouth without notice.
6. Any other way necessary that has not been previously listed.

Mother is also expected not to pass germs to father of children because father shall not contract illnesses--ever."

The plus side? Rare cuddle moments.