family | first fig

August 29, 2012

transitions

monster and valkyrie have had quite a bit of developmental testing done and they the major finding each time i that they have issues with transitions. well, they come by it honestly because I have major issues with transitions.

three years ago when I went from a full time working mother to a full time stay at home mother i fell into a horrible depression that lasted six months. after spending the summer as basically a working mother again, this past week where i have transitioned back into the primary caregiver has been rough.

my anxiety is sky high and i’m feeling the tendrils of depression wrap around my heart. i have been dealing with mental health issues long enough to know when i need help and i have this under as much control as i can. but still, i’m exhausted.

it was valkyrie’s first day of full time preschool so i’m hoping once we are all settled in our new schedule things will ease up.

i just have to keep telling myself one step at a time.

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August 27, 2012

red

today is monster’s first day of kindergarten. i’m not one for being overly sentimental but i didn’t want this day to go undocumented. being 5 and going to kindergarten is a huge milestone and i’m so proud of my boy for getting there.

We also painted our back door red this weekend–a beautiful, pinky cranberry–it makes me happy. I can’t get a good shot of it to save my life so you’ll just have to believe me when I say it was exactly what our house needed.

how was your weekend? do you have any kids back at school today?

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August 22, 2012

telling the whole story

over the summer mr. mraynes stayed at home with the children so that i could go to the office everyday and work on my thesis. this was brilliant and so, so appreciated but it has certainly made this week much more difficult.

i had forgotten just how hard it is, how you don’t even have 2 minutes of uninterrupted time to write a coherent sentence. mr. mraynes went back to work on monday and once again i took up the reigns of stay-at-home parent. it will really be for this week only, monster and valkyrie start full-time school next week and lionheart is relatively easy. but this week has been hard. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 17, 2012

scenes from vacation

we got home last evening and are still getting our feet under us. so while that happens I thought I would put up more pictures from the wedding/vacation.

we had a great time but it is so nice to be home! hopefully next week I’ll have some real posts but it’s the last week before school so we’ll have to see.

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August 15, 2012

vacation

we’ve been visitingYellowstone, Jackson Hole and Lava Hot Springs the last few days. it’s been fun but the internet has been spotty. i’ll be back with regular posts when we get back to Denver.

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August 10, 2012

live-blogging a road trip

we’re headed to my brother-in-law’s wedding today which means we’re on a road trip!

4:20 a.m. wake up. get ready and put final bags in the car.

4:35 a.m. wake up children. very grumpy and sleepy.

5:00 a.m. pull out of the garage.

5:30 a.m. stop by Krispy Kreme for a dozen hot, glazed donuts.

5:35 a.m. put in our book on cd. first book: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

5:45 a.m. on to I-75. turned the first dvd for the kids…teletubbies.

6:00 a.m. took pictures of the sunrise.

6:20 a.m. drove by Cheyenne, waved at my friend crazywomancreek.

6:30 a.m. changed the dvd to backyardigans.

7:20 a.m. kids are now watching the incredibles. only one tearful episode so far. not to bad.

7:58 a.m. happiness streak is over. valkyrie and lionheart are poking each other and screaming.

8:00 a.m. worst part of Wyoming?..hardly any cell service.

8:35 a.m. stopped for gas. saw bikers.

9:50 a.m. lionheart succumbs to sleep.

10:03 a.m. monster wakes up lionheart after laughing at the little einsteins.

10:20 a.m. in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian universe men are given a special power to make them equal to women and their childbearing power–a section of the book that mr. mraynes especially appreciated.

12:17 p.m. guess i fell asleep.

1:32 p.m. took a potty break. wait a second, you don’t have a driver’s license!

2:39 p.m. pulled into the Idaho Falls Hampton Inn. finally here. easiest road trip ever!

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August 10, 2012

i am grateful

1. a curious little boy who fills my day questions about how things are spelled and why they are.

2. a work ethic.

3. my in-laws who write each other silly notes and genuinely like to spend time together.

4. the olympics. enough said.

5. a washer/dryer. I was remembering as i did 5 loads of laundry today that before we bought our house I did all our laundry at a coin-op. that sucked.

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August 4, 2012

plate licking good

to celebrate the weekend our family makes waffles every saturday. lionheart loves saturdays.

how do you celebrate the weekend?

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August 2, 2012

obamacare and women’s health

i was very young when i got pregnant with monster, just 23 years old. we had been married for 6 months and during that time i saw my dreams of going to graduate school crash and burn. i was still in a state of shock when i got pregnant and that shock only increased when i found out that our insurance would not cover my pregnancy due to a logistical error we had made. even though we moved to a different state soon after i got pregnant and had different insurance my pregnancy was not covered because it was considered a pre-existing condition. mr. mraynes and i were just beginning our lives together and already we were looking down the barrel of a financially devastating medical bill.

i did some research and discovered a midwifery practice and birth center in Arizona that would cover all of my prenatal care and the delivery for just $2000. It was still a bitter pill to swallow but it was much preferable to the $15,000+ cost of a traditional pregnancy and birth. i will be forever grateful that we went this route as it allowed me to have the unmedicated birth that i wanted. nevertheless, there was one aspect of my care that made this dream of mine infinitely harder. they did not test me for gestational diabetes. i don’t know if their insurance paying clients got this service but i did not. i have a family history of diabetes, my mother is a type 1 diabetic and as such i had an increased risk. i should have been tested. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 1, 2012

i am grateful

i would say that by nature i am a pretty pessimistic person. i don’t believe this says anything about my character, just that my life circumstances and experiences have shown me that the world can often be a hard place. this doesn’t mean that i don’t try to see the positive, i believe that because i struggle with optimism i need to work extra hard to illuminate these things in my life. (just like i believe optimists need to work hard to see other people’s struggles and sorrows even if they have not personally experienced this.)

i was thinking about this last night after i made several pessimistic comments about valkyrie which mr. mraynes immediately counteracted with positive ones. it wasn’t that i was being unloving towards my daughter i just momentarily let my concerns for her future overshadow the wonderful little girl she is.

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