My Mexico

When we were camping and I woke up with no anxiety or depression. I thought "this is my mexico"
To understand that quote you have to watch the Fast and Furious Saga way too often.

In Tokyo Drift, which was the third to come out, Han talks about his Mexico. In case you get confused in the order, Tokyo Drift actually takes place after 4-7 in the Fast and the Furious universe.

Shawn Boswell: So, how did you end up over here, anyway? 
Han: Well, you know those old Westerns where the cowboys make a run for the border? This is my Mexico. 

 I never wanted to leave. But we were out of food... ha

In the movie their conversation continues and it ends like this.
Han: Look at all those people down there. They follow the rules, for what? They're letting fear lead them. 
Shawn Boswell: What happens if they don't? 
Han: Life's simple. You make choices and you don't look back. 

I follow a lot of rules in life, but only only only when I want to. I'm a snot like that. My sister in law once said to my brother and I, you two think you are above the rules. We laughed because its true we are above the rules.
But the point I wanted to reiterate, I whole hardly agree, "Life's simple. You make choices and you don't look back."

Cat's out of the Bag

In case you didn't use deductive reasoning, depression reared its ugly head. Again.

I spilled the beans to my friend the other day. A few of my friends planned an crafternoon and eventually it got moved to my house. Then the next thing I know everyone canceled but one person. Which is funny because I didn't even organize this one! Anyway, while me and one friend were talking we covered a whole range of topics. Side effects of mothering infants came up which of course lead to postpartum depression, she said but you feel better this year, right? I said, I'm not sure I do. I've been a mess since the beginning of August. She quietly said oh. She had no idea what to say. I don't blame her. Nothing is ever the right response whether its mental health or a more physical malady. But its the first time I've said anything in person to someone other than Brent. So it slightly surprised me.

After the time my third turned three, I started to feel some anxiety, I wasn't ready for him to be that old. Things just pilled up, and between a half birthday (18 mons), a birthday, potty training, back to school, back to school finances, some unexpected medical bills, extracurriculars, a new scout calling, that takes up an exorbitant amount of my time. I became extremely overwhelmed, and was barely functioning.
One day during naptime I saw on the couch in a comatose state of panic. I thought I need to just lay in my bed, who cares if I ever come out. But I couldn't, I had to get my son to Piano lessons. I thought once I do that I will go to bed for the rest of the day, who cares if I come out later. Then since I was waiting for piano lessons, I figured might as well cook the dinner on the schedule, so I did. Then I was ready to go to bed, but oh before that could happen my daughter had to finish her homework, before I could get in bed. I can't remember what all I had come up on my plate but I was very disappointed to not get in bed before it was time to go to sleep.
I just wanted to quit the world.

I was barely holding on to life when we went to Mount Rushmore on vacation. It probably would have never happened if Brent didn't make it possible. I did plan the sights we saw but he made it happened. Funny thing we were camping, but neither of us packed food.  Other than four boxes of instant oatmeal, I pulled those out of storage and so they thankfully made it some how. We take more food on the car trip to Grammy's house then we did on a four day camping trip. I'm a big believer of don't worry you can just buy it when you get there, except there was no there. The closest real grocery store to Mount Rushmore is 30 minutes away not an easy idea when you are camping with two toddlers. After Cheyenne, WY there was a total of three fast food restaurants, that in a span of 4 hours. There was one fast restaurant 10 minutes of the park. Who would have cared if it wasn't for the fact we forgot to pack food. Ha ha.

When we woke up the first morning, sitting out side the tent I felt calm. I couldn't remember the last time I felt calm. It was amazing. (This is actually the second morning, the third morning we were in Nebraska and covered in mosquito bites.)

I'm now taking a hormonal supplement, I started right before we left on vacation. The second week I took it, I took it 5 times a day, I yelled at my children if I didn't take it that much. I'm now down to 2-3 times a day, and today my husband surprisingly said, you're happy. Hopefully I remember to continue using it for a while, so we don't see anymore depressed Lesli posts. That would be lovely wouldn't it?

Finally

When life became unbearable, our kitchen counters became covered in papers. Utility bills, school forms, school flyers, school fundraisers, cub scouts, ropes to practice knots, medical bills, class pictures. No wonder I'm feeling overwhelmed. Anyway, today my goal was to clean it off. It took me 30 minutes but I did it!
It hasn't been clean since August. I'm realizing its a good thing I figured it out, because Brent can't figure out school stuff without my help and so if he would have tried while I was still depressed I probably would have yelled at him very angrily.

December Birthday Party

A week ago told my daughter my usual reply, we won't discuss her birthday until after Halloween. But then on Saturday she was so sad, I decided to give her a bone. We discussed her party.
Actually I have no problem discussing party details because the imagining the party is the only fun part of the process in my opinion. I refuse to come up with a guest list until after Halloween because children's friendships move as fast as the tides.
Me: I thought you'd like a Maleficent Party because you told (next door neighbor) Maleficent was your favorite movie.
Nat: No I want Skylanders
Me: I thought you'd like Maleficent because you told Grammy you wanted another princess castle cake?
Nat: No I want Skylanders.  And you can make a tomato cake and put Food Fight on top because he's my favorite.

Me: ok
Nat: But only R-boy likes Skylanders who else will I invite?
Me: What his name doesn't he like it?
Nat: L-girl? Oh yeah she plays with her brother's too
Me: B-boy he plays doesn't he?
Nat: Oh yeah.
I then added maybe A-girl, S-girl, D-girl would also be good. She said yeah.

Maiden Name

My husband wearing my maiden name once a week is almost as good as a feminist shirt. 

I didn't realized he was closing his eyes until I posted the picture.

A feminist right here

Remember how I said my husband and I have the goofiest conversations when we were going to bed.
A few weeks ago, we were talking about something... (too long to go into it).
After a while I said, if you want I can buy you a shirt like that.

It would make a great FB profile pic. If you were wearing a shirt that says, "This is what a Feminist looks like"
He said alright.
I said and while we are at it, I imagine how good your name would look with Hammond in the middle. (My maiden name.)
I told my husband, I will never be offended if you decide to take my last name too, especially on FB.

We giggled, in all reality, my husband is pretty feminist, mostly because it is very libertarian. He always supported me getting educated. He in fact brings up my future master's degree more than I do. He always told me if I decided to work he would support me. After reading an article about how men often don't support their wives getting raises because it makes them feel inferior if their wife makes more. He told me, you should go to Law School like you wanted to, I will always support you making more money than me. That would be awesome, whats wrong with all those men. They are losers.

But I keep laughing about this idea that he puts my last name in his profile, and gets that shirt. I told him how awesome it will be. But now it will never happen because he put this as his profile picture, and with a picture like this it will take him years to replace it.

I mostly laugh about it, because seriously why shouldn't he add my last name to his? 

Half a Day

I use to take some of my kids to a nurse practitioner at our local pediatrics office.
(We only have one local pediatrics office in town, and not all my kids saw the same doctor because I didn't really like any of the doctors. I don't know where the nurse practitioner went but she left the office. They cycle through doctors fairly fast for my four years living here.)

So this nurse practitioner, she was the one who saw my daughter a WEEK after she broke her arm. Yes it took us that long to figure it out, she was using it fine until day 6.
There were plenty of visits I felt embarrassed about the visit as a mother, like I should have done something better. She was always super sympathetic and never judged me.

I saw her a lot during the year I had a big baby and a newborn baby. She was the big baby's (my one year old's) primary physician, but not the newborn. I don't even know why, I don't even know if I made these decisions or the office did or if no one did and it just happened. Anyway when I had a one year old and a newborn, my one year old was sick A LOT. Her children were now teenagers or older, and her family spacing looked eerily like mine. She often reminded me what she would say when she had two small children, "what you can do in a half a day I can do in a half a week".

I think of her all the time, saying that phrase to me, because its true.

I often feel like people are shocked at how little I accomplish. 

Or maybe I'm shocked at how little I get done each day.

I guess people aren't shocked they just wonder why I'm so slow.

But don't you wish I had that hair style last year?

Minus the cornfield in the back this is truly my life every second of the day. Until I charge my older children to entertain their siblings while I cook. If I didn't have my older kids I'm not sure I would cook. My two little guys are entirely incapable of entertaining themselves. My older children as toddlers and even know did their thing and I do mine. Turns out I didn't really understand the plight of motherhood until recently.

I don't really cook for my children I cook for me. I cook so I have the energy to not accomplish anything. I cook protein a lot so I'm not dizzy, not tired, not lightheaded. I can't function without a lot of animal protein, anything you have read about nutrition warning you of the dangers of animal protein never studied my body type.

Curls

We went on vacation this weekend. To South Dakota-- Mount Rushmore and other nearby places. My husband took this picture of our youngest. His curls are amazing to his momma.

Oh. My.
I can just hear his little toddler squawks when I see this picture.
He's 19 months.

Awkward...

The other day a friend of mine asked, do you ever look at your kids and think you have the cutest kids in the world?

I emphatically answered yes! thinking she was saying, she looks at her kids and think that, so as a fellow mom do I also do that?

Turns out she meant she thinks I have the cutest kids in the world.

It was a little awkward to not modestly say yes, I think they are adorable, but doesn't every mom?

But to yell yes!

But come on, I can't blame her. Look at that face.

Its so funny, he gets complemented so much. That when another adult says the word cute whether its in reference to him or not, he looks up and smiles at them.

I think he might think "so cute" is a nickname, like his dad calls him peacock.

The Spouse Of

Sometimes I feel really awful for Brent.
Sometimes I wonder if he will ever be married to a long term happy wife.

Sure I'm not in the depths of depression like I was last year, but this year is turning out to be harder than I expected. I thought a few months after I weaned my baby my life would just pop back to where it was three years ago. Well here we are and now its been almost four years since I got pregnant with Mr. A and my health isn't where I want it to be. (I mean everything with my health not just my mental health.) Every time I get something crossed off the list something new shows up. Its getting old, its getting to the point that I've stopped saying, ok once such and such happens we'll be good.

It use to be maybe I should wean the baby maybe I'll feel better.
Once I wean the baby I'll be better.
Once its been two months so once my body is free of milk I'll be better.
Once its been three months, I'll be better.
The doctor says its going its going to take six months for the hormones to flush out. Ok, only two more left until he is 18 months old.
Once the kids go back to school, I'll feel better.
Here we are in September. I got pregnant in November of 2011.

I don't know if I'm accepting my new normal, or if I'm giving up. Hopefully the first.

Back to the first sentence, I sometimes I feel bad for Brent. Brent is the rock and I'm like a crazy piece of lint floating around. Maybe if we are going with nature, he is a rock and I'm a dandelion seed.

At the point I'm overwhelmed, so I feel like I've been depressed most of our marriage. (He does not feel like than thankfully!) But I had bad anxiety when we were in engaged, I dropped about 20 pounds in the six months before we got married, and if you know me I don't normally have 20 pounds to lose. When I was pregnant with our first I had pre-natal depression. I was on bed rest with our second baby, I had postpartum depression with our second baby. I had seasonal affective disorder for many winters on and off. In fact that was one of the reasons we choose to move to Colorado, because they have a sunny winter. The first winter we were here, my husband looked at me one day smiling, saying I've never seen you happy in the winter.

So lately I was feeling bad for him, that he married this trial. Then I remembered when we were engaged. About a month before we got married in a particularly trying bit of anxiety. I said, I'm so sorry you have to put up with this. I'm not always like this, normally I don't cry every day. Hopefully soon I'll bounce back. He looked at me and asked, you won't cry every day? He was genuinely surprised. He was willing going to marry a woman he thought was going to cry everyday for the rest of his life. That is devotion. That is love.

I brought this up with him the other day. Its true, he is the best. He would rather have sad Lesli than no Lesli. That's both good and bad. Good that he feel likes that, but bad that we even have to talk about that. About two months ago, he thought he saw our divorced neighbor go on a double date. He said to me, no matter what happens, never leave, we'll always work through it. What he though he saw was totally wrong, it wasn't a double date at all, it was family friends, stopping by. But I appreciated the sentiment, more than you can express in a blog post.

I recently read an article written to the spouse of someone with mental illness. The author ended the piece saying its now been years since I've had problems with depression. I wondered will it ever be years?

Hopefully.



P.S. If you are wondering if this means I'm sick again. My answer would be like anyone could ever know that. If my returning hot flashes are any indicator, then yes, maybe. What I'm more hoping is the returning hot-flashes are one more hick up on my return to normal. Its been a bumpy winding road, I missed the exit for the smooth interstate.