So if you don’t know by now my oldest Elowyn is fearless. She turns two at the end of November and has a very high comprehension level. She will tell me if she jumps she will hit her head, and then she will do it anyway. She has things to do and doesn’t let fear get in her way.

Yesterday she decided she is done with the “baby” swing and needs to use the big girl swing. My gut reaction was, ummm no. You are way to small for that. But, I didn’t say that and instead I let her try it out. She fell exactly one time. She did a glorious back flip off the swing when she forgot she was supposed to be holding on.

Of course she jumped up and wanted right back on. Her current favorite phrase, “I want to try.” And try she does. And most of the time she succeeds.

I’m the one who is scared.

I’m sure even people without social anxiety and OCD have these fears because well, they are our babies and we worry about them. So in my mind as I’m pushing my tiny toddler on the big girl swing I am freaking out. I was sooo happy when Jack came home from work and she wanted to get down to give him a hug.

I was only saved for a short time though because today back to the swing we went.

No longer were the tiny pushes good enough. She wanted to go higher. I shit you not she was saying “wait tweet tweet wait.” Like she was trying to go fly with them.

For 30 minutes, every time this tiny baby swung back towards me I had to tell myself “don’t let your fear become her fear.” It became a mantra in my head. I was literally repeating it over and over as she swung back and forth.

It…was…terrifying. What if she falls? What if she gets hurt? What if she breaks her neck? What if she gets scared and never wants to swing again…

But what it she soars?

What if my fear creates her fear and I stop her from soaring. I never want to do that. So I just kept repeating my mantra, trying to control my breathing, and tried to be ok watching my not so tiny toddler soar through the air.

And soar she did. 💗

So I don’t know who else struggles with this but I always feel bad doing something for myself. Or buying myself clothes that actually fit. Or getting help cleaning the house.

We have lived in our house for 5 years. The first 3 years I did a fairly good job keeping up with the every day mess. However deep cleaning just isn’t my thing. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s thing, except my Mom’s 🤣. The last two years even cleaning normally on a regular basis has been a struggle. I was stuck in this horrible cycle of needing to clean but not having the energy to clean, then feeling anxious and shitty because the house wasn’t clean.

Side note: everyone’s clean is different. My expectations for a clean house are rather high because my Mom loves to clean so things were always very very clean growing up. For example, if you had a drink of water and set your cup down, then wanted another drink ten minutes later, your cup was nowhere to be found. It had already been cleaned up 🤣. She’s like a tiny little cleaning ninja.

So anyway, I’m sure some people didn’t think my house was dirty but I promise you it was. The baseboards and windows…disgusting. The floors needed mopped in the worst way. And let’s not even discuss the bathroom in our bedroom. It always got the lowest priority because no one uses it but us.

Week after week my anxiety got worse and worse. I felt so weighed down by all this mess and dirt. But, I also felt like I should find the time and energy to do it myself. Why is that a thing? Why is getting help looked down upon? I finally couldn’t take it any longer. We had a little extra money this month so I “selfishly” hired a cleaning company to deep clean the house.

Today I can breathe. Things are clean I didn’t even know were dirty. The stove, which I pretty much thought was stained forever, looks brand new!

Shelves are organized, the ceiling fans are dusted, and the baseboards are shining. Our bathroom is the cleanest it’s ever been. I should have done this months ago.

If you need something for yourself and your mental health, it is not selfish. Self care is important. Think of it this way, you will be better for everyone around you if you are in a healthy mental state. I will have so much time for my girls this week. Time I would have spent trying to catch up on my subpar cleaning.

We are currently outside and nothing is occupying my thoughts other than enjoying the amazing fall weather with my babies.

A burden has been lifted. One I knew was weighing on me, but I had no idea just how heavy it had become.

Today is a new and much cleaner day!

Some people say the first year living together is the hardest. You are learning to co-exist with someone. You have to deal with all their weird quirks. Some of them are funny and some of them just freaking annoying as hell. When I think about the first year Jack and I lived together I wonder how we made it this far.

I was starting my journey to better mental health. Which funny enough, actually started out by having way worse mental health. Without diving down a deep hole that this post was never meant for, I will give a bit of an explanation. Or maybe I’ll ramble on unnecessarily who knows.

When you decide you can no longer tackle a mental health problem on your own and you are ready to try medication you think, maybe I’ll have a few side effects but I’m sure it will go great. WRONG! Unless you get extremely lucky (and I hope you do) it takes several tries to find the right combination of medication. For me, the first medicine was terrible. Jack has dubbed it “the buspar days.” It was ugly. Jack was dealing with his own stuff at the time and we were not good at communicating. So yeah, definitely ugly.

So our first year living together was for sure a hard one. The hardest? Not to me. We then spent two years dealing with infertility. I don’t have the energy or words to even attempt to go into how hard and awful that was. But was it the hardest? Still no.

The hardest year of marriage? Well, we are living it. Not because we are fighting. Not because we don’t know how to communicate. Not because we are dealing with some huge struggle. We have two kids under two and they have big personalities. Ok well mostly Elowyn. Emelia is working on it though! It’s not a bad thing. In fact it’s amazing. I love watching them be themselves.

But my marriage…I mean I think I’m married. It is like this spot that you can barely see in your peripheral vision but when you go to focus on it, it disappears.

Don’t freak out. We are the most in love. I cannot imagine my life without Jack. In fact I miss him so much! That is what makes this the hardest year. We don’t get to enjoy being around each other much right now.

Today Jack went into work already in over time. He is busting his ass and when he is home he is exhausted. I am some sort of zombie Mom at the moment. I use every bit of energy I have on the kids. I spent all day giving them my all. So when Jack and I do see each other, it’s often spent in an exhausted silence. Many times we have talked about setting a day during the week where we play a game or something after the girls go to bed. We usually do it once then are too tired to try again for months.

While I write this Jack is at work doing surgery on a dog with a liver mass. Who knows how long it will take. I can almost guarantee I won’t be awake when he gets home.

My marriage and my husband are everything to me. But right now in this stage of life, this is the hardest it’s ever been. We have to rely on the knowledge that we love each other deeply but we are exhausted. We have to thrive on tiny little gestures and passing hugs in the hallway. We have to remember our marriage and all that it is while focusing on the kids 99% of the time. I

know some people do a way better job fitting in date night and I know a lot of people find it to be a priority, but that’s just not us. One of the things we both love so deeply about each other is our love for our children. A lot of people enjoy time away from their children and that is 100% great and super normal! We don’t really want to leave them ever which is probably less healthy and not as normal. That’s just who we are and that is definitely ok with me.

I will take every passing hallway hug and Goodnight text I can get. I will especially cherish the nights we actually get to sleep next to each other. I will find time to do little things to show him just how much he means to us. I miss you Jack Fisher. I can’t wait to date you again. 💗💗

So it’s Tuesday night and the last post you had from me was about a file folder game. So you have gotten exactly one activity out of this blog. Why? Because I have done exactly one activity since saying I needed to do more activities with Elowyn.

I am tired. Yes, I have two children under two…but that isn’t what is making me tired. Or at least, I don’t think it is.

Emelia is amazing at sleeping so I’m extremely lucky and get a good six hour stretch of sleep most nights. It’s not enough. No matter how much sleep I get it never feels like enough. I am tired, I am forgetful, I am a mess 90% of the time. I promise I’m not going into a deep dark hole, I’ve made sure many times I don’t have PPD, but that also doesn’t mean things are sunshine’s and rainbows over here.

I’m just not me. I’m not the me that does activities everyday with my kids. I’m not the me that keeps the house clean and the laundry put away. I’m not the me that can function on 6 hours of sleep and 1 cup of coffee and be fine all day. Are you out there me? Will I ever be me again?

I am bad at cutting myself slack. I feel terrible if the dishes don’t get done or the laundry sits in a basket. I beat myself up if we miss a day of learning activities during the week. I feel absolutely disgusting if I don’t take a shower every day. But this new me, this extremely tired overwhelmed me apparently doesn’t want to do those things. Unfortunately there is just enough of the old me there to be upset by this. So I am now the unmotivated OCD person. I just tell myself over and over I need to do something and then…don’t do it.

I know my hormones are all out of whack. My face is breaking out like a prepubescent middle schooler. I haven’t broken out since…well since middle school.

I’m breast feeding and that doesn’t help. I’m 100% not drinking enough water during the day and definitely not eating well. I’m sure that doesn’t help the exhaustion.

I could be sleeping right now, but instead I laid in bed for 30 minute worrying about not getting enough sleep. Good news though, that sounds like something me would do. Is that you me? Are you still in there somewhere?

I don’t share this for attention and I’m not reaching out for help. I would if I needed it though. I’m sharing this because I know other people must feel like this too. I don’t want you to feel alone. I want you to know other people feel out of it too.

It takes over a year for a women’s body to recover from child birth. It takes even longer for hormones to regulate if you are breast feeding. Add in the added stress on my body from IVF which started at least a year before Elowyn was born. Oh and before IVF we tried clomid for 6 months. And by we, I mean me. Because well…only I had to take it. However my amazing husband has always been by my side every step of the way.

So when you add all that up, I have been dealing with my hormones being out of whack for at least 4 1/2 years now. My body is tired. My hormones are a disaster. The me I knew four years ago, barely exists now.

She will be back. And how I’m feeling now will be a blip on the radar but right now it feels big. It feels like almost too much. But I know I will miss these moments so much. And I can sleep all I want in 20 years. For now, I’ll be extra tired so I can hold my baby while she sleep on me, and I’ll remember even if I feel like I’ve lost myself, even if I’m upset because I got no cleaning done, even if the laundry sits in a basket for a week, I am still one of the luckiest people alive. I have an amazing family. None of them care if their laundry comes from the closet or the bottom of a basket. And no matter which version of me I am right now, they all love me. 💗

While I was making Elowyn a few more file folder games it occurred to me that not every one of my readers has a child the same age as me. So before I move on to another activity I thinks it’s worth one more post to show you just how versatile one game can be.

The first way would be good for a 2-4 year old. It really just depends where your child is at with letter recognition. Elowyn can match 2-3 correctly before she becomes annoyed and moves on. That is 100% ok!

The second way to play uses the same file folder and a second set of bees. Instead of matching letters the goal is to match the picture with the letter. A is for Ant, B is for Baseball, etc. I made this one for my niece who is 5 and started kindergarten this year.

In my post from the day before I talked about an easy way to store the pieces. Here’s a picture of the one for today. All I did was glue an envelope to the back of the folder and instant storage!

The third way to play happened by accident. When I first made the bees I used an app called PicCollage. I took a picture of the bee and put the letter on it with a text box. However the first set I made I just put the capital letters on them. After I printed it I remembered an article I read about Early Childhood Education and how even though children use and see lower case letters the most, they are usually taught uppercase letters…which is backwards. So I redid the bees with both upper and lower case letters. Since I had already printed a set I figured I should find a way to use them.

These are foam letters for the bath. I intend to play this game with her in the bathtub but didn’t want to share a naked picture of my kid! Tonight we will give this a go in the bath. Since the bees are laminated they will be water proof and we can play however we want.

While the letter games are a bit ahead of Elowyn, any interaction with letters is a positive thing. I will never push her to play these games and make her feel frustrated if she gets something wrong. I will always play this with her in a fun positive way and only if she wants to. Pushing the activity will make them not enjoy it.

Elowyn loved being involved even when my niece was playing the older version. She had fun handing her different bees and watching Everly place them on the hives.

I have now used both the animal matching and letter games to help with transitioning from playing to meal times, calming down Elowyn is upset, and just to have a fun time!

At least in this activity that’s how it is.

Today’s “easy” activity is a file folder game. I say easy, because you either have all the things you need or they are not expensive to buy. I say “easy” because I chose to make 17×2 tiny animals and I detest cutting. It took longer than expected.

Anyway, what is a file folder game? Well…it’s a game in a file folder!

So for this I printed off a page from google with animals on it. Then because I am extra I painstakingly colored them all in. Good news, I bet you can find pre-colored pictures of animals on google.

I already have a laminator, but again…I’m extra. So I laminate most things I make. You do not have to laminate. You could also use clear contact paper, or even packing tape. Or you can just leave them as paper. Elowyn however would rip them in 5 seconds flat so this is why I laminate everything.

Once I colored the animals, I scanned and printed a second page so they looked identical. I cut them all out, laminated them, and glued one set onto the file folder. I used velcro dots (spend the extra money on the dots, cutting velcro is annoying) and put them on each animal. Guess what, this is another extra step. You don’t have to have velcro. You can just as easily tape a bag or envelope to the file folder to save all the pieces.

Put dots on the back of the second set of animals and wallah! A matching game.

As you can see the camel somehow lost it’s tail. The monkey is purple because I colored him at 7am while pumping and forgot to turn on the light. Purple looks brown in the dark. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Elowyn loved this game.

The best thing about file folder games is you can make them for seriously anything.

Literally anything you can find a picture for you can make into a learning game in a file folder!

We will use this game to work on saying the words for animals. Elowyn knows most sounds animals make but calls them by their sound not their name. With this game we will work on saying the animals name when we finds it’s match. Simple and fun!

Life…life is happening. And in the hustle and bustle of life, the sleepless nights, the crazy busy weekend, the drop off and pick ups from school, and the toddler fits two things happened.

One, I had zero time to write anything on my blog. My family will always come first. So if there is an extended time without posts just know I’ll be back when life is a bit less chaotic.

Two, I forgot everything I know about toddlers and their big feelings. We haven’t done an activity or learning time since the beans and rice. 😳 That is hard for me to admit because I love doing things like that with Elowyn. Since my whole career was in Early Childhood I find it to be a very important thing. If our choice is to keep her home, it’s my job to be teaching her things. Since the beans and rice activity her big feelings have turned into giant feelings and everything is a battle. Then a few days ago I had my nieces at night and Ireland wanted to color. So we all sat at the table and colored. Elowyn spent 20 minutes flipping through a coloring book making one mark on every page. It seems small. It seems unimportant, but her brain was engaged. And that very night for the first time in weeks, she ate dinner. She ate a lot of dinner.

I am not exaggerating when I say she had barely eaten in two weeks. A bite here and nibble there. Then fits galore. All day long. We were stuck in a vicious cycle of daily battles. All it took to break this cycle was coloring. Something that takes two minutes to set out, with minimal mess, and minimal supervision needed.

So, we are eating better, our mood is better, and everyone is generally much happier for the last few days. I definitely didn’t find the cure all for toddler fits, I promise they still happen in abundance. But for Elowyn, brain stimulation is just as important as getting to run around outside or taking a nap. In the chaos of life I forgot that. So….the next few posts I’m going to focus on quick easy activities that might help get a child out of a funk and let you get the dishes done at the same time!

I ordered more ink for the printer, I’ve sharpened the colored pencils, I’ve stocked the art closet. I’m ready to get back to what I know!

This is going to be one of those posts that I hope reaches people. One that talks about something we don’t talk about often enough. One that leaves me open and vulnerable for every one to judge. It’s scary to put these things out there but I feel so strongly about it being necessary to talk about. So here it goes…

Today I was the worst version of myself. I try and do everything with love, patience, and kindness. I try to be the person I want Elowyn to grow up and be. Today I was someone I would not be happy to see my child be. I was short, impatient, and angry. I kept it together for about 80% of the day. But those last few hours, from 5pm-8pm I was an ugly person. I didn’t scream, at least not out loud. I didn’t hit anyone. But I was ugly all the same. I know my words were not kind, and my tone less than nice. My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth in anger and frustration.

Elowyn wasn’t a great version of herself either. She yelled no at me constantly. She ran away laughing anytime I asked her to do anything. She refused to eat 90% of her meals and threw almost all her food on the floor. She took toys from Emelia and threw huge fits when I asked her to give them back. She threw every single book off of her book loft onto the floor then refused to pick them up. The list goes on and on.

Here’s the difference. I know self control. I know calming techniques. I am not an almost two year old with big feelings trying to navigate a strange big world.

I am a 32 year old with big feelings. Ones that sometimes even I cannot control. A lot of people don’t talk about the bad days. The days they we’re not the best they could be. But here’s why I think we should. Because now, as I sit here and rock Emelia to sleep (who has also been screaming bloody murder for an hour) I have tears falling down my face, and I feel like an utter failure. I know I am by no means a perfect parent but I think Jack and I do a pretty good job raising our girls. But one bad day, not even the whole day actually, just a few bad hours and I’m the lowest of lows. How could I be so short with Elowyn? How could I ever be frustrated at a 3 month old for crying non stop. In the calm after the storm it seems so horrible. Like nothing else I did today or for the last two years as a parent matters. I can only see the ugliness from the last four hours.

Enter my husband. I text him as I’m rocking Emelia to apologize. Sorry I was so frustrated. It’s ok he says. No it’s not and I’m sorry, I respond. His answer, that’s why I’m here honey, we’re all going to get frustrated but we work together and everything will be fine. He is my rock. He is amazing. He gives me a sliver of hope that maybe Elowyn will still love me in the morning. Maybe she won’t forever hold against me my few bad hours of the day.

So I say to anyone who has been less than their best. It’s ok. Tomorrow you will do better. Everyone has big feelings. Whether you are two or ninety two, it’s ok to have a bad day. Moms and Dads get angry too.

I hope by being vulnerable and open about my angry less than happy self other people will feel less alone. I hope people read this and know they aren’t the only ones that get so extremely mad that you might break a tooth from clenching your jaw so hard.

I walked away twice today from Elowyn. I let Jack deal with her because I knew I couldn’t keep it together any longer. Twice I almost screamed at my child because she wouldn’t listen to me. Twice, I almost lost my shit on an innocent little baby. So for that I sit here with tears down my cheeks feeling like absolute shit. And I share this with you, because I know you have been or will be there one day and I hope you remember it’s ok. You didn’t fail. Tomorrow is a new day.

Elowyn- “Rawr”

Mama- “oh Elowyn I’m so sorry but I can’t play the dinosaur game right now”

Elowyn- “why baba?”

Mama- “I’m in a long dress and I can’t run very well”

Elowyn- “why!”

Mama- “because Kassie said I had to wear a long dress.”

Elowyn-“why?”

Mama-“because Kassie is getting married.”

Elowyn-“why”

Mama- “Because Kassie and Pedro are in love”

Elowyn- “Oooh. Ok”

This was one of the many back and forth conversations Elowyn and I have had over the last few weeks. I did not think she would be asking me why already and seriously all the time.

We were at The Park of Rose’s getting wedding pictures done and Elowyn wanted to play a game she made up. She says “rawr” and I say “what’s that?” She says “trex…hurry…run!” And we run. I almost never tell her no, even though running is my least favorite thing to do ever. But this day I was in a long dress walking down a hill and holding Elowyns hand who was also in a long dress. So instead we played the why game.

I think if it wasn’t for Bluey this would drive me absolutely insane. What’s Bluey you ask? Only the best show ever! Even if you don’t have kids I suggest watching it.

This show makes me want to be a better person and a better parent. In one episode the Mom, Chilli is trying to get Bluey and Bingo (her two kids) out the door to go on a play date. They are not cooperating and she is getting frustrated. At one point Bluey asks her Mom why they need to leave, and she says because they are going to be late. I don’t remember the exact words so I won’t try and quote it but I learned two amazing things from this episode.

One, the mom was anxious because she didn’t want her friend to be upset with her for being late. And she explained that to Bluey. What I took from this, it’s ok…more than ok to explain to your children how you are feeling and why. This will help them empathize with you and other people and learn to share their own feelings.

Two, they seemed to have a game of sorts. Bluey kept asking why and Chilli kept coming up with answers but at the very end she couldn’t think of anything and said Bluey won. So now it is my goal to never lose the why game to Elowyn. This makes it so much fun! Now Jack plays this too.

Last night when he was giving Elowyn a bath he said “we have to wash out your hair” and of course Elowyn said “why?” His initial response was “because I said so” then I hear a pause and he says “nope that’s not a good answer. We have to wash your hair to get the soap out.” “Why?” “Because we have to get your hair clean…” and on and on. I’m not sure who “won” because I was doing tummy time with Emelia and stopped focusing on what they were saying, but I know for a fact doing this lets our whole family win. It makes something that would normally be a bit annoying and frustrating into something fun and challenging. So thank you Chilli Heeler for once again teaching me how to be a better parent!

I am back after an extended break for my best friends wedding! I was (kind of) the matron of honor and Elowyn was the flower girl. The rehearsal was Friday and the wedding was Saturday. Sunday and Monday we spent recharging our batteries. We were all exhausted!

I say I was kind of the matron of honor because well, I wasn’t very good at it. I kind of forgot planning a bridal shower and bachelorette party were a thing. Between having a newborn and covid it just never occurred to me. Luckily other people picked up my slack and for that I am incredibly thankful.

The other thing I’m thankful for? A friend that is so understanding. Even before covid and kids I was (and still very much am) a home body. I do not feel the need to go and do many things. I love being at home with my kids all day. Kassie has always understood that. She knows most times if she wants to hang out it will be at my house. This isn’t because I’m being selfish or lazy. It’s from crippling social anxiety. Even going to my Mom’s or my sister’s house makes me anxious. Once I’m there I have a great time sure, but the getting there is very hard for me.

It was extremely important for me to give Kassie 100% of myself on her wedding day. I needed to do that for her. However, my children had different plans. Emelia decided only mommy was allowed to feed her. I had to leave the hotel we were getting ready at, speed 85 all the way home (and back), nurse Emelia and since I was home Elowyn wasn’t going to go take a nap without a song from her mama so I sang to her. In my head I’m rushing, but one thing I absolutely hate is when children are rushed because parents are rushed, so on the outside I was calm. On the inside I was silently cursing myself for having to leave Kassie’s side on her wedding day and trying my best to get back as soon as possible.

Maybe on the inside she was silently cursing me too but never did she seem upset or tell me my kids would be ok with out me.

I have seen other people lose so many friends once they have kids. If you don’t have kids, you can’t quite understand the shift your whole life takes once children are involved. Leaving the house becomes an Olympic event. Especially when they are babies. You have to miss out on a lot of things you previously did with your friends and rightfully so that hurts their feelings. No one is wrong in this situation. My kids will always come first, but my friends aren’t wrong to feel upset by this. It’s understandable when they stop inviting you to things and you slowly grow apart. But it sucks for everyone.

A few days before the wedding I text my other best friend Dani. I knew even responding to text messages would be hard that whole week so I apologized for not answering her much and I promised I would respond as often as I could. Her response, something along the lines of…that sounds like a crazy week, don’t worry about me at all, I’ll be here whenever you have a chance to talk. Guys, how was I blessed with not one but two amazing best friends? I can’t even explain how thankful I am for these two people in my life. They are not family. They do not have children of their own. But here they both are, always there for me, always so incredibly understanding.

Because I am also so lucky to have an amazing family and husband (I could make several blog posts about just how lucky I am to have so many fantastic people in my life!) I didn’t have to leave Kassie’s side again and we had an amazing time at her wedding.

It took two days, but we are now recharged and back to our regular scheduled lives! I wouldn’t change that day for anything. It was a beautiful wedding and I’m so happy I got to be a part of it!