Sunday

Day two of Spring Break ~ 
     My husband took the two oldest to church. I did not got because my five year old threw up in the night! So I am not sure if we are actually free of sickness or not! She seems bright and chipper right now. She is pretending she is a Linja (Ninja) and she has black long johns of her brother's on and a red rubber work out band tied around her forehead and a yellow one around her waist. She is doing all sorts of Linja moves. My little one year old has an 'owie' on his hand and he just can't get over it. He keeps showing me, crying a little, and then sometimes trying to do a Linja move except he can't get both feet off the floor at once. I am sitting at my dining room table looking into my back yard and I can see four trees across the road that are on the verge of blossoming. They are a dusky rose in color right now but soon they will be pale with delicate blossoms. The tree in our front yard is also going to blossom soon with purple blossoms and then be thick with dark green leaves. The mountains have some fresh snow on them today and the sky is, as usual, grey. We did have some sun this morning though.
    I am feeling the need for some creative inspiration. Last night I looked through a photographers pictures on facebook and that helped a little. Seeing the beauty of someone elses world, and how they have captured it, is such a privilege. I know I need to get out of my house today before the week starts again and my husband is gone for eleven hour days. I wish I knew what to do. I often just go for a drive but today I want something more. I know I am wishing for a good chat with someone. I like to process and just live by talking. It helps get things out for me. My brain feels clearer. Somehow talking to children just does not do it for me! My husband is also not a verbal processor. So I might just have to go and talk to myself for a while! I want to feel that clearness. Does that make sense? 
   Sundays are my hardest day. I used to go to church which meant getting up and trying to get everyone ready. My oldest son did not want to go and so trying to get him to do anything usually resulted in tears. It was stressful and unpleasant. At church he would curl up in a ball every single Sunday. Since I had my youngest I have made a lot of changes in my life because I finally had to.It wasn't changes that just happened because I had a breakdown; it was changes I purposefully made. It has not been easy for those around me who were used to me bending over backwards trying to cater to them. I just have stopped. I do not go to church because it just drains me more. I stopped making dinners and we started eating a lot of fast food and food that was not healthy (but it was easy) and I stopped a lot of other things. I felt so much of my worth coming from all I could DO for people, and I feel like so much of how I value myself has now disappeared. However I just got so tired that I physically could not do. My brain would think of things I really wanted to do but I just could not do it. I now have a life that most people around me do not understand at all. I think people usually FEEL like they are at the point I am at but they are not. I see people breaking down all around me but they still do not stop. They still do not simplify. That is fine and good for them but for me I had to. My children needed all I had to give and more. Cutting everything out did not make the difference though. My sister moved in and has helped me with chores around the house and I had a girl that the school hired come and help me three times a week with my homeschoolers. It has been been four months now since I have had this girl helping with the children and my sister has been here six months. Sundays are still a hard day for me and I am still not going to church (and honestly since at least one child has been sick every Sunday since Christmas I can't help it much).
    I know though that I am feeling more capable. I feel so thankful that I am getting to that 'other side' that I hear parents talk about. My oldest is eleven and the fact that she can get her own breakfast and lunch made is amazing. I am thankful she loves to cook and therefore is willing to help with meals sometimes. My nine year old is just now feeling capable of helping do small chores and a couple mornings ago he told me, with eyes shining, that he had ~ washed a dish!!!! ~ it was so precious. He has overcome a lot of obstacles as has my eldest. I have had to do so much problem solving to try to figure out ways to help them and help myself cope with all that life hands to each of us. None of my children have been ones that needed much sleep or desired much sleep and so for ten years I have not had consistent sleep. My baby is just starting to sleep for four to six hour stretches occasionally in the night and I can feel that difference.  It has been such a long hard road. I am sick of saying that but it has. It has taken all of me ~ I have had to let go of all I thought I knew. I feel like I do not have the slightest inkling of who I will be when I emerge from this chapter of life. It has been different than I thought and what I needed in every way. Well everyone is home now. Since my little on threw up and everyone went swimming yesterday I have about four loads of laundry. Thank God for my washing machine. Thank you for reading. I appreciate every second you give me. Off I go :) 

The First Day of Spring Break

 This morning I woke up to this:

I have two girls ages five and eleven. My oldest goes to school but my two middle children, a nine year old boy and a five year old girl, are at home. They play together every day and are so close. However there are moments when my girls just connect and this morning was one of those moments. It is the first day of Spring Break and a lovely day it has been!!!! They had compiled a list for a 'girls day.' 

They told me they had already had breakfast outside in the play house and they had both eaten porridge which my eleven year old had made. That cracked me up because no one in this house has daned to eat porridge in at least a year if not more! Apparently they both liked it also. Since that was accomplished they then got out all the dress up clothes and chose outfits. They got their dolls ready and prepared a tea party. This is where I got out my camera. None of this is staged. It is probably about 7:30 or 8 in the morning and I could not even handle the cuteness. 

I noticed they had napkins on their knees and forks for their cookies and sugar for their tea. They had everything done properly. The dolls were given sips of tea when convenient and were sitting sort of far away from the girls. One of the things I loved was their outfit choices. My five year old is wearing a dress that is probably forty years old. I wore it for dress up when I was little and it was a flower girl dress from my mom's friend wedding. It has seen better days but how special that she chose to wear that dress.

  
My eleven year old wore a dress for a top with a wrap around skirt for a bottom. This dress was made from the train of my mother's wedding dress. We had two of them growing up in about a size two and four toddler size. However because of how the dress is made it can sort of fit an eleven year old girl. Let me show you.

I made her take it off after I took the pictures because it is obviously not her size but it was cute that she chose that dress also. I grew up wearing it often. It is made in the style of my mom's wedding dress. While the girls were delicately sipping tea, and ladling hefty spoonfuls of white sugar into it, my nine year old was not wasting time either. He had also created a list!  He has just started to write and read independently. It is something I am trying to not make a big deal about but I am incredibly excited. His list involved him and his stuffy ' Mighty Mo' and they also accomplished their list.

 They played Checkers together and Go Fish. He read Mighty Mo a book (which was the cutest thing) and he kept asking what this word was and that word. Then they cleaned his room. This is something that my son is also realizing is not the end of the world and is doable. Today he took it to the next level and asked if he could vacuum it!!!! He made sure to stress that he would like to vacuum it 'HIMSELF.' So here is all I caught of him putting the vacuum AWAY after he cleaned AND vacuumed his room. See, miracles happen! It can take a lot of years and tears and everything else but they do.

He is just shoving it in closet. Even just putting the vacuum away previously would have felt way too impossible for him, so this morning was pretty special. It concluded with the three older children playing Lego, of all things, for a couple hours. There was no fighting (the Lego has not been played with for months) and they all made amazing structures. The baby was happy spending time with daddy and I had uninterrupted time to clean and make some dinner. All in all a lovely start to Spring Break. I am going to try to keep this momentum :) Have a lovely weekend ~

 

Thankfulness ~ Another Needed List

Thankfulness ~ another needed list:
Today my husband came home from work safely ~ I pray for that every day
I was able to get into our doctor the day after I called, and get my baby's hip x rayed in about twenty minutes without having to pay for it. This is a blessing I do not ever take forgranted!
I made dinner tonight  ( it is a rare occurrence)
My oldest daughter baked apple crisp and it was so delicious (it is one of my favorite deserts)
The two middle children made wigwams in the living room and played happily for hours (they were inspired by a book from the Chronicles of Narnia Series which my sister is reading to them)
My oldest came home so proud of her report card
We are going to have two weeks of spring break now (I haven't even really thought about it much but am planning on having a good one this year)
At this moment in time everyone is healthy for the first time since Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I gave my baby the banana he had asked for today he said thank you...he isn't even really talking yet but I know it was thank you! It sounded more like taku...so precious! It made me feel like such a good mother.
There were a couple moments today where the sun streamed through my window
I can still carry my baby in my Ergo and he still loves it
We have a vehicle I can use whenever I need to
We had a birthday celebration for my dad yesterday and it was a really happy one. I am thankful to live close to my parents and am thankful to still be able to celebrate them both.
I am still thirty three for a couple more weeks. I'll just savor that.
I am thankful for all my ballet class is challenging me with.
My friends ~ they are all treasures, so unique, so gifted, so beautiful ~ they have all taught me more about myself.
My children ~ each one has taken me on such a journey that continues. They all love me so much and it STILL astonishes me. They have been being kind and helpful lately for the most part ~ it has been life giving.
I have been getting more sleep. I feel glimmers of myself on the horizon. I just wonder what that will mean. I have changed so much since I last saw a Tansy that had sleep.
I live in a beautiful part of the world and it is coming alive again.
Spring is coming. It will never get old, never be unnoticed or unappreciated by me. I notice the soft vibrant new grass, the delicate leaves unfolding more each day, the different spring light, the blossoming trees, the bright daffodils, the tiny bold violets, the cup like crocuses. I am glad I have eyes to see.

No More Sugar (help!)

   So I have this issue with FOOD! I have REALLY started to have an aversion to cooking it. I grew up with an interesting mix in that my mom had an eating disorder and my dad was a cook. So there were very mixed signals regarding food in our home. We ate quickly and got away from the table as soon as humanly possible. Food was not to be enjoyed or savored it seemed. When I moved out, before I got married, I lived with a girl who was an amazing cook. It was inspiring, beautiful, artistic and I was awed by her abilities. She had grown up with a mother who cooked amazing, delicious, wholesome food and so food had a happy good place in her heart. I think I have always found food stressful. There were a lot of undercurrents around food in my house growing up and I was the oldest child so I was very aware of it. When I lived with this friend, who had such a wonderful ability with food, I realized that I hoped I could be that way when I was 'grown up.' I also observed a friend I had in highschool who always had such delicious lunches made from left overs from dinner. She talked a lot about her amazing family dinners and I had this wish that I could re created that in my family. My friend's family would talk and laugh and EAT for up to two hours each evening! Well, alas and alack this has not happened often in my married life. I did a post previously about our dinner times and how hard they are but how I have not given up yet! However in the last two years our families diet has been the poorest in our history. We live on grilled cheese, french toast and cereal and pizza. There ARE other things in there, and sometimes I can get a healthy soup made or some vegetables cut up, but it is rare. Making dinner to me feels like I am running a marathon I have no strength to run. Usually it is also not liked by a couple children and I let that discourage me. I think it translates to me being so incredibly tired, a lot of people needing food all the time, and people with all sorts of food issues and sensitivities.
   Today a couple things have happened that I hope are going to help me bring about some sort of change in our eating habits. Number one I went to the dentist and I am in danger of losing all my teeth in a relatively short amount of time. The PH levels in my mouth are very acidic and I have gum disease and there are other issues as well. I am someone that has valued my teeth and tried to take extremely good care of them since I was a young teenager so it is devastating news. The bone and gum issues have degenerated a lot in the last two years and that is directly related to our diet and my being pregnant and now nursing for nineteen months. Another happening today was that I took a couple of my children to my naturopath doctor and they are showing obvious signs of lack of nutrition and their bodies are suffering. When I got home I was talking to my husband about this. My nine year old son, who is the child who wore me down through years of refusing to eat almost everything, was listening. Lately he has been asking me about eating healthy and has been worried about his own teeth as he is showing signs of gum disease. Today he asked me if we could start eating better. He said he felt like he would be willing to try to make healthier choices. It blew my mind really. However I felt so incapable. So I went in my room and called my sister. She follows a way of eating for her husband's health that does not allow any grains or sugars or dairy other than homemade yogurt. She encouraged me so much and gave me some simple steps to start with. The number one thing is to never open the fridge aimlessly when I am hungry. I need to step out of the kitchen, think about what I would like to make and go from there. I loved that idea.
    I am not sure where this day, March 9th, my late grandmother's birthday, is going to take me but I hope that it is to much healthier stronger places. I have been thinking about selfishness and self centeredness and how I have been very self centered in many ways. I serve and do what needs to be done but often I am thinking of myself the entire time and begrudging the actions and therefore not happy to be doing whatever needs to be done. I want to be able to give out of a willing heart, a heart that feels full! Often I go through the day physically hungry and tired. I open the fridge and feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I want to feel efficient and capable in my kitchen! I do not want to feel like food is an enemy. This is something I hope to be able to work on this Spring. Cutting out sugar will be a bit like cutting off my right foot. I feel like I need sugar to walk. It comforts me, gives me energy and I am totally addicted to it. I have cut it out of my diet here and there in the last few years but it has never lasted more than a month. However, if our family is going to recover from its numerous 'gut' issues, sugar consumption needs to be drastically reduced. NEVER have I felt strong enough to tackle this for more than a few weeks time. I don't know if I am now.
     Today my son said, 'Mom I think we can do this, I think you can do this.' I really do not want to let him down. He does not want to lose all his teeth at a young age and right now if he does it will be my fault. So I write this to remind myself, to mark the magnitude of this day for my son and his feelings of capability. I write this to remind myself that I am a mother therefore at this stage of the game I must be a cook. Feel free to leave comments with any recipes that your family loves that is dairy, grain and sugar free. Have a lovely Thursday tomorrow. May your heart feel strong, encouraged and inspired! Love Tansy

The Wounds of Adoption (Part Four) My Fears

   Adoption ~ I think about it in some respect almost every day. This is partly because somewhere in this town is my daughter's birth mother and for that matter my daughter's birth father. I don't know what her birth father looks like, or really who he is for sure, so he does not haunt me in the same way. However my daughter's birth mother sort of fell off the face of the earth about four years ago. She was so involved in our lives and we loved her a lot. However things happened and she started to struggle with different addictions. She started not showing up for planned visits and one day that was it and my daughter has never seen her since. Sometimes I hear about her from others. Sometimes people see her but I do not. Sometimes I have wondered if she is still alive. There have been times when I heard she was not going to live long ~ and then she pulled through. Every day that I drive around our town I wonder and I remember that somewhere she is here and I look for her. Sometimes my heart leaps because I think, 'there she is,' but then it isn't her. I did see her once a couple years ago and I had an anxiety attack as I was driving. I had all the children in the car and thankfully my daughter did not see her. Another time also a couple years ago I ran into her at the hospital. She was not doing well at all and I could see that clearly. I was helping a friend with her little girls so I only had a second to give her a hug and kiss. We didn't even really talk. She couldn't really talk anyway. It was heart breaking to see her so.

   I write this because I often have nightmares about seeing her because of all it might signify. I also have nightmares about her extended family finding our house and breaking the door down. I don't know why they break the door down but it is what my brain does. These nightmares about her birth family stem from situations we had with them when we had to tell them that we could not see them anymore (for multiple reasons that involved our daughter's well being). I think the reason it haunts me so much is because I know my daughter longs for her birth mother. I know she loves me and she loves her dad so much, but at the core of her being she also longs for her. She has all these unanswered questions. Why did her birth mother just disappear, where is she? Is she still alive? We have had to tell her about certain choices her birth mother has made but at her age it has been almost impossible for her to comprehend.

  I think mostly why this all haunts me so much is that I feel like if her birth mother decides to track us down ~ all it will take is a hug, a present and she'll just have swept right in and I will be nothing anymore (this stems from past experiences also). That all I have done, all the work and love, tears and everything I have given, will be worth nothing. Honestly I don't know if this is at all true. It is just the vulnerable beatings of my heart. It stems from all the time we have spent with her and all the tears my daughter has cried through the years for her. Like I have said in previous posts I have had to share my daughter. Never will she be all my own in the way that my birth children are but that is not by choice on my end. It is so much harder then I ever thought it would be. I was so naive when we adopted that I didn't give it much thought. When I did, I brushed it off, maybe thinking I'd be mature enough or strong enough. I did not get it! I did not get how attachment really is everything and how it does not always come easily at all. However this attachment, this love ~ I have had to work so hard to build the bridges, to scale the walls, to gain trust and attachment in this relationship I have with my daughter ~ and it feels so fragile because quite frankly, it is. When all her birth family eventually faded out of the picture it became so much easier to reach my daughter;s heart. Every time she had contact with them it was such a stark reminder of her wounding, and it would set her back for weeks on end. She would be so emotional and unable to voice her pain and so reactionary. It was very hard to watch and we were not just watching we were living in it. That became a lot less when they were not there so much~ reminding her. However, I know they all live relatively close. I know we could run into them anywhere at any time. I think this has made me realize just how fiercely I do love my daughter, how strongly I want to guard her heart and vulnerability. I love her so much. I have seen her so hurt. I don't want those doors to have to be opened ever again. However who am I kidding. She is eleven now. More and more as time goes on there will be things that come up. Just a couple weeks ago I got a facebook message from one of her birth family members asking for contact. I felt sick with anxiety and worrying about what it all might mean. However I did end up talking to my daughter and she calmly told me she felt it best if she did not see them or talk to them because it was too hard for her. She ended up writing a letter and sending a picture.

  The reasons I feel like I do are strong reasons. I started off so open to all family, to all contact. It was an open adoption right? Yes! We did the Christmases and the birthdays with family and included everyone that we could. We tried to do everything right. We tried to care for everyone's feelings. As time wore on though I could see how much pressure it put on my little girl to perform, to make these people feel good about themselves. I also saw how unhealthy and unnatural it all was for her even though I was taught that her 'birth' family was so important. It is!!! But more importantly is a safe and strong attachment. I saw that her heart could never feel truly safe with anyone because she always felt such a pull. It has been nice in some ways to have a break from it all. However, like I said, the nightmares for me are ever present. I hope and pray that when the day comes ~ whatever that day looks like ~ that I will be able to feel a peace in my heart that my daughter knows that her heart is home in mine; that she is safe here always; that she will not ever be abandoned by us, and that our love can be accepted. I also hope that if that is still not the case I can be prepared enough to weather that storm well.

   No matter how you become a parent the unknowns are massive and you don't even really think to much about it all because you can't comprehend it fully until you are in it. It comes in waves these unknowns, these insecurities, these growing pains! Sometimes the wounds are intense and the work it takes to heal them is unimaginable. However it is worth it all.

   In the end I have to let my daughter go because we all have to let our children go in a sense in the course of their growing and maturing. It is this immense and unimaginable process that at this point in time I can't comprehend because all my children are still so little. However I feel like I have had a taste in some respects and that the holding close now is so vital. The holding close to help in the process of the wound healing and the hopefulness of seeds of safety and peace and love being planted slowly and steadily so that some day Spring can come and the seeds can grow and blossom.

Blue Herons and Spring

   I have been having computer difficulty lately and very little time to deal with it ~ therefore I have not been writing much on here. This weekend though I was able to sort some of the issues out which is exciting. Computers are not exactly my cup of tea to say the least.
   In other news ~ Spring is officially here and I could not be more excited! We went to bird sanctuary this weekend and there were blue herons nesting up in some trees. I do not have the best lenses for distance but I took some pictures of them. They are loud, large and they all nest together which I like. An eagle sat at a safe distance observing but did not bother them. While we were there we saw numerous little creatures sunning themselves. The sun was glorious!!! We were all blossoming like flowers ~ faces held up to the sun. Here are some pictures ~

Here is the eagle he is watching!

A helpful father perhaps bringing something to add to the nest. Unfortunately when he brought it over to the sitting mother it was rejected and so he had to leave with it still in his mouth! Maybe it was too long?

 You can sort of see how they all nest together in a tree

 After we had watched them for a while and I was a bit intimidated by numerous photographers with massive lenses we moved onto to lookouts and trails...

This is my oldest and youngest

My beautiful sister 

Ducks in the sun 

The look out

New leaves!!!!! YAY!!!!! 

A happy little bee 

Something very thrilling to my son :) Who is an avid nature lover.

A beautiful pictures taken by my husband

A very fun find by the children!!

 My mom commented that this looked like lace and if you were there in 'real' life it did.

Oh glorious sunshine!! 

I hope that you are doing well and that when the sun shines you are able to take some time to spend out in it. I do not always do that. I tend to stay in doors but when I get out everything in me lightens.  I hope the sun does that for you also. Have a lovely week! xo

Unforgettable Gifts

   A couple weeks ago my friend Rachelle mentioned my upcoming birthday and asked me what we should do. She mentioned going away somewhere and it got me thinking about the incredible gifts my friends have given me through the years.
   There was this one time when my dear friend invited me to go on a trip with her. We went to Victoria. She had to go to a work conference and was allowed to bring someone and she chose me. We went without children, and for me it was a trip where I felt so nurtured. I realized when I was there that every time I had gone to this certain city I have always felt very loved. I wanted to share pictures from this trip because it will remind me of a really happy time in my life when I look over my blog. It will remind me of  blessings and things done just for me. We started with a ferry ride on an gorgeous day where we sat out in the wind and sun and painted each others nails. It got us lots of looks and comments and it was a fun start to this amazing trip.  After we arrived we then went and explored different nooks and crannies of this beautiful city. It is full or history and the detail and treasures are numerous. I had wanted to make something to remind me to be thankful and joyful in all things so we went to a bead store and made a beautiful prism. Every day the sun shines through my window here rainbows dance around my kitchen and remind me of this trip and  the need to be thankful.

 China Town 

 

A beautiful back alley

Making my sky to sea prism

We stayed at one of the best hotels in the area. It was right beside the parliament buildings and that alone was such a delight. The view was incredible. So many things to feed the soul!

I was able to spend time with some of my aunties who live in Victoria while I was there. I felt little again and so cared for. We went to Bingo and did other special things.

There were so many highlights of this trip. One was the nights of sleep. I was not interrupted over and over and it was magical. Another one was going to a movie and eating out. We ate at a beautiful restaurant right by the water one night. These were luxuries to me and things I don't do often. This was one of the views from the restaurant. I loved all the brick.

Just walking to the restaurant was a treat for the eyes!

On the last day of the trip my friend was in conference all morning and she left me her car. I felt like I was brave enough to explore by myself and I am so glad I did. It was unforgettable. These little ducklings were living just outside of our hotel in the little pools that were a decorative part of the hotel's front. They were so precious. There was a gentleman who's job it was to protect them and help them if anything happened to their mom. They were fed by him and watched over. So many people got so much joy from watching them. They were incredibly precious in the middle of the city. After enjoying their sweetness I got in the car and drove to a park.

When I got there I was greeted by this gentleman. His bejeweled exterior dazzled me for a while before I continued on an mysterious pathway.

I found this bench that I loved.

Oh this path! It led me through and to inexpressible beauty.

After walking alone through a rain drenched meadow and up a hill I wound my way down to the Ocean. It was too beautiful to properly describe.

I was filled so full on this trip. It was something I held in my heart for a long time afterward. What a gift to give someone! I am blessed by friends who give me gifts that go way beyond material things. They are lasting, encouraging and transformative.

When we came home on the ferry my friend was busy putting into practice things she had learned at her conference. I loved all her colors and the textures in this photo. This is her and she has never ceased to amaze me in all our years of friendship ~