Monday, April 26, 2010

Showing the world your undies!



I am so honored and excited!!  I was nominated for an Honest Blog award by Amber with Beyond Postpartum!  She has an amazing blog shedding light into some very dark places for those with Postpartum.  So I thought I would risk some exposure here, since I am usually so modest (ha), and answer back with my own list of 10 Random Things about me!! 

1. I am a crazy list maker and if I do something NOT on my list, I add it to my list JUST so I can scratch it off! 
2.  My favorite color is RED.  I like pink and I can be sweet and cute.  But I LOVE RED and all the sassiness that comes with it!
3.  I actually have to suppress the urge to shutter when people blow out the candles on their brthday cake.  All I think of s everyone else now eating that cake you just blew your spit all over.  Hence the cupcakes I serve at my kids b-day parties...they only blow on their own cake!!
4.  Before I had postpartum depression I didn't even know how to spell it, nor that it was only 1 word!
5.  I am addicted to Target!  I think they dump some kind of gas into the HVAC system so that you get high in there to the point you have to and get a weekly FIX or you will go into withdrawl.
6.  I love cheese.  on anything.  as a meal all by itself.  on everything.
7.  My dirty little secret that has been only recently exposed is I HATE coffee.  So much so even the smell made me sick when preggers with my youngest.  My adorable hubby took his high dollar fancy schmancy grinder maker pot to the garage to make his coffee in an attempt to help my constant vomitting...It's still there....
8.  I have given up Diet Dr Pepper AGAIN...
9.  My biggest fear is falling (which is not uncommon for me) and showing everyone what is under my skirt! 
10. If I could come back and start my life over there is really not much I would change except to be nicer to a couple people.

And I am not spell checking this post today bc for some reason spellck is gone from my page!  So enjoy this errors and all.

So I wanted to pass along the following as Nominated for Truely Great Honest Blogs!!  Check out these amazing ladies and read what they have to say...


Thursday, April 22, 2010

The D word


"As the dear panteth toward the water, so my soul longeth after thee. You alone are my heart's desire, To you alone does my spirit yield... "
This was one of the songs that played over and over in my head.
In those darkest moments, when even our faith is so far removed from our bodies, there is that lone thread that keeps us tied to sanity, to reality, to the world around us...just barely sometimes, but still just enough.
It was so different for me than they described it. It wasn't that I did not bond right away. I did. More than I have ever bonded to anything or anyone in my entire life. So much so I cut everyone else off. My husband did everything, more than any other man I think could possibly do! He was patient, loving, caring, gentle. He was nurturing. He was my ROCK. He was my life preserver yet I continued to drown. 
I did not even know I was drowning all the while a dark abyss had swallowed every ounce of my being. It was so dark I couldn't tell where I was.  The black water surrounding me had taken over my senses.  I could not breathe, my air had been sucked right out of my body.  I could not see, my eyes were flooded by the tears of my soul.  I could not talk.  I was screaming inside my head but nothing was coming out of my mouth.  I could not reach out and touch.  My hands were floating around me lifeless.  Looking back now some of it is so blurred it is hard to recall when it started and when it ended. There is no way to point to a date on a calendar.
Depression. It is such an ugly word. It does not matter what other words you put before the D word. They are all ugly together or standing alone. Because when you in the midst of any of them all you feel is ALONE. Depression on its own runs in my family. I have suffered from it before, the broken hearted kind. This was so different. This was in a class all its own.
I was overjoyed with my baby. This baby was the only thing that brought me any joy during this time. It was the rest of the world I shut out. Everyone around me no longer mattered. I went into robot mode, going thru the motions that were necessary to keep them at bay. “Them” being everyone else in my life! My husband included. God bless him! He cooked for me to eat. He would bring me water to make me drink. He drove me everywhere the first several months. He stayed by me. Even when I did not want him to.
Mother love us
Mother loves us
Mother feed us
Mother feeds us
Mother teach us
Mother teaches us
I cried. So much. The silent cry where tears just stream. There was no other emotion on my face. I could wipe the tears away and no one would notice a change in my demeanor. I would sit up in my bed at night, holding my sleeping baby, with my husband sleeping next to me and just cry.
I would sit in the glider and we would rock. I would hum most days because I could not find the energy to sing the words. Somehow I prayed silently in my head. Certain passages would run thru my mind from my childhood. Most of them in the form of a song we used to sing.

Fear Not...For I am with you says the Lord.
I have redeemed you; I have called you by name..

Some days I did not even know my own name.
I wanted to spend every waking moment with my baby. I did not want to share him. I did not want someone else to rock him, feed him, and care for him. I wanted to do it. I was consumed with it. I used nursing him as an excuse to lock myself in my room or the nursery. I had a new mom friend ask me later how long it took to nurse a newborn in the beginning. I wasn't sure how to answer because I was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to take an hour!

Child you are mine...
Whose line is that?
I don’t think that was supposed to be mine...

THANK God we are not all called to give our children over to God like Samuel. Or are we?
One by one God began to pry my fingers away from the death grip I spiritually had on my child. I was sucking the life right out of him in order to stay alive myself.
When you walk thru the water I will be there

And thru the flame

Fear Not!
What was I doing? This child was not sent here to be my Savior. That child had already come and gone. And was Risen again. This child was given to me as a gift to teach, love and to yes give back to God.
It is so painful to just throw the light on when we are in that sickening, drowning darkness. Yet when the light is turned on too slowly we don’t see anything changing. And sometimes God just says,

"Let there be Light!"
And there just is.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

Light in the darkness.

The night turns into day.
Your mercies are new every morning.
Life is restored.  Love is renewed. 
In an instant I found myself floating on top of the water.  My eyes closed, arms outstretched on either side, my body relaxed, bobbing along and the sun was shining again.  The darkenss was gone and I did not have to sit up to realize that the shore was so close.
Looking back on my postpartum depression, I can understand how so many new moms and dads do not realize what is going on with themselves or their wife. The women experiencing it personally are so lost in it they have no idea where they are. Those around them don’t always know what to say or do or even how to pray. They begin to feel lost as well. It can be a tornado sucking everyone around into its vortex. Once you come out the other side you have been changed. Life does go back to normal just your definition of normal is forever altered. I can't tell you what causes post partum depression or how to stop it. I can tell you that if you have it there is hope. There is life after the big D! There is light and it is GOOD. Sometimes you may not know you are in the darkness until the light is restored. Rest assured those around you know—even if they don’t know what to call it, they are trying to help. Listen and let them!

I was recently reminded that the lessons of life are meant to be learned, accepted and welcomed not scrutinized, dismissed and disregarded as irrelevant. I have accepted this specific journey as an extra warrior patch that makes me who I am, that has taught me to be sensitive to the fragile journey of others.



Friday, April 9, 2010

Snot me


I must admit I was that snot nosed teenager that could not stand it when babies had runny noses, or spit up all over me or had a diaper explosion or drooled on me. NOTE: emphasis was the "on me" part. Second admission for the day, I have actually had the snot photo shopped out of a photo of my son! But only once!!

Let me introduce myself: I am Rena Arnold and I no longer care about any of these things. Call me a mom now I guess. A mom of boys no less...Maybe it started with my oldest who seems to have allergies that won’t quit, with a runny nose that would constitute a marathon if I were to chase after it all the time....Maybe it was due to my youngest son's bout with Acid Reflux that gave me the pleasure of cleaning up spit up for 9 long months. Constantly!! So much so it tainted my nostrils, so much that I smelled it everywhere I went. I was crazy about it. Changing everyone's clothes several times a day. Always wearing a cute monogrammed burp cloth. Going insane may be an understatement! I was beyond obsessed with getting rid of the smell. Then one day it stopped. Or I stopped worrying about it. Not sure which came first. But now I don’t care. I can clean up ANYTHING without flinching...well almost anything...
Now I don’t worry about the snot showing in the pic if the rest of the photo is still good. I am not freaking out if there is a little mashed banana in my hair if I see you at Target...Now I am not talking about a whole banana! But you get my drift. Enjoy life, love your kids even if they need a double dip bath, and love your husband when he takes the kids to school with Nutella still on their face! Because at the end of every day the snot really does not fall into the category of stuff that matters...




Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tackle Tuesdays

Well here we are in a new month! And the clock is ticking away. Berkeley's Birthday is in less than a month. And I must admit: I have no idea what I am doing yet!!! YIKES! All I know is that my sister is coming home from Arizona for the summer and I am on cloud NINE right now.

As usual I could not come up with a good April Fools joke. It always scares me that it might come true if I pretend like that. And the emphasis being on joke, no one really plays a good, sweet, kind of April Fools. Wait I think that is because the emphasis is suppose to be on FOOL! Hmmm...That was a revelation! You know sometimes I think my life is the joke. Anyone else looking in would be dumbfounded at the craziness we live in, but I am proud of it! I love what we have, who we are, where we live and all the things we do together!

First Tuesday of the month is my opportunity to look at everything going on this month & make sure I have all my bases covered. (even though I usually don’t have them all covered, it makes me feel better to look) Why not Monday? Because Mondays by definition are busy and the boys are not in preschool on Mondays. So Tuesdays it is. We have a practice camping trip before the real one the 1st of May for Bradford and Brandon. Get our name in for Museum Camp this summer. This may actually be the #1 thing of the month and if it is the ONLY thing I accomplish I am fine with that! Oh, wait rewind to Berk's b-day party! 2 Things!!!! I have a conference in the middle of the month I am going to with some very lovely ladies. And then...well I know there is more...I just can't think of it all right now. Good thing I am using today to get organized...Oh I do have a very special trip to the Container Store coming up in my VERY NEAR future! So nothing earth shattering today...here's to little sisters, here's to babies growing up, and here's to my AMAZING life!