Mom vs. The Laundry: An Imaginary Appliance Revolt

This has been a familiar scene at my house over the past week or so. 

That's me...surrounded by piles of housework...paying no attention to it. 

Only I haven't been sucked into a soap opera on TV.  I've been absorbed in a book.  The Giver series has given my mind a much appreciated respite from household chores (though not from my kids...I always choose them over a book...well, 85% of the time anyway).  I've been lost in the pages of The Giver series' beautiful and tragic dystopia and didn't want to pull myself out of it, especially for chores. 

Sigh. 

I love this series.  I love reading.  I love books.  And I hate laundry.

Anyway, since my loving and gifted husband has been busy constructing our built-ins in the living room (progress photos are coming) and the kids have been busy, well, being kids; a few things have gone unattended in the Cole household lately.  Namely the laundry.

Ugh.  The mountain of laundry. 

So I declared yesterday to be Laundry Day. 

Our washer and dryer laundered a lot of dirty clothes in one day.  Nine loads to be exact. 

That's A LOT of laundry.

I fear their retribution as they finish the last two loads for me tonight... 

They'll look normal as I approach.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Just two metal machines sitting in our basement.  But their presence will take on a quiet menace as I approach.  Then, BAM, the washer will attack, its hoses lashing and spitting and flailing, challenging me, daring me to shove one more dirty shirt or stinky sock into it. 

But I will fight it.  And I will prevail! 

Because I am Mom.  And even though I may go on chore hiatus for a week, my appliances don't.  I mean just think if I gave into the washer's protests.  How long before the news would travel to the other appliances?  How long before they would all rise up against me?  It would be anarchy.

Photo Dump

Rich and I were talking last night about the fun things we've done with the kids this summer.  Lots of little excursions here and there, though an actual vacation has not been one of them.  But if having (and loving) our new house means no vacation this year, then that's okay with me! 

We also talked about how beautiful our kids are...seriously.  They couldn't be any cuter if they were trying. 

I went through my photos reminiscing about the good summer times we've enjoyed and realized how few I've shared.  So here is a little catching up photo dump.  Enjoy.

Lena's little gang of preschool buddies at Inniswood one very hot afternoon.  She was so happy to see them all!

My company's annual King's Island day!  Rich and I agreed that this was our family's best year there.  The kids are getting bigger and can enjoy more of the rides.  The weather turned out to be perfect: overcast with tiny rain showers here and there, which made the lines short and the crowds small, and it never rained hard enough to shut anything down much longer than 10 minutes.  It was a great day!

 

 Accidental head injuries trying to get our last brother/sister photo...

Which was quickly remedied by a couple of spontaneous hugs and giggles. 

 

Rich's annual family reunion. Hot but beautiful day at a lovely place...it's always good catching up with the extended fam. 

Visiting great grandma.  It was a quick visit, but it's always nice to see how little she changes from visit to visit.  Other than a few mostly minor physical issues, which are to be expected because the woman is in her 90's, Grandma is happy and healthy. 

Early morning walk with Lily girl.  Lori's family had to head out for their vacation early one morning, so we kept Lily overnight and then took her to Mom and Dad's with us, where she had herself a little vacation.  She's the best dog ever.

The 4th of July at Mom and Dad's.  We had a nice, relaxed visit and the kids honed their swing pumping skills! 

Rich set off some smoke bombs, which in turn filled the whole neighborhood with blue and white smoke.  Oops. :)

We snuck to my old high school right before the fireworks started and enjoyed them on a blanket with Mom.  The kids were pooped, but I'm so glad we got to see it together.  It was a great show!

My mad artistry skills, as requested by the children.

Impromptu soup lunch at Panera, followed by a visit to our favorite store: Half Price Books, where we all scored awesome finds!

Hanging with friends at our weekly free lunch volunteer location.  Couldn't get the kids out of the tree that day. 

Hiking with Lori and the boys yesterday.  It was just too beautiful not to be outside, so it was a perfect day for an impromptu invite from my big sister! 

The Great Transition

I had a great day yesterday. 

I felt so good.  I had energy.  I enjoyed my kids.  We cleaned and cooked together.  We danced and drew and played and sang together.  I bought new (used) books for us.  I felt like the me I most like to be.

Yesterday was a good day.  More noticeably so because I haven't had a lot of those lately.

It seems, you see, that I'm going through the "great transition" earlier than most women.  I won't go into the gory details but, historically, menopause has been a fairly rough transition for many women in my family.  And the same seems to be holding true for me...at least so far.

I very often walk around in a somewhat zombie-like daze sapped of energy while my hormones wreak havoc in every part of me, fluctuating wildly day to day.  Some days I fear I'm going crazy.  Some days I'm a stranger in my own skin.  Some days I feel pretty good, almost normal.  Most days I feel unbalanced physically and mentally, and with me already being a very emotional, heart-on-the-sleeve kind of gal, so many daily physical and mental peaks and valleys are becoming overwhelming.

It sucks.  A lot. 

I know menopause is somewhat of a taboo subject for a public forum.  Much like depression, sex, trouble with kids, family secrets, adjusting to motherhood, really any out of the ordinary thing that happens in a woman's life - menopause is uncomfortable and awkward for people to discuss.  Women don't want to share their burdens, don't want people knowing their business, don't want to let on that they're not perfect, don't think anyone cares.  And those things are perpetuated by so many people saying, It's menopause.  A woman's burden.  Suck it up and get on with it.  No need to talk about it.  No need to cry over spilled milk.

And I agree that this is a natural, non-fatal burden every woman experiences.  But being who I am (an over-sharer) and being a woman in the year 2014 when women are generally tired of the whole suffer in silence, ignorance is bliss, hide your feelings and fears thing, well...

I'm officially saying screw that. 

I'm not super excited for everyone to know this about me.  I feel a little embarrassed about it, actually.  Which makes me mad.  Why should I feel embarrassed on top of every other weird and terrible thing I'm feeling?  This is a natural part of womanhood.  A naturally sucky part, but natural nonetheless. 

What I am saying is that it's okay to talk about it.  It's okay to reach out for answers and commiseration and ideas and advice.  I for one am tired of reading clinical BS that downplays symptoms, almost to the point of making it seem like women are just making them up.  Yeah, I'm really tired of that.

Thankfully I am blessed with supportive family and friends who listen and advise. 

I'm so grateful for them!

I have also read a stack of books that have helped me figure a few things out and am learning to advocate for myself with my doctor to find safe and effective options for me.  But I don't let on to many how terribly scary and foreign this feels to me, or how much I'm truly struggling with it.

I guess that's why I want to share this. It is a very personal thing for a woman to go through. The physical changes and mental drag in addition to the feelings of finality and loss at the end of a such a beautiful stage of life...it's a tough pill to swallow.  Especially going through it prematurely.  Many women my age are just starting their families.  And here I am facing a phase of life that my body and mind don't feel mature enough to wrap around. 

Yup.  It sucks.  (Can you tell I'm still in the anger phase of this weird grieving process?)

But anger can quickly give way to laughter as the hormones dance their crazy jive, which has lead to some funny moments during this journey.  Like my poor Rich listening to me read a list of symptoms, both of us realizing how many I am already experiencing, and laughing a lot about it.  I mean, if you're interested and don't already know first hand, read a list of symptoms.  You'll see that they...well, they're ridiculously shitty.  There's just no nicer way to put it.  It's laughable how bizarre they can be in so many different ways.  

For those who suffer the worst of those symptoms, menopause is not the graceful transition into a gentler calmer stage of existence that it can be for some.  For those who suffer it seems our vitality and youthful vigor are busting their way out of us with a hellacious bang, dragging us to the front line of a fireworks finale...loud, long, combustible and unpredictable.

At the same time, I am fully aware that this is temporary. 

It's not a fatal illness.  It's not debilitating.  And it will end at some point. 

Having such a good, normal-Nicole day yesterday not only made me acutely aware of just how lousy I have been feeling, but, more importantly, it also made me acutely aware of how much worse daily life must be for people who do have debilitating or fatal illnesses or who have loved ones who are fighting those.  Like I said - I know what this is, it's not going to kill me and it will end.  And I'm extraordinarily grateful for that.  And that's kind of a big statement for me, because

it's hard to find gratitude and thank God when you're feeling like shit. 

But yesterday's glimpse of normalcy brought that into crystalline clarity for me.  It made me prayerful and thankful that this is but a temporary burden, not a death sentence.  And it made my heart break for those for whom the adverse is true. 

So this, like every other season of change in my life, is not something I'm gracefully, easily accepting and adapting to.  I am, unfortunately, just not built that way...I wish very much that I were.  I can't figure out how to go gentle or quiet into this new stage of my life.  I'm mad and confused and nuts and, instead of pushing those feelings down inside to add to the fiery chaos that's already burning there, I'm getting it out.

If I've done nothing but bore or gross you out, or made you roll your eyes and wish I had a stiffer upper lip, then that's cool.  I apologize for the offense.  But please know that I'll still be here for you when you go through this, if you need someone.

Because it sucks.

While prayer is so important and helpful and comforting, I'm a bit peeved at the big guy right now for piling this mountain of crap on women (of which he's fully aware - I talk to him all the time, mad or not). So talking about it with other people helps me. After all,

He made us to need one another. 

It's a much healthier and wiser thing for me to acknowledge my difficulties and to reach out to people than to go through life's super shitty moments alone.  Shouldering it alone does me no good, nor those around me. 

So I open up. Cry about it.  Laugh about it.  Share it. 

Maybe in the meantime I can help someone else the way others have helped me...and that makes it all worth it.

Catch Up

Work has been nuts lately.  I've been wiped out at home.  Which means I haven't been able to sit down alone (alone being the operative term here) and blog.  So here is a catch up on nearly a month's worth of summer memories.

Sam's last game of his first soccer season!  He loved soccer and we are excited he's found a sport he has fun playing.  I think the point of the game really sunk in toward the end of the season when he had a few super good games, great passing and teamwork.  My Sam is just a free spirit, fun loving kind of boy, so while some of his teammates (especially the girls, for some reason) were all in, game-faced, aggressive and highly competitive; Sam was mostly cracking jokes, making silly faces, laughing and having fun. That's my boy!

Then Lena had her first ballet recital!  The auditorium/hall was huge and packed full of people - we had no idea if she would freeze up there on stage or clown around or what.  But our girl was on spot, danced the choreography, smiled and was the sweetest thing.  She loved everything from the (required) makeup to the costume to the recital itself and keeps asking when ballet will start up again. :)

 

Then it was her last day of preschool.  Lena really flourished in school.  She made lots of friends, was kind and smart and made us so proud at every conference we went to.  Her teachers were awesome and she is very excited to go back next year with her friends.  Her birthday falls just before the cutoff for kindergarten, so she really could go to the big school this fall.  But we felt that she would benefit more from another year of preschool before sending her onto kindergarten. I hope that was the right decision...how do you ever really know for sure?

I brought Lena to work with me one day (because Rich went with Sam to the kindergarten pool day and Lena was jealous:) She was so good at work that I actually was able to get a lot done.  As her reward, she played in the fountains right outside my office before we headed home. 

Next was Sam's field day/last day of school, for which I was able to volunteer. So I spent the whole day with my boy and all his friends playing games, laughing, eating snow cones, singing happy birthday to all the kids who didn't have a birthday during the school year. Sam amazed Rich and I with how much he learned this year, how quickly he learned it, how easily some things came to him and how he persevered at those that didn't.  And we were surprised and awed by his mad artistic skills, about which his teacher (who is the best) spoke to us several times.  We couldn't be more proud.

We are in love with our new town.  We happened onto a street fair one Friday evening when we headed downtown for a bite to eat and had such a lovely time.  It was a very Normal Rockwell night.  Love those unplanned perfect times.

Then Sam cut Lena's beautiful long golden hair one weekend morning while Rich and I were attempting to sleep in until 8:30.  How dare we, right?  So in addition to him being grounded (which has happened to them both a couple of times already this summer), I had to cut the rest for her and even it up without hacking it into a pixie.  There were a few strands that were shorter than I cut, but I couldn't make myself cut anymore.  It could have been much worse...but still...grrrrr...

We've enjoyed some tickets through my office lately.  The first set was for a Columbus Crew game, which was awesome! The game was exciting and fun and, best of all, we won!

Memorial Day...went to visit Nan and Papa's grave and Grandpa and Uncle John's graves.  It was a lovely day, the kids asked a lot questions and we shared memories about these amazing people.

My husband has been in high woodworking gear this summer.  He's been making birdhouses to sell, which are adorable and functional, and he fixed up the second rocking chair I pulled from someone's trash.  He's so talented...one of the too-many-to-count reasons I love this man of mine.

Rainy day artistry. :)

The second set of tickets we got from my office were to a Clippers game.  And this time we had enough for the whole family to join us, which luckily they were all available to do!  Such a good time.

Rich's birthday lunch at Longhorn.

Hanging with Miles on our back porch.

Family bike ride pit stop.

The kids and I have been volunteering with WARM on Thursdays to help serve free lunches to kids who usually get them during the school year.  We've made some good friends and had lots of fun.  This day a firetruck stopped by for a tour and the kids loved it!

Rich set up the GIANT tent Mom and Dad won at a silent auction at last year's Relay for Life.  We kept it in the backyard all weekend and the kids and their neighborhood friends had a blast!

This week Mom took Lori, the boys, me and the kids to the zoo. What a fun day!  It was a little rainy, but we had fun, laughed, ate, the kids pet a snake and some sea creatures, and had up close and personal experiences with a bear and a gorilla.

And today Rich built these for the kids.  I swear, he's so awesome.  I ran to the thrift store and found two old duvet covers, which I cut and draped over Rich's freshly made amazing tent frames, and voila...tepees!  Tepees that are easy to take down and fold up and store in the corner of the garage.  Double score for Daddy!  



Lots of fun summer memories made so far.  I'm so grateful for each one...and can't wait for more!