Don't be jealous

I learned how to make homemade, fresh-from-the-goat ricotta cheese yesterday. Yes, it is creamy and amazing.

2 gallons raw or real goats milk heated over low flame until 190 degrees, no boiling.
Turn off heat the moment it reaches 190
Add 1.5 cups apple cider vinegar
Strain it, first with colander and then cheese cloth, not too much drainage, you want the moisture
Start eating immediately, or chill it first and add maple syrup and strawberries, or chocolate chips. Whatever does it for you.

I know, it's all about food over here lately. Sorry. I mean, you're welcome.

All About Sprouting

Lately I've been flirting with cutting back on gluten for some of the kids* but after some experimenting and reading, because it is not medically indicated, I have decided for the most part I am not a fan of the vast expense of pulling that off for this many people; the high number of ingredients necessary to create palatable baked goods, and the artificial nature of the ingredients in so many gluten-free recipes. No, they are not all like that, but many many of the recipes I found have over twice the amout of ingredients and I just am not going to do this.

*I have several friends who saw drastic positive behavioral and mood changes in their kiddos by changing the diet, specifically cutting gluten. I was curious about this notion, and have been doing some non-gluten substituting just to see if it was something I could or wanted to do. I started testing to see if it made any difference in the children in question. The jury will never come back because I don't think I will ever be able or want to go 100% with the experiment. 

As a side note, I witnessed a hilarious packaging stunt in the store the other day. There was some sad meat byproduct, possibly bologna or hormone-soaked hot dog and on the packaging it read "always gluten free" stamped on a green leaf. I can just envision some hipster advertising liars in a dark room somewhere hatching up this scheme to attempt to convince consumers this hot dog is somehow healthy because of this natural- looking leaf and Hey! Out of all the horrible things in this food-like-item, it doesn't have gluten! It's practically broccoli! I wanted to slap my made-up guys with the soggy hot dog.

The fun result of my less-gluten experimentation is I've learned a new way to make bread that I love and the children love. They do not want to go back to regular bread and instead are insisting on sprouted whole grain bread! There is no end to the rabbit hole of the whole, healthy food journey. This bread is much lower in gluten, (though not free, esp since I did add a small amount of whole wheat flour to make it easier to work with and to get it to rise). It is also higher in vitamin B6 and protein rich and less starchy, and the nutrients are absorbed better by our bodies than regular flour-based bread.

Ready to learn the process?

I did not measure. I am so sorry. You are gonna have to play with this, just like I do. I think I took about three or four cups of whole wheat grains. Sometimes called wheat berries. I also grabbed, literally with my hands, two handfuls of lentils, just for fun. I poured water over them in a bowl and let it sit for two days.

They did not sprout. I rinsed the water a few times, and in 36 hours, still nothing. Then I read more recipes online and switched tactics. Then I transfered the grains to jars with lids and added a small amount of water.

In one day I had lovely little sprouting grains and lentils. In all, these babies sat in moist or wet conditions for five days on my counter before they looked like this. I was worried they'd get fermented and nasty but they smelled just great so I pressed forward.

I transferred the grains and lentils directly to the Vitamix blender and started on a low setting, maybe 2 or 3. This shows about ten seconds in of blending.

Using the tamper to keep things moving, I blended at about a 4 until it looked like this:

I cracked two eggs right into the blender


Then stopped because I was so excited about the grain part I forgot about the yeast part. So I grabbed a spoonful of regular ol' yeast and added it to a very small amount of warmish/hottish water mixed with a few tablespoons of honey. I didn't want much water becuase the grain mixture has a lot of water and I knew I was already in trouble consistency wise, I knew I was working with a very wet dough and if I wanted to knead it at all, I was going to have to add some flour. (Not everyone kneads sprouted grain bread dough, in fact, some recipes don't use yeast at all, but I wanted it a little fluffy, not too dense.) Thus just enough water and honey to give the yeast something to grow in.



Stir it up


And in ten minutes I had a bubbly growing swamp of yeast

I dumped the contents of the Vitamix (the grain/lentil mash + eggs than I buzzed for a few seconds) into a big bowl and then added the yeast honey swamp

For fun I added in a handful of chia seeds (which I could have sprouted with everything else had I thought about it), a little more honey, berbere, cardamom, cinnamon and salt.

At this point I really needed firmer dough, it was about the consistency quick bread batter, way too wet, so I added two or three cups of whole wheat flour. I hope to perfect the recipe so I need less or zero flour.

The next step is essential. I turned around to see the most adorable baby in the world playing with a baby doll. Enjoyed how peaceful he was during our rare one-on-one time. Invited him to come taste the dough, which he did. He loves dough. Please, please note his dirty feet from running around barefoot outside. I want to eat him whole, every day.

I stirred it up, used a little more of the blasphemous flour to get my hands knead-ready and after kneading for something less than five minutes I transferred to a bowl sprayed with coconut oil and covered with a towel. It rose for two hours and looked lovely.

This, you should know is a massive amount of dough. I took it out of the large bowl and knew I needed my  extra long and high bread pan ideal for sandwiches (which makes it easier to cut bread into slices) for as well as one of my regular-sized pans. I kneaded a bit, and eventually cut this shaped, lovely dough to fit the pans. If you look carefully at the photo below, you can see my favorite picture of Hubs and me.



I let it rise in the pans another 45 minutes and tucked them unto the oven at 350 and watched it for a little less than 30 minutes. I think. I really don't time this stuff. Here they are right as they went in.


It is amazing, soft and oooh it is delicious. We may never go back.



Another sprouted grain (and gluten free) recipe is up on the Scooping it Up Facebook page today, my kids can't stop eating the muffins!

Many Mothers

Mother's Day Wishes

I heard a commercial last night that made me want to barf.

Here at JC Penny's we believe your mother deserves everything she wants on Mother's Day...

Or something like that. Of course they really mean, We believe she deserves for you to buy a whole bunch of crap from our store. 

Here is what I want and according to that retailer, "deserve" for Mother's Day:

I wish my girls could hang out with their first mom on Mother's day.
I wish I could make my son feel better about the fact that we don't know his Ethiopia Mommy's name and can't call her like we can his sisters' mom. I wish I could fix this problem. I would do anything to fix this.

I wish the people at church wouldn't make any of the talks about mothers. Period.
I wish they wouldn't spend precious financial resources on buying all women over age nineteen mothers or not, flowers, chocolate, cupcakes.

See, the flowers are likely going to die, and many of us are trying to not amplify the size of our butts. We are already self-conscious and feeling guilty about our bodies and our mistakes as mothers, I don't think we need to turn church into another place we feel badly about ourselves.
Not to mention the women whose mothers were horrible, mentally ill, absentee or passed.
Not to mention the women who desperately want to be mothers and are not on the "club."
Not to mention the women who've lost children with miscarriages and stillbirths or accidents or illness.
Not to mention women who've placed children for adoption and know their kids are making cards for other women who get the love and praise for being mothers.

Pass out all the cupcakes and flowers you want to each woman to cover the bases: It doesn't take out the sting.

I wish the folks at church would take the chocolate or flower money and announce a single thing over the pulpit

We are grateful to our mothers who birthed us, women who raised us, and all women who spread goodness. We have donated our congregation's money to a women's shelter in Boston. Have a lovely day, by way of gratitude, we are canceling the last hour of church so everyone can enjoy this lovely day with their families.

Mother's day is hard. Despite so many who wish it to be otherwise, despite the good intent of making this a national holiday, it's a hard day. None of my wishes are going to come true. Maybe I can go to yoga before church to help me steel myself for the discomfort and take it all peacefully.

I hope all women can make it through this day, my sisters everywhere. My children's mothers: You are not less. You are everything to me. You are not forgotten. I don't want the cupcake.


PS. I am remembering how I felt last year on Mother's Day, apparently I have a history...

Behind

I feel like I am in a perpetual state of behindedness. (May not be a word.) I have 187 emails in my "draft" folder. Partially written, never sent. I have 23 unheard messages on my cell, and 12 on the land line.

I still have a land line.

I have posts partially written on artificial twinning in adoption, with awesome, thoughtful submissions from you cool people to go with my own humble writings on the subject.

I have a post partially written on how grateful I was for all the kind feedback from the last post but how I still  sometimes feel like giving up on insurance and therapy because the it feels too hard, and I can't delegate it and I have four kids to educate and two toddlers to keep alive and I am burned out and I haven't even started. So, everyone said You're great! Go get' em tiger!  I am decidedly not feeling tigerish. Do you hear me? Zero progress.

I have another partially written post on all the books I've read so far this year with reviews. And yet another on city life and country life and my journey to give my kids the best of both worlds, while living smack in the middle the suburbia.

I have a post partially written on "lying" and truth and how it affects adoptions and relationships with friends and family in Ethiopia. This one has Be Sensitive written all over it, and it just takes more time to put together than I am giving it right now. But it's in my drafts folder, germinating.

And speaking of germinating, I made sprouted-wheat bread for the first time ever (OK, I used 1/3 flour to get my feet wet) and it was amazing. Seriously lovely bread. I have a new method for sure.

Confession: I haven't gone to a yoga class in over a month. I cannot tell you how sad this makes the approaching swim-suit season. I am in crummy shape and I do not like this feeling.

In the name of lil' bit of catching up, here are some bite-sized updates, to soothe my, so-very-behind soul.

My sweetness, Cookie Monster, turned five and Samantha turned seven and gladly consented to a combo birthday celebration as long as they each got their own cake. Vanilla coconut for Cookie, and chocolate brownie peanut butter for Samantha. We had a crammed house full of love. These two are my first two babies, and they are such good friends. A note about these cool kiddos on their birthdays for posterity's sake: Samantha is our resident story and power poetry writer and creative director of the children, and sadly for her, has not yet lost any teeth. She would give up a vital organ to have a horse and has a knack for languages and is too artistic to bother with putting clothes away.

Cookie is the perfect middle child and can move from being part of the little boys pack and leader of Terrible, Dangerous, Messy Planning Committee, and then the next moment, recall minute details from the novels we are reading and facts about the Periodic table of Elements with the older girls. He has the closest relationships with all five siblings and though he tortures all of them, they forgive him because he's hilarious.


We like to rock party games that cost zero dollars:


In other news, Mimi played in her first softball game and loved it, but after her first practice Hubs noted she was frustrated by how stinking hard it is to try to pick up on a new sport that everyone else on the team knows from years of being an American and watching it, and years of previous play. She was able to express how sucky it is for everything you do to feel like an uphill climb. Language, math, speaking, making friends, spelling, reading, sports: there isn't one thing that isn't profoundly more difficult having to do it in another culture and language. But girlfriend has fire. She doesn't know like we do how brilliantly she's doing. I don't care if on paper she's reading English at a third grade level. She cares, because she's wicked smart and knows she's behind other kids. But we could not be prouder. (And Brady still worships her, so there's that.)



It's official. Granola bars are too expensive for this size family. I have taken to making muffins, thirty-six at a time, for a quick grab snack.



These babies don't have one bit of sugar, just some local honey. More and more, everything we make is from scratch. The kids are not complaining, but it's kinda funny how our life revolves around food and clean up from making food. Someone, please, just buy me a denim jumper so I can get on with my life.

Seriously though, speaking of not wearing the denim jumper, at the softball game when interrogated by all the other sideline parents about our family, the home schooling, the holycraphowoldarethey? Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure the only thing that bridged the Weirdness Divide was that I was wearing designer jeans and mascara at the time. It was like a battle was being waged in the other mothers' minds:

Wait, this woman looks normal. Like she fits in with us, we just don't understand the words coming out of her mouth about her life. But she must be OK, because look, see? The jeans...

I created one of our favorite hairstyles this week and Fikir cannot stop admiring herself. It's alright because everyone else is admiring it too.

I was thinking the other day about my failings, mistakes, mess-ups. My daily need to apologize to the kids and do "re-dos." But really, I do not have time to dwell on my short comings. Because dinner for tomorrow night is already late, there are five loads of laundry that may never actually be put away, and we need to go to the library and work on fractions.

The kids have going on:
softball
t-ball
gymnastics (four of them)
therapy (five appointments a week)
farm internship day
piano lessons (three of them)
cello lesson
yoga, zumba and sometimes singing classes and this summer there will be swim lessons and track.
Looking at this list that does not include academics or housework or time spent reading or my violin teaching schedule, it's safe to say I think I will be staying behind permanently. I will never ever again be caught up. I am throwing in the towel.

Oh, and after the beep? Don't leave a message. Just call back sometime, I am very sorry and grateful in advance.

Therapy and Fighting

I hesitate on this post because it's a bit personal for me and children I love. It gets into a bit of nitty gritty about what the journey is for a parent fighting to keep a child healthy. It talks about specifics of care. And I do believe in protecting my child. Which is why I don't share details about life before our family. But I also  know how isolating it can be to be to be on a journey like mine, and maybe there are more out there like me, fighting similar fights. And the only way to not be alone on a trip is to pick up hitchhikers or join a caravan going to a similar place. So, if you will try not to judge me, please, hop in or follow along. We are all in this together if you want to be.

Are there benefits to having a traumatized young child in therapy with an experienced and compassionate trauma and attachment therapist? Yes. For sure. Two or three months in, is one of those benefits greater emotional regulation? No. Not yet. If anything, digging up big feelings from the past make the week in between therapy harder. My days are a mix of home school joy and responding to lightening storms. It is constant, relentless and Tsega's therapist and Brady's dedicated team of EI therapists are trying to trouble shoot ideas for daily helps for the toddlers so we have some semblance of functionality.

Lovely ideas thus far mostly for Tsega and some don't hurt for Brady, either,
1) more exercise, which is harder than it sounds for toddlers when it's cold outside still. I am considering trying Tsega on my treadmill today.
2) Vitamin C and GABA supplements to try to combat the raging cortisol. I had read recent studies linking Vitamin C in high doses with helping reduce cortisol, but I hadn't stuck with any resolve to try it. Well, I am back on the wagon and going to supplement this little guy 'til the cows come home.

Can you make out the bottom phrase? "...it has an inhibitory effect on the firing of neurons and supports a calm mood." I've read praises of this supplement so it's a worth a shot.

3) Another idea, which sounds silly in its obviousness is to expect less (or zero?) cooperation during meal times and feed him high protein snacks constantly through the day, upon request. Hunger/food and meal times are massive anxiety triggers and Doc suggests being apart of the solution, not try to force things. Keep hunger away, and do not worry about Parenting Magazine coming to do a photo shoot during dinner.

4) Making his room more a of refuge, trying to find a safe way to give him a place to get reconnected to his body, perhaps a tent that is small, dark, comfortable where he can get away from the noise and social stuff in the house, or a lycra spacial body bag or hammock. 

6) Being outside a trigger for T, so before leaving the car, sitting with him and pointing out to to him where we are going, showing him safe spots, going over the plan for the next hour or so. Bringing a picnic blanket or small cushion that will be a "home base" so where ever we are he knows we can return to "home base" with one of his parents and not get lost, etc. Also when exiting the car to go be outside, starting out without fail to have him in the Ergo backpack carrier to let him observe his surroundings and get acclimated before putting him down on the ground. Wait until he asks to be put down.

These are all lovely ideas, and they feel like the right thing to do. Even in practice, so far, it is hard to notice if anything really helps.

Parent to therapist: It feels like every time my child cries, which is in response to just about everything, it is aa emergency. There is no little problem, it's all a huge catastrophe, it's life or death, even if it's an apple stem or that I reached the wrong book.

Therapist to parent: That is because when it was life or death, when he cried big cries, no one came. When he is scared or upset, it still feels like life or death, and he is still not sure, to this day, that someone is going to come and help those feelings go away. He needs you to come.  And he needs you to tell him when you do respond to another melt down that you are hearing him. Say,"Look! You cried and we heard you and knew you needed us so we came! We will always help you! When you cried you showed us you needed help. We can use our words too, you can tell us 'Mama, please come!" Validate him, keep talking.


Parent to therapist: I know. We try. But it's all day, and he's not the only kid.

Therapist to parent: I know. Do not give up, and know when you are doing your best.

So, we are in the trenches. It's humbling to think how much there is ahead of us a family to meet not only this child but every child's particular emotional, psychological, academic and who-knows-what-else needs. I waffle between feeling good that I am indeed doing my best and thinking Holy crap, are we going to survive this? Are any of them going to become criminals or addicts? This might be as easy as it ever gets...And those of you who are parenting children from hard places know I am not joking in my worry about the future. This truly may be as easy as it gets. Sometimes, it gets harder, not better.

***
Fun fact One: I was working on writing this post and it was frozen in the draft folder, as it wasn't going anywhere when I had a nasty conversation with insurance this week. They led me to believe they were covering therapy with this specialized doctor. Turns out, not really. I have to stop taking my kid to the one therapist out of dozens I called who said she thinks she can help him. That is, I have to stop taking him to see her until I get insurance to stop being a $%&#@ jerk. I have to fight them. I still haven't won the battle for OT, and now I am fighting for trauma therapy.

The funny-sad thing is, the process I need to go through to hopefully get insurance to cover this therapist? I did all the work. Months worth of calling therapists with specific questions to see if they would be appropriate for my kid and his symptoms. It was no after no until I found her. But I didn't write any of that down. I didn't document it.

Now, I have to start from scratch. I need to get a list of providers that are ("in network") which I have learned means "People willing to take a lower rate that insurance has negotiated to pay them." I need to call every single therapist in a twenty mile radius, and document that they cannot treat my son because of t,u,v, x,y, and or z, and then demonstrate to Insurance "Look, see? None of your people can do this. You need to cover this doctor." I did this exact thing several months ago, I just was stupid about it because I didn't keep the records of everyone I called, though I am sure not all of them were in-network either. To have a shot at getting the coverage we seek, after I give Insurance my list of their inappropriate or unavailable therapists, and they realize they should indeed cover the doctor we've been working with, then they will throw a fit because they want her to lower her rate and want to pay her less. And she will not negotiate her rate, and then they will say "OK, we will pay her rate, but only approve six or ten sessions at a time, and you have to reapply every six or ten weeks, and we, Insurance Overlords of Human Sorrow, will make your doctor's life a living hell. You have to allow us to scrutinize your care and records of treatment continually forever for this patient, and we look forward to trying to stop paying for her fee and hope she and you, the patient's family, tire of the paperwork we will require so that way we can put this all behind us."

This is the process ahead of me. I am daunted. I am feeling discouraged. But then I remember:

Fun fact Number Two: Don't the wizards geniuses over in Insurance Land realize that treating a child with severe PTSD early, we could stave off years of more expensive therapies, continual need for medications, medical interventions, residential psychiatric bills. ER visits?  Don't they realize I am trying to save them, us ALL grief? My kid needs help. It isn't going away. As he gets bigger, so will the demons. And then my son, and the penny-pincers in Insurance Land shall be up a creek with a very expensive paddle.

Now is the time. She is the therapist. I have to find a way to make it work. But next week I can't take my child to the doctor who has been able to  reach him. Next week, instead of going to his appointment with her, I will be finding a sitter so I can sit with a phone and a spreadsheet and a prayer that I can fight this stupid fight.

Here is something you can all ponder with me: Why must parents with children with different needs, be they mental, emotional, psychiatric, physical, developmental or combinations have to invent the wheel?  Every kid is different, even ones with the same diagnosis. And all of them are on different insurance plans, all have unique needs, so every single family who wants their children to get the maximum support and help they need must forge through the jungle with a butter knife, trying to clear a path.

Screw this butter knife, I just want to burn the trees to the ground. The more time I spend trying to reinvent the wheel for my child, the less time I am connecting with them and teaching them.

I don't want to be a fighter. I want to be a mother.

Yeah yeah, I know. But maybe that is just part of the job description. 

So It Begins

It's been a looong time since we really engaged in organized team sports. A certain almost-five-year old has insisted/begged for t-ball, and it was time. Cookie Monster was looking good out there today.

Mimi wanted to try out this new, American sport and was pretty rockin' herself on the sidelines.

This is how Tsega feels about t-ball. Though he claims when it warms up he may feel differently.

And while we are very proud of Cookie and excited to be sports parents again, the shock of the afternoon was the preemie. You know, the one with four to five Early Intervention appointments a week? For all manner of therapy? Well, this is how he feels about baseball, t-ball, and really, and kind of ball. People. He's two-and-a-half for crimeny'sakes. Get a load of this stance.

He can't speak yet, but if you don't throw him another pitch he will throw the biggest tantrum you've ever seen. Now go get the darn ball and throw it to him again. For the next three hours, thanks. 

Is There a Course for That?

Still emotionally dealing with the Boston Marathon, that our family attended. (We are all safe.)Will try to chime in my thoughts when I am feeling stable. Tonight, well, tonight was a sneak into the crib at 1am with my littlest baby to stroke his hair kind of night.

Lately I am doing some big soul searching. It is painful to sort through the mind, shake out some dust, check out what is going on in my mind and heart and I don't know if I like everything I am seeing under the hood, so to speak. I am digging back a little trying to understand where I am right now. I couldn't sleep, so I arose from my bed to tackle tomorrow's to do list. I am finding my college degree, not surprising, Psychology, is not helping me in my current career, which is at the moment defined by cleaning up goo I cannot identify, and signing my kids up for stuff online with forms called 'Infinitely Complicated Registration Wizards' etc.

And speaking of, my hard-earned, very expensive diploma does not help me with other advanced skills I have been steered by life into mastering. But I didn't know back then as a college freshman I should have taken these classes:

How to Find a Therapist 101-401
How to Ditch the Wrong Doctor After Two Visits
How to Deal with Medical Trauma in a Marriage 
How to Cook for 12+ people 101, 201
How to Decide what is Normal and what Warrants Professional Help?
How to keep a kid with Sensory Processing Issues Safe, or Avoiding CPS 101 and 201
Breastfeeding in Front of your Father-in-law: Journeys into Extended Family Relationships
Future Homeopathic Food Hippies: Your Friends may Consume Part of their Placentas but you Don't Have to 
White People: Why Some Insist Reverse Racism is Possible and you Want to Barf
Coping and Dealing: When One Finds Oneself a Somewhat Liberal Christian
Secondary Trauma: How Families Cope with PTSD resulting from Someone Else's PTSD
Home schooling: Wear Denim Jumpers or Don't, Either way, Don't be Afraid
Open Adoption: It's Best 97% of the Time
Ethics in International Adoption. (Well, looks like I wrote my own course in it)

Perhaps the best course I could have taken would have been titled something like, Your Undergraduate Experience: It Doesn't Get Easier Than This, Life is Going to Sock you in the Face so Enjoy This Now

In actuality, I loved college. And despite my degree not taking me to another more advanced degree or a career that I had all hand picked when I graduated, I need to remind myself what it did prepare me to accomplish in respect to my current circumstances.

See, I went to school full time as a Psych major at Brandeis University, then ranked in the top thirty universities in the country. I worked anywhere from two to four jobs each semester to afford my housing and the very small amount of food I bought as well as pay back student loans that were already sending bills.  I worked at the library, driving a campus van, at an events center, as a lifeguard, a babysitter and an Residential Adviser. I was a section leader in orchestra, took ballet classes, practiced karate, visited my friends aerobics classes, took voice and violin lessons, sang in small chamber choirs and recitals, participated in and eventually directed an a Capella group, and attended church each Sunday, all in addition to classes.

Me on the left, carefree and still blonde with my awesome college roommate at her rugby match. I had no idea what was in store.

I did NOT achieve a fabulous GPA the university level. We are talking a laughable GPA. I even missed a final once. I hung on by the seat of my pants. Sometimes I didn't pick up my phone because I was afraid someone was calling to say "You are late for work" or "You are supposed to be here at our study group!" I knew I was a bit out of my league. I had to get comfortable with discomfort, letting things go here and there, sometimes in entirety, my work and output being imperfect. Sometimes I couldn't do the things I loved, sometimes I kept doing the things I loved and the thing I had to do suffered.

The maelstrom of activity, the back-to-back-to-back schedule I kept up, with many sleepless nights, looking back looks awfully familiar. Back then I was passionate and energetic and determined and reckless and had to do my own thing come hell or high water, which both came in their turns.

That girl has morphed into someone who now must multitask like crazy, let things go, advocate for those I love like no one's business, be relentless, go on little sleep, sometimes ignore the phone, know when to hang on, when to let something slide and each day wake up to do it again. Now other lives hang in the balance. I am accountable to more than just myself. But I kinda smile when I think that time in college, where I took on a little more than I could handle, was practice for motherhood in a big way.

I weep sometimes when I think of how poorly I mess up every day. I am impatient in moments I know they need me to give them a pass. I am angry when I know they aren't trying to ruin things. I let other people, on the phone, in my life, tick me off and it gets taken out in a terse, raised voice to my little people. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed. Sometimes they aren't just being lazy and belligerent  and the shoes truly do not fit anymore. Sometimes, they aren't throwing a tantrum and the cries actually mean a leg is caught in the crib bars. It is so painful to be aware of my frailty and not know how these frailties may unintentionally weaken armor I am trying to build around my children.

I would  like to allow myself to be proud of myself for all that I do juggle, and be proud when it works and when there are smiles and love and giggles and connection and learning. Yet it pains me that someday they, the six little people, shall rightly sit around discussing the merits of how I took them on this journey. They will dissect with clarity and precision where I went wrong, my failings and faults. They will know, as I do, where I didn't quite give them what they really could have used.

I hate that I will fail them. I hope they can forgive me. I hope I can forgive myself. That would be a college course worth taking.

Big questions for a girl, (woman, though I don't always feel it) who still needs to figure out a poorly designed website and make sure her baby can play t-ball this spring. He's been asking for two years, he's finally old enough for the real thing, and I don't want to let him down. Surely, that $120,000 piece of paper hiding in a frame in the basement can help me navigate this essential item on my to-do list. Right?