community - Farewell Stranger

Just Say the Word

May 16, 2013 By Robin 12 Comments

Everyone needs help once in a while.

My kids have been sick and my husband’s away and a couple of meals would really help.

But asking for help is hard.

Some days are really long and I could use a play date so my kids and I aren’t in each others’ faces all the time.

I’m lucky to be part of a group of women where this isn’t a problem.

My dad needs help and I can’t get there for a few days. Can someone help him?

Need help? Ask for help. Several will respond.

I just had surgery and I need someone to drive my oldest to school tomorrow.

Notice someone struggling? Nominate her for help. Spread the love.

Some baking would be lovely.

It doesn’t have to be big things. Sometimes the little things are what we need most.

Ask for help. Offer help.

We all need help sometimes.

I feel incredibly lucky to have found a group of friends here from whom I can ask for help when needed and offer help when asked. It really is a blessing and I wish that for everyone.

Filed Under: Happy things Tagged With: call for back-up, community, gratitude, spreading the love

Deep Breaths and Thank Yous

April 8, 2013 By Robin 10 Comments

I do have a tendency to barf things out there, don’t I? Sometimes it just helps to put it out there instead of pretending things are okay and silently screaming.

So, thank you. Thank you for listening and commenting and sending me messages to let me know you’re out there. It helps. It really does.

One of the worst things about this is feeling alone. And none of us is, which is the lovely thing about writing here. I get reassured that some of you have been here and know what this feels like, and some of you reading this realize it’s not just you either.

We’re not alone.

The good news is that today was better. We’ve adopted a new strategy for dealing with nights because, while I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing with this whole getting-babies-to-sleep thing, I do know one thing: My very chunky baby does not need to be fed two or three times a night. So I’m currently living in that weird place where the air is mostly filled with hope but the scent of desperation still lingers, and I’m afraid that if I breathe too deeply I’ll inhale the fear lurking outside. It’s the fear that this won’t work, because if this doesn’t work I have no earthly idea what to do next. But for now fear shall not rule; I’m going to keep taking deep breaths.

Okay.

Let’s talk about something else for a minute. Speaking of thank yous, I so appreciate your support for the stuff I’m writing elsewhere. I’m in full swing with my new Yummy Mummy Club blog, starting with a post about second chances and a bit of a thank-goodness-it’s-not-me post about babysitting my brother’s twins. I’ve got another one coming up this week where I’m looking for advice on helping a four-year-old make friends and I’d love it if you’d look out for that one too.

And, since it’s one of the most common search terms that leads people here, I’ve shared a version of my postpartum rage story on Huffington Post. I just think we need to talk about that more.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression Tagged With: community, gratitude, hope, we're not alone

Lookout

March 19, 2013 By Robin 7 Comments

In my mom and baby yoga class the other day, I caught the eye of a woman across from me. She was blond, her hair pulled back. Average height. Built. She wore a ripped t-shirt and I could see the tattoo on her bicep. Barbed wire maybe? Something tough-looking, anyway.

I probably wouldn’t have really noticed her — at least not more than I notice any of the moms balancing in triangle pose across from me — except that she had an odd look on her face. She looked sort of lost.

I know that look. It’s the one where you’re trying to find inner peace and you can sort of glimpse it but at the same time you’re wondering if your baby is about to squawk again and you’re really not sure if signing up for a yoga class where you bring your baby with you was a good idea. Because if that baby starts screaming, it’s not relaxing for anybody.

I would never have taken Connor to a mom and baby yoga class. I would never have even considered it, because it would have required Xanax to get through it. For both of us. He just wasn’t a calm sort of baby and he would, without a doubt, have disturbed my tranquility like a pebble disturbs the stillness of a pond. So instead I took an evening yoga class with my other new-mom friends and happily left him at home with dad. For that hour, if he screamed instead of sleeping peacefully (which was often the case) it wasn’t my problem. Tranquil, indeed.

So at this present-day yoga class, I looked across at the mom who, at first glance, appeared to be the type who takes no shit from anybody and wondered if perhaps it was the newest soul in her life who was giving her grief.

Image source: ImageBase

Or maybe it wasn’t her baby. Maybe things just weren’t quite right in her new-mom world. Her baby wasn’t even the fussiest one in the room that day. In fact, on that day her baby could have shrieked her little lungs out and it wouldn’t have garnered much attention. There were lots of babies giving their lungs a workout that day.

It was more the look in her eye. Her gaze that held mine a fraction too long. She didn’t chat much or respond to the instructor’s jokes and observations like the others did, and she was definitely somewhere other than fully immersed in her practice.

Her eyes asked questions I know all too well. Am I getting this right? Am I a good enough mom? Does everyone else find it this hard?

And the loudest question of all: How did I get here?

These were the signs I saw – the signs of a struggle, and of a post-baby bump in the road. Maybe they were really there in front of me. Or maybe they were just a reflection. At this point I’m not sure, but I’ll be on the lookout for those signs again and will stand by with my map, ready to point her in the right direction if need be.

I’m welcoming a new sponsor today. Signazon.com has just about any type of custom sign you could want, from wedding signs and baby shower banners to yard signs or car magnets for your business. Whatever you need a sign for, I’m pretty sure Signazon.com can help you out.

Filed Under: Motherhood Tagged With: community, mom's instinct, we're not alone

Name that Kindergartner [Updated]

March 10, 2013 By Robin 50 Comments

UPDATE: We have winners! Amy P. was our grand prize winner of a $300 Amazon gift card and Renee and Julie each got runner-up prizes.
Congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered!

Wondering who was who? I’ve updated the collage below to include the answers.
I’m actually surprised at how many people couldn’t guess me. Here’s a side-by-side to help you out:

And here are the rest of the answers. (If you’d like to see then vs. now comparisons for the other participants, you can click on the links below to visit their updated posts.)

We went on a school tour on Friday for a school Connor might go to for Kindergarten. How are you supposed to choose a school for your kid at this level? (That sounds like a rhetorical question but I’d happily take any advice you have to offer.)

There’s a school in our community but we’re just outside the walk zone so we don’t automatically get a spot, and we happened not to get one through the lottery (which only had 11 spots, so that tells you a bit about the demographic in this area). That’s actually fine, as I’m not sold on that school and we’ve registered him at another school close by that we’ve heard really good things about. We’re outside the area for that one, though, so we have to wait and see if we get a spot. If not, he would go to the one we toured on Friday. And it seems fine. From a long-term perspective (it goes up to Grade 6) there are some things I’m not keen on, but does it matter at Kindergarten level? They have all the things I think are important, and there are some things about it that I think would be great for a kid like Connor.

So as we sit and think about this decision, I’m reminiscing a bit about my time in Kindergarten. Except I don’t remember much – just two particular friends and playing with blocks made of cardboard. The blocks were red and white – done up like bricks, essentially. And that’s it. That’s all I remember.

I do like my hair from that era, though.

It’s very simple – just look at the collage and match the Kindergarten photo (with the assigned letter of the alphabet) to the correct blogger. (All participating bloggers are listed further down.)

What’s in it for you? Some fun, naturally, and the possibility of a fantastic prize – a $300 Amazon gift card (or a runner-up prize). You can also get to know some of the bloggers listed here, if you don’t know them already. You can have a laugh at our expenses. (Don’t worry, we laughed at each other.)

To join in, enter your answers on the form.

Participating bloggers, in alphabetical order:

Angela of Angela Amman

Angie of Angie Kinghorn

Deborah of Ask Doctor G

Robin of Farewell Stranger

Poppy of Funny or Snot

Leigh Ann of Genie in a Blog

Greta of Gfunkified

Jennifer of Jennifer P. Williams

Tonya of Letters for Lucas

Kiran of Masala Chica

Laura of Mommy Miracles

Natalie of Mommy of a Monster (and Twins)

Brittany of Mommy Words

Jessica of My Time as Mom

Kimberly of Reflections of Now

Tracy of Sellabit Mum

Elaine of The Miss Elaine-ous Life

Sarah of The Sunday Spill

Galit of These Little Waves

Kristin of Two Cannoli

Arnebya of What Now and Why

Kristin of What She Said

Alison of Writing, Wishing

Terms and conditions apply:

You must be 18 years or older to enter.
This contest is only open to residents of USA and Canada.
This contest is open from March 11 – 15, 2013 (closes at 9pm Eastern).
Visit the link above where you will be able to enter your guess for each blogger pictured. (All information will be kept private.)
The person to correctly match all the faces with their blog will win a $300 Amazon gift card. The two other closest guesses will each win one $80 Amazon gift card.
If more than one person correctly matches all the faces with their blogs, we will randomly pick a winner via random.org.
If no one guesses all the faces correctly, the winner will be the person who made the most correct guesses.
This is not a sponsored post. Prizes are paid for out of the participating bloggers’ own pockets.
You CAN enter more than once!
Winners will be announced week of March 18.

(Name That Kindergartner was inspired by the Name That DIY Blogger contest at My Blessed Life.)

Sound good? Okay, then. Ready, set…name that kindergartner!

Filed Under: Randomness Tagged With: blogging, community, photos

Artisans & Intention (+giveaway)

February 8, 2013 By Robin 28 Comments

So you know that 20 minutes of intention thing I’m doing? It turns out my 20 minutes are not spent writing. At least not here. I did take some time the other night to get caught up on some things on my to-do list, but my writing here is taking a bit of a hit. I think part of the problem is that I have a few posts in draft that are basically complete but not really working for me. So I’m kind of stuck.

If you’d like to read some recent posts (pretty please?) you can find the story of the first stages of my postpartum depression diagnosis on Huffington Post. I think it accurately sums up the depth of my denial.

I also wrote another piece for Postpartum Progress – 6 reasons having a baby after PPD is easier. Not everyone agrees with this, of course, but it makes the discussion around this really interesting.

I’ll share some more thoughts on the 20 minutes experiment soon, but one thing it has confirmed is that I am spectacularly talented at wasting time on the computer. And on my phone. And on my iPad. I knew this already, which is one of the reasons I wanted to take up this challenge. In part I blame my slightly misfiring, sleep-deprived synapses, which make it very easy to zone out in front of a screen and only process something as long as a tweet or a status update. But it’s also a habit, and one I need to work harder to break. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Better world, Stuff I like Tagged With: community