Bed Sharing

I know the title made you think some things, but remember I’m a good Christian lady.  LOL

I honestly did not attend to share my bed with my children when I decided to have kids.  It sort of just happened.  I was nursing and it was a lot easier in the middle of the night to have the baby with me in bed than get my lazy butt up and get them out of their crib.

All three of my children have shared our bed.  For the most part it’s a wonderful way to bond with your children.  Who doesn’t like to snuggle with their babies?  However getting them out of your bed is the pain.

With the oldest, we painted her room blue, she was a Blue’s Clues kid and she and her brother loved the bunk beds.  They went nicely.  Every now and then, they’d creep back, but for the most part they stayed in their bed.

Now this final kid, he refuses to go and it driving me and the hubby mad.  He is a clinger which means he’s wrapped around you while he sleeps.  Did I mention that the parents aren’t sleeping because of this little one?

We tried to bribe him with his own room, with matching comforters. NOT

He even has his own t.v.  NOT

He's fallen asleep in his room and in the morning he's in our bed.

He won’t leave, claims the room is his room, we need to move.

Can I tell you I’m so tempted to take his room and turn it into mine?  Yes I would miss the hubby but he can come for visits.  J

How many out there share their beds with a little one?  Tell the truth.  I’m finding more and more families are, they just don’t want to admit it.

I will admit, I share my bed, do you?

Dealing With Grief - Part 3

I look forward to the last stages because I know I will have come through my storms.  I will admit that I haven’t been going to church, not because I’m angry at God but because what church reminds me.

My relationship with God has grown as I walk through these stages.  Being able to talk with him has truly help tremendously.  He rocked me as I cried in the car or at my desk.  He listened when I asked why, Lord, why?  He let me know that I’m not alone in this craziness.

So I highly recommend a relationship with God, turn to him when you have no other way to turn.  He will pick you up and carry you along the way.  I’m so grateful for him holding me because there were many day, my legs refused to carry me.

I will tell you that there is no pain like losing a love one and there is no timeframe when you get over it.  I don’t think you ever get over it.  You just learn to live with it.  I’m on the journey of living with it. 

My mother’s mother died when she was 9.  She always wondered how she could be a good mother when she didn’t have one to learn from.  How wrong she was, I believe her mother gave her all the knowledge she needed in those nine year and the stuff she didn’t know she winged it well.

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts and I hope they were helpful for you.

I’m thankful for the relationship I had with my mother.  She was a good mother but I believe she was an excellent friend.  She taught me the meaning of a good friend and I’m grateful for having her in my life for 44 years. 

Dealing With Grief - Part 2

MY STAGES:

I wish I could say you go through the stages in order, but you don’t.  They hit you in different ways.

My first stage was SHOCK & DENIAL.  Yes mama was sick; no I didn’t think she would die.  We had been through this a couple of times, she goes in a coma and she comes out.  This time she wasn’t coming out and they didn’t know why.

I honestly wanted her to wake up so we could stop all this pain and tears.  My little soul couldn’t take another day at the hospital wonder what was going on with my mother.

The last time I saw her, she was being her feisty self trying to pull the mask off of her face.  I thought she’s in there fighting as usual, she’ll come out.  When my sister called to tell me she died, I already knew.  Mama spoke to me in my dreams, saying her brother would be OK. When I woke up, I thought what was that all about?  Then my daughter stepped in my room and said my sister was on the phone.  My heart dropped because I knew it was the call I’d been dreading.

I moved to the second stage PAIN & GUILT and I think I’m still in there because it still hurts to think about her or Mae.  I’ve never experienced this type of pain.  I wanted it to go away, but its still lingering in my heart.  My younger sister said it perfect, "I feel like some one punched a hole in my heart." 

I’m telling you every time I got in the car, I cried.  I couldn’t figure out why I cried in the car.  Was it because I was alone and I could cried with no one looking at me?  No it was because I usually talked to my mother during my drives home.  We’d catch up on the day and share family news.  Who would I do that with now?  My pain was hard.

I'm slolwy moving to DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS stage.  I think this will be the hardest for me, because I’ve never experienced depression and at first I didn’t know how to handle it, which is why I started googling.  I didn’t like feeling like this and wanted to know how to snap out of it.

Wrong words for someone who is grieving, they can’t snap out of it.  They have to flow through the stages at their own pace.  However they have to recognize or have a love one recognize, when they have slipped too deep and maybe need help from someone.

Know that it is OK to seek therapy because sometimes you need to let it all out.  I decided to let it all out by writing about it.  My hope is that it helps me and it helps you or someone you love who is experiencing this.

Dealing With Grief

I decided to write a series on dealing with grief.  Hopefully it will help others dealing with grief or help someone understand what we’re going through.

My mother died June 16^th and my life turn upside down.  Yes mother had been sick, but I honestly didn’t think she would die for a very long time.  Yes I was in denial a stage of grief I was to find out in my research.  Research you ask, why would I research grief, because when I don’t understand something or need help in something, I google it. 

WOW I was surprised by how much you can find out about grief.

My first lesson was actually something I learned many years ago, but since I hadn’t experience grief, I put it in my might need later part of my brain. I'd learned about the stages of death, which are similar to the stages of grief. It popped back up when I realized I was grieving.  No I didn’t realize I was grieving.  Nobody talks about grieving so you don’t know what to expect. 

To my surprise in my research I found I’d been grieving for the past three years.  Three years you’re wondering, didn’t you say your mother died in June?  Yes, but three years ago a dear person in my life also died, Willie Mae Johnson.  Mae as we called her died in September of 2008.  She was my mother’s best friend since they were 14, so she was my God Aunt.  I loved that lady and was devastated when she died.  I didn’t realize how devastated, until I started doing my research.

For the past three years I’ve been in a funk, just living.   I think I wrote about it here a few times.  I didn’t understand it, thought I was just tired.  NOPE, that’s grief.  I was missing Mae.  I kind of went into a LaShaunda shell; I didn’t want to go to church any more, I didn’t want to do things that reminded me of my pain. 

You see Mae sat behind me in church and I always looked back to see her every Sunday morning.  I didn’t realize this until a few weeks ago when I tried to figure out why I didn’t like going to church anymore.  My mother and I went to church together.  I picked her up from my sister's, every Sunday and we usually spent a few hours together after church.  Sunday was the day with my mother.  Now that she was gone, Sunday became my sad day.  I couldn’t face church because I knew my mother and Mae weren’t there and I didn’t want to be sad, so I just avoided it.

As I write these words I see I was going through the stages of grief, so before I move forward.  I will share with you the stages of grief, just in case you don’t know them.

7 Stages of Grief

1. SHOCK & DENIAL-

You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. This may last for weeks.

2. PAIN & GUILT-

As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs.

You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn't do with your loved one. Life feels chaotic and scary during this phase.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING-

Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion.

You may rail against fate, questioning "Why me?" You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair ("I will never drink again if you just bring him back")

4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS-

Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.

During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things you did with your lost one, and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair.

5. THE UPWARD TURN-

As you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your "depression" begins to lift slightly.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH-

As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life without your loved one. You will start to work on practical and financial problems and reconstructing yourself and your life without him or her.

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE-

During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. Acceptance does not necessarily mean instant happiness. Given the pain and turmoil you have experienced, you can never return to the carefree, untroubled YOU that existed before this tragedy. But you will find a way forward.

7 stages of grief...

You will start to look forward and actually plan things for the future. Eventually, you will be able to think about your lost loved one without pain; sadness, yes, but the wrenching pain will be gone. You will once again anticipate some good times to come, and yes, even find joy again in the experience of living.

(I got this info from - http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html)

Reading over those words, I see I’m still going through a few of the stages.  I’m telling you this grief is something else. 

Please feel free to share your experiences with grief, sometimes just writing about it helps get the feelings out. If you’re experiencing grief right now, here’s a big hug to you.  I know it’s hard, but we will get through it.

WORKING THROUGH THE PAIN

The month of June was a rollercoaster ride.  I started it with my mother being admitted into the hospital and hosting an online book fair.  I did not know it would be one of the hardest months of my life.

My mother was having problems breathing and the doctors put her on a ventilator.  Instead of coming out of the sedation they put her under, she went deeper under.  Since we had been here before, my sisters and I waited patiently for our mother to come back to her normal self.

While this was going on, life continued.  I was government worker, turned mother and wife and on the weekends I was hosting the online book fair.  Now why didn’t I cancel you wonder?  My sanity.  I needed to appear normal or I would have fallen apart.

It was hard seeing my mother all hooked up to these many tubes and her eyes closed in the ICU room.  I felt like a helpless child.  All I could do was call out to the Lord, which I did many times during this time.

Working kept me going and motivated to know each day was a new one and something good could happen.  I knew God had this, so I had to continue with my life and let him stay in control.  If I took control I would fall apart and I couldn’t do that.

My mother died on June 16^th.  I know it might sound strange, but I believe she came to me in my dreams and told me we would be ok. 

The really hard part started then, but we made it through.  I know for sure my relationship with God blossomed during this time.  He was my father, my friend, my shoulder to lend on and my rock when I couldn’t go any farther.  He helped me through the pain.

How do you get through the pain?

Survived Spring Break

Hanging out with my family can be trip sometimes.  I will admit I enjoyed Spring Break with the Hoffman crew and will consider making this an annual event for us.  However I will consider the following tips.

1. Never have a suite that doesn’t include a room for the children.  Sharing a room is not the way to go.

2. Remember your children aren’t angels, make sure they have things to do and if bored make sure they don’t have to occupy the same space.

3. If its March madness time, leave the hubby at home because he doesn’t want to move from in front of the t.v.

4. Bring your books (kindle, nook) because you will have time to read.

5. Make sure the continental breakfast is something your family will eat or you will end up spending money on breakfast.

6. Bring toys to play in the pool with, (noodles, balls etc)

7. Bring plenty of change, for the vendor machines and arcade games.

8. Bring the wii, it’s a fun way to hang out with kids and you get a little exercise.

9. Bring the wii if you have netfix, saves on buying in room movies. (must have free internet to do this.)

10. Bring your laptop so you hang out on facebook or play bejeweled.

Those are few tips that help me have a successful spring break with the family.  I didn’t get a chance to do any writing, but I did get to read and catch up on my 90 days Bible challenge.

I think if we’d had separate rooms, I’d gotten some writing and more reading in, but that’s fine.  The goal was to hang out with the family and that’s what I did.

How did you spend your spring break?

Spring Break

This week is spring break for my kids. I decided to take today and tomorrow off to hang out with them. We rented a hotel room and plan on acting like we’re on a mini vacation. I have thoughts of lots of junk food, swimming in the pool and catching up on my reading. Yes I’m bringing the kindle and I have plenty of books to keep occupied.


Do you hang with your kids for their spring break?

Oprah and I have something in common

I finally had time to watch the Oprah met her sister show. I’d taped it, because I was curious to see how Oprah found out she had a younger sister.


You see I have a younger sister too, that I just became reacquainted with.

Oprah met her sister on Thanksgiving, so did I.

Listening to the show brought back so many sweet memories of my reunion with my sister. Seeing her beautiful face for the first time was worth the long wait.

Oprah sister knew she was given up as a baby. She didn’t know she had other siblings. My sister didn’t either. She has a brother and a sister but she didn’t know her father had more kids.

My sister’s mom died when she was young so she never got to know her or be able to ask her questions. She had never met my father. She’d gone through life thinking she had a deadbeat father. She never knew for years she had sisters who often thought about her and wondered where she was.

Being a researcher, I looked her up online and found her. When I first contacted her just like Oprah’s Mom she wasn’t ready. So I had to let a few years go past before I tried again. The next time I contacted her she said YES - I wrote about finding her.

If you’d ask me when I started this journey it would be similar to Oprah's, I probably wouldn't believe you.
Watching Oprah talk about her sister and talking about getting to know her.  I know exactly how she felt.
Yes Oprah and I have something in common. We met our long lost sisters.

Sisters

I enjoy being a sister it’s a gift I treasure. I’ve told you about my search for my younger sister and finding her on facebook. This weekend I will meet her in person. If you can’t tell, I’m totally excited about the possibility. It’s almost like your parents bringing home the new baby. Only this baby will be able to talk to me instead of staring at me like I’m an alien.

If she doesn’t mind I plan on taking tons of pictures and posting this experience. My hope is for others to continue in their search for their love ones.

I want to thank Tricia Goyer for sharing her experience in meeting her sisters for the first time. It encouraged me to look for my sister again.

Have you found a love one on face book?

Family Time

Thursday night I took my kids to their first concert. Christ Brown, Bow Wow, Solja Boy and they had a fantastic time. I found some tickets on Ebay and they were 19 rows from the stage, great seats.

I’m a Bow Wow fan, so it was nice to see him live. He’s as cute in person as he is on video. He sang all my favorites “Fresh as Iam, Let me love you”

I got a kick out of watching Nichaela dance and scream. She was a mini teen enjoying herself. For a moment I was afraid CJ wouldn’t like it, but he loosen up and began to enjoy himself. I also took my 16 year old niece. It was a fun time.

Thursday night a snow storm hit and by Friday St. Louis was covered up. The kids were out of school, so they went out to play in the snow. My husband picked up the biggest snow ball and threw it at me while I was reading emails. Of course it was on then. I put on my boots and went out to have a huge snow fight. The kids against the dad, of course we lost. He was a better thrower. I was glad I took up the challenge instead of staying inside mad because I was all wet. I would have missed a priceless time.

The kids built their first snow man.

Yesterday I picked up some hot wings, and subways and we had a mini super bowl party. Or should I say we pigged out and took naps, only saw bits and pieces of the super bowl. I’m not a football fan, but I love a good party.

I hope you’re making time for your family. They only stay little for a short time. Enjoy them while you can.