something that came into my life last week and has almost ah, completed me.

you see for the past two and a half years i’ve been washing down removable potty seats after every single pee and poo my children have excreted. yep, i just wrote the word excreted.

and yes, this life-changing event is centered around a potty. bear with me. (snort) no pun intended.

our first one was on clearance at tjmaxx for like $4. obviously J thought it was way cool. and yes, it helped him conquer the whole it’s-not-ok-to-poop-in-ya-draws thing. great. but the stream of his pee went directly in between the top and bottom portion of the seat resulting in continuous, non-stop leaky pee syndrom. otherwise known as mom throws the potty seat into the tub and scrubs it all.damn.day.long.

when H decided she, too, was ready to lose the poo in her draws i purchased yet another one.

( i know they look exactly the same but somehow they weren’t. i swear.)

and although this one didn’t need a tubbie after each use it did need a wipe down. which might seem insignificant to most but after an average of 5-10 times per day for over 600 days…yeah. significant.

i’m about to get a litlte emotional with you.

ready?

this is our toilet. (i tried to make it look all ethereal, can you tell?)

it is used for many things as you can imagine. even matching games.

and this, my friends, is the inside of our toilet.

notice anything different about the lid?

uh huh. you got it.

a built in little-tush seat.

do you people know how much extra time i have these days? incredible.

yes, i understand it’s not going to win any aesthetic awards. trust me, not much of the nitty gritty of parenting is either.

can i get a H A L L E L U J A H up in here!

that is all.

if you are soaking or wiping a potty seat more than twice per day get off your duff and buy this.

oh and just to wet your pallet even more, the toddler seat is magnetic. so your kiddo just has to shut the (no slam!) lid down and voila…tiny seat re-stuck to big-bum seat. genius.
and yes, i said no slam.

g’day friends!

- hannah

more than anything, hearing your stories and knowing that i am not alone, that you are not alone that we are all in this together makes the healing and the realness so much more palpable.

a very special woman emailed me this week and shared with me a poem i had not yet read.

i sat in my parked car, waiting to pick up flowers for my (prayers-to-the-universe) newly cancer-free aunt and for the first time read these words…

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.

— David Whyte
from Where Many Rivers Meet

continuously making their way through my head, in and out of my thoughts, these words i cherish.

i know for certain, and can tell you with confidence: it is so worth it. those glimmering coins would be nothing more than ordinary in the bright warmth of shallow water.

******

and because the past few weeks have seemed somewhat…heavy, i wanted to share with you something else. something just as sweet, but slightly more …light.

two weeks ago, justin and i and a couple of his colleagues detoxed. as in, didn’t eat anything toxic (?) like caffeine, alcohol, gluten, starches, sugars. incorporating lots of really green greens and oily oils. and an absurd amount of roots. dandelion, beet, japanese maple. (ok, i might be lying about the last one.)

and it felt really great.

but was really boring.

and truly what i realized from that week (even more than any other year we’ve done this – about four now) was this:

these days/years i don’t get out a whole lot. my days, although often splendid, are spent in the company of a two and three year old, sweats, my computer, and the occasional craft.

due to this, alcohol, sugar and gluten are essential to my existence and survival.

not necessarily in excess….but steady moderation.

point in case: this evening.

nothing goes with sunday dinner and football quite like an ice-cream run. especially on the first day to hit single digits this winter.

how bout that drip?

a bit of a chocolate high.

and subsequent intoxication.

happy sunday.

blessed be.

i remember the day, one year ago this month when things changed for me.

it was new year’s day and it was the most gorgeous day. sunny and warm; truly spring-like. justin and i took the kids to a nearby reservoir for a walk and some sledding on a nearby hill.

i remember what we were wearing that day. the tracks h’s sorel-clad feet made in the quickly turning to slush snow. i remember chasing jackson, his shrieks and shrills echoing across the still water.

i was happy.

and in my mind that day, the start of the month of january signaled many things. it signaled the impending change to our daily schedules with justin’s work season kicking into gear. it signaled a tightness in my throat, an extra few beats to my heart, a shortness of my breath.

in general, i felt a bit lost those days. a job which had no future in sight and provided no social or community center. a dislike and bitterness for the mundane and uninspiring area we lived. a lull in the rapid-fire that was life with two babies back to back, which in it’s wake left me feeling alone, unsure and totally detached from most things in my life.

those first few months of the the spring passed as all months seem to. but i wasn’t really living them. in fact, i was struggling to get through most days. not a lot of people knew. in fact, no one knew.

i had joined a moms club and was just starting to get to know some of the women but the relationships were new and surface. i went back to my religious roots and found an awesome unitarian universalist church with great potential for connectedness and community but it was a struggle to get there. i had a handful of great friends who i saw often; who helped to include us when justin was traveling but i often didn’t know how to ask for help. or admit how badly i was feeling. i was scared to be a mess. to admit failure.

those things are so very, very hard.

life went on. i felt like a figure merely along for the ride.

my life-long battle with migraines became chronic. and my anxiety levels around having one went through the roof. and then the anxiety about having migraines started causing them.

which on a side-note, i discovered on my own after reading several articles and blogs and research findings around people with chronic migraine…and the alarmingly high percentage (like 70%) who are also depressed and have anxiety issues.

i left my job in may of last year. which felt liberating and totally right-on. but it didn’t ‘fix’ much. it lessened the load, so to say, but it meant that i was home all the time without much distraction and little help. most of those days i spent in new hampshire with family; trying desperately to avoid the loneliness and angst that came with being at home.

in the early fall my mom called. and among a few other things, she shared with me her dream. i wish i remembered the exact words she used but essentially the visual representation her dream painted was me, her daughter, and all the amazing pieces of my life right there within my reach. a wonderful and supportive husband, two healthy and amazing children, a community although not perfect, surely not all bad. but a woman broken and disconnected from herself.
the message was clear. to fix the other pieces of my life, i had to look within.
i had to fix me.

very slowly from that day on i began this journey; to fix myself so i could fully enjoy my life. take deep breaths. laugh. be present in ways beyond simply caring for my children. i owed it to many, but mostly myself.

the past few months i have put in some hard work. but some good work.
i began taking daily preventive medication to battle my migraines. i started seeing a therapist to help with the anxiety and to use as a neutral, professional sounding board. i’ve become very close with several of the women in my mom’s club and my weeks are packed with playdates, dinner dates, field trips and socializing.

my migraines have lessened. and so has the anxiety around them.

lately, without warning, everything seems…brighter. like a fireball of a trillion sparklers.

and truly, this is only the beginning of this part of this journey. the struggles will continue as they do for all of us in our own ways.
this, i’ve come to know is part of it.

and if you have the wherewithal, the understanding and the desire to change your life, you can. but it takes help. and a shit ton of it.

today the phrase, it takes a village to raise a child has been running through my head.

and it dawned on me. holy shit, it takes a village to raise a momma, too.

remember that net? well, this gal fell. and was caught.

i needed to tell this story because there was no other option. when i go back to the ‘me’ page on this blog it says it all…

i undedrstand that life is not always blissful – it is a challenge and often really damn hard. this, i have come to believe, is also part of the journey.
writing helps me ground all the thoughts flying around my brain. it makes me happy and offers stress relief. my hope is that it will resonate with you on some level, make you smile or laugh. if it offers you solace after a trying day with your babe or a insecure day with yourself, i’m happy. and at the very least i hope this site will help you see that you’re not alone, that someone even more ‘out there’ is well, out there. enjoy, and thanks for reading.

i write about my life. and the last several months i haven’t been, well, ready to write about some of the really hard things that were going on.

today i am. although i am not fully ‘fixed’ and i’m fairly convinced you nor i will ever be.

but i am aware and i am willing to work and about myself i know this: i will not settle for anything less than really fucking happy.

to all of you on this journey with me, thank you. i love you, you are my world.

and to all of you reading and nodding your head in some sort of agreement: life is hard. look for the red-ish lining. and ask for help. you deserve to live with the best possible version of yourself.

i have corrected the error so you will get the full post from now on.

to catch up on what you’ve missed, please visit the blog directly and scroll down or search on the right hand side under “recent posts” (the pencil icon in between the purple chat icon and star icon).

thanks and happy reading.

hannah

i’ve been taking a lot of heat on facebook this week for my anti-patriots and pro-bronco jabs. tim vs. tom (or timmy vs. tommy, thanks LHo) our household is a minority here in connecticut. although most of our giants-loving friends might take our side on this one? truly, i love seeing how riled up people get over their team – bring on the e-competition, folks.

growing up in new england among a mostly football-indifferent [immediate] family is probably not the norm. but such is the potentially hard to swallow truth. i apologize.

so when i met my husband at age 15 i became entrenched in his john elway-loving ways. i can remember the orange jersey hanging from the sloped ceiling of his bedroom to this day. in fact, i recently came across that same jersey among a pile of my sweaters (sorry, no it is not hanging from our bedroom wall these days).
good ‘ol john.
oh god, that just made me think of this. sorry. a.d.d. back to what i was saying…

not that i ever followed the broncos, really. or truly liked them even. it’s just that justin was a part of me and the broncos were a part of him. osmosis mostly.

and when we moved out to boulder, co in 2003 and were for the first time ever in the presence of other orange jersey wearers, hats clad with horse heads and cars branded with the name elway dealers it felt, welp, serendipitous.

so now that we’re back in the land of the cold and bitter patriots and raising little anti-brady offspring we catch some slack now and then. to be expected.

in honor of a great game approaching this weekend my friend k and i made some swag for our littles. a little craft-ay time for mommas while children tear the house apart play together = perfection.

here are some photos of the fruits of our labor…

on saturday we’ll be celebrating a great game (no matter the winner. sorry, my competitiveness ends at the keyboard…) with some great friends, some great food and spirits. wait. shit. well justin and i will be watching our friends consume great eats and drinks, we are de-toxing. or something. more on that to come later.

from the words of my brady-loving friend L (who needs to call me back)…

Tommy vs. Timmy next weekend. If there were ever a time…a BETTER time for a wardrobe malfunction….a girl can dream….

that withstanding, if i could do it again right now you better bet you could find me tearin it up at (pre-demolished) temple mountain. (sorry, that was for my local NH peeps.)

moving along. to the point of this blog today…

my mom would always take her sweet, sweet time coming down. like s.w.e.e.t. time. she would weave her way in and out of the trails, stopping frequently to take in a vista or listen to a bird. like, seriously? we used to think. the faster the better! move it or loose it snow plowing people, move on ovah, we’re comin’ down (like all 52′ of trail).

and then a few nights ago i was packing the kids up to run to a local toy store for a birthday present. and.the.sunset.was.amazing.
like, really amazing. i went and grabbed my camera trying so hard to capture with the lens the outrageousness happening in real life. minus the telephone polls, lines and random annoying roofs making their way into every shot.

like flowing lava. or sherbert on drugs.

started out like-a this…

and worked its way to this…

it wasn’t until we were halfway to the toy store and i was absolutely driving off the road to get a better look that i headed to the highest point i could find, parked my car and started taking photos out my window.

screetches and cries poured out of my mouth. looooook guys! isn’t that the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?
i turned around to see h was looking in the complete opposite direction. thumb in mouth, glazed over eyes fighting the just.want.to.close fight. totally unaware and indifferent.

j broke out of his lip-picking trance to blink a few times and mutter, what mommy?

point in case #64, 357. i have become my mother.

which, as it turns out is just about the best case scenario, if you ask me.

trucking through life, searching for the golden red-ish lining. living the dream.