Growing Up

Throughout our lives we hold different jobs or roles. 

I was a student for 16 years. 

I've been a mother for almost 13 years.

I've been a wife for 16 years. 

I've been a daughter (or child) for 38 years. 

Being a daughter is the longest job I've had so far in my life. 

 Around this time last year my dad had a mild attack. He needed a stent and eventually a bypass, but the doctor didn't feel my dad needed the bypass immediately. 

In April 2021 he had his bypass. A quadruple bypass. My dad came through it just fine and was able to go home after a couple days. I decided to return home and stay a few days so I could meal prep/stock their freezer, provide support and just plain spend time at home. 

While driving the four hours west a thought hit me: I'm not a kid anymore. 

I was going to be the adult and primary caregiver on this visit. My mom hadn't been cooking and was spending a lot of time napping. 

My dad looked good for having major surgery days prior. Said he was feeling ok and had some soreness of course. Sleeping was uncomfortable lying down so he was sleeping in his recliner. 

I helped with doling out his daily meds, browning several pounds of ground turkey to make casseroles or just bag up to put in the freezer and took dad to their church to walk laps around the hall. 

After four days I packed up my stuff, showed my mom all the food I had made/froze and instructions on how to prepare it and came back to my house and my family. 

In the weeks following, dad went to physical therapy weekly and limited his "work" time. He was feeling great; his doctors were very impressed with how well he was doing. One weekend in May he and my mom came to visit us for a weekend. Eric took dad and a family friend to an air show in Wichita. 

Then on May 26, 2021, I got the phone call no child wants to answer. My dad was dead. 

My mom found him in the backyard then called my brother and 911. He was already gone; they weren't going to try and resuscitate him. My brother called Eric (who was out of town), and Eric called me. 

That phone call keeps replaying over and over in my head. 

In the days following dad's death there was a lot to deal with, which is expected after such an event. My mom was in no way capable of making such decisions by herself. Writing dad's obituary, accepting food and visits from friends (and writing it all down), while also trying to keep out of town relatives informed via text/phone call, not to mention keeping my kids occupied. 

Every day for at least a week mom's house was full of family; sharing stories, pictures, eating food, playing cards, and taking out the trash. Every night with our family at the house for meals, the kids always filled their plates first (10-12 kids) and sat at the dining room table. Us adults would move back and forth, getting drinks, refilling plates, handing out napkins, silverware, etc. The very jobs my two aunts and my mom would do when I was a kid. 

My dad will never see my kids play another soccer game, basketball game or softball game. 

He won't see my kids graduate and get married. Meet any great grandkids. 

When I eventually get something written and published, he won't be able to read it. 

We can no longer discuss why an actor left NCIS or whether or not we were going to watch Law & Order: UK. 

I never gave much thought to one of my parents dying. I was still just a naive little girl. Then I had to grow up overnight. 

The New Year

The past 2 years a friend has hosted a "New Year Retreat" where a group of women from our church get together to discuss our goals for the upcoming year, choose a word for the year, cut out various things from magazines and make vision boards.

For 2018 I chose the word Growth. I picked this word because I wanted to grow in my faith, grow confident in myself and grow in my writing. My vision board was tacked up on my bedroom wall where I could see it every day.

When preparing for our 2019 retreat, I looked back at my goal worksheets from last year and realized my goals were exactly the same. More prayer time, eat healthy/work out more, and blog consistently. Nothing had changed from last year. I was still overweight, ignoring my blog and not putting in much effort with my spiritual life.

This year I decided on Discipline.

I'm determined to change myself for the better this year and not allow myself to stay stagnant. But here we are a quarter of the year gone already and I've made no progress whatsoever.

We cancelled our membership to the Y. It hadn't been used in at least a year. Cameron doesn't do well in a daycare setting and I didn't want to drive all that way, take the time to check the kids in and be called out of class or away from the equipment to collect my screaming child. See how easily those excuses come out?

Hubby has joined the rec center here in town. He's been going in the evenings with a few other guys. I keep telling myself I'll start doing something here at home or once the weather gets warmer I'll walk more and do more outside.  I thought I'd had the slap in the face I needed last month while trying to find a dress to wear to a church function. I pulled old clothes out of my closet, tried to post a few more motivational quotes around the house, and started doing my best to meal plan every week.

The meal plan is sticking, let's hope the rest follows soon after.

Me, A Girl Mom??

As most of you know, my first child is a boy. I already had a niece and was ecstatic to have given my parents their first grandson. Boy are simple. Cars, trucks, short hair, no nail polish, no dresses, etc.

A girl is a whole new experience. 

Growing up I was a tomboy. Dresses and skirts were a rare sight in my closet (unless my grandma had made me a dress) and I wore my hair super short. In high school I let it grow to my shoulders and never once pulled it back into a ponytail. That didn't happen until college when the AC was turned off in our dorms and the hot weather lasted into October.

I never experimented with makeup and never got my ears pierced. Neither one interested me. I played sports almost year round in junior high and then volleyball all through high school. The only time I had my nails done was prom or the style revue for the County Fair. I did wear makeup for my wedding but of course, someone else applied it. 

I dated a few boys in junior high which consisted of meeting at the movies every weekend and hanging out at high school sporting events. My first kiss was in 7th or 8th grade and was nothing special. The first guy I "seriously" dated in high school was 2 years older than me. We dated maybe 6 months and only kissed once. We drove around together every weekend, he made me laugh and he was easy to talk to. After we broke up, a friend asked me to prom. That friend is now my husband. 

The point being I have limited experience with boys, therefore, I feel I will not be able to provide good advice when my girls start dating. 

Having 3 girls scares me to death. My oldest daughter rarely wants to wear her hair in a ponytail and I'm sure it's due to the fact that I rarely did anything with her hair when she was a toddler. She's going to be my girly girl I think. She's interested in nail polish, some jewelry, and wants to wear a dress almost every day. Lately she's asked to put nail polish on herself to which I've happily said yes. The first time she attempted it she had trouble with her thumb which I told her can be tricky. She kept smudging the polish and then when she tried to fix it all that happened was it would clump up. That made her frustrated and she got upset. At that moment I got scared for all the other girl experiences that would happen in our house: pre teen attitude, mean girls, body image problems, advice about boys and heartache, just to name a few. 

My 4 year old isn't as interested in girl stuff yet. She likes to have her nails painted and that's about it. Hates having her hair brushed and she got my curly/wavy hair. She's more of a tomboy, but she's got the attitude of a teenager. 

Despite all the concerns I have about raising 3 daughters, there are also many positive experiences I'm looking forward to having with them. Playing dress up, picking out homecoming and prom dresses, being the mother of the bride and their being pregnant. 

And I can send them to my sister-in-law for all the makeup, nail polish, hair and fashion tips they could every need and for that I'll be forever grateful! 

A Family of Six

Cameron Rose Nickelson made her debut on December 29th. It was a scheduled C-section and everything went really well. My Dr. said I had a lot of scar tissue with this being my fourth C-section and it took awhile to put me back together. I spent 2 nights in the hospital and was home in time to ring in the New Year.

A New Year that I was definitely not ready for. Sure we had all our baby stuff set up but I wasn't ready for the sleepless nights, breastfeeding, and still having to take care of three other kids.

Hubby took almost 3 weeks off and my parents were here for a week. Cameron has slept great ever since we brought her home. Nursing hasn't been as difficult or painful as I was dreading and I'm finding it not as overwhelming as I thought managing the other needs of the other kids.

Eric and I both noticed I seemed to "bounce back" after this baby quicker than with Charlotte. I don't know if it's a credit to the Dr. and the attention she paid to my body when stitching me up (I had the on call Dr. when I had Charlotte) or if it's because I got back on medication.

I talked with my Dr. a few weeks before and we agreed it would be better to be proactive with the situation than wait until I was feeling really low to start taking something. It's been a little tricky to figure out a correct dose because my hormones are still a little crazy and I'm not getting enough sleep, but I'm feeling better about things at home and feel like I can handle various situations throughout the day.

I also feel like I'm a lot more patient this time around. Cameron isn't an overly fussy baby but when she gets tired she just cries and fights her naps. It's super easy to get frustrated and I remember feeling that way with Charlotte when she wouldn't go to sleep. This time around it's different. I don't get stressed out when she's crying and my attempts to soothe her aren't working. I just keep at it and eventually she gives in. Usually after a few minutes of crying.

I'm still struggling to get back to a somewhat normal routine of keeping up with housework. If I manage to get the dishwasher emptied and a load of laundry done every day I call that a win. Now as to when the clothes get put away, that's a different day.

I still have thoughts of how life right now might be easier if we hadn't had Cameron, but I know God wanted her here to complete our family.

Trying to Catch Up

Wow it's been almost a year since I last posted. A lot has happened in that year.

I realized I needed help and asked for it.
I started taking an anti-depressant that helped tremendously.
I was feeling like my old self again when I got the news I was pregnant. (Surprise!)
I struggled with going off my medication, and still struggle today.
My motivation even in the 2nd trimester (almost 3rd) is almost non existent.
Ainsley started afternoon preschool and it's going really well. She loves her teacher and friends.
Eric has been traveling a lot more which has been hard but we're managing.
My dad was in a bad farm accident and spent the summer in the hospital and rehab recovering.

Now, even at 6 months pregnant, I'm still trying to be happy about having another baby. I don't mean I don't love this baby. It's taking longer to get used to the idea. I was already feeling out of control and barely making it through each day with 3 kids. Now adding another feels almost impossible.

All I can do is pray God will take care of us and do the best I can each and every day for my family.

This time it's for Real

I've been trying to start another Whole30 for months. I meal plan, food prep, make it one day on plan and then the headaches are so bad I cave.

I found a great support group on Facebook and it's awesome for motivation but I can't seem to keep myself motivated.

Back in March I completed half of a Whole30 before spring break happened and we traveled and failed to plan. But in those 2-3 weeks my pants felt better and I could visibly tell my stomach was getting flatter. I still used some dressings and such with sugar so the benefits of increased energy and better sleeping hadn't occurred.

I ordered dressings and sauces from Tessamae's a few weeks ago and while they are all compliant, they are not as tasty as I had hoped. Balsamic vinegar is not my favorite flavor but I'm going to make it work because I want those end results.

I've daydreamed, goal set, mentally prepared, and cleared the majority of junk out of my house. My kids will still eat like they did before and my Hubby travels so much he claims it will be too hard to stay compliant (part of me agrees, the other part just thinks he's too lazy to try).

I'm not looking to remedy any health issues, I only wish to see an increase in my energy level and a decrease in my waist size.

I think the final straw was I had to buy a bigger size in jeans. The last time I bought a bigger size I had just had a baby. No baby this time. Only poor eating choices. Winter is coming and I will not cover up with a sweatshirt every day.

This time I'm serious and determined to make it through the entire 30 days. I owe it to myself and my family. My self esteem has taken a hit and my overall attitude has seriously gone downhill.

Happy Anniversary!

Hubby and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary last week. He was traveling for work in Colorado Springs. I spent the evening at church with a wonderful group of Moms so I wasn't alone.

We've never been big on presents and flowers, usually just the occasional card. Well this year we both kind of dropped the ball. Because we didn't see each other last week we didn't have a chance to exchange anything.

A date night did happen this past Saturday after weeks of planning for Hubby to be off (he took a vacation day) and scheduling a babysitter.

We planned a wild night out consisting of a trip to Aldi, a stop at Verizon, Best Buy and dinner at P.F. Chang's.

I know we're real exciting and romantic, but sometimes the best dates consist of running errands and spending time together. The Aldi trip saved me running into Wichita twice that day, our phones are due for an upgrade and we wanted some info about how much our bill would go up (we didn't go with the upgrade but did change our plan).

The battery on our laptop has been dying for over a year. It needs to be plugged in at all times in order to work and that's been a huge inconvenience for us. What a great anniversary gift to each other!

Going into the store, we decided on what we wanted in a computer and how much we wanted to spend. An awesome salesman, James, took great care of us recommended a 2 in 1 Dell laptop that had been returned to the store a week or so before so it was discounted significantly, but still about $100 over our starting budget. We decided to go for it. It was too good of a deal to pass up.

I'm not  even going to pretend I know what I'm talking about when it comes to computers. All I can remember is the laptop had a lot of memory, the battery life was close to 8 hours and it's nice and compact. We lost our 10 key on the keyboard but we were ok w/ that.

Because we were already breaking our budget slightly, we asked James to show us a new printer too. Our old one hadn't worked in roughly 3 years. It was the printer that had come w/ our desktop and that was brand new in 2001.

James showed us a printer that looked like it belonged in a large office facility. It could print, copy, scan and fax and could be used wireless. All for $100!

After making several 80's jokes, we paid for our new technology and left.

Dinner at P.F. Chang's was delicious as always. Hubby and I had eaten little for lunch in preparation for our night out. We ordered from their dinner for two menu and added 2 appetizers. I told you we were hungry.

Two of those appetizers were gone before our entrees arrived and our waiter so eloquently told us, "I have to say you all are impressing me. That was a lot of food."

Hubby and I laughed. When the waiter left we looked at each other in embarrassment and amusement. What a way to boost our self esteem! I pushed my plate away after that remark and asked for a to go container.