Dax has been a fan of the Little Einsteins for pretty much his entire life and he is thrilled to be introducing his baby brother to them now. For the first few times Dax forced him to watch, Devin just sort of stared and then looked at me as if to say, “What’s the deal with this, then?”

But now? He’s WAY into it.

Raise your hands as high as you can and yell BLASTOFF!

And I get practically giddy watching the two of them share something they both love.

Sometimes I just sit and watch him and wonder what he’s thinking. In this picture he’s sitting at the Aquatic Park in San Francisco watching the pelicans dive for their breakfast. I imagine he’s plotting a way of lassoing one so he can hitch a ride out to the ship and take to sea. And then I like to imagine that he doesn’t go because he wouldn’t like to be so far away from his mommy.

Hey, moms daydream, too.

I’m watching my friend’s daughter tonight and I’ve been texting her every so often when the kids do something amusing or sweet. Or weird. Y’know, because you don’t want to miss your kid’s weird moments.

Here’s the last exchange:

Me: She’s having a blast in the tub right now although she did tell me she’s “making wine” in there. You let her watch prison movies?

Sharon: OMG! Where does she learn this stuff??????

Me: Well, at least I didn’t catch her making prison wine in the toilet. That would be worse, right?

To be fair, E did not have any Nyquil OR garbage bags in there with her so, really, how good can that tub wine be?

Today was To Write Love on Her Arms Day. To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to bringing hope and help to people who suffer from depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. If you or anyone you know struggles with these issues I urge you take a look at the site.

Anyone who knows me knows I suffer from depression and anxiety but not many people know that I have a history of self-injury. This has been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been talking to a mother whose daughter is starting to show signs that she’s headed down that path. I have openly been telling her about how I started to self-injure at the age of 9 (the age her daughter is now) and of the different ways I did it and how it made me feel.

The other day I wrote a post about how emotional pain, for me, is much more difficult to deal with than physical pain. What I did not expound on is how much physical pain has been a comfort to me over the years. I know that must sound absolutely crazy but it’s true. Physical pain makes sense to me. You cut yourself, you bleed, it hurts. No mystery. You don’t find yourself wondering why you feel pain or what caused it. Emotional pain is not the same. It’s like an onion; you have to go through layer after layer and sometimes you never get to the answer.

When I was young I tried to close out emotional pain by any means. I tried not to think about things that upset me. It seemed more acceptable for me to be angry than sad so that’s the emotion I felt most often. It got to the point where I was pretty much numb or mad all the time and hurting myself was a way to take my mind away from all the work it had to do to not think about the real issues. Cut, bleed, hurt. Simple. There was also a very real anesthetizing feel to it followed almost instantly by a sense of relief.

I was a cutter all the way through college and for awhile beyond. With the help of a fantastic therapist I moved beyond it. And, let me be clear, when I say I moved beyond I only mean that I stopped cutting. I did not stop THINKING about cutting and I did not stop hurting myself entirely. My self-harm started showing itself in less obvious ways. When I would get really stressed out I would pull my hair out or tear off toenails or rip skin from the bottom of my feet. Most of the time I would not even realize I was doing it until I felt that release and sense of calm.

Now I still struggle from time to time. It has been years since I cut myself but not that long since I thought about cutting. It has been at least a couple of years since I tore off a toenail. I still tend to tear at my hangnails until they bleed but I’m working on that right now as well. Old habits are hard to break, especially when they are ones that brought you comfort.

If you’d like to see some pictures of people who supported this cause today you can check it out at the TWLOHA Flickr pool.

At Devin’s 15-month checkup I was prepared for all the milestone questions I knew I’d be asked. This is, after all, my second time around on this mom thing. I was also prepared to discuss my one concern with his pediatrician; he was 15-months old and not talking.

It was a minor issue. He seemed to understand everything we were saying to him. He did not seem to have any trouble hearing. He made eye-contact and was sociable with people he knew well. It was just that he seemed behind in verbal development. His doctor suggested we wait until his 18-month appointment and told me that time usually shows some verbal growth.

It didn’t.

We went back to his 18-month appointment and nothing had changed. Again, his doctor and I talked about how this was not all that concerning since everything there were no other signs of anything else going on. We secured a referral to Alta Regional Center who would later come to our home to do an evaluation on Devin’s development all around. We had two evaluations, one to determine where he was at with his physical development and one for speech and language.

Devin and I both really enjoyed that process. It was fun to watch what he could do when challenged. He liked getting to play with new toys and puzzles. The women who did the evaluation were lovely as well. I was given two detailed reports on their findings which placed him ahead of the curve on EVERY SINGLE THING with the exception of his expressive language skills. Talking. He sucked at it. At 18-months he was at the level of a 9-month old. Because he was so delayed we qualified for speech therapy.

Then we had to jump through the hoops of finding out we did not qualify the county to pay for it because we have insurance that will cover a certain number of sessions. The economy sucks, as you know, so they can’t help people indiscriminately as they used to do. That set us back a bit because we then had to get another evaluation and another referral and we lost the opportunity to have someone do his therapy in-home. Hassle, hassle, annoyance. It was not the easiest of processes but I really felt it needed to be done.

He started a couple months ago and I am so glad we pursued this. We LOVE his speech therapist, Michelle. I know that she feels like she’s not making much headway because that stubborn boy of mine does not do much talking when he is actually IN session but when he leaves I always notice improvements in the next week.

I’ve had so many people just look at me and blink when I say my not yet two year old is in speech therapy. “How does that….? Um…what? How?” Well, here’s how it went today.

As usual, we are sitting on the floor of Michelle’s tiny office surrounded by tons of toys and puzzles and books and flash cards. I tell her the new words he has said to me since we last met with her (buckle, pizza, bubble). Michelle finds a hat with a buckle and pretends she doesn’t know what to do with it. She points dramatically at the buckle. “What’s this?” she says. No response. I say, “Dev, tell her to BUCKLE that hat.” He smiles but says nothing. She gives him the hat and points to the buckle. He points at a picture of a duck on the wall. Fine. We will let him off the hook for now.

She gets out flash cards and starts trying to get him to say “moo” while looking at the picture of the cow. He points at a picture of a horse on the wall. She points at a bird on a card and says, “Peep! Peep!” He laughs and points at the bird’s beak but says nothing. She says, “Bird! Buh. Buh. Buh. Bird. BUCKLE!” Nada. She tries to get him to put a cow puppet on his hand. He seems afraid of it so I put it on my hand. “Mooo!” I say. “Moooo! Muh, muh, muh. Mooo.” He points at a picture of a goat on the wall.

It’s time to clean up and leave. He suddenly decides he DOES want to put the cow puppet on his hand. He asks for more bubbles. He holds the cow up and points at the toy barn he did not yet get to play with. He jabbers but doesn’t say any words we can understand. We try to get him to say bye-bye to the toys. We try to get him to say bye-bye to Michelle. He won’t.

BUT…this time he walks out of the office on his own rather than insisting that I carry him (A FIRST!) and he turns to wave to her once he is out by the reception desk. Then as we get out into the hallway he turns again and softly says, “Bye.” As we walk out the door and across the courtyard he says bye to every person we pass and at least one statue. We walk to the elevator and I ask him if he wants to push the button. “Button. Button! Dev push.” He imitates the “ding!” noise the elevator makes as it reaches each floor. As we walk he points at every vehicle we pass and chirps, “CAH! CAH! CAH!” I open the door for him and he pulls himself into his car seat and insists, “BUCKLE! Buckle! Buckle? Buckle? BUCKLE!”

I go through a Starbuck’s drive-through and the woman leans out and says hi to Devin. He says hi back. He says, “Juice?” and of course they give him one. When my coffee comes I drink a toast to Michelle who is making such a difference in his life and who he stubbornly refuses to let in on the secret that he is learning how to talk.

A different kind of toast entirely.

Dax found an old picture of me today. “Who’s THAT?” he asked me, wide-eyed. I asked him who it looked like. He looked from the picture to me and back again. “Is that you? You look BEAUTIFUL in that picture.”

Awwww, so sweet. Isn’t it? Well, before you get all melty know that it quickly went downhill from there when he stated it was a picture of me before I got fat and that he wished I could look like that again. From his mouth to God’s ear.

Looking at the picture I think I look sorta pretty. That’s big for me to admit. I honestly do not recall a day in my entire life when I felt beautiful (and that includes my childhood). That makes me feel….well, really sad.

I’ve become accustomed to being physically uncomfortable lately. I work out hard and push my body to limits I did not think were possible. I exercise until I hurt. I hear time and time again that I must get out of my comfort zone and put my body in shock to make it change. I’m ok with this. Physical pain has always been preferable to me than emotional pain. To me it is predictable and manageable and sometimes even soothing (but that’s Friday’s post).

It’s the mental and emotional hardships that bring me down and level me like nothing else can. I’ve spent years mastering covering up those sorts of pains by either wiping them out with physical pain or by drowning them out in food and drink. I guess, in a nutshell, that’s how I got to be at this weight. This is weighing heavily on my mind right now and I really want to ignore it. I want to push it away. I want to wash it down with hot cocoa and some peanut butter toast. I want to rip at my hangnails until they bleed and bring my brain distraction so that it can stop thinking about how I feeeeeeel.

But that won’t really make it go away, will it?

I need to get out of my comfort zone. Sometimes that’s going to hurt. And sometimes that’s going to hurt in ways that I’ve never let myself hurt before. This realization is terrifying to me. Terrifying and beautiful.

Tonight before my workout I ran into the instructor in the locker room. I said hello and started to walk on past her and then I was inspired. I stopped her and I told her how much I enjoy her class and I also shared how many calories I’d been burning (courtesy of the ever-present Bodybugg). I am so glad I did this because she gave me a little pep talk and then, during the class, I really felt she was pushing me to work a bit harder since I’d told her that I like to try to burn just a few more calories each time.

It worked. I burned 920 calories in a one hour workout. A personal best.

Things I did that I think helped? Well, telling the instructor about my goal and telling her how motivated I was made me want to PROVE to her that I wasn’t just spouting off. She also tells us to BE LOUD because using our lungs burns more calories. Since it is a hip hop dance class, being loud is common what with all the HEY! Woo! YEAH! stuff going on that I don’t usually participate in. Tonight I shouted and hooted and yelled with the best of them. I also NEVER stopped moving. Between songs, getting a drink, WHEN I THOUGHT I MIGHT PUKE OR DIE OR PUKE AND THEN DIE I kept moving my feet. There was a seemingly unending amount of time that she made us jump around like extras in an accelerated House of Pain video (Heh. House of Pain.) and run in place with some horrible twisting ab exercises in between and I did not quit. Even when I was pretty sure my breasts had fallen right off and bounced out the classroom door, lodging themselves under one of the weight machines I sucked it up and kept on going.

I am feeling pretty full of myself right now, I must say.

So I’m sharing here in public my next goal and I will let you know when I hit it. I want to hit a 1,000 calorie burn in a 1 hour workout. I have no idea if I can do it or not but I figure just having that goal will push me just a little bit harder.

And now I’m going to go shower and then melt into a puddle of ow.

My son has been chosen to perform a small solo at an upcoming Christmas pageant at his school. They sent “lines” home with us to practice and I thought it was going to be part of a traditional Christmas carol (this is, after all, a private Christian school) but it’s not. It’s a rap. My son is going to be rapping about Jesus.

Once I recovered from the initial shock of this (and stopped fantasizing about sending him to school wearing a giant analog clock strapped around his neck on that day) I sat down to help him rehearse his part. You know, his part of the Christmas rap that I have never heard. The rap they have allegedly been practicing for two weeks. Clearly, I am unfamiliar with it and I couldn’t for the life of me make it fit Rapper’s Delight (too bad) so I asked him to perform a bit for me. Not only could he not do it, he acted as if I was INSANE (in the membrane) to suggest such a thing. Practicing what? Two weeks? Huh? “Mommy, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

It got us off on a bad tangent. I was disappointed that he has seemingly not been paying any attention to this particular assignment for the past two weeks and he didn’t seem to really care. He was annoyed, said he was BORED, and rolled his eyes at me. The evening was rocky but I thought we’d gotten back on track until, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, he rammed a toy fire truck into his baby brother’s shins. (To Devin’s credit, he pointed at his brother and yelled through his tears, “CRASH! CRASH!!!”)

From there it was stern voices, consequence, acting up, hateful words (his, not mine), more consequences, a punch in the stomach (mine, not his), and a slammed and locked door. I’m now typing this while he screams from his room for me to let him out.

He’s only five. Things are going to get so very much more difficult. When he screams that he hates me when he’s 15 it will be much worse than when he does it now. I also look over at his little brother who is all curls and cuteness AT THE MOMENT and realize that this whole getting him to talk thing is only going to result in HIM someday shouting that I am THE WORST MOMMY EVER.

*sigh*

i’m goin down in history
as the baddest mommy there could ever be
now i’m feelin the highs and ya feelin the lows
the beat starts gettin into your toes
ya start poppin ya fingers and stompin your feet
and movin your body while youre sittin in your seat (in time out, ya little bugger)

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium this weekend and the exhibit was SEAHORSES! which I can’t help but yell excitedly in my mind much like my 5 year old shouted it when he first layed eyes on some.

SEAHORSES! are awesome. We learned a lot about SEAHORSES! while we were there. Did you know that a group of them is called a “herd”? Did you know that they curl their tails around plants to keep themselves in one place but that they can only curl forward, not backwards? Best of all, they are monogamous and mate for life. They dance and sing while mating and the daddy has the babies. We <3 SEAHORSES!

I would have probably said the SEAHORSES! were my very favorite thing in the aquarium but then, as I was leaving that exhibit, I saw what looked to be an empty tank.

See what looks like some plants floating in the middle of that picture? Those are not plants. Those are Sea Dragons. There are two of them there, facing one another. They don’t even look real to me. They look like an illustration in a very imaginative storybook. I had no idea such a creature existed.

It’s not the best picture because I could not use the flash. Apparently these little critters are quite sensitive. There was a sign next to them that said, “Please don’t flash the Sea Dragons” which, HA!, but I couldn’t get a picture of that, either.

I was so excited to show them to Dax but he was unimpressed. I don’t think he could tell they were not plants. Devin seemed to be ok with them which is a good thing because the jellyfish TERRIFIED him.

I love getting to see things for the first time ever. At my age, that doesn’t happen very often. I confess that getting to see things through my boys’ eyes does give me fresh perspective and can make even a common starfish a fascinating thing but literally laying eyes on something for the first time in my life is thrilling.

So, tell me, what have you seen for the first time ever as an adult that thrilled you?

I moved from Colorado to California almost 13 years ago. At that time I wasn’t thinking about missing or needing my family. I wasn’t thinking about my future children and whether or not they would have grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles around. I was only thinking about me and what I felt I needed to do in that moment to be “ok”.

When Dax was born I mourned the fact that we had no family close by. I didn’t think there would be times like I had when I was a child, sitting around the fire with my aunt, uncle, cousins, grandmother. Telling stories, reading books together, playing, laughing, feeling safe and loved.

I’m happy to report I was wrong. As I type this I’m sitting surrounded by family. My boys are spending time with two uncles, an aunt, their cousin and their grandma. I could not be happier.

I have pictures that I will share but tonight I’m logging off and enjoying some family time.