Justin's grandfather passed away unexpectedly this morning, and it hit me really hard. I can't help but feel selfishly devastated at his passing. I connected well with him, and I loved to just sit on his porch swing and chat during a warm summer afternoon. Reflecting on this loss as well as mine and Justin's other grandparents who have passed has left an almost palpable hollow in my heart. This, along with the week-long loss of my cell phone, has prompted me to return to the blog.
I spent the morning catching up on 16 months of unread entries on Dad's blog. I noticed that my name was the first word in a few of the posts, and it made me smile. I skimmed through each page, reading every post that mentioned the keywords: "Cheryl", "dream", "funny", "odd", and any others that stuck out to me. I must be incredibly self-absorbed to only look for my name, but there it is...
The plans to elaborate this past year may have to be cut short due to my prolonged food poisoning. It's been 3 days now. Every time I start to feel better I decide to finally eat something, but then my insides bobble around like the numbers in the powerball lottery.
So to cut this short, I'll close my eyes and type as fast as I can. Actually closing my eyes just helped a ton.
I'm keeping my eyes closed. If there are any advantages to food poisoning after a baby has turned one it sure is making weaning easier... I'm at least grateful that this didn't happen when Lydia was younger.
In other news I'm still working on my writing. I'm also researching a lot when I have spare time to make the story more believable. I'm such a perfectionist about it that it's actually holding me back from just writing it all out. Instead I started with an outline, and I keep adding to the outline, and adding to the outline, and so on, adding in actual dialogue when I feel that all the details have been set in stone. We'll see if it ever reaches fruition.
I've had several anxiety attacks lately. I'm not sure how to describe them. I don't even have to feel stressed out. One child will start talking to me, then another will try doing something at the same time, then a dog will start barking outside, or Lydia will start crying, or I'll just see how horribly messy a room is, and suddenly I can't process anything in my brain. I can't speak without stuttering. I can't breathe. I can't think. It's complete and utter sensory overload, and it feels as though my brain is glitching like a broken computer.
So that's been fun...
Justin's been great with everything. I think he's figuring out how to help when it happens, and he's been really supportive. It's happened a church a few times. That was NOT fun. The bishop has checked up on me a few times since then.
Hannah's doing really well in math and spelling at school. I love talking to her. She's starting to get old enough where I can have some great, in-depth conversations with her, but I worry about her self-esteem. Dad gave me some keen observations over Christmas break on how I can be less critical of my children at specific times, and I'm working on it. I just wanted my kids to be self-aware and conscious of social norms and societal propriety (since I was a collar-chewing, knee drooling, boy tackling, loud speaking mess in elementary school), but in doing so I sometimes fail to voice how absolutely proud of my children I am. I love them so much, and they have so much imagination and love and wonder. Abigail is great at the whole propriety thing. I just get too nit-picky about her speech, and I think it's exacerbated her shyness. I'm trying to be more positive though, and so far I've seen a difference in their confidence.
I'm glad Dad told me about it, just like I'm glad he and Susan told me several years ago that I nagged Justin too much. Any sting I feel in the critique is nothing compared to the pain I'd feel sooner or later from having handicapping the relationship between myself and my children or husband.
Lydia started walking at 10 1/2 months, and she gets into many, many things. It's difficult to believe she's over a year old now. I'm trying to decide when to take classes at BYU. I kind of wanted to wait until Abigail was in the 1st grade, but 3 separate people counseled me recently to return to school, so I'm wondering if I should go back sooner. I'll have to pray about it.
Well, hopefully I'll find my phone, catch up on everyone else's blog, and get over this Food Poisoning soon. w00t.
