Author Archives: Heather

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About Heather

I adore my family, writing, books, cats, lazy mornings in bed, and chocolate. I'll never say no to breakfast for dinner, long talks with friends and lazy summer days at the pool with family. My life is often crazy, always awesome and one I'm so happy to be living! My side hustle is editing and proofing work. Find out more at https://heathercaryn.com/
May13

Happy Mother’s Day

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There is so much in my life to be thankful for- including all the incredible mother’s in my life.

I could not have hand picked a better Mom. As a kid she kept me on the straight and narrow, expected great things out of me and didn’t allow me to settle for less, and she loved me like crazy. As an adult, she’s the one I talk to daily, call for advice on everything from cooking to kids and is the one I can always count on.  There are not enough ways to say thank you for all the things she’s done for me and my family.

 

One of the best parts about my childhood was that all my extended family lived within an hour of us and we got together a lot. Vacations, parties, BBQs- not a month would go by without some family function or another.  And, thankfully, in my family it doesn’t matter whose kid you are, if you’re acting up, you’re going to be called out on it.  So I owe a huge thank you to my aunts, grandmother and great-grandmother for being the village that helped raise me. I’m the better person for it!

When I met the Hubs, I knew within a month that he was The One. What  I didn’t know what whether or not his family would like me or I them as it took a good 2 months of dating before I met them.  I still remember the nerves I felt on the drive over to his house.  Turns out I was worried for nothing. I married into a family of amazing mothers, step-mothers and grandmothers.  Marrying into a family can be a tricky thing, but they have never shown me anything but kindness, respect and love and I can’t imagine life without them.

I have never lacked for strong female role models in my life, and I’m so happy to see history repeating itself for my kids with my sister, in-laws, extended family and friends.  A very happy Mother’s Day to you all!!

May10

Miss. Attitude 2012

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Sometimes I wonder why we thought it was a good idea to teach our kids to talk. And by sometimes, I mean today.

The was the situation in my house after school today between Beaner and me:

Mo-om, I said I wanted hot chocolate. Get it for me now!

Excuse me? Want to try that again.

Get it for me now, puh-lease!

Umm..still not good enough. Let’s get rid of all that attitude.

I. Want. Hot. Chocolate. Please. Mom. (foot stomp)

Nope- still not feeling it.

Jeez- how many times do I have to ask?! Can’t you hear?

Cut to 15 minutes later, after a time out and some time to reflect.

Ok. I’m sorry. May I please have some hot chocolate?

Absolutely. Take a seat and I’ll make it.

The Bean walks over to the one chair of the 8 she could pick that has papers on it. She sweeps them all to the floor.

Nope- absolutely not. Please pick those papers up and set them down on the table nicely.

No.

Excuse me?

No. I will not pick them up. You do it.

I didn’t make the mess, missy. You best pick them up now or no hot chocolate for you.

Fine. I didn’t want hot chocolate anyhow. It’s stupid.

People, it’s a wonder that I don’t drink living with this child.

May8

Brain Dump

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I really hate those nights when I sit here and just stare at my blank screen, wondering what to write about. I know I had a million ideas pop into my head during the day today but by 8 pm, they are gone. So tonight, I’m taking the easy way out and scatter shooting my thoughts. Here I go…

Scorch’s has his very first loose tooth! The boy swears and declares he’s the last one in his class to have one and he can’t wait for it to fall out. I think he thought that we’d find a loose tooth one day and it would fall out the next. He wiggles it all the damn day trying so hard to hurry the process along. I try not to gag when he does.

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We’re almost two full weeks into Little League and it’s awesome. I had a lot of worries about this. While this league doesn’t follow strict baseball rules, it’s closer then Scorch has ever played before with outs and actual plays and a 3 strikes rule.  So far he, and the rest of his team of 6- 8 year olds, have handled the transition from t-ball beautifully! The games are fun, the parents are all supportive and the kids are having a blast. We were all actually disappointed when his game was rained out tonight.

~~~~~~~

I started meeting a friend at 5 am to run. It only gets me up 15 minutes earlier then normal, but I’m exhausted. The good news is that knowing a coyote is in the area is damn good incentive to pick up my pace.

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I was just thinking the other day how nice it is that the Bean is watching such gentle shows like Blues Clues and Wonder Pets. Annoying, but sweet shows where there are no bad guys or fighting.  Then she discovered Power Rangers thanks to Daddy and now that’s all she wants to watch.  I don’t get it.

~~~~~~~~

We decided to do a Big Party for Scorch’s birthday.  I think there are something like 29 kids invited.  To keep it as stress free as possible, I’m doing everything at a play place for kids- so all I have to bring is the cake and decorations.  I also solved my gift / goodie bag worries by requesting in the invites that everyone bring a wrapped book suitable for kids ages 5 – 8 so we can do a book exchange. Every kid will go home with a new book, including the birthday boy, instead of a goodie bag.  Win/win (I hope).

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The Hub’s grandfather’s health is very quickly declining.  He’s a wonderful, sweet, smart, funny, vibrant man who’s slowly been stripped of his health for the past 4 years and it’s been the saddest thing to see.  His health and the health of those taking care of him, including his wife and daughters (including my mother-in-law) weigh on the Hubs and I a lot.   I’m open to any suggestion you all my have on discussing death with kids.

~~~~~~~~~

We met with a financial adviser today for the first time! Over all it was a great experience until he told us we’d need to save almost $667,000 over the next 11 years to finance 4 years of a state college for both kids.  I sure hope they like Boot Camp when the time comes to ship them off!

And that’s what’s on my brain. Perhaps I’ll be more coherent tomorrow….

May6

Furry Visitors

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I often joke about living out in the sticks.  And while it’s true that seeing a tractor of some sort chug up our hill is a common sight and our next door neighbors have raised a cow on their 2 acres of land, we really don’t live that far out in the country. If you head one way down our road, you’ll hit a grocery store and Wal-Mart within 2 miles- how rural can that really be?!

Judging by the visitor sunning himself in our backyard this morning, we’re rural enough!

Why hello, Mr. Coyote!

We’ve lived here for almost a decade and we’ve heard the coyotes plenty of times, but I’ve never seen one up close.  We visited with a few of our neighbors today and it turns out, this guy has been making the rounds and we seem to be one of the last on our street to be honored with a visit.

See you- no need to hurry back!

While I don’t mind the occasional visits, I’m very, very thankful our cats stay in doors and our dog is too chicken to pick a fight.

May1

I’ll Never Be Well Rested…

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I had high hopes for last night. The Hubs told us at dinner that he had to be out of the house at 3:45 am for work. While I felt badly for him, I was thrilled for me. Since he had to go to bed uber-early, the TV would be all mine plus I could sleep in. Normally I’m up at 4:55 am during the week to work out, but if he wasn’t home, I could sleep in until 7 when we had to start getting ready for school.  Heaven.

The night started out promising- the kids went down to bed easily, the Hubs soon followed at 9 and I got to catch up on Nikita (don’t judge me). The show ended at 9:45, so I figured I’d read for 30 minutes and go to bed.  An hour later, I finally put the book down and crawled into bed at 10:45, giddy that I could get 8 hours and 15 minutes of sleep.

Not quite. This is how my night went:

12:36 am: I was being poked lightly on my cheek. When I woke up, the Bean was standing there. She wasn’t wearing the PJs I put her to bed in, she just had on thick white tights. I tried not to pee my pants in fear.  I get over it, get her back in bed and hop back into my bed- my spot was still warm. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

12:45: I put the Bean back to bed again, this time after singing her 4 songs, getting her clean tissues and turning on her bedside light. My spot in bed is no longer warm and I’m not feeling as charitable towards my child as I was the first time.

1:49: Crazy, our dog, is at the top of the stairs barking. I stumble out of bed as quick as I can so she doesn’t wake anyone else.  I take her back down stairs and see that our cable box is uploading new software. This happens a few times a month- the cable box shuts itself off and runs through a variety of programing, making little clicking noises each time it does.  Crazy hears these clicking noises and loses her mind. So I have to put her outside and wait for the damn thing to cycle through. 11 minutes later, it’s done and the freaking dog doesn’t want to come back in. So I’m standing on my back porch in my night gown reeling in my dumb dog by her run line muttering every name in the book towards this creature. Clearly, I’m not at all amused.

3:10: The alarm goes off. The Hubs has the courtesy to turn it off really quickly so I roll over and go back to bed without too much of a problem.

3:47: The Hubs wakes me up to kiss me goodbye. So sweet but that doesn’t stop me from imaging the ways I want to hurt him because he woke me up.

4:23: Scorch wake up with a bad dream. Something about the X-Men, a box and a bad guy. I frankly don’t care, so I mentally threaten him within an inch of his all the while soothing him to get him to go back to bed.  I grab his pillow pet and one of his blankets that is two inches too short and lay down on his floor because by that time I’m ready to fall asleep standing up. He blessedly falls back asleep just as I lose feeling in my arms from laying on the floor and I’m back in my bed by 4:35.

6:00: Scorch is up for the day! Which means I’m up for a few minutes while I get him settled in front of the TV. I’ve got 1 more hour before I have to get up- I’m not wasting a minute of it.

6:44: The Bean is up for the day.  Of course she is.

That is why I’m more exhausted on my day to sleep in than I have been in a long while. *yawn*

Apr30

Not For the Weak or Easily Confused

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I knew life wouldn’t be boring thanks to my kids, but lately they are making my brain hurt. In the past 24 hours, we’ve discussed:

> What an electric chair is and why it’s used (thanks, Billy Joel!)

> Why some pen!ses look different then others…

> Which lead us to a great discussion on circumcision, how it’s done and why some people do it.

> Why doing things like tooting, picking your nose and wiping your nose on your shirt isn’t acceptable (not that my kids do those things- obviously we were talking about other kids)

> And one more thing that I can’t remember because too much of my brains had already leaked onto the floor. I think it was about why Scorch needed to wear a cup for baseball, what a cup does, etc.   I had already blacked out by then.

Parenting is so kicking my butt today.

 

Apr25

It’s Not As Easy As It Looks

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On the way home from a crazy long evening of soccer and baseball, the Bean told me quite urgently that she had to go to the bathroom. Now.

As we were only 2 minutes from the house, I told her to hold it and stepped on the gas petal. The child’s been potty trained for almost 2 full years now, but still- I’m not taking chances.

When I got the Bean out of the car, she begged to go pee outside. When I told her no, she was beside herself. Scorch goes pee outside all the time and it’s not fair!  Too bad for her, it’s hard to take her seriously when she’s ranting at me while doing the potty dance in her pink polka-dotted Hello Kitty rain boots.

I got her inside in the nick of time and she did her business, but she still wasn’t done with me. Why can’t she do something that Scorch can do anytime he wants? By this time, Scorch is in on it- why can’t ladies pee outside like boys do?

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how I found myself squatting on the ground (fully clothed) giving my kids an anatomy & physics lesson on why peeing in the woods is tough on the ladies.  I’m adding that to my list of things I never thought I’d have to do in my lifetime.

Apr24

One more thing…

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Last night I didn’t set out to write a “Don’t Ignore” post for National Infertility Awareness week.  I had planned on jotting down a few sentences and linking over to one of my all time favorite posts that talked a bit about our journey to having kids and calling it a day.

But the words just kept coming.  I surprised myself- as crazy as it sounds, I didn’t know I still harbored all those feeling. The anger and insecurity and fear and sadness.  9 years and two kids later, you think I’d be over that. I guess not.

So today I will leave you with that post I meant to share yesterday. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to kid’s antics and potty humor.

*~*~

This was written on Sept 23, 2010.

It was 5 years ago this week I found out I was pregnant with Scorch.

We started out trying to build our family feeling excited and nervous and oh so very confident that a pregnancy would just happen. We’re married and in love and have always gotten what we wanted by working hard and following the rules and that is whats supposed to happen. Only sometimes, it doesn’t.

6 months into trying, my very awesome doctor ran some tests on the Hubs and I. He was fine- all systems go. I had PCOS- I didn’t ovulate on my own which is must have when trying to get pregnant.

Enter the fertility drugs. One to manage the PCOS. One to stimulate egg growth. One to force me to ovulate. It took three cycles on Clomid- three months of hot flashes, mood swings and pure nerves to finally get pregnant a year and 3 months after we started trying.  You have never, ever met two more excited people! We were bursting with the news and picked out a gazillion different ways to tell our families each one more fun and creative then the next.

We told everyone right away never thinking things could go wrong. We’re married and in love and have always gotten what we wanted by working hard and following the rules and bad things aren’t supposed to happen. Only sometimes, they do.

After our 2nd miscarriage, we pulled out the big guns. We saw a specialist and got tested to see why we were experiencing repeat pregnancy loss. Again, the Hubs was perfect. I, on the other hand, have a blood clotting issue as well as a problem with my anti-bodies which made carrying a pregnancy to term next to impossible without some serious medical intervention.

Our 3rd miscarriage came after a few failed cycles using injectables and IUIs. I had given myself daily shots of Heparin, a blood thinner,  and still I lost that pregnancy.  I. Was. Done.  My life for the past 3 years had revolved around making babies and it had consumed everything- my thoughts, our marriage, my outlook on life. No more.  The Hubs and I had a long talk and sent away for adoption literature because I was not getting on the reproductive roller-coaster again.

God had other plans.

A month after my 3rd miscarriage, a good friend (hi, Cheri!) and I were spending the weekend shopping while our husbands were away on business.  We had big plans that night to go out to a great Italian dinner and split a bottle of wine- I couldn’t wait.  I had been having a few pregnancy symptoms and although I chalked them up to the miscarriage, I thought I should test. Just in case.

I found out I was pregnant with Scorch in the bathroom of Target.  Classy, no?

This time around we switched up the blood thinner I used (thank you, Lovenox!) and tried IVIg therapy to help with my auto-immune issues.  And miracle of miracles, the pregnancy stuck.

Which is a good thing because I cannot imagine life without this kid.

Apr23

Don’t Ignore: The Scars Still Show

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Yesterday marked the start of National Infertility Awareness Week. NIAW was started by an amazing organization, RESOLVE, back in 1989 to help educate people about infertility and to help erase the stigma of the disease. I mark this week each year looking at my kids and marveling at how very lucky the Hubs and I are to have them at all.

It’s been a little over 9 years since the Hubs and I started trying to have a family. Back then, I knew a grand total of 1 person in my life who had trouble having kids. While I had a great outlet online to talk women in similar situation, the vast majority of people in our day-to-day lives didn’t have a clue what we were going through. It was isolating and frustrating and scary as hell when everyone around us kept saying things like “All he had to do what look at me and I got pregnant.” or “We weren’t even trying- this pregnancy just happened.”  or “Just relax, you’ll get knocked up in no time.”

People didn’t mean to be hurtful, they didn’t mean to be cruel- they just didn’t understand.  “Relaxing” doesn’t fix medical issues.

For some, babies don’t just happen. For some, having a baby requires thousands and thousand of dollars in expenses even with great insurance (which we had).  Having a baby requires daily shots for years and medicine that makes you moody and crabby and hot and fat.  Having a baby requires prayers and tears and raging at God wondering why the druggie on the street corner has a baby every year that ends up in the foster system while you- an employed, stable, married, willing woman- can’t have even one.  Having a baby means having sex with your husband only when you’re told to and only in certain positions to try to maximize the changes of making that coveted baby- it’s not about love or lust any more. Having a baby means living and dying by the calendar as  you wait and test and pray that you ovulate and then wait and test and pray that you conceived.  Having a baby means analyzing every single thing your body does during that 2 week wait wondering if that twinge or that cramp means you’ll finally see those two lines on the pregnancy test.

Trying- and failing- to have a baby starts to color everything.  I started to turn into an ugly person, one who wouldn’t- couldn’t- be happy at a friend’s pregnancy announcement. There simply wasn’t any room for happiness when I was so jealous I couldn’t see straight. After we finally got pregnant and I started to have the miscarriages, I’d find myself wishing that someone- anyone- around me would have a miscarriage so that someone could finally know how I felt. I’m not proud of those thoughts- they are hard to even write about now- but that was my reality.  Infertility robbed me of my ability to feel joy at a friend’s pregnancy.

But the the Hubs and I were lucky- we made it to the other side and we have two amazing, gorgeous kids to show for it.

But others aren’t so lucky and are still fighting this battle. So please, be mindful and be kind. Don’t assume that babies are always the next natural steps in someone’s lives.  If someone does tell you that they are dealing with infertility, tell them you’re sorry and offer to listen. Don’t share the story about your cousin’s best friend’s sister who adopted and then- BAM- ended up pregnant. Don’t judge a couple for going through the infertility treatments and not adopting- or vice versa. You have no idea why they picked the path they did.  If you know someone who is dealing with infertility, be mindful of how you share the news of your pregnancy.  I promise they will be happy for you and rejoice with you- but it may not be right away and if it’s not, remember that’s not a reflection on you or your friendship.

Today I know of at least 8 people in my day to day life that have struggled or are struggling to start their families. Infertility isn’t going anywhere and having a baby isn’t always as simple as you think. Please, don’t ignore infertility and all it’s victims. Educate yourself about the basics of infertility and the importance of NIAW.