I've got the "feels"

I'm making a Renae Record today, sharing blog post #3 this month.

I am a woman who has been through a fair bit in her life.  I sit here today, only 29 years old, but have a lifetimes worth of situations, life experiences, grief, hardships and let downs.  My story is not the worst of the worst nor is it filled with rainbow chasing and unicorn riding.  More times than I can count, I have been referred to as a young yet wise one, wise beyond my years or just having an old spirit.  I got here somehow, and I'm pretty sure its through perspective and life experiences.

If you think that I have this impeccably rosy outlook in life, I should be convicted of fraud.  I don't always feel like everything is going to be okay, because sometimes it isn't.  People don't always beat the illness and you don't always beat the odds.  That is life.  Life is full of surprises, the good kind and the bad.

I'm a pretty open book, so it would appear.  I mean, I publish a blog and share some of my deepest feelings.  I put it right there in the open for all the critique and form opinions.  Meanwhile, I have even deeper feelings, doubts and heartaches that I just bury.  I bury some things so deep that sometimes I just feel lifeless and cry.

Moody, irrational, irritable, easily upset, harboring hurt feelings, tender minded, feeling left out, feelings of not being "enough", not being somebody's "person".  Haven't we all had these feelings??

Angry, closed off, slow to speak (for fear of saying it all wrong), un-responsive, hiding your "true" feelings.  Wondering where do I fit??  Do any of those "feels" sound familiar?

I have all different sorts of feelings on any given day.  I'm admittedly an emotional rollercoaster.  I love to laugh and have fun.  I have perfected many different faces to go along with my well thought out and calculated "one liners" that are almost sure to promote laughter from those around me.  Other times, I am serious and focused.  At work, I can almost come off as unapproachable, because I appear very straight laced and on a mission.  One time, when asked at a MOM's group I was attending, "what kind of fruit I would compare myself to and why" I wittily answered, "I am most like an orange, because you have to peel off my outer layer to really know me".  I don't even know where those words came from, but I said it and thought -- Renae, you are smarter than ya look!

Sometimes it is really hard to admit that your hurting or that your sad.  It is much easier to just play pretend and act like the cowardly lion-- heartless.  It would be much easier if I didn't let other peoples actions dictate my attitude.  Now I sound like my husband..... but I am just not wired that way.  Some people wear their feelings on their sleeves, and others are just like me -- I hold much of it in, and when I feel hurt or let down, I let go.  I walk away, carrying the hurt silently with me and just let it be.  I don't let go, I just let it be....

Many times, I've flooded my mind with thoughts like "I'm just not good enough".... "Renae, you just don't mean as much to that person as you thought".... "You probably had that coming"....

I am hard on myself.  Good grief, aren't we all just a little harder on ourselves than we ought to be?  Ughh.  I was talking with a co-worker for about 5 minutes today.  Somehow, we got on the topic of depression and feeling sorry for ourselves, as we both know someone who is struggling with some hard feelings right now.  It really got me to thinking.  It isn't just today and this conversation with you (Cathy!!) but seriously, feelings can be so tough.  It's really hard to navigate, because feelings are valid-- how you feel is very valid.  It's most definitely how you respond that is going to make or break your future.  I'm not sure why I let things break my spirit, even though I do it in usually a private and quiet way, but I am very sensitive like that.  Our audiologist just told me on Monday that I need to toughen up my skin when it comes to the deaf community - true story.  Sensitive subjects like that give me certain "feels" but its even the little things that can affect me..  If you don't wish me a happy birthday, I might wonder where I've gone wrong.  Don't like the cute picture of my kids on Facebook??  Yikes, I might take that personal.  I'm driven by words of affirmation and the lack of those beautiful little words can leave me in a tail spin.

I really have to take a step back and try to grasp reality, because my happiness can't depend on words of affirmation, quality time, praise or appreciation.  Likewise, my happiness can't depend on friends and family surviving the illness or sweet little babies having their hearing restored.  Those things don't always happen.  Babies aren't always "born".  Those things hurt, they sting like a bee, even 8 years later.  Not many people know, but I know I experienced postpartum depression after I had Noah.  I was not a very good mom to him.  I was a scared 19 year old, who had just lost her own daddy to a miserable illness.  When I found out that my little boy was not "perfect" I raged.  I was miserable and angry.  Matt and I decided about a year later we wanted to have "one more baby" -- (yeah, yeah, yeah.. that was the "plan").  I have not told many people-- but I miscarried a sweet little angel baby at 13 weeks in between Noah and Kendra.  I can still remember my friend Anna, calling me on my little NOKIA cell phone.  I silenced it, let it go to voicemail.  Her message said "Please Renae, don't shut me out.  I just want to be here for you".  Man did she know me well...

One day I woke up and decided, I just don't want to be miserable or angry anymore.  Slowly, I've let go of some of the hurt and sadness I've had.  I decided to forgive my dad, for choosing alcohol above all of us for all of those years.  I decided to embrace being a mom to Noah and forgive myself for being so upset with his deaf diagnosis.  I had to forgive myself for my genetics, something I had no control over and how it caused all my kids hearing loss.  It wasn't until I found God that I realized that forgiveness was necessary for me to operate on all cylinders.  Later I clung onto the idea that not everybody gets to grow to be old, life is too short for me to hold onto that stuff that leaves me with the yucky feelings.  Does stuff hurt me?? Yes, far more often than I care to admit.  Am I overly sensitive?? Oh, you can bet your writing hand on it.  I'm working on it and I'm working on me.

I am sooooo far from perfect.  I can give the best advice in the world (okay, that might be a little bit of a stretch), but I can give pretty good advice... I just haven't figured out why I'm not always smart enough to listen to my own stuff.  Don't hold it all in, people REALLY do care and your feeling are so-so-SO very valid.

If you are feeling sad, feeling let down, or feeling like everything is just not going the way it is supposed to.. you are not alone --

Love--- One girl who is also trying to keep it all together.    

Meh.. it happens

I'm having a great hair day (thanks to my most amazing stylist, Lindsey) and of course I have no place to be ;)  Luckily, I've learned to say... meh, it happens :)

In recent years, I've come to terms with the idea that: WEIRD THINGS HAPPEN TO ME!

Okay, so maybe the things that happen aren't always "weird", but the odd ball things that happen in life, seem to be common in mine.

Have you ever went out to supper with a group of friends and, oh shoot, one of the people in the party didn't get their order?  Yep, I'm usually that person.  I can't count on my hands or toes how many times my order has been the one that somehow gets either mixed up or just flat out forgotten.  Weird, right?? Meh, it happens :)

Friends cancel plans? Meh, it happens!

Yesterday, Matt and I showed up to our audiology appointment with three kids in tow.  As per usual, I stepped forward to talk to a lovely receptionist who always lovingly marvels at the growth of my little munchkins while she checks us in.  Mysteriously, she starts scanning for Steffen... Steffen.. Steffen.  "I'm not seeing you in here, hun" she states.  Dun.. dunn.. dunnnn... Somehow, our appointment did not make it into the computer.  Odd, right??  Meh, it happens!  Thankfully, were so well taken care of at Mayo Mankato, there is no way they were going to send us home without doing their best to accommodate us.

Aubree did such an amazing job yesterday.  She communicated very well, followed many directions and helped me dismiss my feelings of being a failure as a momma.  Am I hard on myself??? psssshhhhhttt nnnoooYES!  Why, yes I am.  Why do I do that to myself?  I know better, but.. meh.. it happens.

We were invited to a water park with friends the other day, an invitation we graciously accepted.  Of course, with my guards up high I thought... No way, in no capacity, am I equipped to take two 2 year olds, 3 deaf kids, 1 hard of hearing and one overly excited full hearing dare devil to a water facility.  Ain't happenin'.  With great compromise, I decided that if the two year olds stayed back with grandma, this could be a really fun experience!  I even decided that the big kids could wear their water accessories so they could hear while playing in the water.  It was great! Loads of fun, lots of sun and even some relaxation for this mom, right here!!  Of course, I watched like a hawk with an anticipation that something weird would happen.  I wasn't sure if I would have to jump in and save someone, give some older kids an evil eye for being mean to one of my kids, save my kid from the whistle blowing lifeguards (which they may or may not hear).  I just really wasn't sure, so I was on a mid-high alert.  My radar is a little broken these days, I think its something to do with having twins and being fried out from over stimulation.  Lately my radar has just been stuck on high alert, you know, where your ready at any moment to catch your falling toddler from the roof on which they have climbed (that hasn't happened, by the way (yet)).  Anyways, sure enough, over comes Noah.  He puts his arms around my neck and says "Ahhh,, mom.  KK just lost her ear when she went down the slide.  I don't think she was even holding onto it"  And there it was.  Crisis had arrived.

I calmly got out of my lawn chair and proceeded to walk towards the slide area, where Kendra stood waiting with her head tucked a little low.  Thankfully, one of the girls that was playing with Kendra helped to communicate to the lifeguard that Kendra had lost a hearing device while going down the slide.  My head was thinking "drains.. drains.. this pool has a drain.  How big is the drain?  Where does the drain go?"  But I just smiled and tried to stay calm.  The pool was about to go on a five minute break, so the lifeguards cut the water to the slides and found some goggles so they could go diving for a cochlear implant.  I'm counting my lucky stars, because in just a few minutes, the cochlear implant was found.  Wheww... dodged that bullet.  Meh, it happens :/

I was talking to our audiologist about the situation, and about how I was internally really freaking out, to which she replied confidently "Which you should have, I mean honestly, $12,000 just flew off your kids head" and then we laughed.  Ohh.. good times, funny... yet not funny. at. all...

If there is any type of message that I've really just honed in on lately and really tried to internalize, its that weird stuff just happens.  I used to be the type of person (and if I'm being real honest, sometimes I still get stuck in this trap) that always wondered, why does weird stuff happen to me?  Life is all about experiences and choices.  We get to choose how we let experiences mold and shape us.  We get to choose how we react to chaos, how we react to disappointment and how we react to life when things just don't go the way we had planned.

Soo... who cares if weird things happen to me?  There is a reason that I double and then triple check to make sure I'm walking into the ladies restroom, slowly and carefully walk into a stall (as to not "disrupt" someone, and I also make sure I understand the door locking mechanism in bathrooms.  Obsessive, maybe.  But I have not yet been sorry, which is amazing, because WEIRD THINGS HAPPEN.  Sometimes I do the old double/triple take before leaving the gas station (I would hate to drive off with a pump).  I would have a much harder time saying "meh, it happens" to one of those situations :)

At the end of the day, the big white elephant in this weeks chaos was my feelings about my kids and their hearing.  Accommodating deaf children at a water park and mapping and programming their cochlear implants and hearing aids.  Malfunctioning rechargeable batteries, contacting the cochlear americas company to replace faulty cable coils, missing ear hooks and 13 pieces of equipment, used by 4 kids to keep in good repair kind of had me down for a minute.  I thought I needed someone to pep talk me, but I really just needed to reflect on what really matters.

5 healthy and happy kids, a very happily married couple, a pretty stinkin' good support system made up of friends and family and above all else, a God that loves me.  When life doesn't look perfect, well, meh.. it happens :)

The breakdown

It's been a little while since I've taken time to sit at the computer and give an update, a brand new month seemed like a good opportunity :)

Happy August 1st.  2016 is more than half over, good gravy, time flies.  Yesterday, we celebrated Noah's 9th birthday. Holy guacamole, I have a 9 year old.  Last minute, a little bit on the fly, we planned an awesome day for him.  We surprised him by picking up his good buddy Isiah and taking them (along with Kendra and Miles) to Sioux Falls to the SkyZone!  Along the way, we stopped at DQ to eat some lunch.  Sixty minutes of jumping at a trampoline park provides a lot of smiles, laughs and a REAL good time.  There was only one problem, Matt seems to have forgotten that he is almost 30 ;).  He had a spectacular jump/flip something-or-another and instantly had a stiff neck.  Whoopsie!  But... what an amazing Dad he is, getting in there and playing with the kids.  It's something I'm sure they will look back on and appreciate about him.

On our way back home, we stopped and picked up Pizza Hut, because another surprise was waiting for Noah when we got back home.  The grandparents, uncle Nick and uncle Dylin and Auntie Ash to the rescue!  They were all waiting for us when we got back home, with a home that was nicely decorated in Power Ranger decor and balloons.  We celebrated our sweet boy, showered him with some presents, pizza and a homemade ice cream cake.  Life is good :).

Naturally, there was a slight hiccup in the night.  Noah's CI has been shifty lately.  There has been a couple of times where it just wouldn't work momentarily, then it would turn back on.  Luckily, we made it home before his cochlear implant stopped working.  I tried to trouble shoot it, borrowing chords from his sisters, switching out pieces, trial and error (like a boss...) but I had no luck.  So it was on to digging through the "back-up" processors, when suddenly my heart sunk.  I knew that Noah's backup was an old "dinosaur" processor.  The one he started with 8 years ago.  Since we've had kids with cochlear implants, there have been improvements made that have been HUGE!  When Kendra got implanted, her processor was better technology than Noah's original CI.  Then, when Aubree was implanted, we saw another upgrade in technology.

Noah's ear quit working right about the time we were going to sing happy birthday to him.  My mom said, we can still sing to him, he will still enjoy it.  Regrettably, I said No.  I continued to serve everyone cake, then it was on to searching for his back up processor.

Bad mommy moment.  I have been so hopeful that we wouldn't need to use this OLD processor, possibly in denial, over zealous or just plain not smart.  His "map" or "program" that he has been using is not current on his back up processor, not even a little bit :(  When we finally gathered up all the pieces, found some batteries and fired up the old processor, Noah put it on and made a little wrinkle in his nose.  I said "Can you hear me Noah?"  He said, "What?" loudly.  Then he said "Yeahh.. I can hear you, its just really different.  Kinda loud in some parts, there is a little bit of buzz and maybe a beep?"  Blahh... my heart sank.

Rarely do I go through pity party times, but yesterday I had one.. in a big way.  The party went on, Noah played with his friends and new pogo stick until dark.  After everyone went home, we cleaned up the house and then enjoyed some quiet TV time.  Noah popped on his favorite show, "Full House", and all seemed well.  The four younger kids were ready for bed, and Noah wanted to watch his show, so we let him.

Soon enough, everyone was asleep, except restless me.  I laid awake in bed, feeling sorry for myself and worrying about ears.  Ridiculous when you reflect on it.  It was 11:18 p.m., and I was remembering how Noah entered the world 9 years prior.  We had no idea what it meant to be parents until that very moment.  I was feeling anxious and recklessly thinking about how terrible of a mom I was, wondering how Noah's "old, blue, dinosaur ear" was working for him.  I decided to go downstairs and check on him.  He had fallen asleep on the couch, his CI next to him.  I woke him up, and put his ear on him.  I hugged him tightly, while he was a bit confused, he hugged back.  I had tears in my eyes, and he asked me whats wrong?  I said "I forgot to sing happy birthday to you".  He said "well jeesh, don't cry.  Just sing to me now.  It's officially my birthday, right?"  I laughed, then hugged him tighter and sang to my sweet boy, a light, creaky and crackly rendition of "Happy Birthday".  When I was done, I kept a tight hold on him and he said the sweetest words to me.  He said "mom, don't worry about my ear, I know we will get the good one fixed.  You always take really good care of us."  I laughed, simultaneously doing a terrible job holding back my tears.  He was ready for his bed so I walked with him up the stairs, led him to his bed and kissed him goodnight.

I'm a very blessed momma, to have such a sweet and insightful little boy.

Five beautiful and insightful little human beings.  I woke up this morning, early, thanks to two giggly and bouncy little girls.  I tried to pretend to sleep for about 15 minutes, thinking maybe they would follow suit.... no such luck ;).  Aubree started asking for her CI's, I kept saying "5 more minutes..." Finally, Baylee said, "ummmm..... mom.  Aubs needs her Eeeeaaarrrrssss, or she can't hhhheeeeeaaaaarrrrr me".  So up and at 'em I was.

Aubree is doing amazing.  She asks for her CI's, so I know she enjoys being able to hear.  She is responsive to all sorts of different noises.  She recognizes door bells, can hear the TV when it makes the little beep that its being turned on.  Today, she even heard me call her name over the noise of the vacuum cleaner.  That right there, is amazing stuff.  She has gotten soooo independent.  Before, when her CI magnet would come loose and pop off her head she would have to find someone to put it back on.  Now, she can put it back on ALL. BY. HERSELF!!  Seriously, that is a big deal.  Even bigger than that, if her battery goes dead or for some reason her implant just isn't working, she comes to the adult in charge and says "my ears not working, its not working".  For starters, just being able to advocate for herself, is too cool.  Add in the fact that she speaks in sentences that perfect complete sense === yahooooo!!!!  She is doing great.  Big thanks to her little sister, mother hen Baylee.  Bay talks a mile a minute and Aubs is doing her best to keep up.

Miles might be the sweetest little boy I will ever meet.  He is so gentle and sweet and kind.  His language and speech is without a doubt on par.  He cannot wait for kindergarten, he wants to learn how to read more and how to do math :)  Miles makes sure he tells me I'm beautiful, and that he loves me nearly every day.  He will surely make a great husband, some day :)

Kendra, my little sassy yet sweet 6 year old is also doing very well.  She is a big help with her younger siblings and is by far my best "house-helper".  She enjoys making the beds in the morning, just to see me be ecstatic and thankful for her service.  Kendra is ready for first grade and I want to be ready to send her!  I just need to make sure all the processors are working great so I can send the kids with CI's to school with some confidence.

July was a busy month, complete with a couple of weddings, sunday-fundays with some super cool friends, valleyfair, a twins game with work(in a suite!!!), the warrior dash with some of the best friends a gal could ask for, working a pretty good bit for McDonalds and just the regular ins-an-outs of being a mom of five super sweet, bionic ear wearing super heroes.

Matt still continues to drive to Marshall for work, daily.  He used some vacation time in July to handle the hustle and bustle of all the activities we participated in July, so I think August might break us, lol.  Back to him being on the road 50 hours a month.  Ishta.... but he handles it with grace.  Never does he come home and complain of fatigue or tiredness.  We actually met with a realtor a couple of weeks ago, just to see what the market looks like in our area if we were to decide to sell.  You never can tell where this world will lead you, so were trying to look to God to make some decisions.

August is a little bit more laid back.  Which is probably a good thing, because school is just around the corner!

Today I am choosing to be encouraged and be blessed by all the circumstances that have built me up to the person I am today.