Grateful 26 May 2013

 

I'm linking up with Maxabella over at Village Voices for this weeks grateful.

Since my last grateful post there have been some ups and downs. But there have been more ups and so I'm going to share those things.

My extended family member's surviving baby was born at 29 weeks. He is a beautiful little boy and doing remarkably well. His feeds are all breast milk and he is breathing on his own. I know that premmies tend to have a two steps forward, one step back trip through NICU so I suspect there will be a few slip ups along the way but at the moment all the news I've heard has been positive.

My friend (who will be known as C) who was diagnosed with Breast Cancer is going okay. She has a date for her surgery booked and has a plan of action. She and her family are kind of in a holding pattern for now but they are thinking positively. I'm sending positive vibes out to them as well.

A few weeks ago Boy Child was elected to the Student Representative Council (SRC) at his school. Because of this, he has been away on a school leadership camp. I'm proud that he has stepped up to a leadership type role at school. I'm grateful that he was happy to go on a camp with a students from other schools and that he made friends. While food can still be an issue for him, while he was away he ate pasta. That makes twice in the last two months after not eating it (and sometimes not even being able to cope with the sight or smell of it) for the last 11 or so years. The day he came home he even ate lasagna. Not only that, he is prepared to have it again as a semi regular thing.

Mr E.'s work dried up about for almost 8 weeks ago. He is a contractor so we do expect these things to happen. We are very lucky that we've had a contingency plan so these weeks havent been a major issue for us. In fact, I probably was good timing as Mr E. has taken up tertiary study and he needed the down time to get into the swing of studying. However, I'm very grateful that he now has work 2 days a week for the next few months.

When the term went back my hours at work had been reduced. Part of it was on my request but it suited the school as well because they are still awaiting (yes still!) points to be allocated for some students I work with. The early finishes have stopped me falling asleep by 7:30 and I'm rarely needing pain relief for my head. It has been wonderful and I'm very grateful to be able to be making a difference without sacrificing quality time with my family.

So that's my list today. What are you grateful for?

 

Dealing with bad news

I have been writing this post for over a week and when I first started, I had entitled Sometimes Life Sucks.  It’s post about how some people in my life were having a rough time in their lives. No matter how many times I have written this post it just doesn't come out right. I figured I would just brain dump instead. 

I have received two lots of bad news about people I care about in the last week or so and it made me so incredibly sad.  A good friend has been diagnosed with breast cancer. I can only imagine how it feels, one day life is your normal and the next you are being sent off for tests. You have to decide when to tell your children, your extended family and your friends.  Would you tell them before you know? Or wait until  you know and are trying to pick yourself up from the floor and adjust to the news yourself.  My friend will  be having surgery in the next little while.  I hope that the surgery goes well and that the treatment afterward doesn’t knock her around too much.

 

Breast cancer has been in the news a lot lately mainly because of preventative mastectomies. I know that my friend and Ms Jolie will be linked in my mind. I’m not sure what my friend would think about that but I’m hoping she won’t mind.

 

The second piece of news was from my extended family. You may remember that I shaved my head a few years back after going multi-coloured for a few weeks to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation.  Boy Child had his legs waxed and head shaved at school this year to support the same cause. Leukaemia (and other blood cancers) have touched our family and it is a cause that I like to support.

 

A few years ago, a little girl (she was under 1) in our extended family was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Despite fighting for about half of her life, she lost her battle. Earlier this year we were very happy to hear  that her mum was pregnant with twins. Nearing the end of the second trimester, the news is that one has passed away. I know the twins identical so I'm not sure how that affects the surviving one. I'm  also not really sure what happens now. I worry about how the family will be able to deal with the loss of another child and wondering why bad things happen to good people.

 

I’m hoping the next things I hear are good news.  I don’t like bad news weeks!

Memories

Its been school holiday time, so the kids and I have spent some time away with family interstate. For me, it's bittersweet. It's nice to see my children interacting with other members of our family but sad that it is only a few times a year. I am grateful that the family makes time for us as I haven't lived anywhere near them since I was about 8, so many moons ago now.

Every time we leave my grandmothers house she gives (or tries) to give us something. She is attempting to give stuff away because she feels it will be easier on everyone after she is dead. One visit last year I was given a blanket that my mother crocheted before I was born. It's bright and I am glad I have it. I'm not sure I had ever seen it before. This time around my grandmother has told me that she is putting my children's names on things so that my two will get them when she dies. While her thinking about my children is lovely, I kind of find it a bit morbid as well.

I had made a vow to myself earlier this year to clean up our house and have people over. Boy Child has quite a few friends who we should have over to reciprocate and Girl Child (while doing so much better socially this year) would benefit with having some children over. Unfortunately, I didn't progress as far as I wanted due to my work hours expanding so rapidly. This term I'm only working until 1 so I do get extra time at home without the children. This is greatly needed as a huge part of my clean up plan is dealing with toys. Neither child will willing give up any toys, no matter how babyish. I have to do it when they aren't in the house. The problem is that I'm struggling with memories.

We have stuff in our house that was given to my children by my mother. I find it hard to deal with giving these things away because she will neve give them anything else. I have stuff that my mother desperately wanted us to get from her house before we had to hand over the keys to her estranged husband, never to return. But it's not the stuff I would have chosen. If we had known six years ago that those three or so hours would be the last time we would ever be in that house, I would have got things that were important to me as well as the stuff that she wanted. Hindsight is 20/20 though, no one knew that she would be dead two days later.

So we have items that I struggle to deal because I never wanted them in the first place plus things that were gifts from my mother. I need to do something and deal with all this stuff. How would you separate the memories from the things?