Kristen Blog

Well...last night was a bad, bad night.  It's interesting how just the knowledge of what is to come can taint even the best of days.  Sometimes it's simply the knowledge that a bad day pretty much has to be coming, because I've had so many good days in a row.  They can't, after all, be the perfect, fulfilling, productive day.  After so many in a row, you just start to dread, "So...is the crappy day going to be tomorrow?" I'm the kind of person who has to have those anxious fears pretty much every night.  I.n.s.o.m.n.i.a.c.  It runs in my blood.  It is not easy knocking out all of this for a consistent 8 hours!  I spend a good part of each day just plotting how I am going to get myself to fall asleep and stay that way for a decent amount of time. And I have to admit, since Kerri died, I've become a little too lax with the wine and Benadryl.  There's irony for you...my sister dies of (ultimately) alcoholism, and I respond by drinking more...

I want to take a moment to encourage all of you moms who are raising a strong-willed child (or two).  This is MY Xander.  She is my first child…the daughter I desperately hoped for. Everything about her beginnings was easy.  Easy pregnancy.  Easy labor - though, long.  EASY baby – she slept 5 hours straight the first night we brought her home.  And then, she became a toddler. Oh dear. What a toddler! Intense.  Passionate.  One friend described her, “Xander just LOVES life.”  Busy.  Active.  Hyper.  Within 5 seconds of her 3-year-old appointment, her doctor asked me if I’d ever considered ADHD  (but that whole story is for another day).  Let’s just say I have a number of living confirmations that she was more than a handful. I was in over my head.  I was afraid.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  I was frustrated...often...and I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO RAISE THIS CHILD! ...