Supermom?

Final turns 1 today.  How the heck did that happen??  I know, the days are long and the years are short, but seriously now, it seems like just yesterday I was rushed to the OR to deliver her.  She's a such a little joy.  Her love/love relationship with her sisters is amazing.  It's a mutual admiration society.  She gets so excited to see them each and every time they come into the room.  And they think she hung the moon.  She loves SS Dad above all others (not that I blame her one bit!) and spends every possible moment with him.  She giggles, laughs, plays and eats (actual food folks, not like the other 4 who survive on air and Goldfish!) She only gets cranky with good reason - tired, hungry, somebody won't give her what she wants - and spends most of her time smiling.  She rounds out our family perfectly.
In this past year I have learned so much.  Yesterday I read an article that purported that moms of more than three kids were less stressed because they have no room for perfection.  I'm not sure that I believe the less stress thing, but the lack of room for perfection thing, I totally believe.  In my world perfection is a myth.  Good enough is the standard.  Are we all dressed mostly appropriately for the weather?  Have we all eaten a decent amount?  Is the homework generally completed?  Have the kids practiced Hebrew and/or their instrument?  These things are all good enough.  Good enough so I can go to bed at night without worrying that I've missed something important.  It doesn't always happen.  Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat at 4am thinking "Oh crap!  Frick didn't get her violin solo practiced!"  or "Fred only read 5 times this week!"  or "I still do not know how to french braid Frack's hair for the meet tomorrow!"  But hey, that stuff doesn't happen every day.  Just often enough to remind  me that I am not Supermom.
Yes, I can kill flying insects with a single swat.  Yes, I can stop moving school buses from driving off before the last kid gets on.  Yes, I can change a diaper while signing a permission slip and writing a check for the PTSO.  Yes, I can carry a violin, gym sneakers and a large poster board while wrestling a baby into the car seat.  Yes, I can call the plumber, lawn guy and piano teacher while handling the installation of the new playscape and painting of the built in shelving in the family room.  Yes, I can remember to buy greens and worms to feed the lizard, the filter for the crayfish tank and snack for PreK while driving 2 kids to Hebrew School and another to gymnastics at the same time, 45 minutes from each other.  But am I Supermom?  No cape and tights here (thank goodness, nobody wants to see tights on me!)  I am just a regular mom.  We all do these things every single day.  It's a juggling act.  Like the guy who keeps the plates spinning on those poles at the circus.  We do that.  Moms.  It's our job.  We keep those plates spinning because that's just what we do.  There's no day off, no vacation time, no manager to complain to when the natives get restless.  But the rewards are sweet and the sticky kisses are worth more than any vacation day.
Just remind me of this the next time I say I can't take it anymore.

Commonalities, Inigo Montoya and Pete the Cat

I have this very long list of topics I want to post about and things that have happened to the Pajamas family.  I also have a bunch of half-written posts that I stopped writing in the middle because somehow I was interrupted.  I was looking these things over the other day and some commonalities popped out at me.  In the words of the great Inigo Montoya, "You killed my father, prepare to..."  Wait, wrong quote. "Let me splain.  No there is too much.  Let me sum up."

One commonality was about karma.  Apparently I have lots of ideas on karma.  My main thought is that what you put out into the world is what you get back.  I try to put out mostly good stuff and I think I generally get some good stuff back.  And if you put bad stuff out at me, it is very likely that I will return it in kind.  So on the good stuff, when I went through a rough time, my village rallied around me and built me back up.  A friend recently went through a similar rough time and I was part of the village building her back up.  I try to help out other families in need - not just like the soup kitchen and other donations, but with driving kids back and forth and picking something up from the grocery store for a friend.  Recently a mom helped me out with the driving stuff and I am eternally grateful.  That saved me from having to pack up 4 kids, including one sleeping baby and drive 45 minutes to pick up another kid way after bedtime.  See, good stuff comes back.  Bad stuff does too.  When Fred was being bullied at school her sisters rallied for her and the bully got it back.  Yup.  Karma.  (Another lesson - if you mess with the House of Pajamas, we come at you in force.  There are a lot of us.  We are small but scrappy.)

Another one was gather your village and stick together.  My village is awesome.  It consists of a bunch of subvillages which work together without even knowing each other.  I have two online subvillages.  These are woman I have known for years.  One group has been together for over a decade, the other hit the 9 year mark recently.  Both are awesome villages filled with smart, fun, witty, energetic women who are diverse in many ways but they get me.  Then there is a bunch of small local subvillages.  The Temple village - lots of great people there - also very diverse but all loving, comical, bright and fun people.  (Notice I said people, not women, I have to let some men into the village, at least occasionally.)  The gymnastics village is great.  Not just the gym owners and coaches, but the terrific parents who understand my point of view on things like self-esteem, pressure and dedication.  Then there are the local moms who are starting to become a subvillage for me.  Not having been in this school district for very long, I am working on building this up - and have met some wonderful women who are helping guide me through the treacherous waters of the new school.  My final village is my family. This includes a few friends that are like family to me.  Without this subvillage, I would be lost.  Who is in your village?  Do you need to prune that village to get rid of the branches which are hurtful or mean?  Think about it and gather your village.

A third commonality is that I cannot be an expert on everything.  I cannot do it all.  Nope.  Not even gonna try.  If I saw any of the people in my village running around like a crazy person the way I do sometimes, I would tell them to stop.  Cut it out.  You cannot be everything to everyone at all times.  Settle on being enough.  Not all of it.  (See above paragraph about gathering your village.  It's important.)

The last commonality is that my family is nuts.  And it is normal.  I think most families are as crazy as mine in their own way.  We all have our little quirks.  Maybe your quirk is never letting anyone walk through the house with their shoes on.  Maybe it's the opposite.  But we all have them.  The sooner you accept that fact, the sooner you'll drop the feeling that when you walk into someone's house and it's neat as a pin that you are failing because yours isn't.  Maybe they hid all the clutter in a closet before you walked in.  Maybe their quirk is that they cannot stand clutter.  As Pete the Cat told Four in the book we read last night, "it's all good."  And it is.

Jack of All Trades

As a mom, you are expected to be not just a jack-of-all-trades, but an expert at each thing.  In an average day, you have to be an expert line chef, an alarm clock, a baby nurse, a triage nurse, an electronics repair person, the finder of all missing things, a teacher, a race car driver, a personal shopper, a maid, a laundress, a seamstress, a dishwasher, a photographer, a home organizer, a librarian, a psychologist, a dentist and most of all, a mind reader.  Sometimes, all this seems too daunting.  But sometimes, you wake up and feel like, "Hey, I'm a mom, I've got this.  No problem."
Sometimes you wake up and feel like that, and then the sky starts to fall.  Like when you wake up and realize that you've forgotten to make the lunches, and 4 kids needs them, but the baby is screaming and two kids can't find the pants they want to wear, regardless of the fact that they had them set out the night before.  As you race downstairs, carrying the baby drinking her bottle, you notice that the oldest two need permission slips signed and $4.82 each, in exact change.  You hurry over to your wallet to find that contains a $20 and 3 nickels.  Nope.  Not gonna do it.  Then you look over at the fridge and see the calendar which seems to be shouting "HEY!  TWO DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS ARE SCHEDULED THIS AFTERNOON FOR EXACTLY THE SAME TIME, FOR THE SAME KID AT DIFFERENT ENDS OF THE COUNTY!"  You start mentally cataloguing all the people who might be able to help out, because in addition to all that, the baby is running a bit of a fever and the 5 year old tells you she feels like she might throw up.  A twin comes out of the bathroom with a retainer that looks somewhat mangled and asks if you bend it back into shape as the other one pretends that she's brushed her teeth, but you know she simply stuck the toothbrush under the water and called it good enough.  You finally manage to get the three big ones on the bus and head out for the 20 minute ride to take the 5 year old to preschool as she miraculously recovered from her stomachache when you told her she'd have to take a nap.  You get about halfway there and realize that you left the envelope containing her tuition on the counter in the kitchen, along with your can of Pepsi Throwback.  No breakfast for you!  You figure, they adore that kid because when she's there she acts like a doll, as the director told you the previous week that she's "an angel carved from cream cheese" so they'll take her anyway.  You get to preschool and smell something not so fresh.  The 5 year old tells you "the baby stinks.  I think she pooped."  Yeah, of course she did.  So you run over to Target because you know they have the cleanest bathroom on Monday mornings and go in to change her diaper.  After taking care of that toxic waste (what are you feeding that kid anyway??) you decide that you could use a few things, toilet paper, paper towels, snack sized Ziplocks, a new charger for your camera battery, two different kinds of shampoo, the $18 bottle of conditioner for the kids, deodorant for the preteens and colored pens to keep your kids homework assignments organized.  After spending $150 on that stuff and another $100 other stuff from the dollar spot and a cute new pair of pjs for the baby, you notice that the baby is getting tired.  She falls asleep on the way to the car and you put her seat in the car and just drive.  You end up having to drive for an extra 45 minutes, but at least she's getting a nap.  Head home when she wakes up, complaining about having been in the seat too long and find all the breakfast dishes on the counter, laundry strewn across a few bedrooms and several unmade beds.  Give the baby her "second breakfast" because you are raising a hobbit hybrid and stick her in the jump-a-roo to give yourself a few minutes to get something done.  Clean up the kitchen, gather the laundry and start your first load of the day, put away the Target purchases, call the doctors to reschedule, find someone (uh, yeah, there is only one person, my mom!) to watch the kids afterschool so you can take the child to one doctor, call the orthodontist to find out how much a replacement retainer will run you (why oh why did SS Dad become an oral surgeon instead of an orthodontist) drink your can of Pepsi and sit down with the baby. Yup, all that in the 7 1/2 minutes that she'll jump in her jumpy-thingy.  In the meantime, you see that you have a voicemail.  It's the school.  The violin playing twin forgot her instrument.  Back in the car and over to the school to drop that off, along with the sneakers for the 8 year old who left them home on purpose because she hates floor hockey.  In the meantime, mentally plan dinner and try to figure out how you can get it in the oven while at the doctor's office.  It's time for another nap for the baby and you pop in a Lean Cuisine for lunch - at 2:45.  Luckily for you, your mom is picking up the 5 year old from school, because that needed to be done 15 minutes earlier and you'd completely forgotten.  They arrive home while you are eating your first bite and she wants to show you the treasures she found at school.  You check out the 3 tiny pieces of scrap paper, the googily eye and star sticker that she discovered on the floor at school.  She wants you to go with her to put her treasures in her "special spot" and by the time you get back to your Lean Cuisine, it's cold and congealed.  Toss that in the trash and hear the baby start to cry.  Send your mom up to get the baby.  You eat a piece of string cheese that the preschooler rejected at lunch and take a bite of her half eaten apple, as you empty out her lunch box.  The bus brings home the other three and you empty three backpacks, three lunchboxes and file paperwork for three kids.  Then you stick a kid in the car, hoping it's the correct one and head to the doctor.  Your mom calls you because she doesn't know the dosage of one kid's afternoon medication and you forgot to leave it out for her.  SS Dad texts you to say that he'll be late because he has a meeting and not to worry about dinner.  That's fine, because you didn't bother to prep it or stick it in the over.  Make a mental note to put the chicken in the freezer when you get home.  Finish with that doctor (yes, you had the right kid, yay you!) and head home.  Pick up a kid and take her to gymnastics, play with the baby a little, realize that you forgot to go over the spelling list with another kid, manage get everyone to eat something for dinner, finish homework and send them all into the showers.  Then off to bed for them and BAM!  Fall asleep on the couch at 10:30 waiting for SS Dad to get home.
No wonder you are tired, you've spent the day trying to be an expert.

Getting old

So I have a lot on my plate these days.  Our sitter quit, as she need full time work, and I haven't found a replacement yet.  I am working on it, but most people hear "5 kids" and run screaming from the interview.  Part of my problem is that I have been very spoiled by my sitters, they have been so awesome.  Katie-the-wonder-sitter is more of a family member than sitter and nobody will ever live up to her awesomeness.  But, I will happily take almost as good or mostly as good.  Luckily, my parents are helping out whenever they can but poor Final has spent way too much the in the car for her liking.

The oldest three of the girls got their report cards last week and I am pleased to report they are all doing beautifully and adjusting well to their new school.  Four got her mid-year preschool review and her teacher reports that if kindergarten started in January, she would have been ready to go.  They bumped her to their Kindy-wrap room in the afternoon, as their local school has half day kindergarten.  She is loving it!

Frick and Frack will be 11 in less than a month.  Shut up, 11!  How did that happen.  I guess it is truly a matter of "the days are long and the years are short"  at work in my life.  One day they are born and the next they are begging for iPhones for their birthday.  At their school events, I often feel like one of the younger moms.  It seems like many of their friends are the youngest children in their families, while they are my oldest.  With Fred, it is toss up.  Some parents are older than me, some younger.  But with Four and Final, I am the old lady of the bunch all the time.  I certainly feel old,  really old  and my wrinkles aren't helping any. Nor is my greying hair. Lots of grey hair.  I had always said I would go grey gracefully and not color my hair, but I gave in to vanity and dye it regularly.  Or rather, Noreen dyes it for me.

Final hit 9 months this past week.  She is growing so damn fast.  Maybe it's because I now she is my last, but each milestone is so very bittersweet.  Because she was really, I am watching so carefully for delays and at the same time wishing she could stay a baby forever.  I do love the first year.  That sweet baby smell, the first smile, first laugh, first everything.  It is hard to believe she is eating food , especially since the child doesn't have a single tooth yet.

Ah yes, teeth.  Frick, Frack and Fred are starting their orthodontia now.  Fred will be the first, as the poor thing inherited my mouth.  Frick already has a retainer.  Frack is in a holding pattern at the moment.  She will see the ortho this week and we shall see what the next step is with her mouth.

All the girls are keeping me on my toes.  We go through the cycles of sleeplessness, early wake-ups, fluctuating appetites, crying jags, slamming doors, yelling and screaming and knock-down drag-out fitting.  And that sums up my days.  Add a baby into the mix, some 3+ hours a day in the car and a few stops at the supermarket and Target, and you've got my life in a nutshell!

Don't think that I don't love you

Nobody got a holiday card from us.  Two years in a row.  I just haven't figured out when I'd do them.  I had good intentions.  Again.  I love getting them.  I love having a whole bunch of cards hanging up in my kitchen - looking at all those cute faces of your kids makes me smile!  But, I'm pretty sure than less an 1/4 of you know where to send a card because I didn't send out a change of address card when we moved.  Nope.  Didn't find the time for that either.  Lots of people don't understand how my time is spent.  After all, since I'm a stay at home mom and 4 out of 5 go to school all day, shouldn't I have the time to do stuff like send out cards?  Sure, but I was too busy sitting on the couch eating bon-bons and watching Oprah.  Except I can't figure out where Oprah is.  Since she got her own channel, I haven't seen her once.  Eating bon-bons sounds good too, but there are few left for me after Fred, my chocolate loving kid finds them.  And as for sitting on the couch, the only sitting on do these days is either on the floor with the baby or kids and driving all over creation in the car.  So no cards from me.  Then I got this great idea!  I'll write a year-end wrap up post here on Blogger and see if I can't find a few pictures of the kids to post as well.  Then most of the people I would send cards to might see it anyway.  With the exception of my parents, since they know this blog exists, but would not have the first clue of how to find it.
First things first, I'm sure that I still love you.  Even if I didn't send you a card, I still love you.  OK, unless you are the one friend who stopped speaking to me this past year after nearly 38 years of friendship for no apparent reason.  I still love her too, but haven't heard from year in almost a year.  But if you speak to her, tell her I still love her and would love to hear from her.
So, here is our wrap up!  January started with a pregnant me.  And you know how that goes - I'm not a happy pregnant lady.  Frick and Frack had a lovely music recital and Fred started piano lessons.  Frick and Frack were still doing their ski school on Saturdays and Four was skiing with SS Dad.  Fred was home with me.  In the warm house drinking hot chocolate and not getting cold.  February continued with the skiing, even though there was a lack of nature made snow.  Fred and I enjoyed some quality time together while the others were up on the mountain making good use of the man-made snow.  The new gymnastics gym opened - right around the corner from our house.  It was wonderful, especially because with 4 kids taking classes, I was there more often than not.  March started with Frick and Frack hitting double digits.  Hard to believe my tiny little babies were 10. I got huge.  Ok huge-r.  Frick and Frack had their Odyssey of the Mind competition where once again, I judged the littlest ones.  They had a blast.  I was huge.  We finally pulled the trigger and put the house on the market.  We knew that we were outgrowing our house in terms of bathrooms and bedrooms and that SS Dad's practice was opening another office to the north, so we started looking at houses about 15 minutes to the north.  We found THE house, but the owners were asking way too much.  April was filled with house showings, frantic cleaning and me getting even bigger.  May was quite the month.  I was rushed to the hospital due to my placenta previa causing a bleed.  I laid in bed there for several days and then ended up having an emergency c-section.  Final was born 6 weeks early but at 5lbs 2oz, she was a good size.  After a short NICU stay, she came home.  But, on our way to the hospital the night I was admitted, we put in an offer on THE house.  It was accepted and we signed the contract while I was in the hospital.  Never let it be said that we do anything the boring way. While I was in the hospital, our housekeeper started, a week early.  Someone had to help out my mom. June was a blur.  Frick had her orchestra concert in school and then Frick and Frack had their Spring Recital through their Music School.  The girls all loved baby Final and were wonderfully accepting about this new, needy little creature who slept very little.  School ended and we were a bit sad, knowing it would be our last year there.  July brought camp back into our lives.  Lots of driving back and forth again.  Home to camp.  Camp to home. Home to the gym.  And music lessons continued.  SS Dad's new office opened and he was there 2 days a week.  All the while, still keeping the house "show ready" and having a ridiculous number of showings.  Then August hit and we sold the house.  Spent the month frantically packing, doing camp stuff, doing gymnastics stuff, fighting the new school system to get the kids registered and then moving.  Good times.  Busy, crazy and half forgotten by now.  September brought with it a new school for Frick, Frack and Fred and Four started her last year of Preschool.  Back in our old town.  It is a 20 minute drive, but she loves it there, I love it and I drive her everyday.  At least she goes all day, so I'm not doing a lunchtime pick up.  October began and I turned 90.  Yeah, for every kid you have, you add an extra 10 years.  You do the math.  We had Final's baby naming which was lovely, until she cried the whole time.  Then Fred turned 8.  Holy Cow.  Also, we fired the housekeeper because she couldn't hack it.  Taking care of my 5 is no easy chore and apparently, she couldn't do it.  She couldn't keep the house clean, help with the laundry or make a shopping list effectively either.  But by the end of the month, I'd hired a lovely baby sitter.  The new sitter is good.  Very competent and the girls really like her.  She's no Katie-the-wonder-sitter, but nobody ever will be.  Time seemed to warp in November and suddenly it was December.  More concerts - Frick and the orchestra and then both Frick and Frack for Chorus.  And BAM!  Four turned five.  (She did ask if I'd change her name here and I had to explain it was based on birth order, not age.  This did not sit well with her.)  Chanukah and Christmas have both happened and New Year's Eve is upon us.  Again with the time warp.  We are looking forward to 2013.  Many good things in store for us.  We will be doing construction on the house creating separate bedrooms for Frick and Frack (shocking!!!)  We hope to attend a family camp retreat at the sleep away camp that Frick and Frack will attend for the second half of the summer.  SS Dad's practice will be expanding again.  Fred wants to start another instrument.  Frack wants to pick up another as well.  Four wants to start piano lessons like her big sisters.  Final will learn to crawl, walk, talk and will hopefully stop spitting up quite so much.  Four will also start kindergarten.  Frack will have gymnastics competitions.  Frick and Frack will ski up a storm this winter.  Final will ski every Saturday (hopefully!)  I will continue to log hours upon hours in my car.  You see, Hebrew School is 45 minutes away from the new house and the gym is 25.  That's ok.  I'd rather log all those miles/hours and keep the kids where they belong.  So now I give you this link 2012 Wrap Up Book
 It is the little book that we put together for our moms and several other relatives who asked.  If you are a relative and would like one (or just someone who wants a whole bunch of pictures of my crew) let me know and I'll send you one too.

Preconceived notions and expectations

As a parent, those two things, preconceived notions and expectations, are a major stumbling block to your happiness.  Precious few pregnancies are textbook examples.  With 5 under my belt, I can honestly say that 1 was a nightmare, 1 was ok until the end, 1 ended in heartache, 1 was fraught with awful all-day sickness and 1 was fine.  Not very good odds.  I had all kinds of preconceived notions and expectations the first time around.  Yup.  Nightmare.  With a twin pregnancy, all kinds of things aren't textbook.  Weeks of Friday ultrasounds looking for a membrane between the girls, 8 weeks of "couch potato" rest at home, 7 weeks of hospital bedrest and then babies born 6 weeks early both under 4 lbs.  Second time around things were fine.  Although given that I was taking care of 2 1/2 year old twins, it might have been a nightmare and I just didn't notice.  Third pregnancy had me so sick I laid on the floor every single day at 4pm feeling like my stomach was staging a massive revolt.  Fourth pregnancy ended in miscarriage and sadness, feelings of inadequacy and devastation.  Fifth was pretty good until I started to bleed and was hospitalized to deliver 6 weeks early.  Yeah, not so textbook.
And toss those preconceived notions about infanthood right out the window.  No baby goes by the book (I think it's because they can't read yet or something.)  They don't sleep when they should, they don't eat when the are supposed to and the first time they manage to spray poop clear across the room, you are sure that there is something severely wrong with your child's intestinal tract.  Then they get a little bigger and refuse to eat anything off a spoon.  How exactly are you supposed to feed a baby that gruel when they won't allow a spoon to pass through their lips?  All they want to do is suck on your pizza crust and throw their bowls full of gruel to the floor.
Then come the toddler years.  Full of not what you expect.  Kids that won't give up their bottles or pacifiers or stop sucking their thumbs when the pediatrician says they should.  Other kids who have night terrors that are terrifying for the parents.  Little ones who refuse to nap to get the right amount of sleep.  And the laundry piles up.  You thought your house would be a little worse for wear, with some lovely Melissa and Doug wooden toys in the corner but instead you have a house with a mountain of laundry which you can't decide if it's clean or dirty and a dining room filled with plastic crappy toys that all sing, beep and need AA batteries instead of a beautiful oak dining set.
Preschool years are fraught with unattainable notions.  There is no sitting and coloring nicely at the table you prepare the 7 course meal for your anniversary.  Your "good" clothes are covered in something unidentifiable, it might be the smoothie that exploded or it might be last night's spaghetti and meatballs that someone tossed at you because they wanted chicken nuggets and french fries instead.  The table now has glitter glue on it and the chairs are stuck to the floor (see gruel throwing above.)  The 2 1/2 hours a day your preschooler spends at preschool was going to be spent working on the scrapbook of the previous years, since you didn't have a chance to work on them yet.  But instead, you spend the time trying to get the food shopping done without the child in tow, so nobody puts 10 bags of Hershey's chocolate bars into the cart without you noticing or throws a tantrum in aisle 11 and you have to leave your full cart and go home with nothing to make for dinner and no caffeinated beverages left in the fridge.
Then school age hits.  Your child leaves your home for 8 hours a day.  You think that you'll have time to work on that scrapbook now.  Nope.  Now you are too busy finding gum wrappers under the beds, caring for the pets that somehow ended up being your responsibility even though you were promised that you wouldn't have to do a thing for them, filling out the many reams of paperwork that the school requires and searching for the right size styrofoam balls for the solar system project that was assigned 3 months ago but was started the day before the due date.
I cannot say what happens during the teenage years.  I haven't made it there yet.  But I'm fairly certain that none of it can be found in the books that tell you what to do.
So, toss those ideas about what parenthood is going to be like out the window ASAP.  Learn to go with the flow.  And expect the unexpected.  Your sanity will never remain intact, so don't plan on that either.  You will however, get the best reward there is - your children.  There is no way that your expectation could ever live up to the wonderful experience of the real thing.  The first time your baby smiles, when you hear "I love you Mommy" for the first time, when your little one reads the book to you instead of the other way around, when your child sets a goal and accomplishes it, the first report card with comments like "is a pleasure to have in class" and "a wonderful addition to our classroom," and the biggie "I think I'm ready for sleep away camp this summer."

Glasses

I think some things are just innate.  Morning person vs. night owl.  Napper vs. no naps.  Pepsi lover vs. likes that other stuff.  Glass half full vs. glass half empty.  I am definitely a half empty kind of girl.  Always have been.  I'm not sure why, but if it's a sunny day, my first thought is "do I have enough sunscreen left for the kids?"  And if it's a rainy day, I think "Great.  I might melt."  That's just how I am.  I've read several books to try to learn how to brighten my outlook, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin was a good read.  She gives concrete examples of how to add happiness to your life.  I just couldn't find the energy to do it.  I have a friend, a twin mom friend, Robin, who is the opposite of me.  She's a glass half full girl.  Not that her life is rainbows and unicorns, but she seems able to see the bright side of things when others are dwelling on the negative.  I love being friends with her and this is just one of the reasons.  She's like having a huge umbrella on that rainy day when I feel like I might melt.
The whole "thankful" thing during November on Facebook is a phenomenon that I've tried embracing. I started out strong.  I found things to mention - some serious, like my kids and others not so serious like Pepsi and chocolate, which I truly am thankful for on a daily basis.  But it's only November 12 and already I've petered out.  It's not that I am not thankful, I am.  There are a great many things for which I am thankful, truly thankful.  However, I just can't bring myself to get all "half full."  I am thankful for a marriage that is 17 years strong.  Hard work that marriage is.  (Yes, that's Yoda talking!)  Really hard work.  But, good work.  And a great thing to give my children.  I am thankful for my health and my life circumstances.  I am thankful to have a beautiful home.  I am thankful for wonderful friends - so many different circles that sometimes collide in fascinating ways.  I am thankful for my Temple, my synagogue, my religious home - and the clergy who inspire me.  But, I still am that "half empty" girl who perhaps, doesn't want to mention all those things on Facebook out of fear of jinxing them.