What I Could Write About Colon Cancer

Friday is Dress In Blue Day, as part of Colon Cancer Awareness Month. I'll be wearing blue...and tweeting and Facebooking and generally social media-ing all month long (hey, new verbs!), because this year Colon Cancer Awareness Month has definitely taken on new meaning for me and I find myself wanting to help spread the word.

I haven't written much about my sister's diagnosis since "the shoe dropped" last summer. I have thought about it many times, crafting posts in my head, and yet when I sit down at my computer I just never manage to get the words from my head onto the screen. I'm not sure what holds me back. Avoidance, maybe? It seems I can easily write "half posts" in my head, but I can't bring myself to really think them through to completion.

I could write about how the initial shock and numbness, that sick-to-my-stomach feeling at the beginning, eventually gave way to a new reality where the emotion comes in waves, sometimes when I least expect it. At first I felt like a zombie, unable to believe that this is happening, and wondered if things would ever be normal again - I would ever feel normal again. And then somehow life returned to something like normal, but a new normal and underneath the surface fear and worry and sadness is there, waiting to release if I let myself stop and touch it.

5 Reasons to Play Hooky & Take Your Kids Skiing

My husband and I highly value education. Really, we do. And we have set firm limits for staying home from school. You'd better have a fever or be puking. Or diarrhea. I guess we'd let our boys stay home if they had diarrhea, which they haven't had (and clearly I just jinxed us by writing that).

But once in a while, for the sake of memory-making, we set all that aside and take a "family vacation day." Last year we pulled Zip out of school for a couple of days to go to Great Wolf Lodge. I went a little overboard filling out the Educational Field Trip form, not sure how difficult it would be to convince school that this was in fact going to be educational and should therefore be an excused absence. Educational value: map-reading (gotta navigate around that waterpark!), water safety, swimming as physical education, and I think about 10 other things I threw on the form. I'm sure the office staff at school got a good chuckle at the overzealous kindergarten momma.

Our Diverse Family Keeps On Growing

Meet my new niece! She's a cutie, isn't she?

Oh, yes...she is a dog. And in keeping with our family's ever-growing diversity, my sister adopted Sita from Mexico.

In & Out of The Parenting Zone

Some days I'm in the parenting zone. I'm on my game. I'm patient and organized and know just how to keep things running smoothly, all day long. I only yell once or twice, tops. I've got a handle on things. Oh, I love those days. I had one of those days today. Thank you, God.

And then there are those other days. The ones where I find myself frustrated and struggling. The ones where there seems to be one challenge after another. The ones where my 7-year-old spills a plate of pistachio shells and I can't stop myself from lecturing him, going on and on about how he needs to pay attention when he's clearing the table, and stop interrupting me while I'm speaking to you! and Daddy and I tell you this all.the.time and that is why you spilled them. And our mutual frustration escalates, twisting and turning on itself, until my boy is in tears and I feel guilty and ashamed at the part I've played, but I'm too overwhelmed to stop it.

Photo by David Goehring via Creative Commons.
Image by Musing Momma. Some rights reserved.

That's how things had been, off and on, for a few days. Last Monday, as I drove the 2-1/2 hours to my sister's so I could accompany her to some new doctors' appointments, I found myself replaying events from the past few days over and over in my mind.

What Do I Know About Divorce?

One of my responsibilities over at BonBon Break is to write an original piece for the Family Room every month. And, of course, I will share a snippet here so y'all feel enticed to go over there and check it out!

When I started brainstorming what I might write about this month, the idea of what I've learned from watching friends go through divorces came to mind. Over the past few years, I've seen several friends go through the heartbreak of a marriage ending - sometimes as a bystander from afar, sometimes as a confidante.

"Sometimes a reason for the end is easy to pinpoint. There is a Big Thing – infidelity or abuse or constant conflict.  But sometimes it seems to come out of nowhere, as a hundred little heartbreaks and disappointments pile one upon the other until it becomes unbearable. The end is so slow to work its way to the surface that it seems to come out of nowhere.

Each time a couple we know splits up – a couple that seemed just fine - I look at my husband and think, That would never happen to us. And then, Could that happen to us? And then, Oh crap, how do I make sure that is never us?! I find myself looking for the lessons, wanting to find the Thing that will protect my marriage."

I was nervous about the post. I thought twice about using it. I checked with friends to make sure they were okay with it. I have a really thin skin when it comes to criticism from strangers, and I worried that readers who have actually been through a divorce would call my "lessons learned" off-base or naive or over-simplified. (Which, to some extent, they have....but very nicely.)

I went for it anyway, and the post went up this weekend. As some commenters point out, a lot more goes into to a successful marriage than good communication. I definitely agree. Marriage is a complicated thing. Even so - setting aside big deal-breakers and fundamental incompatibility - what I learned about the role of communication has been really helpful to me, even if it is just one layer of a very big onion.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, be you married, divorced, or neither-either. What do you think are critical elements of a lasting marriage? How can we protect our relationships?

Pop over to BonBon Break to read the post, and let me know what you think!

4 Things I've Learned From My Friends' Divorces