The Good

I often ponder about whether or not I'm a debbie downer by nature or that it's been the circumstances of the last three years that has shifted my focus to see the negative over the positive.  I honestly don't remember the old Peg in order to have the perspective to make a reasonable judgement.  I do tend to write about the hard stuff here because this blog has been such a great outlet for me to express my feelings, get good advice or plain support and understanding.

This morning I decided to make a list of the good things in the last few days as a reminder.  Drum roll please...

1.  Within and hour of the big blowup the other night with E and the panic attack by M, this is what I found when I came upstairs after hiding out in the basement talking to C.

 

She is an absolute trip.  The boys enveloped her in their love and wackiness and pulled her out of the negative.  They are so funny together.

 

2.  After some thinking and a night's sleep, I realized that E's explosion and our fight was actually a good thing.  She holds everything in and probably needed to have that emotional release.  We've been back to normal and her texts, jokes and demands have continued without skipping a beat.

 

3.  My sweet little L continues to bust is out like a rock star in school.  He is really proving himself to be quite the artist.  It's not only his great fine motor skills, but the imagination displayed in his creations is awesome.  I look forward every day to dig into his backpack to see his latest masterpiece and listen to his explanation of the story he was telling.  Everyone loves him at school and the teachers all come up to me and tell me how cute and funny he is.  The twins teacher even mentioned to my sister during parent teacher conferences on Monday how awesome it is how close the cousins are and that the three of them sit at their individual class lunch tables so they can be as close as possible to each other.

 

4.  Speaking of parent teacher conferences, all of them went very well last week.  A was only .9 off in his grade point average from getting first honors and all his teachers are so proud of his grades.  M is obviously working really hard and her grades were much better.  E has a 4.63 GPA which is pretty amazing given her swim schedule and 5 AP classes.  D is his usual awesome academic self and more importantly his teacher told me how happy she is to see how kind he is to all of his classmates and his leadership among his peers.  Yay!!

 

5.  K had a follow-up ultrasound on his leg on Monday and the clot is dissolved!!  The relief for both of us is huge.  He can start some gently running.  No contact sports or heavy machinery (that's a hilarious notion if you knew my husband...he is not the handiest of people).  The one disconcerting thing is that there has been damage to the vein and there is scar tissue formed and we're not sure what that means for his long term treatment.  We're taking the good news though and running with it.

 

 6.  Our 17th wedding anniversary was last Sunday.  We really didn't celebrate because of the busy day, including K and D driving home from NC for a soccer tournament.  I gave him a new golf bag which was a direct request from him.  He actually only gave me my gifts last night which included a cool hoodie and pull-over sporty nike shirt.  Not very creative, but  I really like them.  I decided to react really positive and ignore the lack of thought and tell him how much I really liked them.  This made him so happy.  I could see how proud he was of himself and it made me feel great.  I need to do more of this with him.  I'm starting to look forward to our little trip down to Florida in a few weeks.

 

7.  D started playing basketball for school this year in the CYO program.  He usually plays for our local rec team with K as his coach, but asked us if he could play for school with his friends.  The level of play is supposed to be a bit better, but it is definitely not going to be logistically very convenient.  We've waivered back and forth with our decision.  Last night, though, at practice as I watched him slicing and dicing through the lane and high fiving his friends it was wonderful to see how happy he was.  Watching him play left me with this overwhelming feeling of gratefulness for this little boy.  He can be such a pain in my rear, but seeing him so happy reminded me what a great and fun kid he is.  We had a nice talk on the way home in the car.  I need to always remember to give all the kids one-on-one attention when I can, but D really seems to need it.

 

8.  We are big readers in our house.  I love books.  We recently had the book fair at school and I may have gone a little overboard, but the kids are loving all the new books (it is for a good cause after all or at least that's my excuse).  A in particular has been devouring all the new purchases.  I'm currently reading the latest Rick Riordan (Mark of Athena) and absolutely loving it without embarrassment.  A finished it first and it's so fun talking about it with him as I read it.  L picked out some hilarious books to and curling up with him on the couch at night plowing through "our stack" has been lovely.

 

Anyway, while things still suck on so many levels, I need to have these reminders that not all is bad.  We are still a loving, fun family.  I am determined not to let the negatives define us.