Life At The Prairie’s

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go”. – Dr. Seuss

Life.

Life takes you on this crazy ride… filled with bumps…with turns… and with dead ends.

These past couple of months have been filled with all of those three things… forcing me to think outside of the box and figure out what exactly my “role” is in this crazy world.

Ever since Bryan died, I have been afraid to move on… afraid to get a job… afraid to go back to school… afraid to make my own decisions and take charge… afraid to be me.

I know that this may sound weird, but I felt like if I got a job or changed my lifestyle… that I would be officially moving on… officially changing the life that Bryan and I once shared together.

I would no longer be the person that he knew… I would be going to interviews we never talked about together… wearing clothes he never saw me in… and hanging out with people he never heard me talk about.

For the past two years I have not had the courage to be anything else but a mom… the role that Bryan last saw me in… the role that I know best.

After Bryan’s two year death anniversary I decided that I needed to start making some changes… not just for me… but for Owen… for our future.

I need a retirement fund… We need good health insurance… I need to feel like I am making a good life for my son.

It was evident that Owen and I needed to stop living day to day and that we had to strive for more… strive for a better future… and although he is not here… one that still has pieces of Bryan in it.

On October 10th, I started working again. After two and a half years of being a stay at home mom… all that Owen has ever known me as… I decided to try to be a little more.

Luckily my fathers company was nice enough to take me on freelance as their copy editor and social media writer… allowing me to work from home and maintain a flexible schedule.

While it is nice to be back in the “working” world… working from home has added a very interesting dynamic to our lives. I spend 24 hours a day… seven days a week… being Owen’s main source of entertainment and play buddy.

In between making him meals and playing with him… I find myself rushing to my computer to get a few sentences typed before he comes upstairs to distract me. While he is adjusting more to mommy working upstairs on the computer… he is still having a hard time being independent.

Hopefully, 2012 is going to bring some good… but hard changes to our lives. I started looking at preschools and have been applying to more and more full-time… out of the house… jobs. I know that it is going to be hard to be away from Owen and not spend the day playing with him… but I need to stop being selfish and start securing a future for us.

But in the mean time… we are going to enjoy spending our time together watching movies… doing arts and crafts… playing trucks… and cuddling.

Owen and I decided that we were going to try to make Monsters today….

This was the first time that Owen had ever used scissors so it was kind of a big deal!

After I finally got the scissors away from him… Owen glued on his cut out shapes and bedazzled them with glitter.

This was Mommy’s version of a monster!

This was Owen’s version of a Monster! Very impressive.

Extreme Case Of The Push Overs….

“What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. That’s what little boys are made of”

As I sit here… at 10:37 at night…  typing this blog… with my son on my lap… playing angry birds on my phone…

I am realizing something…

I am an extremely bad push over.

 

I know … as every good mother knows… that Owen should be sleeping by 9 pm… in his own bed… with his lights off.

But for some reason…

Here he sits… with me… late at night… with all of the lights on.

And let’s be honest… he will most likely be sleeping with me too.

 

Owen never had problems sleeping in his own bed or going to bed on time… that is of course… until I took away his nuk (or as he called it… his fafa). Since then he has been staying up until 11pm at night… playing in his room or reading books… until I finally cave and let him crawl into bed with me.

Since before Owen was born I swore that he would never EVER sleep in my bed… unless he was sick or scared of a storm.

I never wanted to be “that” parent that let her child sleep in her bed until they were five or six… or was sleep deprived because their child spent most of the night kicking them in the side… or in my case… the head.

But here I am… I am officially “that” parent.

I know that I don’t want him to get in the routine of sleeping with me, but let’s be honest…

Selfishly, I don’t mind sleeping next to a warm body again… and it isn’t bad knowing that he is safe and warm.

 

The Giving Tree

“Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.” – Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

Ever since Owen was a small child, he has always loved books.

Owen doesn’t just look at the pictures and pretend to read…

He becomes a part of the story…

He becomes a part of the book.

Earlier this morning, while he was pulling all of the books off of his shelf, I decided that we were going to try something new today. Instead of just reading his books, we were going to pick out a special one and turn it into the theme of the day.

After much consideration… Owen decided on “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.

For those of you that knew Bryan, Owen’s father, you are probably thinking that this particular book was a very interesting choice on Owen’s part…

and here’s why…

When Bryan was little he loved Shel Silverstein. Not only did he love his stories and his poetry, but he loved the way that he would illustrate. Bryan’s favorite book was “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and when he passed away we wrote … “We will see you again where the sidewalk ends” on his headstone.

So… after the initial shock of the book that Owen had chosen wore off, we decided to spend the day doing arts and crafts and working on our “giving” manners. Owen and I printed off an image of a bare tree and decided to give the tree beautiful leaves.

At first…. Owen carefully dipped his fingers into the paint and created leaves on the bare branches.

After a few minutes of being meticulous… Owen went crazy and got out his paint brush and water cup. Owen’s tree quickly went from bare to looking like it was in the middle of a bad tornado.

After a little convincing, Owen decided to work patiently on a tree with me and we created our own version of the Giving Tree.

All in all today was a huge success and we got to spend the day using our imaginations and talking about Bryan. While Owen did not fully grasp what the word “giving” meant… he did spend the day

dragging the dog around the house “giving” her a walk…

shaving his crayons down to stubs, “giving” my bedroom a makeover…

and of course

driving his mother to crazy town… “giving” her his undivided attention and love.

Welcome To My Crazy Life!

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”   -Mark Twain

These past three years have brought many changes… some good and some bad… in our lives. My beautiful son was born on March 19, 2009 and my amazing husband died on September 3, 2009. I became a mother, a widow, a single parent and a sole provider in a matter of months.

This blog is my way of moving forward… pushing through the crap… and facing life head on with my beautiful and energetic son – all while teaching him about his father… the man that he will only get to know through stories and pictures.

Although sometimes my posts may be raw and hard to read… Owen and I invite you to come along with us on:

our outdoor adventures…

our trips down memory lane…

our animal expeditions…

our tough decisions…

our daily life challenges…

our arts and crafts disasters…

our discovery of self…

Welcome! You have officially arrived in crazy town!