Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Over the Christmas holidays, my four year old brought home a wonderfully endearing, imperfect, asymmetrical, knobbly-looking stuffed bear that was given to her by her ingenious preschool teacher, Mrs. Carbary.  Lili's assignment was to name the bear, (no problem.  Sugarbear, of course) and to write in the bear's journal about his winter adventures.  One day as we sat at the kitchen table and I took dictation, this is what Lili had to say about Sugarbear's state of mind: I wondered if Sugarbear and I were kindred spirits because there are many winter days when I am hungry and every fiber of my being tells me I should eat chocolate and mashed potatoes and follow this action with a long nap.  I too am "made for summer...days" and tend to feel shivery, lethargic, and unimaginative during the cold, dark winter months. This year the cold months in Michigan have been exceptionally sharp and stinging, yet somehow I am doing okay.  After many difficult winters b...

We are now in the depths of winter.  I am maintaining my position perched well above Depression Valley with occasional visits to the Island of Aggravation and the Coasts of Over-stimulation.  'Tis the season. Christmas vacation always reminds me of how fragile my grip on psychological wellness is.  My circadian rhythms are thrown completely out of whack during the holidays. My senses are bombarded with flickering lights, unusual aromas, noisy chatter, and a clutter of new stuff. I also feel overwhelmed by the emotional needs of my ever present family.  To be clear most of them have not asked me to fully take on the burden their emotional needs, but I just cannot seem to help myself. I have felt particularly overstimulated and aggravated this week.  When my Monday morning exercise class (my last chance for group exercise before Friday) was canceled, I felt an emotion that reached far beyond frustration.   I f...

Back at the beginning of the fall, in anticipation of my undoubtedly imminent seasonal depression, I tried out a new antidepressant drug.   The medication that I used last year was just so-so and carried with it some unwanted side effects, so I started out with a very low dose of the new drug.  By the end of the first day I felt like I was wired on caffeine.   Toward the end of the second day I had developed a pounding headache which was exacerbated by the drug induced insomnia.   Clearly this new drug was not the miracle I was hoping for.   I returned the mostly unused bottle to the pharmacy for disposal and made up my mind that we all just needed to move to Colorado where life, I  imagine, must be perfect. Colorado was not a realistic quick fix, so I took a few deep breaths and decided not to panic.   I was not ready to let go of the deep contentment that had settled over me during the summer months.   I continually meditated on ...

I am having blog deja vu.  I am fairly certain I have used the above blog title at least once before.  I wish I were actually singing, "Here comes the sun doot'n-doo doo... it's alright..." but I am still waiting for the sun.  As I sit here on March 18th, the sky is white and the snow is falling rather confidently outside my window.  Much like the fearsome Honey Badger, Michigan don't care that the first day of spring is two days away. I have struggled this winter.  I have been very tired and lethargic and blah.  I have slept quite a bit, often unintentionally in the middle of the day.  On many days in February my bed seemed to magnetically draw me back to it after I had shuffled my older kids out to the school bus.  Lili, my three year old, would sit beside me watching Sesame Street, and when the show ended with Trash Gordon reminding everyone about the letter and number of the day, she would shake me violently and scream, "MOM...

I have been stuggling this week.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I haven't even had enough "R" in me to struggle properly.  Thus, I stuggle.  Every year I stuggle right around this time as the days begin to get shorter.  It would appear that my brain and body truly need sunshine to function properly.  When the daily sunshine levels begin to decline, I feel as though a fog has settled over my brain.  All operations slow dramatically as my energy levels plummet.  I feel sad and overwhelmed.  This happens every year. I've tried slapping myself in the face and shouting, "Snap out of it!" a la Cher in Moonstruck , but that hasn't seemed to do the trick.  In the past spending early morning time in front of my old friend, the light therapy box and upping my intake of Omega 3 fish oils has been helpful in combating my seasonal depression.  Early in the morning I shockingly do not feel like standing in front of a blinding artificial light...

It started snowing again on Sunday afternoon.  By the time we woke up on Monday morning, there was about seven inches of that stuff on the ground.  The kids already had the day off school since it was President's Day, and George cleared the driveway and went to work because he is apparently no longer the sensible Southern boy I fell in love with.  The little girl pictured above has a habit of standing at the window and moaning, "EMMA!!  EMMA!!" while watching her older sisters frolic and cavort in the Winter Wonderland that my front yard has become. So on Monday morning I thought I would make Lili's dreams come true by bundling her up and letting her go out and play with those big girls in the snow.  My favorite weather guy assured us all that the snow was wetter and heavier and perfect for snowman-making, so we were all ready to show off our wintry artistic skills. On went Lili's undershirt, trousers, sweatshirt, snow pants, double socks, boots, mittens an...

Life is busy with three kids.  I've said it before, but it still astounds me.  When you are a third (or fourth or fifth, I'm told) baby, you just have to learn to go with the flow.  You want to do everything the big kids do...even if you're exhausted.  Sometimes it all just catches up with you... Thank God for babies, for their energy and enthusiasm, for their innocence and their spirited zeal.  And THANK GOD for nap time... whenever, wherever, and however it comes!

I continue to learn about myself.  I have struggled with wintertime blues for several years, but up here in Michigan the snow actually seems to be helping me.  For one thing it reflects the sunlight, and this is major since we all determined while living in the UK that the absence of sunshine is what drives me into the depths of apathy.  But in addition to simply magnifying that all-important light, it also happens to be beautiful.  There is something wonderful about rocking a warm baby in the big red rocking chair while looking out her bedroom window and seeing hundreds of snowflakes fall gleefully toward earth.  Falling snow is so much more pleasant than the weeping frigid rain that saturated my last five winters. Falling snow is truly joy-inducing for me.  This morning when I was driving with Lili to my Jazzercise class, I got so tickled seeing the multitude of snowflakes hurtling toward the windshield that I honestly had to pull the car over and laugh...

It's that time of year again, isn't it?  I didn't leave my Seasonal Affective Disorder across the pond in Wales unfortunately.  All week I have seriously struggled to drag my sorry behind up out of bed in the morning.  The fact that New Year's Eve brought us a balmy, rainy day that washed all of the sparkling white snow away hasn't helped my depressive moods, BUT it's new day and a new year, and I am choosing to fight my seasonal lethargy tooth and nail...as long as it's after 9 am. As has been the case for the past few years, we do our New Year's celebrating on New Year's Day rather that the night before.  This gives us a chance to celebrate with our traditional New Year's meal, toast with sparkling beverages and make wishes for the upcoming twelve months, and there isn't even a small part of me that misses the late night celebrating.  As Danny Glover's Sergeant Murtaugh would say, "I'm too old for that $#!*." I took ...

If it can be believed, we had enough of card games and banana pudding yesterday.  So we headed out to the big hill for some old fashioned fun.  Mimi had an old fashioned diet Coke in the chalet and cheered us on from inside.   I was feeling genuinely hopeful that running up the hill with Lili literally en tow would help to burn off some of that banana pudding and apple pie as well as those mashed potatoes and Christmas cookies.  It was worth a shot.   Up and down the hill we went over and over again, and I only complained a little when my glove somehow got filled with snow and I lost all feeling below the right wrist.  Eventually I took Uncle David's advice and "quit being a baby." Now we all feel like we've embraced winter at least for now.  Ask me how I'm feeling at the end of March when it's still snowing up here.  For now these chilly sights are warming my heart.

Hey Y'all.  Winter is arriving in Michigan, and it is COLD!  I opened the door this morning at ten minutes to eight to send my little darlings out the door and down to the end of the driveway to wait for the bus, and it felt as I though I had opened the door to an enormous freezer.  "Goodbye, my babies!  I love you!!" I shouted and quickly closed the door to block out the arctic weather.  Sending my kids to school in snow pants and snow boots is new territory for me. I suppose all of this winter weather nicely accompanies our preparations for Christmas.  On Sunday evening after nursing my ruined "toddler back" all day, we decided to head out to a local tree farm and find the Carson family Christmas tree.  (Incidentally "toddler back" involves literally crippling back pain that results from hoisting on to one's hip and carrying a 20+ pound toddler all day every day.  It takes its toll after a while.  I had a brilliant case of it for at least...

Living in the UK for the last five years, I really missed having seasons.  There was some vague semblance of seasons with leaves in October, barren trees in January and daffodils in April, but mostly we could count on it being cool-ish, grayish and rainy all year.  Each year as the summer months approached, everyone would whisper hopefully, " They say this year will be different.  The jet stream has changed and we might have sun this summer," but that was not the typical end result.  Nine months of anticipation almost always ended with three months of disappointment. Here in Michigan we are now making up for lost time.  Here there are four distinct and proper seasons (with winter being particularly distinct, proper and LONG).  The day the calendar said it was autumn, the weather became crisp and the trees began to obediently drop their leaves.  We are now surrounded by beautiful autumn colors, and we wake up to frost.  In other w...