There’s been lots of talk about happiness, and what makes us happy, round these here parts (and by that I mean, large swaths of conversation with That Husband) and it’s helped me realize that one of the things that makes me happy is writing about my life on this blog. I used to document so many things, open up my mind through my interactions with all of you, and I’m trying to figure out what changes I can make to come back to that point again. I know that blogging (as we used to know it) is dying out, but I was a fairly early adopter and think I’ll plan to be someone who holds on past prime.
I’ll kick things off with a brain dump, broken up by some of my favorite film shots from the past 6 months.
I think all of my projects are public now! Jenna Cole’s website and blog are currently getting a makeover as I gear up for Christmas card season and hope there are clients who want me to document them for 2014, Pinterest Fail is chugging along while I waver back and forth about whether/how to expand it, Womanhood Beyond Motherhoodis due for another portrait, and Hardly Sweetenedallows me to make a drink in the evening and call it “work.” My Instagram descriptions are getting longer by the day, a sign of how much I miss writing about my life in the long form.
One of the ways I’m managing all of this is by outsourcing. I hired my first virtual assistant via odesk.com to work on basic tasks so I have more time for coordinating with advertisers and generating content. I finally have a dependable editor putting together Pinterest Fail posts for me. I gathered up almost a year’s worth of personal digital photos and sent them off for editing. I’ve been shooting more film which means less time at the computer and second shooting for Duy Ho out of San Francisco means I get paid to shoot and he does all the editing. After several months of trying to squeeze everything in during nap time I found AM daycare for T2 that will allow me to consistently log about 25 hours of work per week.
I am hoping that this daycare time will allow me to relax in the evenings. I love the flexibility of self-employment and freelancing, but it means that my t0-do list is never-ending (there is always, always more that I could be doing) and each night after I put the kids in bed I feel I should be forcing myself to work an extra 2-3 hours so I can be more present when they are awake. I’ve heard lots of successful bloggers talk about how they put in a good 1-3 years of losing sleep to build up their brand, but I don’t think I’m interested in living that way.
Along with the first day of daycare for T2, Monday is the first day of T1′s pre-k year. His school really emphasizes the importance of the learning found in this year which means it is time for me to get my act together and get T1 to preschool by 9am every morning. I’ll consider it practice for kindergarten when our schedules will have to shift up even more. Both of my kids like to sleep in (it’s genetic, I swear!) and I think the key to success here is going to be laying outfits out the night before and eating breakfast in the car. At this point the car has become like a portable dining room, speeding down the freeway at 65mph while the kids munch away.
Speaking of T1, I took him in for an autism screening a few weeks ago. It took about a minute for the doctor to say “This is not an autistic child.” I love this doctor (anyone ever had a medical practitioner they want to be best friends with?) and appreciate that she took the time to really talk through things with me. I think, overall, I wanted someone to tell me why parenting is so hard. There is unfortunately not a diagnosis or therapy for that.
Actually, there is a therapy for that, talk therapy for mommy dearest. I started therapy again after a 6-month break, this time with an ex-Mormon who feels like the fit I’ve been looking for. So many of the things I’m working through are related to my departure from Mormonism, it’s helpful to have someone who really understands what I’m talking about. I was told over and over what my role was in life, what made me and my contributions divine/important/worthy/meaningful, and now I’m trying to figure out my own definitions and goals at 29 with two kids and five years of marriage behind me. Here’s where I get a bit mushy and tell you that marrying TH was the best damn decision I have ever made. “I don’t get many things right the first time. In fact, I am told that a lot. … And I know that I am … the luckiest.”
We’ve been making lots of changes over the past three months that have me feeling really hopeful about where things are headed. Last Saturday TH took the kids to Happy Hollow while I photographed a wedding, and I so badly wanted to be there with them. They had so much fun that he’s committed to getting out of the house much earlier this time so the kids can really enjoy what the park has to offer! This weekend I’m off-duty as a wedding photographer (received an email this morning about filling in for someone, but I’m turning it down) which means I get to go with them too. The kids will ride in the fire truck together and T1 will wildly ring the bell. I’ll take a few pictures and then step back to lean into TH and drink in how lucky we are. We really are.
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Jenna Reply:
August 21st, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Thanks for letting me know! I fixed the links and updated the post.
This is such a beautiful post - I feel so connected to it as my life is feeling similar at the moment. Balance & boundaries, tough things to figure out.
If it’s not too personal, can I ask why you had him screened for autism? Is it based on his sensitivity to texture or more than that?
Hey Jenna, I am curious about what is going with T1 and why you took him in for the screening. I have been working in early ed for a while. I am currently in graduate school focusing on early childhood education and science and environmental education and I work at a Lab Preschool. I have worked with a lot of kids with different issues.
Jenna Reply:
August 22nd, 2014 at 3:04 pm
I saw a recent article about a study that discussed the inflexibility of autistic kids, and inflexible is an excellent way to describe T1. He is loosening up a bit over time, but routines are very important to him and it can be difficult to work with. (A good example - every day at preschool sign in I must do things exactly the same way, specifically with him pushing me out the door. If I skip this step (this week I tried to skip it so I could talk to the preschool director for a few minutes) he has a meltdown.) I was hoping that a diagnosis would lead to some therapy or techniques that would help us work around this so that we don’t have to do things exactly the same way every single day.
If you have any suggestions for how to deal with this I’d love to hear! Right now I worry that we are setting up opportunities for failure if we cater to the need for an exact routine in everything. We come home late from something and still the bedtime routine must be done the exact same way, costing all of us some sleep. And we might move into a school situation that doesn’t allow him to push me out the door! It’s hard to know whether I’m doing it right.
Natalie Willow Reply:
August 22nd, 2014 at 3:38 pm
Rigidity is a tricky one. It can be a sign of so many things, plus just simply a part of someone’s personality. Have you read about sensory processing disorder? Asensorylife.com has excellent info about SPD.
Jenna Reply:
August 25th, 2014 at 11:35 am
Ideas about SPD have been a parenting compass for us for the past year and it has made a huge difference. I wrote more about that here: https://thatwifeblog.com/2014/02/27/appreciating-and-understanding-my-child-as-an-individual/
jamieH Reply:
August 22nd, 2014 at 4:06 pm
You might want to try the “just noticeable difference” approach. The general idea is that you change one small thing in a routine that is minor but that your child will notice (do your whole drop off routine in whispers, use a green cup instead of a blue cup at dinner, etc). Search “RDI just noticeable difference” and I imagine that the internet will set you in the right direction. I was talking to a mom at the park about this recently and she said it really helped her son. It is often used as a part of autism behavioral therapy, but I think that the technique could benefit plenty of kids that do not have autism, too.
Hannah Reply:
August 26th, 2014 at 11:03 am
Oh dear, I failed at dependable editing for PF. Let’s blame the worst pregnancy everrrr on that one! Glad you found someone proper. Love this post!
I just wanted to mention that I was very similar to T1 as a child and it was really just garden variety anxiety with a bit of OCD (i.e. if I don’t do this, this way, bad things will happen) thrown in that has, at times, been debilitating but I feel like being aware or understanding of what it was from earlier on would have really helped. My parents had me assessed repeatedly but were always told ‘she’s fine, she’s super smart, why are you here?’. I feel like learning CBT earlier on could have saved me a lot of heartache.
Jenna Reply:
August 26th, 2014 at 11:40 am
Uh-oh, I hope that didn’t come across as passive aggressiveness directed at you. It wasn’t! I cycled through a few different people before I found the right fit
This was such a great post Jenna! Been a loooong time reader of your blog and have missed posts like these. Wish I lived in the Bay Area so I could have wine nights with you!
I am happy to see you trying to find more balance in your life (and it is definitely hard to find as a working mom!). Have you considered re-jigging the morning routine so that your kids can have a healthy meal at home rather than in the car? Laying out clothes the night before (as you’ve suggested) is a great start, but maybe the alarm should be set earlier as well. You mentioned in your guest post a couple of weeks ago that you feed the kids supper in the car on the way home, and now you are planning to give them breakfast in the car, too. It seems to me that it would be hard to give them healthy meals in the car on a consistent basis (although I certainly understand time constraints and the odd snack. We’ve all been there rushing between activities and appointments.) Just a thought. There have been many studies done on the importance of the family meal and how regular meals around the table benefit all family members, especially the little ones. http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/outreach/upload/Family-Mealtimes-2.pdf
Happy Hollow is such a great spot for this age group. I take my 1.5 and 3.5 year olds and they play hard for hours and then come home and are happy to have a mellow evening. I’m glad you’re back to blogging.
I LOVE that black and white shot of T1. Stunning!!
Love that you are following your heart back to writing!
And lastly, I wish you all the best as you are trying to figure out who you are as an ex-mormon. As I would like to say it… growing into who you were meant to be from the start.
Hey Jenna! Great post. I love these film shots.
Just wondering if the doctor at the autism screening mentioned anything about Asperger’s? The symptoms you’ve described (delayed speech, inflexibility) fit with the onset of Asperger’s in some kids, and something about T1 in the few videos I’ve seen of him feels like a dead ringer for my twin brother at that age (who also was speech delayed and a very inflexible child, but after he began talking, did not present at all as autistic.)
I’m not a professional obviously, but my impression is that it is hard to get a clinical diagnosis on Asperger’s at a young age. My bro went through several incorrect diagnoses.. ADHD, OCD, etc, and he was not diagnosed with Asperger’s until age 9… Email me if you want to talk more about this!
Jenna Reply:
August 25th, 2014 at 11:38 am
So far every professional who has worked with him has assured us that autism is not an issue. His preschool teachers who see him all-day M-F, his doctor, etc. We’re looking into information about rigidity and routines and schedules and sensory sensitivity (which is lessening over time) but I don’t see any reason to worry about autism unless we face new hurdles in the future.
Steph Reply:
August 25th, 2014 at 2:35 pm
Good to know. It’s not my business, I was just curious if you were referring to Asperger’s, too, since autism and Asperger’s can present with pretty different symptoms, even if “autism spectrum disorder” is a catch-all. I can’t speak for the range of Asperger’s in young kids, though, only my bro’s experience. Each family can only see how things unfold… and in the meanwhile, your professionals know best!
I’d also just like to point out that though Asperger’s can be a parenting challenge, and many people with Asperger’s face social challenges, people with Asperger’s also often have immense talents and a different way of viewing the world that is equally valid to “neurotypical” ways of seeing things. For many people the biggest hurdle is not Asperger’s, but the way people judge them. Luckily I think there has been a lot of progress with this in the last decade in the United States.