I seriously hate the feeling of jealousy. Once in a while, it will find it’s way into my life and suddenly I feel like crap about everything and I just want to give up.
In the past 10 years I have noticed that all my fits of jealously revolve around design. Silly but true. When I was a holiday designer, I would make some decorations for a client, feel really proud of my work and then I would see something in a magazine that looked so much better than my designs. I would freak out and suddenly hate everything I made and want to give up. I would then start cursing myself for not coming up with the fabulous design first. I know, I am totally crazy, but I already knew that.
Over the years, I have developed a rather effective approach to quickly rid myself of my jealous feelings so I can move on and stop acting like a lunatic. This is what I do. If someone tells me something and I start to feel the green dragon rearing it’s head in the back of my mind, I instantly declare, ” Wow, that is so cool, I am really jealous!” Actually admitting you are jealous takes away the feeling, it is amazing.
The problem is sometimes you can’t declare your feeling to the person or thing you are jealous of, so my little philosophy doesn’t always work. Like today for example, while trying to work on advertising for my blog , I came across this really cool blog. I was instantly jealous. The author of the blog is a graphic designer and I LOVED HER blog design. She had all these really cute ideas I would love to incorporate into my blog or doing something similar but I DON”T KNOW HOW TO DO IT!
I hate not knowing how to do something. Either way, I couldn’t really tell this totally random blogger, ‘HEY, I AM SUPER JEALOUS OF YOUR BLOG AND YOUR ABILITY TO CHANGE EVERYTHING AROUND ON YOUR WEBSITE. Well, I guess I could send her an email, but I am thinking she would think I am a lunatic, and I hate to scare an innocent mom for no reason at all.
Of course, I know if I took a class on website design and or Photoshop I could eventually figure it out but as you all know my time is limited. I need more time to accomplish all that I want, so I get frustrated. This is a common theme in my life and probably in most of your lives too.
So I decided to walk away from the computer for a while, and try and stop being a freak. Tiara and I left early to pick up a sandwich for Trinity at Subway before we picked her up from school, hoping the sandwich would cheer her up in case her day didn’t go well. Everyday as Tiara and I wait for Trinity to meet us at the car, I dread hearing about how bad her day went. Ninety-nine percent of the time she walks to the car with her head down, her shoulders slumped and the second she enters the car she starts complaining about everything that went wrong with her day. I try to find positives about the day, but she argues as well as me and usually finds a negative for every positive I suggest. I usually give up we go through 5 different scenarios.
Today as I watched her turn the corner she was walking with her head held high and a little saunter in her step. My heart skipped as I wondered, could she really be happy?
Today was her first day on medication at school and I was so hopeful it was going to help her and guess what, IT DID. She got in the car and was HAPPY AND EXCITED. All of my crappy feelings instantly dissolved when I heard Trinity describe how great her day was. She received another F on a test that got passed back, but instead of getting upset, she decided that she was going to figure out a way to improve her grades and not let it get her down. She learned how to serve a volleyball at lunch and she finished more work during the day than ever before, so she hardly had any homework. It was a miracle!!!
The medication the doctor gave her on Friday, literally transformed her life instantly. We tried a few different ones during the weekend and by Sunday afternoon she had read 90 pages in a book, which is completely unheard of!!! All of this because of one tiny little pill. Really?
She talked my ear off the whole way home from school and once she got in the house she went right to her room to change for her volleyball game without me asking, or harassing her. I sat down to start on this post and I had tears in my eyes. I am so happy and grateful that she had a good day at school for once I suddenly could care less that my blog isn’t as cute as the other lady’s. I suddenly realized that I will never accomplish everything I want in this lifetime because I refuse to put myself first and my children second.
Guess what, despite what society tells us, it is impossible to have it all. Something is going to suffer, either your work, your relationships, or your children. I am choosing for my work to suffer but have decided I am coming back as a man in my next life. Thinking maybe a surgeon or an NFL quarterback. Ha, ha……
Have a great Wednesday!!!!
xoxo tiffani
Message me with what you are trying to do and if I can help I will. So much of the design seems really hard and it’s not. I stared at the computer screen for 4 months before I finally had to pay someone to design the site for me. Complete waste of money because I think I could build it from scratch right now with no problem.
I meant to respond to your blog last week. Both of my younger 2 kids have adhd pretty severely. Mainly the hyperactivity and impulsivity. It’s so bad if they don’t take medicication it becomes a safety issue. Trust me we have tried and we have ended up in the ER several times. It is heartbreaking.
The medication changes their life. They need it right now like a diabetic needs insulin. Not giving it to them could probably border abuse because they would have a harder time staying safe, succeeding, and would constantly be made fun of and called names at school. Ask my son..he will tell you. He has tried to fight taking the medicine a couple times. when he does that I tell him he doesn’t have to take it. by the time he comes home from school he is crying and agrees that for right now he needs the medicine.
Adhd meds for Thing 3 was literally life changing. Day ONE of the meds was the last time she ran from me into the street and it was the first time she ever sat long enough to write one letter. The result of that was her feeling proud of herself and realizing that she could do so much more than she thought.
Sorry for writing a book here! Hope I gave you something new to think about!
Thanks Nikki, I will get back to you later. As for Thing 3, that is the exactly how Trinity responded, Life changing…. Thanks for writing me a book, as a fellow blogger I know you can’t help yourself and I love it….
I understand your frustrations as we live with dyslexia and adha too. It is a blessing when u see them smile and feel like success is within their reach. You are an amazing mom great work!
Thanks Cyndi, I know you understand more than anyone how difficult the ADHD journey can be. Shockingly enough she even woke up happy today, OMG, I keep pinching myself. xoxo
Glad to hear that the medicine is helping Trinity. That is wonderful news for all of you! I love the idea of coming back as a man in your next life! I vote surgeon definitely, you already make many physician-esque decisions with regards to Tiara every day at your house! You know how I feel about the whole football world lately 🙂 Rorie
So funny, Louie is very upset I want to come back as either. He hates quarterbacks and says he hasn’t had good experience with surgeons. He has been harassing me all morning about that statement. So funny the stuff that gets him riled up….
Hi Tiffani! Funny, I was up late tonight looking up the various med’s for ADHD. I know everyone reacts differently, but which ones have you tried? I would love some feedback as I’m going to the doctors to talk about putting my son on something, anything! I love your blog. I can’t wait to hear what you are going to write about next! Keep it up!
Hi Darcy,
The doctor we met last week does this really cool approach. Apparently there are two classes of ADHD meds, Methylphenidates or Amphetamines. The Methylphenidates group includes drugs like Concerta, Metadate, Ritalin, Focalin, XR and Daytrana. The Amphetamine group includes Desedrine, adderall, destrostat, desoxyn and vyvanase. The doctor we see gave us a small dose of a short acting drug (lasts 2 1/2 -3 hours) from both groups. He says that most people will immediately like or dislike how they feel on the drug. If is makes them feel crappy, tired, weird, you don’t try that one again. You then start trying to figure out in the other group how much the person needs to feel productive but not too hyper, etc. After you have figured out what class of drugs your child feels best on he then finds a long acting version which would work so they don’t have to take meds all day. So in response to your question which I haven’t yet answered, my kid does well on drugs in the Methylphenidate group, so she takes Ritalin and Concerta, which is the long acting version,for her school day. Hope this helps!