The number FOUR.

Four years ago this morning, at 7:52 am, my daughter will officially have left her "3's" behind and will be welcoming in her "4's".

Tonight when Mike and I tucked her into bed last night and reminded her that when she wakes up she'll be four, she beamed from ear to ear.

"You mean, it'll be my birthday when I wake up?!"

Sure will, sweet girl. Sure will. Birthdays have a whole new level of excitement attached to them now that we're moving into our fifth year of life.

Three has been a tough year on our little girl. Since her third birthday we've experienced more change and heartbreak than some families experience in a lifetime. We sold our home. Moved into a rental. My dad quit his "babysitting gig" of two years and we were forced to find a new daycare, which was an incredibly difficult adjustment for my little girl to make. Her world was rocked when he moved to Rockford after my mom filed for divorce (despite my dad's insistence but unwillingness to do it himself). No longer having Papa across the street or just a few minutes away wasn't easy. Then February rolled around and all hell broke loose. Her mama went missing while trying to care of her Nana which meant many days and many nights apart. She learned that she'd no longer be able to see her Papa, a fact that was impossibly hard and confusing for someone so young to understand.

While Liana grew by leaps and bounds during her three's, she also experienced deep stress and anxiety.

In spite of this, three has also brought a lot of joy to Liana and the rest of our household.

While sassy and defiant at times, she's a wonderful little girl. She teases and picks on her brother like nobody's business, at times borderline harassing and tormenting him, but she loves him deeply too. Her eyes light up and her arms fling outwards for a hug each day she's reunited with him at daycare. And he adores her. She loves to snuggle up close to me and she gives the best hugs and kisses. She's affectionate and loving - always having to say the "proper" goodbye of giving a giant bear hug and a sweet little kiss when we're heading in separate directions for the day.

She's become a master negotiator. She knows just how to get whatever it is that she wants and it's become an art that she's mastered. She can play off of anyone's emotions and even play us against each other in order to get what's desired. Meal times are painful as she is so pokey and so picky about what goes into her mouth. Every night at dinner we have the same "If I eat ___ bites can I be done?" speech. Anytime we go to the store she thinks she's "owed" a toy or a piece of candy... her sense of entitlement is something I'm trying desperately to discourage.

She's making friends left and right at preschool and thriving and flourishing there. Tuesdays are her favorite day because Payton B. is there, whom she is crazy about. Another friend, Luci, waits anxiously for Liana every morning to arrive so that they can color and play together throughout the day. I've been warned by Mrs. Amanda, her teacher, that Liana doesn't always use her "listening ears" when Luci is around because they get so wrapped up in each other that they become lost to the rest of the world around them. Liana shrieks with excitement when she realizes that she gets to go to Preschool the next day (she's currently going on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week) and can hardly wait to go to bed on Monday and Wednesday nights. It brings such happiness to my heart to see her making friends and learning socialization skills in this setting. While the transition into preschool was rough for about 8 weeks, I can now confidently say that this enrollment was the best move we've ever made for our daughter.

She's rational and logical (most of the time) and able to think through different things comprehensively. But she does run short on patience from time to time which usually results in temper flaring and whining.

Liana loves all things girly. Her fingers and toes are almost always painted. Her favorite color has always been purple but now she's added pink into this mix too. She loves braids in her hair which drives me nuts because her hair is incredibly thin and hard to manage. Some days she lives in her "princess dresses", other days she lives in her jammies. She's learned the "art" of dressing herself, which she's quite proud of and is actually very helpful to me. However, I also struggle with this new found independence because when she exercises this freedom, she tends to look a bit mismatched. "But mom, these purple polka dot socks match my orange striped shirt because the white polka dots match the white stripes!" or the "But Mom, this shirt matches these pants because they BOTH have stripes!". She loves to color and play games or sit on my lap and read book after book.

She's become so much more independent in this past year. She often wakes up in the morning, lets me sleep until Lukas wakes up, and helps herself to a morning snack and some television. The other day I asked that she have a "super quiet-quiet time" because my head hurt and I needed to lay down in my bed and relax for a little while while Lukas napped. For two hours, my sweet girl played quietly in the living room while a movie was running and she let me rest in the quiet and solitude of my bedroom.

At four years old, she is now sleeping through the night without wetting the bed. Another milestone met. It took us a while to get there.

She is so sensitive and so shy. I really struggle with this because I was also a shy kid growing up. She often refuses to acknowledge any one, even if its someone she knows or has met before, until hours into a visit with them. If I'm with her (which I always am) during one of these visits, she'll scan the room looking for me, make eye contact, then run to me and bury her face into my legs. Because she's so shy we typically only use the people she's already comfortable with to watch the kids - my mom, my mother in law Deb, my friend/future sister in law Kasey, my sister Brittany or sister in law Rachel, a neighbor girl Cassie or my friends Rachel or Ashley. It may sound like we have a lot of options to choose from at times but the reality is, everyone also has jobs and lives and families of their own too. I often wish I could just take other people up on their offers to watch our kids, especially lately, but I don't for Liana's sake. She struggles enough with this as it is and I don't feel right about throwing even more into her mix.

She loves so fiercely. Each day when I arrive to pick the kids up from daycare, I try and stay quiet so that I can watch her play with her friends for as long as I go unnoticed. Usually, another teacher will see me first and shout out to Liana that I'm here. (I hate it!) The smile that grows across her face as she locks eyes with mine and the way she runs toward me saying "MOMMMMMMY!!!!" usually makes this the best moment of my day. Her arms get thrown around my legs, or my neck, and what follows is another one of those big bear hugs I live for. Her daddy is her knight in shining armor and he knows it. And like I said earlier, she has a love/hate relationship with her brother but with each passing month they celebrate together, I can see her fall in love with him just a little bit more. It might be a slow process but at least it's happening. :)

For her birthday this year, we decided to tone things down a bit more than we usually do. For the first time in her life we didn't invite extended family to her party. We don't have a "theme" but somehow we did manage to come home with some Disney Princess plates because Auntie Brittany insisted our little princess have them. We'll celebrate today just the four of us and then when dinner rolls around we'll share this special day with her three remaining grandparents, four remaining great grandparents, her aunts and uncles and hopefully her almost-cousin.  It's going to be small and it's going to be wonderful.

I'm looking forward to Liana's fours. While I'm sure we'll still experience some hardship this coming year, I'm hopeful that we'll be blessed even more so. She can look back on her life and remember that she moved into her new house when she was four and that she started "4's preschool" when she was four. I'm not sure what other wonderful blessings will come our way this year but whatever they are, we're ready for them.

Happy 4th Birthday, baby girl! You made my life better the moment you were born into this world and I'll be forever grateful to you for it. <3

(And this can't go without saying... as I finished this post it was exactly 7:52 am on March 24th. Perfect.)

Mommy Confessional: I'm a crappy mom, amongst other things.

I like to keep things real here, so I'm about to write the first post of what will probably be many in a series I will call "Mommy Confessional".

Confession: I'm a crappy mom.

Okay, now before you jump all over me about this, hear me out.

Granted, I don't beat my kids and I love them more than life itself. But still, I'm crappy.

(Stop yelling at me inside that head of yours and listen.)

My most recent case in point: Tonight, while cleaning the kitchen after a week of papers and other stuff piling up on the dining room table we never use anymore, I came across a piece of paper sent home with Liana from preschool. Upon reading it I realized that sure enough, I'm a crappy mom.

For roughly three weeks now, Liana has been asking Mike and I each morning while we get ready for preschool if she can bring something in for show and tell. As there have been many handouts sent home in the past asking parents not to let their kids bring toys from home, I've answered Liana's request with a "no" time and time again. I did think it was strange that she kept asking me such a thing but her teacher hadn't mentioned anything to me about it so I just figured she was using the whole "show and tell" bit in order to manipulate me (she's good at that these days) and bring a toy to school.

After reading the handout sent home yesterday, I went to the fridge where I've had another handout posted since late February. I look at it every day but I guess it's been a while, if ever, since I truly read through it. Again it reads that on each Thursday for the month of March, Liana was invited to bring in a special toy to "show and tell" to the rest of the class.

Stellar.

I'm mad at myself. This isn't the first time I've screwed up and my kid has paid the price for it. I feel terrible that I was just ignoring her requests to bring something in and even presumed it as another one of her manipulation tactics. I feel equally terrible that for the past four weeks she's probably been the only one in her class that's come to school each Thursday without something to "show and tell". I bet her teachers have chalked this up to another instance in which Mrs. Kadzban didn't have her "A" game on.

My cleaning quickly came to a screeching stop when I discovered my misgiving. I sat down on the couch, pouting like it was nobody's business.

And while I sat there I came to a whole other realization: Okay, maybe I'm not a crappy mom. I mean, I do love my kids to ends of the world. But I'm definitely not an A+ mom, nor am I even an A- mom.

As in all other areas of my life, I'm a "B-" at being a mom.

It's kind of funny in a way. Not "ha ha" funny, but ironic funny.

In every area of my life, I'd give myself a B or a B- grade.

Throughout all of high school, I was the student who didn't want to put in any more effort than what was absolutely necessary. This often equated to a B- in each of my grades. Sometimes I'd get lucky and come out with a B or a B+ even but the majority of the time, it was a B-.

In undergrad, I learned pretty quickly that it was going to take a lot more work to maintain that "just better than average" grade. But even with all that extra effort I usually came out of each course with a B or B- grade.

At home, I'm definitely a B or a B-.

I lack in being domestic. My cooking is subpar... I only have a few meals that I feel confident in cooking, so we have those meals routinely. They include simple dishes like: Spaghetti. Baked chicken. Chicken fajitas. Tacos. Enchiladas. Chili. I know how to defrost a steak so sometimes we'll go a little nuts and put those on the grill. (Did you sense the sarcasm there?!) My side dishes often come from a box or a bag, including Betty Crocker mashed or cheesy potatoes, frozen veggies, rice or bread and butter. (I know, it's embarrassing.) And baking? Well, that's obsolete in this household. For the life of me I can't bake cookies without burning the bottoms no matter how hard I try. I can make a cake or some brownies but as in all other things, these always come from a box. Again, embarrasing.

I can do laundry, but I certainly wouldn't call myself "good" at it. Ask me how to get a stain out of a shirt and I'll call my mom and have her tell you. I'm infamously bad at shrinking Mike's clothes so now he has a separate pile for those which I'm not allowed to touch. I still don't know whether I should be using warm or cold water but I always use warm because it makes me feel like I'm getting the clothes "cleaner" by doing so. As a result of this though, my colors are dull and my sweaters look worn. Me doing the laundry gets us by but we certainly pay for it in the process.

My house isn't always clean. In fact, it's usually not. Between the toys and the sippy cups thrown all over my floors, the puffs of dog hair lining my floorboards, and the dirty dishes in the sink, it's gross. Even I think so. I try to keep up with it but most days I just can't. It's like a tornado comes each morning, cycloning itself through the walls of my house for the next 12 hours, and then disappears again at bedtime with one hell of a mess left in it's wake. Truth be told, there are many nights we just let the mess sit because we're too tired and lazy to do anything about it.

As a wife, I'm again just mediocre. I want so badly to be as good of a spouse to my husband as he (usually) is to me. But the reality is that sometimes, my fuse runs short and Mike is there to feel the wrath of his overwhelmed and short-tempered wife. On a really bad day, I find myself thinking about all the ways in which he got screwed over by marrying me. (I say that only somewhat jokingly.)

When it comes to being a mom though, this is where I struggle the most when I find myself being a "B-". There are a lot of days where I struggle with my kids more than I enjoy them. I snap at Liana because she refuses to listen or I ignore Lukas because he's constantly fussing and crying. We don't go outside because it's "too much work" to get them all bundled up for the ten minutes we'll be out there. I don't take them both to the store with me because it's just easier to leave one or both of them at home. I'll play on the floor with them but I don't usually do things like crafts because I don't have a lot of interest in it. I look forward to nap time and bed time so much that I then feel guilty about it. I'm not the mom that puts a ton of thought into birthday party themes and spends weeks preparing a menu plan nor am I the mom that knows how to sew special outfits or blankets for my kids. When it comes to being a mom, I often find myself feeling overwhelmed and stressed when all I want to be doing is enjoying my kids and being the mom that they deserve.

I want to be a perfect mom to them. I want them to look at me and think that I'm the best thing since sliced bread. I want them to see me for all the ways I do love them and for none of the ways I fail them. But reality is, they see me for both.

I'm far from perfect. My life is far from perfect.

Maybe someday, I'll find something I excel in. Something I get an A in rather than a B. I just hope that my kids and my husband love me in spite of my shortfalls because even though I yell, I can't cook and I run away every now and again because I just need to get away from them, I love them with every fiber of my soul. So maybe that will be it - the one thing I'll always be good at is telling them how they rock my world and I couldn't imagine my life without them. <3

True story.

The end.

Everything changed.

One month and two days ago, my world was turned upside down.

Every day, there's a thousand different thoughts that run through my head. They plague me in the most literal sense.

Things like:
How long did he plan this? At what point did he know he was going to do this? Did he think it was crazy or completely rational? Why didn't he think about what it would do to Brittany and I? Why wasn't I worth a simple apology? How could he have written me off so easily? And my kids? Did I ever really know him? How does someone you've known your whole life turn into a complete stranger overnight? Does he still hate me? Is he still angry at me? What if he had succeeded? Where would I be in my life if he had? What would I have to be contending with right now? What if my mom hadn't outwitted him? What if he had used a gun? (They both would've been gone then.) What are his days like now? Does he sleep at night? Is he comfortable? Or safe? Will he die in jail? Will we ever talk to him again? Is he remorseful? Does he wish he had not done this?

And those are just the thoughts I dare share. I have so many deeper, darker thoughts too that rattle me to my core.

What happened on February 15th was big.

So big, in fact, that it doesn't feel real. It feels like my life is a television drama and that I have a front row seat.

Someone made a comment to me last week that my life will forever be lived in terms of "before" and "after".

Before this attack, my family was much like any other. Obviously we had our own share of issues and our own demons. But growing up within the environment that I did, with a dad who was often angry and a mom that was often trying to make it better, was normal to me. I knew it wasn't normal to everyone else but it was to me. I never really considered my dad as an "emotionally abusive" man, just one that had grown up in a physically abusive household and had a lot of anger and control issues as a result. (Hello, denial.) My relationship with him was always tenuous while living at home... he and I are alike in many ways so we naturally butted heads a lot. When compared to my mom and my sister, I'm the more outspoken one so I didn't put up with much of his crap and when he was being an ass, I told him. (As you can imagine, he didn't receive that well.)

The day I got married, that changed. The day Liana was born, it changed even more.

Liana was his life in the most obvious of ways. She idolized her papa and he basked in that. He gave her everything she wanted and more, so the cycle would continue and she then idolized him even more. When I quit weekend option and went to a M-F schedule, he watched her while I worked. Those days were what he lived for... again, in the most obvious of ways because the rest of his days were spent sitting in the same chair, watching television and being bored and resentful.

Liana changed the way he responded to me because he was always scared that I would keep her from him if  he hurt me. Unfortunately though this had little effect on the way he responded to Brittany and my mom. The emotional abuse continued. And even though he wouldn't take his anger out on me anymore, that never stopped him from taking his anger towards me out on one of them.

For 29 years and 8 months of my life, this family has walked on eggshells around him, never knowing what we might say or do to set him off.

After this attack, nothing feels the same. My mom is different and while I know in my heart that she won't be like this forever, she's not the same person that I lived with the past 29 years and 8 months. She's scared. Overwhelmed. Dependent. She's been reduced to a shell of the woman who has always been so strong and steadfast in my life.

My dad is in jail and facing a lifetime prison sentence. Other than in court and on the news, I anticipate that I will never see him alive and in person again. I often find myself desperately wanting to talk to him but I know that no good could come from that because even though he did this to us, I'm fairly certain that he's the one harboring feelings of hatefulness while sitting behind bars. In one day and by one action followed by many, many more that night, my dad was ripped from my life. While things weren't good before this, there was always room for hope. My hope to have a relationship with my dad died that night... along with a lot of other things.

My sister and I are surviving. We feel so many different emotions and often, more than one within the same moment. Sadness. Anger. Confusion. Joy. Fear. Gratefulness. Devastation. We've been left to pick up the pieces of what my dad did and while happy to do so considering the alternative, it's an overwhelming task much of the time.

I realized this week just how deep my denial runs. Disbelief is one of my biggest thought processes... Is this really happening? Did this really happen?

It just doesn't feel real.

Even when I have a "Major Case Squad" detective programmed into my contacts, along with a Kent County Prosecutor. Even when we get a letter from a lawyer or a phone call from the social worker at the jail. Even when I see either of my parents pictures splashed across the television screen or newspaper page. Even when I sit across the room and look at my mom and the scars and bandages she now wears. Even when I go to the Rockford house to check on things and pick up the mail.

My denial does run deep and while I know it can be a dangerous coping mechanism, it also saves me. When I need to put one foot in front of the other, it helps me do that.

I've noticed that my work days seem to be my hardest days. I think this is because when I'm at home with the kids, I can't cry. Not because I don't want to but because I don't have time to. Liana and Lukas are just too young to understand that "mommy just needs a minute" (or an hour, or lets be real here, a week). By the time they go to bed at night I'm so emotionally spent that I have nothing left to give to myself. However when I'm working, I'm often alone in my thoughts and alone in my car. It's in those moments that the reality of this situation truly hits me.

There are no words to express how thankful I am that my dad did not succeed at what he was trying to do that night. There are no words to express how thankful I am that my mother is asleep in the room next to me.

There aren't enough words to explain all the ways in which this has effected me and our family.

But my life will forever be defined in the terms of "before" and "after". Because everything in my life changed in just a few short hours on that fateful February night.

Privatized.

To those of you who are reading this, you made the cut. :)

A few weeks back, I anxiously wrote this post and hit the publish button. Twelve hours later, I even more anxiously took the post down for a few reasons, one certainly being the most prominent: I'm scared that with a criminal trial looming over us, my words could become material used either for or against either my mom or my dad. I knew I couldn't put my mom in the position of having my words used against her in any way so I knew I needed to take it down. In addition, with a media presence surrounding this matter, I was also quite afraid that they would get wind of my blog and use the information provided on it to their advantage. These just weren't risks that I felt were worth taking.

Blogging has always been incredibly therapeutic for me. I have historically felt very safe writing in this forum but these days, my sense of security has been deeply shaken. Now that my blog is private, I hope I can start writing again about anything that my heart wants to talk about.

I hope it goes without saying though that anything shared here, stays here.

Stay tuned....