Ellexhoh and OOHC: thank you for reading that post. I was really having a very hard time grieving my sense of being real even as a mother. I have often said--if not here, then elsewhere--how my husband has "taken things away" from me. My husband has particularly gone after me as a not good-enough-mother, even as he has then capitalized on how proud he is of the children. It has been multi-faceted and pretty thorough--this criticism from him. A bad mother because the children are not "just so," a bad mother because spending too much time with them, etc. Anyhow, I have been mourning how the upset of all of TGT is distancing me from my children, and possibly for a lifetime--when I have actually been a very connected mother--good? bad? I don't know, but I have always been there for my kids, and also given them space to grow. finding the baby shoes was a very tangible thing for me to remind myself that my love and care for them was real, and that this remains as real. And that I was real too, and still am. Thanks again.
