So JUST as I was planning this blog of my own called "Moments", another blogger (and friend and better writer than I) posted one called "Those Moments" about the moments in the day that make motherhood. I laughed. This woman, whom I only know online (she is the wife of a high school classmate of mine) is truly somehow my other half, my long distance BFF and someone who truly understands where I come from. I couldn't believe we were blogging the same thing at about the same time. I nearly decided to just skip this blog, but instead I dedicate it to her. Erika... this one's for you! (check out her honest take on life & motherhood at http://storyofaho.blogspot.com/).
Erika wrote hers because she often has others asking (and finds herself asking well... herself) why she had 4 kids. I came up with mine as I realized that, while my blog is often humorous (or intended to be), it is also often about the negative. The struggles, the uh-oh, the vomiting, the potty training, etc. It might make one think I don't like this little adventure called Motherhood that I've embarked on.
On the contrary, kids, I actually do LOVE this little adventure. Do I find myself asking, "why the h@#! did I do this?" from time to time? Yes. Do I often wonder if I have the emotional, mental and physical wherewithall to handle this job? Of course. But there are those moments folks, those moments that make it all worth it. You know the ones... if you froze them they'd look like moments from those feel-good family movies that you watch and think, "RIIIIIIIIIGHT, parenthood is really like that". The boy and his dad at a baseball game, the family laughing together at breakfast not a single damn hair out of place and everyone ready for school, the beach trip in perfect late-afternoon sunshine, even the supposed "horrible" moments like the mom and dad shooting eachother knowing looks over a vomiting child. Those moments. They happen and I don't want to forget them, because they are beautiful and they make this whole trip worth it.
There were a couple moments just recently where I actually stopped and thought about it. Both happened just this weekend... one with each kid.
The first was Saturday morning. It was William's first Duck football game. I cried folks, I seriously did. It was such a sweet moment. William (who is now old enough to be disappointed not to join Daddy and Pop Pop at Ducks games) has been asking when he can go to one. So this past weekend my father-in-law decides to skip the game and despite non-stop rain and recovering from surgery, Mike decides to ask William if he'd like to go to a Duck game. The look of joy, amazement and disbelief on my son's face was one I'll never forget. He was SO anxious to go that he asked about every 1/2 hour if it was time to go yet. When they did finally get ready to leave he was perfect... going potty, putting on his socks and shoes and all politeness. Then seeing the two of them, all "Ducked" out (complete with hats & ponchos), William with his Duck Lips noisemaker around his neck, hand-in-hand, leaving the house together just reduced me to tears. I hear them walking to the car and William saying, "yeah Dad! We'll have a Dude's Day. Just you & me." It KILLED me. I wanted to freeze time right there, a boy and his dad holding hands. It was beautiful.
The second moment was Saturday night. It was when Elizabeth (one might think this was a negative, but it wasn't) started getting sick. Elizabeth is an EXCELLENT sleeper, has been since she was 3 months old. She goes to sleep and STAYS that way. But Saturday night, something happened. I think it was a combination of teething and starting to get sick, because she usually sleeps even when she's sick. But on Saturday night she woke up 5 TIMES. FIVE. I would have normally been exhausted and thus annoyed, but for some reason I found myself thankful for the time to comfort her instead. She's 18 months old now and growing out of that stage where she likes to be held for any length of time. And LONG before her brother did, she grew out of the need to hold onto/sleep on mom when she feels ill. So this night, each time she woke, I found her wanting to just be in my arms and I really didn't mind the lack of sleep. The first time she woke, I was so taken aback by her wanting to be held and rocked, that I found myself crying as I held and sang her back to sleep. It took me back to when she was a tiny baby. When I held her so much and how warm and sweet it was to fall asleep together, even if it was sitting up in a rocking chair. I found myself missing those moments and even crying at the joyful thought that my sister is going to do this sometime soon as she is due with her first in November. Elizabeth's soft snoring, her looking up at me while I sang and her eyes sloooowly drooping closed while her little hand gripped my arm was just too much. The fact that something so simple as holding and singing to her (with my crappy voice) is enough to make her feel better is amazing to me. It makes me love being a mom. It made me cry. Chalk it up to hormones, lack of sleep, whatever... I'll chalk it up to loving a moment alone with my daughter, late at night, sitting in a rocking chair, holding on to each other, just the two of us breathing together.
There have been other moments, ones I wish I'd recorded. The impromptu dinner at the little league field with William as we ate corn dogs and watched about 2 1/2 little league games while the sun set. Watching William settle into his spot at the playdough table at preschool, suddenly completely unaware of us watching him as he introduced himself to other kids. The first mommy & me swim class with Elizabeth when she laid back in the water and just let me float her in a circle. Running through the neighbor's sprinklers with my kids in the wagon on the way home from the park because they were shooting over the sidewalk and I knew it would make them both laugh. Hearing Elizabeth's first unprompted "wa oooh" (love you) from her crib as I left her room at night. The perfect afternoon at the park with my husband, sister and brother-in-law where William decided that standing on top of the hill, picking flowers and watching the little league kids play ball was way better than the slides. The impromptu rush into the waves with William in Santa Monica although we had no dry clothes to change in to and it was cold as the sun set. Elizabeth walking over to William's room, pounding on the door and shouting "BUBBA!" to wake up her brother because she wanted to play with him.
Those are the moments folks. The moments you remember when the s@#! hits the fan. When you're tired, when the kids are sick, when no one naps, when you wonder if you're doing an okay job, when you can't stand repeating directions for the 100th time, when the day is too full of time outs... those are the moments you have to remember. It will all go too fast. It will all fade away and change. But those moments will make it all worth it. Those moments are why we're here... or at least why I am. :)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
I'll never...
When you're not a parent yet, you will find yourself beginning sentences this way. When you observe another parent in public, when you read a story about something happening to a kid, when your friends/relatives become parents before you, you will do it. Maybe you don't say it aloud... but I promise you, you say it in your head. I'll never spank my kids. I'll never have a screaming kid in a store. I'll never bribe my kids with food. I'll never count to 3. I'll never let them sleep with me. I'll never feed them junk. I'll never use the TV as a babysitter. I'll never let my child throw a tantrum in a public place. I'll never let my kids stay up late. I'll never lose sight of my kid in public. I'll never fall asleep while watching my kids. I'll never find myself unprepared. I'll never say that, do that, let my kid blah, blah, blah.
Folks, I have a very unkind piece of advice for you. Shut up. YOU DON'T KNOW. You don't. You THINK you do, you think you can imagine, you think you can prepare. You are the armchair quarterback with the advantage of replay. You are the backseat driver. You are the one I envision now when I read "judge not, lest ye be judged" in my Bible. You are, in the eyes of us parents, the blathering idiot who goes on and on like your least favorite judgemental radio or TV pundit. I don't mean this as an insult. I don't mean you are stupid. I just mean you are inexperienced. You are the equivalent of a civilian offering a soldier advice when you've never even served. You are the little kid telling their mommy and daddy what YOU will do when you are a mommy or daddy. Shut up. You are merely embarrassing yourself.
I laugh now at my former know-it-all self for even thinking the thoughts I thought and I blush at the moments I had the gall to say it out loud. I used to think that I knew just based on what my mom did with me, what I would do. I didn't. Each situation is different, society is different, each child is different. I was you once folks, so I don't mean to insult you when I say again... shut up. Try the exercise I try daily now if I find myself even THINKING about judging someone else (especially a parent, but really anyone)... I stop and I remind myself that I have not walked in their shoes. That I am seeing that person in one small moment of their life and have no idea of what their history is.
I once promised myself, "I will never drive a mom car." I was the person with the ridiculously tidy car that was always vacuumed, always spotless, always ready to receive an unexpected passenger. I never understood how people could have clothes, food, unidentified lying objects, etc. strewn about their car. Now, I know. Long overdue cleanings of my car during the past four years have been known to produce the following: petrified cheerios, a plastic toy utensil, a lego clone-trooper helmet, a pair of Spiderman sunglasses I told William we lost, 6 month old receipts, sand, mud, goldfish crackers, a piece of petrified mac & cheese (what? they've never eaten that in the car dammit!), clone trooper action figures, Starbucks cups and/or lids (never still attached to the other piece), juice-box straws, yogurt (eeeeewwww), hair ties, hair clips, stuffed toys, wiffle balls, shovels, blankets, pacifiers, baby bottle caps, teethers, rice (again, never actually eaten in the car!), molding milk in a bottle or sipper (blech!), a diaper (yes, used... don't judge), a baby monitor (what? how did that get there?), clothing the kids have grown out of, gift cards with money still on them (yay!), petrified pieces of playdough (huh?), dvd's/cd's (no, never in the jewel case), books, toy cars, baby dolls, my sunglasses, an important phone number that it would have been nice to find WEEKS ago, pieces of my hands-free headsets, fossilized donut, every super-hero toy known to man, that toy I told William was not to leave the house, etc.
How does that happen, you ask? Why don't you clean your car out when you get home and you're coming inside? HA HA HA! Let me tell you why, kids. Shit happens. You're exhausted, your kid super-pooped on the way home, the other one fell asleep during a freakin' 10 minute car ride, you had to make an unplanned stop for supplies, the doctor ran late, the baby-sitter got sick, you had to throw kids and toys and food and supplies into the car in a haphazard fashion to make it to a last-minute doctor appointment because someone is puking, your even-more-tired friend asked you to watch her kids and in sympathy and solidarity you agreed, you had to work late, you had to leave a public place early because your usually wonderful kid is having a meltdown, YOU puked, you didn't plan dinner and have to now pick up something last-minute, you realize you don't have any infant Tylenol in the house and your kid spiked a fever, your spouse is out of town, your f@#!ing smoke alarms are beeping and you don't have the batteries needed to replace the ones that just died, etc. Shit happens. It will happen to you. Don't judge, try not to laugh and don't bother trying to prepare ahead. This isn't a test you can study for. Your test will be different... no copying from the neighbor folks. God in his infinite wisdom will make sure each test is individual so that you can't develop an answer key. You can't break into the office and steal last-year's test. Shit happens.
So the next time you try to tell your friend that counting to 3 is ineffective, the next time you tsk tsk a parent letting their kid open a box of cookies in the store before checkout, the next time you shake your head at the parent with the screaming child lying on the floor in Target, throwing juice at the pancake house, skipping a nap or watching too much TV... quiet yourself. You don't know. You don't know what happened to them yesterday, this morning, 5 minutes ago, at the doctor's, at school, etc. You haven't walked in their shoes. So quiet yourself and concentrate on walking in your own shoes.
So many things can affect your parenting decision... your marriage, your job, your economic situation, your support system, the past 24 hours of your life, whatever. So the next time you want to dish out some advice to your friends, family, neighbors, strangers and you are not a parent remember (these are taken from my own life and the lives of my parent friends) you don't know if:
The kid just had vaccinations and is reacting poorly, the a-hole working the list at the pancake house forgot you and you ate an hour later than scheduled, the kid is teething and not sleeping, the parent is working on a new skill or lesson with that child, the doctor ran an hour behind and right into nap/eating time, the kid suddenly had an onset of "poopiness" and managed to eat through the entire stash of diapers in your diaper bag, a power outtage means the alarm didn't go off and now the whole day is shot to hell, the kid got bullied at school and does not yet have the maturity to express it well, the parents are in the middle of a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parents SHOULD be getting a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parent is on 2 hours of sleep because kids are puking, teething, having night terrors, spiking ridiculously high fevers, transitioning from a crib, etc., the kid and parent are going through hell at an allergist because they're freakin' allergic to everything and you're running out of things to feed them, the kid heard something in a story that freaked them out, the parent just lost their own parent and thus the kid lost their grandparent and everyone is an emotional wreck, the parent just heard bad news at work or got laid off, the parent is driving a rental car because they just got into a horrific accident, the 2nd child is SO different from the first that the parents are trying every new trick in the book and seeking the help of other parents for new ideas, the weather took an unpredicted turn, you left the house in a hurry because you're a new parent short on sleep and forgot to pack an extra outfit for the baby who is then sure to either spit-up or crap out of their diaper, you just spent the entire night in the emergency room, an appliance broke, a freakin' loud jet flew overhead and woke the baby, the dog just ran away and you spent 2 hours hunting it down, you have to buy a gift for someone and are doing it at the last minute with kids in tow because every other catastrophe has also happened this week, your sitter called in sick, the parent is sick for a week and now the house is a mess and there are no groceries, EVERYONE in the house is sick for a week (which turns into 3 because of the incubation period) and the house is REALLY a mess and they've all been living on Pedialyte & Gatorade, a parent is recovering from a c-section, gall-bladder or some other surgery, out-of-town visitors came back-to-back and kids are thrown off very easily by disruption in daily routine, the daily routine is changing due to lessons/school/work changes, the kid is giving up their morning nap, the kid is dropping nap time entirely, the mom is going through some hormonal crap in an effort to get pregnant again, to avoid getting pregnant again or just age, an accident/last-minute issue means no one has eaten in a few hours and you HAVE to stop somewhere to eat because you're not going to make it home, the coffee machine broke, the parent's cell phone just broke or ran out of juice precisely when they needed to make an emergency call to home/sitter/job/school, a relative "passing through town" stayed way longer than expected...etc. In other words, shit happened.
As for fellow parents (and I need to remind myself of this!!!)... remember my favorite phrase from the Bible "How can you say to your brother 'let me take the speck out of your eye' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Even if you don't believe in God, that phrase works. Basically folks, until you're perfect keep your trap shut and work on yourself before you judge others.
And remember... God, fate, the universe, Karma, whatever just LOVES to put you in a situation that you've seen someone else in and said, "Well I'LL NEVER..." Famous last words, folks, famous last words.
Folks, I have a very unkind piece of advice for you. Shut up. YOU DON'T KNOW. You don't. You THINK you do, you think you can imagine, you think you can prepare. You are the armchair quarterback with the advantage of replay. You are the backseat driver. You are the one I envision now when I read "judge not, lest ye be judged" in my Bible. You are, in the eyes of us parents, the blathering idiot who goes on and on like your least favorite judgemental radio or TV pundit. I don't mean this as an insult. I don't mean you are stupid. I just mean you are inexperienced. You are the equivalent of a civilian offering a soldier advice when you've never even served. You are the little kid telling their mommy and daddy what YOU will do when you are a mommy or daddy. Shut up. You are merely embarrassing yourself.
I laugh now at my former know-it-all self for even thinking the thoughts I thought and I blush at the moments I had the gall to say it out loud. I used to think that I knew just based on what my mom did with me, what I would do. I didn't. Each situation is different, society is different, each child is different. I was you once folks, so I don't mean to insult you when I say again... shut up. Try the exercise I try daily now if I find myself even THINKING about judging someone else (especially a parent, but really anyone)... I stop and I remind myself that I have not walked in their shoes. That I am seeing that person in one small moment of their life and have no idea of what their history is.
I once promised myself, "I will never drive a mom car." I was the person with the ridiculously tidy car that was always vacuumed, always spotless, always ready to receive an unexpected passenger. I never understood how people could have clothes, food, unidentified lying objects, etc. strewn about their car. Now, I know. Long overdue cleanings of my car during the past four years have been known to produce the following: petrified cheerios, a plastic toy utensil, a lego clone-trooper helmet, a pair of Spiderman sunglasses I told William we lost, 6 month old receipts, sand, mud, goldfish crackers, a piece of petrified mac & cheese (what? they've never eaten that in the car dammit!), clone trooper action figures, Starbucks cups and/or lids (never still attached to the other piece), juice-box straws, yogurt (eeeeewwww), hair ties, hair clips, stuffed toys, wiffle balls, shovels, blankets, pacifiers, baby bottle caps, teethers, rice (again, never actually eaten in the car!), molding milk in a bottle or sipper (blech!), a diaper (yes, used... don't judge), a baby monitor (what? how did that get there?), clothing the kids have grown out of, gift cards with money still on them (yay!), petrified pieces of playdough (huh?), dvd's/cd's (no, never in the jewel case), books, toy cars, baby dolls, my sunglasses, an important phone number that it would have been nice to find WEEKS ago, pieces of my hands-free headsets, fossilized donut, every super-hero toy known to man, that toy I told William was not to leave the house, etc.
How does that happen, you ask? Why don't you clean your car out when you get home and you're coming inside? HA HA HA! Let me tell you why, kids. Shit happens. You're exhausted, your kid super-pooped on the way home, the other one fell asleep during a freakin' 10 minute car ride, you had to make an unplanned stop for supplies, the doctor ran late, the baby-sitter got sick, you had to throw kids and toys and food and supplies into the car in a haphazard fashion to make it to a last-minute doctor appointment because someone is puking, your even-more-tired friend asked you to watch her kids and in sympathy and solidarity you agreed, you had to work late, you had to leave a public place early because your usually wonderful kid is having a meltdown, YOU puked, you didn't plan dinner and have to now pick up something last-minute, you realize you don't have any infant Tylenol in the house and your kid spiked a fever, your spouse is out of town, your f@#!ing smoke alarms are beeping and you don't have the batteries needed to replace the ones that just died, etc. Shit happens. It will happen to you. Don't judge, try not to laugh and don't bother trying to prepare ahead. This isn't a test you can study for. Your test will be different... no copying from the neighbor folks. God in his infinite wisdom will make sure each test is individual so that you can't develop an answer key. You can't break into the office and steal last-year's test. Shit happens.
So the next time you try to tell your friend that counting to 3 is ineffective, the next time you tsk tsk a parent letting their kid open a box of cookies in the store before checkout, the next time you shake your head at the parent with the screaming child lying on the floor in Target, throwing juice at the pancake house, skipping a nap or watching too much TV... quiet yourself. You don't know. You don't know what happened to them yesterday, this morning, 5 minutes ago, at the doctor's, at school, etc. You haven't walked in their shoes. So quiet yourself and concentrate on walking in your own shoes.
So many things can affect your parenting decision... your marriage, your job, your economic situation, your support system, the past 24 hours of your life, whatever. So the next time you want to dish out some advice to your friends, family, neighbors, strangers and you are not a parent remember (these are taken from my own life and the lives of my parent friends) you don't know if:
The kid just had vaccinations and is reacting poorly, the a-hole working the list at the pancake house forgot you and you ate an hour later than scheduled, the kid is teething and not sleeping, the parent is working on a new skill or lesson with that child, the doctor ran an hour behind and right into nap/eating time, the kid suddenly had an onset of "poopiness" and managed to eat through the entire stash of diapers in your diaper bag, a power outtage means the alarm didn't go off and now the whole day is shot to hell, the kid got bullied at school and does not yet have the maturity to express it well, the parents are in the middle of a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parents SHOULD be getting a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parent is on 2 hours of sleep because kids are puking, teething, having night terrors, spiking ridiculously high fevers, transitioning from a crib, etc., the kid and parent are going through hell at an allergist because they're freakin' allergic to everything and you're running out of things to feed them, the kid heard something in a story that freaked them out, the parent just lost their own parent and thus the kid lost their grandparent and everyone is an emotional wreck, the parent just heard bad news at work or got laid off, the parent is driving a rental car because they just got into a horrific accident, the 2nd child is SO different from the first that the parents are trying every new trick in the book and seeking the help of other parents for new ideas, the weather took an unpredicted turn, you left the house in a hurry because you're a new parent short on sleep and forgot to pack an extra outfit for the baby who is then sure to either spit-up or crap out of their diaper, you just spent the entire night in the emergency room, an appliance broke, a freakin' loud jet flew overhead and woke the baby, the dog just ran away and you spent 2 hours hunting it down, you have to buy a gift for someone and are doing it at the last minute with kids in tow because every other catastrophe has also happened this week, your sitter called in sick, the parent is sick for a week and now the house is a mess and there are no groceries, EVERYONE in the house is sick for a week (which turns into 3 because of the incubation period) and the house is REALLY a mess and they've all been living on Pedialyte & Gatorade, a parent is recovering from a c-section, gall-bladder or some other surgery, out-of-town visitors came back-to-back and kids are thrown off very easily by disruption in daily routine, the daily routine is changing due to lessons/school/work changes, the kid is giving up their morning nap, the kid is dropping nap time entirely, the mom is going through some hormonal crap in an effort to get pregnant again, to avoid getting pregnant again or just age, an accident/last-minute issue means no one has eaten in a few hours and you HAVE to stop somewhere to eat because you're not going to make it home, the coffee machine broke, the parent's cell phone just broke or ran out of juice precisely when they needed to make an emergency call to home/sitter/job/school, a relative "passing through town" stayed way longer than expected...etc. In other words, shit happened.
As for fellow parents (and I need to remind myself of this!!!)... remember my favorite phrase from the Bible "How can you say to your brother 'let me take the speck out of your eye' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Even if you don't believe in God, that phrase works. Basically folks, until you're perfect keep your trap shut and work on yourself before you judge others.
And remember... God, fate, the universe, Karma, whatever just LOVES to put you in a situation that you've seen someone else in and said, "Well I'LL NEVER..." Famous last words, folks, famous last words.
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